Questions of Identity

[Jattdogg]

Tough one because of the background (mixed race)

 

Born in Leicester, raised in Canada. Mum (R.I.P) and dad are def Leicester folk but been here for a long time now.

 

 

Would say:

1) Canadian

2) Leicester

3) Sikh- not hard core religious so perhaps i should say "Desi" with a deep respect and appreciation for my punjabi/sikh heritage. Mums Anglican religious side was non existent in my life for whatever reasons. 

 

[Alf Bentley]

13 hours ago, Webbo said:

I had one of those DNA tests a couple of birthdays ago;

76% English and North Western Europe.

13% Scottish.

9% Welsh

2% Norwegian.

 

Quite interesting, I thought.

 

Full name: Ole-Gunnar Dafydd Klaus McWebbo

Nationality: English 

 

I did the Ancestry DNA test and they are amazingly precise:

- Linked me not only to North & South Kerry & North Cork, where I knew family came from, but to the western part of a particular peninsula in S. Kerry, where my maternal grandfather came from

- Connected me not only to my daughter and to 1st & 2nd cousins I knew, but to 4th cousins in the USA I'd never heard of, but who did have a clear family connection (family history is a hobby) - descendants of mid-19thC emigrants.

 

Ancestry seem less sure about the small-percentage connections, but are gradually refining the process. I'm now put down as 98% Irish heritage, 2% Welsh. The Irish bit is no surprise but any Welsh connection is news to me - and I've traced all family lines back 200 years. But, looking at the small print, it says 2% Welsh can mean 0%-4%.....so you might be less (or more) Norwegian than stated! 

 

When they first analysed my DNA, they also put a bit of NW Europe & Finland/NW Russia in there, but have eliminated that now. Shame, I quite liked the idea of having mysterious Finnish/Russian connections.

On the other hand, they did have some English & Scottish in there, but have weeded that out.....and I know that I have a great-great-great-grandfather from Sussex & great-great-great-grandmother from Dumfries (met via Royal Artillery connections, 1830s-1850s). As they both came from agricultural labouring backgrounds, there's every chance those lines go back a long way in Sussex & Dumfries as they were tilling the fields before the Industrial Revolution caused people to move around more.

 

Sorry, more detail than you needed, but I find this stuff fascinating. 

[Fightforever]

2 hours ago, Alf Bentley said:

 

Full name: Ole-Gunnar Dafydd Klaus McWebbo

Nationality: English 

 

I did the Ancestry DNA test and they are amazingly precise:

- Linked me not only to North & South Kerry & North Cork, where I knew family came from, but to the western part of a particular peninsula in S. Kerry, where my maternal grandfather came from

- Connected me not only to my daughter and to 1st & 2nd cousins I knew, but to 4th cousins in the USA I'd never heard of, but who did have a clear family connection (family history is a hobby) - descendants of mid-19thC emigrants.

 

Ancestry seem less sure about the small-percentage connections, but are gradually refining the process. I'm now put down as 98% Irish heritage, 2% Welsh. The Irish bit is no surprise but any Welsh connection is news to me - and I've traced all family lines back 200 years. But, looking at the small print, it says 2% Welsh can mean 0%-4%.....so you might be less (or more) Norwegian than stated! 

 

When they first analysed my DNA, they also put a bit of NW Europe & Finland/NW Russia in there, but have eliminated that now. Shame, I quite liked the idea of having mysterious Finnish/Russian connections.

On the other hand, they did have some English & Scottish in there, but have weeded that out.....and I know that I have a great-great-great-grandfather from Sussex & great-great-great-grandmother from Dumfries (met via Royal Artillery connections, 1830s-1850s). As they both came from agricultural labouring backgrounds, there's every chance those lines go back a long way in Sussex & Dumfries as they were tilling the fields before the Industrial Revolution caused people to move around more.

 

Sorry, more detail than you needed, but I find this stuff fascinating. 

They linked me back to a specific Albanian mountain tribe called the Krasnici because all of the people who I was the most closely related to on the test genetically have the surname Krasnici meaning they all decended from the same tribe. Of course me knowing nothing about Albanian culture its just a meaningless fact. Since you said you found ancestry fascinating I thought I should mention it.

Edited 2 December 2020 by Fightforever

[Alf Bentley]

3 minutes ago, Fightforever said:

They linked me back to a specific Albanian mountain tribe called the Krasnici because all of the people who I was the most closely related to on the test genetically have the surname Krasnici meaning they all decended from the same tribe. Of course me knowing nothing about Albanian culture its just a meaningless fact. Since you said you found ancestry fascinating I thought I should mention it.

 

Great story. You should pay a visit to the land of your forefathers - post-Covid holiday in the Albanian mountains?

[Electric Yetis]

Love ancestry. Managed to find photos of several old relatives, including two who died in the Battle of the Somme.

[Spudulike]

I'm English. I was born in Bond Street and raised in Leicester (Charnwood Street area before moving to Oadby). My family (both sides) are from Leicester. Or so I thought until doing a bit of genealogy and discovering that some of my ancestors came from Wolverhampton. Imagine the shock and shame when I found out. 

 

[bovril]

36 minutes ago, Fightforever said:

They linked me back to a specific Albanian mountain tribe called the Krasnici because all of the people who I was the most closely related to on the test genetically have the surname Krasnici meaning they all decended from the same tribe. Of course me knowing nothing about Albanian culture its just a meaningless fact. Since you said you found ancestry fascinating I thought I should mention it.

Ahh the Accursed Mountains! Amazing part of the World, you should visit. Last time I was in Kosovo was in 2016 and we were beating Liverpool 2-0.

[Finnegan]

My answer to this has probably changed a lot over the years, given some of the banter as "Token Welshman" on here it might seem to odd to say that I probably consider myself "From Leicester" above all things now. Excuse me while I just dump out my handbag here:

 

It was weird being a kid, I came here young enough (primary school) that I had no massive sense of Welsh identity before I came. I had it hammered in to me growing up here to such an extent that, to be honest, I think I went through a period (particularly in my teens) where I cared more about being Welsh than I probably would have if I'd been completely raised in Wales, where I imagine I'd have taken it for granted. I had my identity beaten in to me from both sides, I had my family, particularly my mother and sister, barking at me "remember where you come from" every two minutes, particularly if anything came out of my mouth in a Leicester accent. But I also had kids at school (and kids are shits, really) constantly taking the piss out of me for being Welsh, which being a stubborn little cvnt just made me more entrenched in that identity.

 

But despite all that, I was still here young enough that my accent had gone by the time I was in high school and then slowly you meet more and more people that don't know you and then more and more people that wouldn't have guessed I was Welsh because, if we're honest, the biggest indicator of where anyone is from in this country (certainly on first impressions) is what they sound like. 

 

At some point around my late teens/early twenties the banter went from being "ah, sheepshagger" to "yeah, but you're not properly Welsh" - which again, makes you really lean in to it and just double down. I went through a proper nationalist phase in my late teens which was probably massively overcompensating, I've still got a couple books knocking around somewhere about FAW, MAC and Meibion Glyndwr and I used to get all angry and anti-Imperialist at any suggestion I was "British." 

 

The thing is, throughout my twenties and in to my thirties, I'd then find myself going back to Wales where everyone just assumes I'm English, my accent is English, my slang is Leicester, I use very little Welsh slang or coloquialisms, I speak minimal conversational Welsh (about on a par with the average Englishman's French) and I find myself feeling massively like an outsider, an obvious tourist. I have English friends that have moved to Cardiff and they feel far more comfortable in and around Cardiff because they don't give a shit if everyone thinks they're English, there's loads of English in Cardiff anyway, what does it matter? But I ended up feeling weird because I'm not supposed to be.

 

So now I guess I'm just from Leicester. I grew up mostly in the county (Rothley) and then did a stint living in London for about three years. Since then I've been living inner city in Leicester, I work for the council, all my colleagues are locals, a bread roll is a ****ing cob because I'm not an idiot and I just associate very strongly with being from here. I still identify fairly privately as Welsh, I'm still immensely passionate about Wales when it comes to sport but I know I'll never actually feel at home being there so I tend to lean away from it as an identity now (outside of Foxestalk at least) and keep it to myself.

 

[FerrisBueller]

Miscellaneous hunk of meat destined to a life of servitude on a giant rock floating in the abyss that is the universe.

 

Leicester Fan

[cambridgefox]

22 hours ago, bovril said:

Was having a discussion with a colleague the other day about identity and nationality and thought it'd be interesting to hear some other views.

 

I'm a British citizen, but I feel English, specifically southern English. I have a strong connection with E. Anglia, but I feel at home in Luton, Brighton, Kent, Dorset, Oxford. The same in Leicester or Brum. The Midlands still feels culturally closer to the South to me, but that could just be because I'm a Leicester fan with family from the area.

 

N. England, especially Cumbria, N. Yorkshire and Northumberland feel like a different entity. I feel as foreign there as I feel in Scotland. Lowland Scotland feels very British to me, whereas the Highlands are very much a nation apart.

 

I've never felt European, although I am obviously. Maybe that's because I've only been outside of Europe once, and that was only to the Middle East which didn't feel that different to much of the Balkans and the Med.  

 

So my order would be:

Southern English

East Anglian

British

European

 

Leicester fan trumps them all, obviously. 

That second paragraph,I thought I was on an episode of “ Going for Gold” with Henry Kelly

[Fightforever]

1 hour ago, Alf Bentley said:

 

Great story. You should pay a visit to the land of your forefathers - post-Covid holiday in the Albanian mountains?

Why not? Maybe one day when covid dies down.

[Voll Blau]

Leicestershire above all, English when the cricket's on and European because it annoys all the right people. Civic pride's always come first for me because the vast majority of my ancestry going back generations is from South Leicestershire on both sides.

 

I've lived in both the South and the North, and feel the East Midlands is far more comfortable and culturally-aligned with the latter. I've got a northern missus and do get a bit of "haha you're so southern because you don't put gravy on everything" type chat from the in-laws every now and then, but it's way less than the constant, unfunny shit I used to get about being "northern" when I Iived in Essex.

[Dahnsouff]

Leicester (This got stronger when I moved bizarrely)

Britain

The World

 

Would very much love to say a member of the Human race first, but honesty is important

[Scotch]

100% Scottish. 

 

Actively not Brittish. 

 

Never really thought about being European..... Makes me think of tans and speedos so I don't think it applies to me. 

[Finnegan]

20 minutes ago, Voll Blau said:

Leicestershire above all, English when the cricket's on and European because it annoys all the right people. Civic pride's always come first for me because the vast majority of my ancestry going back generations is from South Leicestershire on both sides.

 

I've lived in both the South and the North, and feel the East Midlands is far more comfortable and culturally-aligned with the latter. I've got a northern missus and do get a bit of "haha you're so southern because you don't put gravy on everything" type chat from the in-laws every now and then, but it's way less than the constant, unfunny shit I used to get about being "northern" when I Iived in Essex.

 

Oh yeh. And I definitely, definitely identify as European. 

[Dunge]

1 hour ago, Finnegan said:

 

Oh yeh. And I definitely, definitely identify as European. 

Do you mind if I ask - without criticism or agenda, and because you use the word “definitely” twice - what does being European mean to you? Because it means very little to me outside of kind of being forced into a box where I don’t want to go.

[Finnegan]

2 minutes ago, Dunge said:

Do you mind if I ask - without criticism or agenda, and because you use the word “definitely” twice - what does being European mean to you? Because it means very little to me outside of kind of being forced into a box where I don’t want to go.

 

Partly it was tongue in cheek for the same reasons that @Voll Blau alluded to (I'm a very liberal, millennial Remainer) but mostly I just think it's pretty accurate. 

 

I think by and large, particularly amongst Northern Europe, there's a fairly collective communal identity. I think we as Brits have a lot in common, culturally, with the Germans, Scandis and the Dutch/Belgians especially. Through a mixture of university, travel, friends of friends and gaming I've got quite a few friends from the aforementioned countries and I think they're pretty much culturally homogenous with us in the UK which is my experience when I've visited those countries, as well. 

 

When you look across the pond at the absolute madness that is the United States, who we share a language and a lot of pop culture with, despite the things we have in common it looks far more like a different world to me than it does looking across the channel at England's fellow Germanic neighbours.

[shen]

European or 'human', definitely.

 

It's not that odd considering I grew up in Brussels with a Danish father and German mother.

As a youth I mingled with people of all kinds of nationalities. I spoke five languages before hitting my teens and as a result I've always been pro-EU.

Having moved to Denmark at 19, I realised that Brussels as a way-of-thought is very remote and foreign to most citizens who haven't travelled much outside the country's borders. It frustrated me immensely in the beginning - I remember the Euro was still very much a hot topic and Denmark's stance on staying out of a common currency perplexed me. I had conversations with many common people who said they want to keep the Danish Krone because they like that the currency has the queen's face on it and has distinctive coins - an opinion I struggled to take seriously.

 

After nearly 20 years here, I'm mostly integrated, but I will still be very Eurocentric in my way of thinking and behaving. I still naturally gravitate towards foreigners and expats. To me, the premise behind the nation-state is outdated and increasingly irrelevant as people, countries and companies act across borders to a much larger degree than ever. Crises like the current pandemic will hopefully highlight the need to collaborate more closely with our neighbours and distant brethren while putting our own needs and quirks to one side for the common good.

 

As HighPeakFox (?) mentioned earlier in the thread, it's just as likely that I'll meet someone I have more in common with from Brazil, Zambia or Iran as it is from someone from Copenhagen. As such I only identify as 'Danish' mostly so others have a point of reference, because we like to put things into boxes, don't we?

[LiberalFox]

Liberal. Though I feel identity is something separate from culture. 

[SpacedX]

Interesting thread, which is very similar to the recent 'have you moved far from where you grew up?" title, which I interpreted in a similar way. So really, repetition of my response on there, because the theme of identity, or lack of it is quite significant to me.  

 

One of the reasons that I supported City was the desire to nurture a sense of belonging. Being adopted and not knowing my biological parents (which I have since traced) meant although I had a good upbringing, that I felt detached - a liminality. I was born in London, and have spent much of my life there living centrally and in Greater London, but am half Irish half Welsh - which makes me a complete celt (at least I think that's what they told me).

 

My biological Dad ****ed straight off back to Dublin and I was placed in a children's home in Woking. My adoptive Dad was an academic between Imperial College and Leicester so I was raised in both cities. We used to rent our house out through the university when he worked abroad and on the occasions that he remembered to take us, so I went to school in Toronto, Auckland and Singapore as well as Leicester and London. I feel that my 'home' is the latter but as a kid, having never been a glory hunter, LCFC was my team and something tangible to identify with (although when in London I used to watch QPR because they were similarly crap and like City had a strong sense of loyalty, locality and community amongst club and support). Spent years playing in bands on the road, so the prospect of settling down terrified me until starting a family changed my values and outlook. I've also lived in Bedford, and California - but have been mainly in London over the last decade. Although Leicester isn't my favourite location on the planet, aside from the club, I do feel some affinity and affection for the city - although I don't feel I belong there. 

 

Since identity is who you really are, the way you think about yourself, the way you are viewed by the world and the characteristics that define you and to a certain extent, a product of your environment, we are frequently in denial of it. Either that, or the idealised identity that we perceive and pursue eludes us or isn't actually who we become - particularly since people are increasingly defining themselves through the superficiality of social media.

 

It's still as elusive to me now as it was when I was a small child lying in bed at night wondering where the **** I came from - which trust me, is a very empty and remote sensation. As the developmental psychologist Erik Erikson sagely observed, “In the social jungle of human existence, there is no feeling of being alive without a sense of identity.”

 

 

[Trav Le Bleu]

[Webbo]

7 hours ago, Alf Bentley said:

 

Full name: Ole-Gunnar Dafydd Klaus McWebbo

Nationality: English 

 

I did the Ancestry DNA test and they are amazingly precise:

- Linked me not only to North & South Kerry & North Cork, where I knew family came from, but to the western part of a particular peninsula in S. Kerry, where my maternal grandfather came from

- Connected me not only to my daughter and to 1st & 2nd cousins I knew, but to 4th cousins in the USA I'd never heard of, but who did have a clear family connection (family history is a hobby) - descendants of mid-19thC emigrants.

 

Ancestry seem less sure about the small-percentage connections, but are gradually refining the process. I'm now put down as 98% Irish heritage, 2% Welsh. The Irish bit is no surprise but any Welsh connection is news to me - and I've traced all family lines back 200 years. But, looking at the small print, it says 2% Welsh can mean 0%-4%.....so you might be less (or more) Norwegian than stated! 

 

When they first analysed my DNA, they also put a bit of NW Europe & Finland/NW Russia in there, but have eliminated that now. Shame, I quite liked the idea of having mysterious Finnish/Russian connections.

On the other hand, they did have some English & Scottish in there, but have weeded that out.....and I know that I have a great-great-great-grandfather from Sussex & great-great-great-grandmother from Dumfries (met via Royal Artillery connections, 1830s-1850s). As they both came from agricultural labouring backgrounds, there's every chance those lines go back a long way in Sussex & Dumfries as they were tilling the fields before the Industrial Revolution caused people to move around more.

 

Sorry, more detail than you needed, but I find this stuff fascinating. 

They were more precise with me, I'm from the East Midlands and Potteries. 

 

They keep trying to get me to sign up for the family tree stuff. They email me to tell me they've got a link for me and it's my mother or 1 of my sisters. My wife's into all the family tree stuff but it just doesn't interest me. 

[Alf Bentley]

4 minutes ago, Webbo said:

They were more precise with me, I'm from the East Midlands and Potteries. 

 

They keep trying to get me to sign up for the family tree stuff. They email me to tell me they've got a link for me and it's my mother or 1 of my sisters. My wife's into all the family tree stuff but it just doesn't interest me. 

 

Well, if the club need to rest a few players for FAC3, you'll be the man to call up. Your ability to perform on a cold, wet night in Stoke should be instinctive.

 

Yes, the family tree aspect is of limited interest to me, too. But I like the "life as a series of personal stories" aspect - why did someone lead the life they did (character, chance, economic circumstances, social change etc.)?

I find it like a different route into history, too.. 

[Finnegan]

58 minutes ago, Webbo said:

Potteries

 

Oof, sorry 

[Parafox]

On 02/12/2020 at 16:10, Line-X said:

 

 

It's still as elusive to me now as it was when I was a small child lying in bed at night wondering where the **** I came from - which trust me, is a very empty and remote sensation. As the developmental psychologist Erik Erikson sagely observed, “In the social jungle of human existence, there is no feeling of being alive without a sense of identity.”

 

 

Interesting. I have 2 adopted daughters now grown up, one of them has had 2 daughters of her own which she lost to adoption due to her own personal struggles. I myself was with a foster carer for 5 years. Our daughters and granddaughters are clearly struggling with not knowing their origins or how much they have genetically in common with their own parents, therefore their sense of identity. I too have felt a loss of identity in my own life and it's not easy.