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Position:Home>Genealogy> If I'm adopted, what is my heritage? ?Question: If I'm adopted, what is my heritage!? !? If my birth father was half Native American, and half English, and my birth mother was German, but my legal father is half German, half Italian and my legal mother is Half Irish, a quarter French and a quarter Dutch, what am I!? A half German, quarter Native American, quarter English mix!. Or am a quarter German, Italian, Irish and the rest made up of french and Dutch!.
also, If I apply to something and they want to know if ethnicity, Do I check White or Native America!. Www@QuestionHome@Com Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: Legally, your ancestry is that of your adopted parents!. My understanding of the adoption of anyone who is Native American is that the Nation often has to be notified of the adoption!. Depending on the Nation and the percentage of Native blood/status of the Native parent in a tribe, the Nation can actually add conditions to open adoption contracts!. My next door neighbor is adopted and is very obviously of northern European ancestry (what exactly, she doesn't know) but considers herself Greek as her adoptive family is Greek!. Simply saying you are Native American won't gain you anything, you have to be a member of the Nation to gain any benefit from it (I'm not saying you're trying to get anything from it)!. To do that you would have to delve into your biological ancestry, which you may or may not want to do!. You have more choices than White and Native American, you can choose mixed as a nod to your biological ancestry or Choose Not To Answer!.Www@QuestionHome@Com your heritage is whatever your ancestors were so it would be whatever your BIRTH parents were and since your birth father was half native american you would be 1/4 which means if you can prove that he is truly native american you can mark it as your ethnicity because it'll help with scholarships!.!.!.i think the rule is like you have to be at least 1/8 or something because i fell just short of itWww@QuestionHome@Com The answer to this in my opinion is all of the above!.!.!. there is nothing wrong with embracing all of these cultures as a part of who you are!. Biologically you are what your bio parents are, but do not underestimate the influence of being raised in the culture of your adopted parents!. My Slovak grandmother was orphaned at a young age, and was adopted by a wonderful German couple out in rural Ohio!. She had the good fortune of still getting to know her Slovak relatives while being a part of a large extended adopted family!. They were just like two sides of the family!. To this day, she is proud of both the Slovak and German sides of her family!. Www@QuestionHome@Com In "technical" genealogy!.!. your ancestry is that of your birth line!. In most cases, adoptees don't always have that information!. I disagree that checking Native American on forms will help for scholarship reasons, since that depends on tribal affiliation!.!. and that REQUIRES documentation!. Your documents will show your adoptive family!. It seems to me that you would reasonably choose one or the other, and not a mix!. HOWEVER I have an adoptive son (age 30) and 2 bio daughters!. My son has always stated that he has no interest in his birth family!.!. and we are the family he knows and accepts!. You have to determine this for yourself!. Www@QuestionHome@Com you're lucky most adoptees don't know anything about their birth parents!. i would say you're heritage is native american/english/german but that you're raised with ger/dutch/ital/irish/french/!.Www@QuestionHome@Com Yes you are 1/4 Native American, 1/4 English and 1/2 German!. Www@QuestionHome@Com Adoptions make for difficult questions in regards to family trees!. On one hand, you are legally the child of the adopted parents, and therefore, your legal ancestors would be those of your adoptive parents!. 100 years from now, when your descendants do genealogy research, they are going to get a copy of your birth certificate and it will list your adoptive parents, and it will not specify that they are adoptive and not biological parents!. Therefore, future generations of yours will assume that the genetic line is that which is on the birth certificate!. However, genetically, the lines of your adoptive parents are not yours!. You do not exist because of them!. You do not carry their genes, their blood lines, their heritage!. If their heritage is French, but your real parents are German, then, your genealogy, your genetics, your blood line, the ancestors that, throughout history, eventually led to your existence is German!. I would be curious what German ancestors I have!. What famous lines might I descend from, etc!. If you are fortunate enough to have some basic info on your birth line, like your parents names, and, perhaps their parents names, you may have enough to get started on your true genealogy; but all the while, you can do a separate tree for your adoptive genealogy!. Who knows, you may find a place at some point in time where the two trees even interset or merge!. If I were adopted, I would not feel connected to my adoptive line, as far as genealogy is concerned, because technically, those are not my ancestors!. But that is just me!.Www@QuestionHome@Com |