this post was submitted on 04 Mar 2026
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Asklemmy

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For example, I'm like 0.01% Senegalese or something, but I wasn't raised by Senegalese people or by the culture, nor do I consider the percentage to be significant enough, so I would not consider myself to be Senegalese.

My dad says our ancestry test used to say he was ~48-50% Norwegian, but now my ancestry says it is around 3-4%. However, another test I paid for with my raw data detected Swedish ancestry around 22%. We were raised more with Norwegian stuff and Norwegian learning videos, though, so I consider myself and my dad Norwegian-American for sure, no matter what it says on the ancestry test because 1) IDK how true, but I heard ancestry tests can be bullshit and just estimate from regions. 2) Culture and identity is more than just a number percentage on a test. 🇳🇴🇳🇴🇳🇴

Hilsen fra en norskamerikaner!

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[–] daggermoon@piefed.world 1 points 44 minutes ago

I'm quite fond of Russian art.

[–] lasta@piefed.world 1 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago)

It does come off as insecure when someone makes a culture they have little connection to a large part of their identity rather than just showing an interest in it, but most of the time it’s harmless and not worth making a big deal over. I would loosely define being part of a culture as fitting in with other members of it: ability to express yourself in the native language and understanding its nuances, familiarity with customs and mentality, not feeling out of place when around natives/locals regardless of your ethnicity or ancestry.

[–] lime@feddit.nu 18 points 13 hours ago

this is not something people outside the us reflect on. it's a common trope that us-americans go to europe to find their roots and whatever and nobody understands what they even mean by that.

[–] AbouBenAdhem@lemmy.world 7 points 12 hours ago

Nationalism—the idea that there ought to be (or ever was) a 1:1 correspondence between countries, cultures, and ancestry—is a 19th-century invention unsupported by history, anthropology, or genetics. Ancestry tests that categorize results by country are obfuscating real data to meet a demand for pop pseudoscience.

[–] adb@lemmy.ml 6 points 12 hours ago (3 children)

Culture and identity has little to do with ancestry or actual ethnicity. It’s strongly correlated but ultimately we are what we were raised to be.

[–] may_be@thelemmy.club 1 points 12 hours ago

I am an American however, through and through and have my own distinct culture from a Norwegian-raised person

[–] may_be@thelemmy.club 1 points 12 hours ago

Happy cake day!!

[–] may_be@thelemmy.club 1 points 12 hours ago

Thank you. A lot of people (not on Lemmy) have just made fun of me for identifying as American with Norwegian roots. It's not like I said I was more Norwegian than Norwegians born in Norway though or said I was just American and couldn't be Norwegian-American

[–] blackwitch@lemmy.eco.br 3 points 13 hours ago

yes, I'm not born in Poland and I didn't grow up speaking Polish though I'm learning it on-and-off, but I grew up with people proud of their Polish heritage and always ready to learn more about their heritage country so I consider myself to be Polish. I'm like 16% Spanish and mostly English :]

[–] ComradeMiao@lemmy.world 1 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

Reminds me of this weirdo dude in college who had family issues and clung to every single random ethnicity from his test. Starting wearing Native American jewelry and such.

[–] may_be@thelemmy.club 1 points 10 hours ago

Makes sense

[–] Paragone@lemmy.world 0 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

Reincarnation can be significant.

Oh, & genetic-testing is notoriously inaccurate, unless one is paying-for 1000x oversampling..

100x oversampling is the bare-minimum I'd consider useful.

The reincarnation thing: my "home" is what my soul/continuum remembers as "home" from some life as a buddhist Himalayan monk, many centuries ago.

To say that I don't fit this modern world well is understatement.

Wrong values, wrong instincts, wrong frame-of-reference, wrong reactions, wrong everything.

Once I undertood it, then .. life made MUCH more sense.

My unconscious has been trying to make my world fit its memory of my ( previous-incarnation's ) world, & that's impossible.

Once that became understood, then adapting & outgrowing-the-problem could begin.

_ /\ _

[–] may_be@thelemmy.club 0 points 9 hours ago

That makes sense. I believe I was Brazilian and Norwegian in a past life