Europeans, can you tell each other apart?

Well here's a fundamentally rude concept. Talking only about faces, and not styles, could you look at someone and say that there is a generations-long Frenchman or German or Portuguese or what have you?

Because us Americans, we can't tell where anybody's from, we move around so much and we're such a new country and all.

Examples. Having spent that formative time there, I think here is a very English looking guy, it's indie musician Robyn Hitchcock:



But if I didn't know, I might guess French:



What say you. And sorry, I just realized this is exactly the wrong time of day to ask. Hit us up in the morning.

Undertoad;735851 wrote:

Because us Americans, we can't tell where anybody's from, we move around so much and we're such a new country and all.

If you talking American Caucasians...I think many people of Irish or Italian descent have distinctive features, even if they've lived in the U.S. for a few generations.

I think there are clear differences between Spanish and German people, and also Portugues and then there are the Norse and other northern Europeans.

At the same time though, people move around a lot these days, so historically understood features are tending to be watered down a bit for almost all races.

One day we'll all look the same.

Europe is heavily blended, as the borders have switched around for centuries.
Even Brits are a mongrel race, having been invaded and completely overtaken in wave after wave - until 1066 of course.

There are certain "types" of course.
I can pictures archetypal Italians, Scots, Spaniards, Scandanavians. But then I bet you could too. I could even have a stab at a Dutch man - less so a Dutch woman.

Because us Americans, we can't tell where anybody's from, we move around so much and we're such a new country and all.

I think it's more because you're all interbred (niot meant as a slur - couldn't think of a better way to put it).
I know many Americans claim to be half this and half that, but they are talking about the ethnicity of their family when they entered the country. Of course it's hard to recognise the features from one Irish woman and one Polish man in the family in 1850 or whatever.

Even over here, once someone marries (procreates) with someone not born and bred in the same area it lessens the chance of a "type". My own family is mixed - Grandad's generation do look Irish to me, Mum much less so. And I don't think you can see it in any of my generation at all, although I inherited the easily burned skin, that could have come from Nanny who was thoroughly English.

So I guess my answer is no.
As with all of the above, it is my personal answer and opinion. I couldn't dare assume I spoke for any other European on the Cellar!

One European, one American and one Frenchman. :P

I reckon I am *pretty good* at guessing country of origin. I have spent a lot of time in international (esp student) communities. Partly I pick accents and mannerisms, but also physical features. The tall, broad blonde? Swedish. The tall thin blonde? Lithuanian (and correctly guessing that might well have got me laid! Chick was crazy, tho, so I bailed). Looks Italian, sounds Slavic? Romanian. Smells like cheese and onions? French if it is their breath, English if it is their feet...

But yeah, there is so much mixing, both historically and especially presently, that these are never more than guesses.

Those guys aren't European, American and French - they are all from the planet TooGorgeousToBeReal.

Brianna;735890 wrote:

Those guys aren't European, American and French - they are all from the planet TooGorgeousToBeReal.

I sense thread drift coming on...

scuse me but french is european. just sayin. :eyebrow:

ZenGum;735884 wrote:

Smells like cheese and onions? French if it is their breath, English if it is their feet...

:lol:

Johnny is from Owensboro KY. Don't knoe who the other two guys are.

infinite monkey;735913 wrote:

Johnny is from Owensboro KY. Don't knoe who the other two guys are.

Me neither, but TinEye tells me they are Neil Gaiman and Chris Cornell.

The French thing was a joke. lolz

Brianna;735890 wrote:

Those guys aren't European, American and French - they are all from the planet TooGorgeousToBeReal.

glatt;735916 wrote:

Me neither, but TinEye tells me they are Neil Gaiman and Chris Cornell.

:yesnod:

I think without clothes, mannerisms, and accent it would be too hard to tell.

Here is a good link of some famous people's ancestry.

http://starmixedrace.blogspot.com/2008_10_01_archive.html


..and of the photos I posted, this is their ancestry.
Chris Cornell
Ethnicity
Irish and Jewish English, French Canadian and German

Johnny Depp
Ethnicity:
Cherokee, Irish, German

Neil Gaiman
Ethnicity:
Jewish Russian and Polish

Again, you see - how far back are these ancestries?

Cornell has four - are those his Grandparents?
The blog says Irish father, Jewish mother (religion, not race btw)

Depp has three - who is missing?
Gaiman has two/ three?

Not a dig at you Sky, just - again - the idea that only "important" ancestors count.
I'm probably Irish/ Norman/ Saxon/ Celt by those standards. With a possibility of Roman/ Viking.
Which means I am English, same as anyone else whose parents did not move here.
I accept if your parents met and married in another country, you are genetically aligned to that country. And if you keep your dating pool within that community the same applies.

Anyone else, it's not worth the distinction.

The info I found was all I could find. I do not know why Jewish is paired with polish and russian unless it was to denote the geographic location.

I am of English/Irish - Irish/ Cherokee decent and further up the line there is German/English and Cherokee/Irish....so

I get what you are saying. I am typing half asleep anyway.:zzz:

Just ignore me until July. :)

It's just a bugbear of mine, and totally predates the Cellar, so feel free to ignore me - I've been a pedant about it for years now :)

Why July?
Is it because you are sending me a bithday card?

No, no your comments didn't bother me at all!

You are fine.

July is the month I will no longer have classes that interfere with other obligations.
I'm about half baked most of the time.

July is a great month to have a birthday! but I am terrible with snail mail. Leave your email addy here on the board or somewhere, and we'll all spam you with e-cards, I'm sure.

Sundae;735959 wrote:

It's just a bugbear of mine, and totally predates the Cellar, so feel free to ignore me - I've been a pedant about it for years now :)

...

I have a similar bugbear linked to the "Who Do You Think You Are?" TV programme. Each celeb (that I've seen) is trying to prove a link to a particular culture, and once they've found what they're looking for they stop. What about all the other grand- or great-grand-parents and their cultural input?
Meh, we're all the same about that .... (I focus on the musical great great grandfather to the detriment of the others in my family tree ...)

skysidhe;735940 wrote:

Johnny Depp
Ethnicity:
Cherokee, Irish, German

Huh, I'd always thought Johnny Depp looked at least half Cherokee--but according to the interwebs his mother is Cherokee/Irish, while his father is German. The Cherokee-features gene must be very dominant.

If you're a Russian in the hallway what are you in the bathroom?






European.

I like that version a lot better than the one I'd heard:

If you're American when you go in the bathroom
And American when you come out of the bathroom
What are you when you're IN the bathroom?
European!

bluecuracao;736098 wrote:

Huh, I'd always thought Johnny Depp looked at least half Cherokee--but according to the interwebs his mother is Cherokee/Irish, while his father is German. The Cherokee-features gene must be very dominant.

Yes, very dominant. This is my family. All brown eyed except for my mom. She got the blue eyes.

Except for my grandmother's nose,I don't look like any of them. Genetics is a funny thing. My sis looks like our mom and my sis's daughter looks like my sis.

It is really hard to guess someone's ethnicity. My dear grandmother would always try to make me feel better by saying, I look like the Fry's. ( but I've never seen the Fry's :unsure:)

bluecuracao;736106 wrote:

I like that version a lot better than the one I'd heard:

If you're American when you go in the bathroom
And American when you come out of the bathroom
What are you when you're IN the bathroom?
European!

yeah, it's quicker and has twice as many puns in it.

glatt;735916 wrote:

Me neither, but TinEye tells me they are Neil Gaiman and Chris Cornell.

Who? ;)

limey;736056 wrote:

I have a similar bugbear linked to the "Who Do You Think You Are?" TV programme. Each celeb (that I've seen) is trying to prove a link to a particular culture, and once they've found what they're looking for they stop. What about all the other grand- or great-grand-parents and their cultural input?
Meh, we're all the same about that .... (I focus on the musical great great grandfather to the detriment of the others in my family tree ...)

I saw a couple of shows in the Australian series where they found some quite surprising information about one of Maggie Beer's ancestors. Turned out there was a bigamist in the family. In another one (actor Ben Mendelson), they hit a couple of dead ends and all of their original assumptions were wrong.

Often the place they stop is where the research trail goes cold (usually around the 16th to 18th centuries). And they may well prioritise the lineage that seems to have greater legs and more interesting tales.

I think my favourite one was with a British comedian, Alexander Armstrong. He'd always denied to his kids that they were truly 'posh'. Turned out his ancestors bankrolled a couple of Kings, acted as international spies for the Crown, and owned half of England back in the mists of time.

My mother's great aunt may have fed lunch to an infamous wild west gang. Or maybe fed lunch to a bunch of grizzled guys claiming to be an infamous wild west gang in order to scare a little girl into feeding them instead of running out to the fields to her parents.

(I can't recall the name of the group at this time, sorry)

All of my ancestry is the same. German from Russia. I can trace some of them back to the 14th century. I have wondered from time to time if any of my ancestors mixed with a Russian here or there, but the grandparents were adamant that that did not happen. Regardless, some of my ancestors were short, with dark hair and dark eyes and some were tall, fair skinned, blue eyed, blonds. I don't know if I look German or not, but like I mentioned in another thread, whilst in Prague, I was mistaken for a German a few times.

Husband is German/Cherokee/Cheyenne/Irish, but he definitely has the look of a Norwegian. He says he has a tiny bit of African, too, but I am not sure I believe it. I would never guess he had any Native American heritage, but it is definitely there.

kerosene;736431 wrote:

I would never guess he had any Native American heritage, but it is definitely there.

This leads me to a lot of wondering,
collection of scalps?
penchant for buffalo?
really good at tracking?
gets drunk too easily?
sells turquoise?

what?

More about how he looks in a breach cloth. But all the others are true, too.

DanaC;736233 wrote:

I think my favourite one was with a British comedian, Alexander Armstrong. He'd always denied to his kids that they were truly 'posh'. Turned out his ancestors bankrolled a couple of Kings, acted as international spies for the Crown, and owned half of England back in the mists of time.

Very cool.

kerosene;736444 wrote:

More about how he looks in a breach cloth. But all the others are true, too.

heheh