Question of the Week: Do you have Asian roots? [closed]

Question

Do you have Asian ancestors? Or did any Asian ethnicity turn up on a DNA test?

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Comments

My mother is from Udornthani, Thailand.  After my father served in the Vietnam war in the US Air Force, he was stationed in Bangkok, Thailand, where he met my mother.  He followed her around with a Thai dictionary, until she began to learn English.  They married December 27, 1973.

Answer 1

My great grandmother was from Shanghai, my great grandfather samuel Young that came from paisley Scotland, emigrated to Shanghai and married my great grandmother

From Shanghai in China

Comments

Susan, I love that you have such a wonderful family history, and you share it with us so beautifully. I wanted to share with you how much I loved being in Shanghai, so I added the answer below. Those of us that follow you on WiKiTree admire you very much.

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Thank You Alexis how sweet of you, I love your photo from Shanghai wow I never been in Shanghai

Thank You for your always sweet comments

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Susan, You're ancestry is wonderfully diverse! Thanks for sharing!

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Thank You Carol for your sweet comments

Answer 2

Actually no, but even as a child my mother taught me a great appreciation of Chinese art. I have especially loved cloisonné, and one of the highlights in my life has been my being able to watch it being made. This is a 2001 photo of me shopping in Shanghai.

Comments

Gorgeous photo Alexis of you in Shanghai.

You look gorgeous too

Thank You for sharing

Answer 3

Well we have no ancestors that we know of who come from Asia. BUT my mother, my sister and I do have small amounts of Asian ethnicity ancestry. Does that still count?

My ethnicity is Middle Eastern and my mothers is Central Asian. My sister also has Native American ethnicity, but we all know that actually originally comes from Asia.

Otherwise we are all anglo-saxon european and white!!!!

The small amount of Irish ancestry we have recently uncovered could be connected to the black Irish since my mother did used to have black hair and blue eyes, but pale white skin.

Answer 4

Distant roots - my 8th great grandmother Iba van Timor (and both her parents) came from Timor (south-east Asia).

Answer 5

My kids do!

Answer 6

My father Wei-Shien Yuin was Chinese, from Peking and Shanghai. His family was officially from Canton or Hainan Island.

Answer 7

Yes, I do. Thru DNA testing, I am half Native American and also have 2% Japanese and Korean, and I look very Asian.

Answer 8

We sort of have Asian roots. My husband and I share a common ancestress from the 1600’s. She is his direct maternal line ancestress and his mitochondria confirm she was of First Nations origin. Which of course means we have distant Asian roots

Answer 9

Yes, my mother was born in the part of Armenia that became Persia, now Iran.

Answer 10

Sadly, I do not have Asian ancestry; however, I had the privilege of living in East Asia for 3 years! I taught for the military through the U of Maryland-Asian Division. I lived in S. Korea for one year, and on Okinawa for 2 years. I 'temple-hopped' throughout Korea, went to Cheju-do, mainland Japan, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Canton and as far south as Singapore. Wonderful people, some wonderful experiences, and learned a lot!

Comments

Wow, what a great experience. I have loved traveling in Asia, but three year would be fabulous.

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Wow Carol you certainly had a exciting live

Answer 11

My maternal grandmother, Setsuko Ishii, was born in Tokyo, Japan. I have never been able to find out any information about her family though. She was sent to live with relatives early in her life because of the war.

Comments

Talena, you should be able to contact the City Hall of Records in the place where she was born to request her koseki, or family registry. Koseki have been kept at least since the early 1870s.

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Thank you so much! I will definitely look into that

Answer 12

We adopted our daughter from Korea many years ago. She has taken a MyHeritage DNA test but did not turn up any close relatives.  How else should she look for relatives and learn of her ancestry?

Comments

You might want to consider having her autosomal DNA tested through Ancestry as well. Different companies have different numbers of person with DNA testing. Ancestry has the largest DNA autosomal database, which could possibly give your daughter greater access to connections. I send best wishes in her search.

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Thanks for the suggestion. We will give it a try.  Do you know if there is a website for adult orphans from foreign countries where they can exchange ideas and ways of searching for their backgrounds.

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Anyang Haseyo James,

I do not know of such programs right off. If you have a local genealogical society that is affiliated with a Family Center (generally run by members of the Mormon Church), I would first join your local society as the generally are a good resource. There affiliation with a Family Center allows you to do searches and they help with them. I was copying some original documents on my family from 16th century England last week and there was a women of Latina heritage reviewing documents in Spanish and a very good researcher/sourcer was assisting. Another idea might be to find a Korean Christian church, especially if your family is not fluent in Korean and see if one of the members might know how to assist. If you can determine where she was from in Korea and her surname (e.g., Kim and Cho are very common and generally a family name) that might help. If I hear or think of more, I'll leave another message. My best to your family!

Answer 13

I was born in Hong Kong and am what they refer to as Macanese.  Macanese are descendants of the Portuguese and have through the hundreds of years of Portuguese and European presence have intermarried with the Asians, predominantly Chinese and Goan,  Malaysian.  I have traced family back to the early 1400's and to 1026 on my Scottish ties to the Hyndman-Hunters of Lunderston.  From Macau and Hong Kong, the Macanese diaspora has spread worldwide with heavy concentrations in the USA and Australia.  Some have settled in the UK and back to Portugal.  I have a FB page called Hyndman Ancestry for the descendants of  Colonel Henry Hyndman, HEIC and a Bengal-Portuguese woman Joana Polair (Joana Do Pilar).  The Hyndman family became very influential in Asia and a respected family in  Macau and Hong Kong.

I would like to add that we have found many new family members from this Asian line of the Hyndmans through the use of DNA.  Including lost and unknown grandparents and parents.

Answer 14

Yes. Father is from Nanjin, China; Mother is from Taichung, Taiwan.

Answer 15

My great, great grandfather was born in China in approximately 1833. He came to Australia possibly in the 1850s. He married my great great grandmother in 1863. She was born in Germany.

Answer 16

Kochanska - 1

This profile is for my paternal grandmother, Pauline/Pauline Kochanska Wojcicka.  My first cousin who was close to her, told me she was told our grandmother was part Gypsy. which is Romani, and descends from the people's of India. If you see her photo, I think you'll see the Romani look.

Answer 17

I am a Kiwi (New Zealander) and according to my mother we are supposed to have some Maori blood, which I gather has been traced originally to Asia. But my ethnicity came back with 0% so far.....100% Pakeha (NZ European) most Scottish. However they do update and change things as the system improves and more people add to the database so maybe it will show up sometime in an update.

Answer 18

Yes!!  This is a perfect example of why DNA testing is so awesome.  My mother's maternal ancestry was 100% Italian.  I recently did the mtDNA test at FTDNA and if you look just at my mom's eye's in the link (sorry could not get a picture attached for some reason), you'll see how I was amazed to learn I have distant cousins in Japan!  

Chet's mom

Answer 19

I'm roughly half Japanese. Both of my grandmothers are from Japan. When I did the DNA test through Ancestry.com it said that I also have a small amount of Korean and Northern Chinese ancestry. That was a surprise to my mom because it has to come from her side because it didn't show up on my dad's brother's and sister's tests. My grandmother knew that she has some Portuguese from when the missionaries went to Japan but that was it. These two lines I have been the most interested in researching.

Answer 20

Both parents came from Guangdong, China, to British Colonial Jamaica where my siblings and i were born. My father Chang Yun Fu was from Liang Pai Wei and my mom Chin Keun Tai from Bao On, both villages now probably displaced by the Shenzhen development. Apart from my maternal grandparents' names i have no other information on my Chinese roots. On the other hand, nieces' marriages to descendants of English settlers in Jamaica have connected us to the crowned heads of Europe going back to William the Conqueror, and luminaries including Lord Byron and Martha Washington.