Question Home

Position:Home>Genealogy> My mom is absoloutley convinced that I'm Spanish?


Question: My mom is absoloutley convinced that I'm Spanish!?
My mom is convinced that we're spanish due to the spanish armada or spain invading ireland or something!. She's starting to remind me of Madonna wanting to **** Jose Conseco for a cuban baby!. Her reasons are because my aunt Kathy(From ireland) has a roman nose, and my aunt maura looks puerto rican (if you ask me, that's just french!. My grandfather was a big frenchie!.) She says that spain invaded villages and procreated with the women, it was illegal so it wasn't documented!. I'm thinking there weren't enough to survive to affect an entire generation a few hundred years later!. Is there any getting through to this woman!? or am I spanish!?Www@QuestionHome@Com


Best Answer - Chosen by Asker:
Dollie, I think I remember you asking about this, a while back!?
I seem to remember explaining that appearance is NOT A INDICATION of ancestry!. The 2nd issue is that mom is talking about what she believes as "not documented"!.!. but in genealogical terms, you HAVE to have documentation!. There may well have been Spanish persons who were involved with Irish women!.!. but (1) there is not, by her own account, any proof of this and (2) she has nothing to show a connection to this, even if it did happen!.
With no intent to insult mom, she has no understanding of how genealogy works at all!. UNTIL she actually does some research, it does not sound to me that she is interested, or open to new ideas!. I don't think arguing with her is likely to get through!. Many persons I have run into, have their ideas or definitions, which they will not let go of, even when explained!.
http://rwguide!.rootsweb!.ancestry!.com/
even though mostly American, the process of starting with yourself, and working back, using documents is here!. YOU can start your own reseearch, and locate what documentation there is, and see for yourself where it leads you!. I would not expect to get back into "Spanish invaders", simply because it is probably unprovable!. What you WILL have is valid records!.!. and maybe if she sees how you go about it, it may sink it!. Www@QuestionHome@Com

There is no truth whatsoever to the old tale that black-haired Irish people are descended from shipwrecked sailors from the Spanish Armada!. None!. Quite a few of the Spanish ships were wrecked, but Good Queen Bess's troops in Ireland mopped the survivors up extremely efficiently (and many of the native Irish turned them in for a reward)!. It's *just* possible that a few dozen of them, maximum, got away and settled down in Ireland, married Irish women and had children!. But that wouldn't remotely have made a measurable difference to the Irish gene pool!.

And Spain never invaded Ireland, either!.

What is true is that for millennia there has been a trade route along the west coast of Europe, and people constantly moved and mingled along it!. The north-western province of Spain is called "Galicia", meaning the land of the Gauls, or Celts (and to this day the people play the bagpipes, to prove it)!. So the people of the Atlantic coast are an ethnic continuum!.Www@QuestionHome@Com