Quote:
Originally Posted by Docere
It isn't really clear whether ancestry means ethnicity or geographic origin, especially with changing boundaries over time.
What about ethnic Germans from Eastern Europe? I assume people with that ancestry would write in German, because they retained a distinct German identity there and didn't assimilate into the local population. But if their ancestors were from Austria, they might identify as Austrian since Austria is a German-speaking country.
Does someone with Alsatian roots whose ancestors came in the late 19th century write French or German?
Is John Kerry "Czech" or "Austrian"?
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Geographical origin would be a bit more straightforward to ask if there is knowledge of that place (but then the question ought to be what place(s) did your ancestors come from, not what ethnicity did your ancestors have?)
Also, ethnicity of ancestors requires knowing what said ancestors
identified as (eg. did ethnic Germans in eastern Europe back in the day see themselves as simply German?), but the person responding might think "what do
I think of my ancestors as" (eg. "I think anyone born on a country's soil belongs to that country, thus my "X"-born ancestors had to be "X-ese")., rather than what the ancestors saw themselves as.
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