"Full Blooded"

[Peter Crowe]

There have been a few threads on this and related topics. My summary of those threads is:

Scottish = Born in Scotland or a vote-eligible resident, or a citizen of the country.
Scottish decent, Scottish ancestry = those descended from Scots, but not "Scottish".

In the US, people frequently say they are "Irish" or "Scottish" or "fill-in-the-blank" and they mean "of that ancestry". They are actually "Americans" not Scottish at all! When someone asks if I'm Scottish, I reply with "I'm from California, but my ancestry is Scottish" or something similar.


I think you can appreciate and participate in another culture, but you really aren't part of that culture unless you are living it. My 2 cents! I know there are many varying opinions on this point.

It is a tricky thing to navigate without hurting peoples' feelings about their identity, but when I first visited America (Massachusetts) as an adult, I was a little taken aback by people who came up to me and on hearing my accent immediately claimed to be Irish or Scottish without ever having been in either country.

I have come to the conclusion that I can only be clear about my own identity and lack the personal knowledge to define how others perceive theirs, I am a Scot from Scotland, but my paternal grandfather was an Englishman from Hampshire albeit with a Scottish maternal grandfather from Paisley. The point being that genetics can only ever be part of what makes someone Scottish.

I grew up in Scotland, was educated there, came of age there, and in truth the mixture of my family heritage, socialisation and education in Scotland is what makes me Scottish.

I have lived in America for 12 years and became a US citizen almost eight years ago (I am still also a British citizen under UK nationality law), and while I have never felt foreign or 'other' here, I don't feel American in the same way as someone who was born here or grew up here.

Identity is complicated and deeply personal, but I believe that we are all part of the same human race, and what separates us is primarily cultural and linguistic. The experience of the Scot from Scotland and the American/Canadian/Australian/New Zealander etc. of Scottish descent is different, however, that does not mean that the latter group cannot or should not honour their Scottish heritage. Equally it should be appreciated that those whose ancestors remained continue to live in that living culture tied to a particular geographical location with it's own historical development, but also with all the cultural. political, economic and social influences of the wider world acting uniquely upon it.

No people, culture, nation or society in the modern world can ever be set in aspic or be an anachronistic theme park for tourism.

At the end of the day people have to live with differences great and small all the time, and should be aware that social reality is constantly evolving whether in ways we like or not. Scotland is no different from most anywhere else in that regard.

[freep]

Yes. Frankly, I see little importance in DNA outside of Clan Chiefs and royalty (and even then it may have had a detour or two that nobody knows of). The important family is not those who share your DNA; it's those who love you and take care of you, and about whom you care.

I care about Scotland.

Apart from things Scottish there is a great use for DNA for those of us who were adopted or whose forebears did not pass on ethnic information. Some of us in that category burn with curiosity as to our origins. Based upon reactions from people that know their origins when informed I've had DNA tests done, it seems whence you've come has little importance when you've known all along. I suppose it makes sense people would not understand the desire to know, when you have not.

[freep]

There have been a few threads on this and related topics. My summary of those threads is:

Scottish = Born in Scotland or a vote-eligible resident, or a citizen of the country.
Scottish decent, Scottish ancestry = those descended from Scots, but not "Scottish".

In the US, people frequently say they are "Irish" or "Scottish" or "fill-in-the-blank" and they mean "of that ancestry". They are actually "Americans" not Scottish at all! When someone asks if I'm Scottish, I reply with "I'm from California, but my ancestry is Scottish" or something similar.


I think you can appreciate and participate in another culture, but you really aren't part of that culture unless you are living it. My 2 cents! I know there are many varying opinions on this point.

I usually say, "I was assembled in the US from Scottish and Welsh parts."

[freep]

It's my guess that being far sloppier in our English than those from t'other side of the pond, when Americans hear visitors with an accent that might be in their genetic past they say "I'm Scottish!" When they mean "I'm of Scottish descent!"

[Profane James]

Identity is complicated and deeply personal, but I believe that we are all part of the same human race, and what separates us is primarily cultural and linguistic.

No people, culture, nation or society in the modern world can ever be set in aspic or be an anachronistic theme park for tourism.

At the end of the day people have to live with differences great and small all the time, and should be aware that social reality is constantly evolving whether in ways we like or not. Scotland is no different from most anywhere else in that regard.

I agree with your insight Mr.Crowe

Thinking about it,
I mentioned earlier I consider myself an Alabamian first. I was not born here. My mothers family is from here, but I didn't get here until 5yrs old.
Yet, this is the only place I know of as 'home.' Who could suggest otherwise?! Perhaps the Alibamu could...or relatives of the Chief Tuskalusa, after whom my city was named...but would they?

[Riverkilt]

I love this stuff.

My cousin did the DNA thing and called me confused. His came back Scandinavian. He said he thought we were Scots. I explained to him about Clan Donald being founded by Sommerled - Vikings. So our blood comes from Scandinavia - probably Norway - and we settled on the Trotternish Peninsula of Skye after raiding, then were "cleared" to Nova Scotia, then were "Canadian wetbacks" to the States.

A good friend used to be a 1/8 member of the Mohawk Nation until they changed the blood quantum to 1/4. She was a mazed...used to be an Indian but wasn't anymore.

I've lived in Indian Country for the last 15 years - next to the Navajo Nation. An incredible number of Navajo clients and friends are 4/4 "full blood." Yet if you go back in Navajo history the tribe is made up of over 100 clans. When other Natives would wander through this area the local Navajos would invite them to stay and they did. Very similar to E Pluribus Unum - from many one.

[NPG]

If I might return to the original post of the thread. I am a historian, by training and trade. I did my undergraduate work on the image of the Highlander as a Scottish National Symbol. This was some years ago around the start of the devolution process in Scotland. So this is a topic that I have long held an interest in.

Like most European nations and likely all nations the people are a mixture of many cultures and "peoples" including Picts, Gaels, Norse, Normans and likely even some Brittonic peoples from the former kingdom of Alcclud.

My own investigation of my ancestry takes me to the isles (Skye and Lewis) where the outer Hebrides even attained the name Innse Gall (islands of strangers). What fascinates me, is here in the isles at times you had a culture that was aligned more with Scandinavia than either of the power centers nearer to it (Scotland's mainland and Ireland). So not only do we have veritable melting pots in many of these places in Europe, but they shift their political and cultural leanings at times as well, making the traditional North-South maps not quite adequate to express these connections.

But it wasn't just in Scotland heck, England started out as Celts who were Romanized, then successively conquered by the Anglo-Saxons, Norse (in part) and then the Normans. The Normans are Francafied (not sure if I should coin that) Norse. The French themselves are descended from Gauls who were Romanized and then conquered by Germans.

Recent DNA research seems to suggest that the once thought "pure" Homo-Sapien likely interbred with Neanderthals and Denisovans. So it would appear that "full blooded" from a genetic or even cultural standpoint never really existed.

That being said, the term full blooded probably does derive from the genealogical context, or even from the live stock concept of "pure bred".