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What nationalitiy(s) does my grandfather look? [WITH PIX]?


Recently I have been researching my Nationalities, Ethnicities, etc. I have done my Dad's side of the Family and am now working on my Mom's side. I cannot find anything about my Grandpa on her side. His last name is Willis. His Mom's maiden name is Fisher. Based on his looks and last names in the family what Nationality does he look mainly? [Yes I know he is white...lol. But like does he look German, Irish, Italian, French, etc.]

http://i22.tinypic.com/21o2635.jpg...


Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: I say German/Irish. More on the Irish side. He appears to be Western European, perhaps with origins from the British Isles. British is my educated guess. I'm sure someone will chime in with a breakdown of what "Willis" means (my guess: about the same as "Wilson," son of a William), and of course Fisher means someone WAY back was a fisherman, a classical "occupational" surname, very popular way to get a surname in Medieval Britain. His nose and my dad's nose look almost identical, down to the hook on the end. If your grandpa came from names like Willis and Fisher and has such pronounced features, I'd be pretty comfortable that his heritage is Central European...Germany, Poland, Slovakia, Austria, etc. I'd work into the next logical question, which is have you checked out church records on him and his parents? When people emigrated, the tendency was to move into neighborhoods with people from the same area that they'd left. If you go back through church records, the odds are good that you'll find his family's records and you'll find out more about where they originated. I couldn't resist doing this search for you like Bryce said in his answer, I think your grandad has a European look about him.

Willis
English: patronymic from the personal name Will.
Fisher
English: occupational name for a fisherman, Middle English Fischer. The name has also been used in Ireland as a loose equivalent of Braden. As an American family name, this has absorbed cognates and names of similar meaning from many other European languages, including German Fischer, Dutch Visser, Hungarian Halász, Italian Pescatore, Polish Rybarz, etc.
In a few cases, the English name may in fact be a topographic name for someone who lived near a fish weir on a river, from the Old English term fisc-gear ‘fish weir’.
Jewish (Ashkenazic): occupational name for a fisherman, Yiddish fisher, German Fischer.
Irish: translation of Gaelic ó Bradáin ‘descendant of Bradán’, a personal name meaning ‘salmon’. See Braden.
Mistranslation of French Poissant, meaning ‘powerful’, but understood as poisson ‘fish’ (see Poisson), and assimilated to the more frequent English name.