My heritage through coins.

From how I look, I suspect I could pass off as Syrian, Lebanese, or even perhaps a light-skinned Tunisian, so I might have Middle Eastern or North African ancestors as well from the time of their dominion of Hispania.

Thinking about this makes me want a coin of al-Andalus (Islamic Hispania) even more now.

 

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Tell your wife I like my scotch plain, without anything added. Not even ice. (just jokes).

I think I may try the DNA test one of these days. Like I indicated above, I believe I'm Heinz 57. A little of everything.

 

Well, perhaps you'll appreciate this then...it's from the Almohad Caliphate, the last caliphate to rule Spain prior to the creation of the Emirate of Granada. Under the leadership of the Almohads, Muslim rule in Spain shrank as their armies saw disastrous defeats at the hands of the Christian kings. Finally, the Muslims in Iberia had enough and broke off in 1238 to form the Emirate of Granada, a client Muslim Kingdom which paid tribute to the Spanish kings. It worked for them for over 200 years, until the Christians decided to reconquer the remaining parts of Iberia.

This dirham might have been used as currency in Southern Spain during the mid-12th through mid-13th century.

 

I'm not sure where my Granny was born, but she was incredibly sweet and man could she ever climb trees!! (RIP)

 

@Bing, you mean you never tried Scotch with lutefisk, haggis, Guinness, and bangers?

Steve

 

I was playing around with the word for the drink verses the word for the nationality, Scotch v Scot. However, I have had the bangers and mash. I will try haggis and lutefisk someday, but I'm not counting down the days.

 

I went for a short stay on the holy island Lindesfarne. The chef speciality was haggis and blackpudding stacked on mashed potato. It was one of the yummiest things I have ever eaten.

 

Yum!

 

I know, right?

 

I didn't think I would like haggis, but it was actually pretty good. We had a plate of haggis with neeps and tatties (mashed rutabaga and potatoes) in Edinburgh and really enjoyed it. On the same trip we had lots of blackpudding too... tasty stuff!

 

I recently had my DNA ancestry checked. From family history, I knew that my mother's family was Sicilian on both sides (with possibly a bit of French), while my father's side was half Calabrian (the "boot-tip" of Italy), a quarter Irish, and a quarter English.

The results were mostly what I expected. I got 60% Italian/Greek (they can't tell the difference between those two populations), 7% Irish, 7% English, 7% Scandinavian (maybe from Vikings who raided the British Isles?), a bit of Western European that couldn't be more specifically identified, and 1% North African (which is pretty common for Sicilians- everyone in the Mediterranean spent some time in Sicily). The big surprise, though: I am about 11% Middle Eastern. This was really puzzling, until I connected it to some family folklore that one of my maternal great-grandfathers was actually an orphan who was adopted into the family. Why a Middle Eastern orphan baby was in Sicily c.1870 is still a mystery, and probably has a fascinating story behind it, but unfortunately those details are probably not the sort that can be found in old census/birth/marriage records.

Anyway, here's a coin assemblage to roughly show my ancestry:

 

I took a DNA test, which came back as:
95% east Asian, mostly Chinese
3% Polynesian
2% Turkic, from central asia
The 2 percent is mostly from a ancestor on my mothers side, my grandmother remembered that her grandmother had hair with a reddish tint, they most likely lived in Turkmenistan. The 95% east Asian doesn't surprise me at all, and I don't no where the 2% Polynesian came from. Possibly aborigines living in Southern China?

 

@Bing
You need to try these!
http://whiskystones.com/collections/stones-twirls/products/whisky-stones-max-1?variant=946588001

 

My kids and wife got me a DNA test for my Birthday. Results were back in Sept.
I am virtually all Celt, German, 6% Scandinavian, and 6% Finnish (Suomi that was a cool discovery!)... Basically all the enemies of Rome and Greece! Way cool. Virtually all rebels in my blood!

Here is a wonderful Celtic Coin that epitomizes the fight against Rome...


CELTIC BRITAIN
the Inceni
Queen Boudicca, 61 AD.
AR Unit (Quinarius size)
1.03 g
Obv: Celticized head right
Rev: Celticized horse galloping right.
Ref: vArs.794.

It is actually a very sad story:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boudica

 

Hard to believe looking at what Spain eventually became (a modern European country) that this was once part of my Spanish heritage


Umayyads of Spain
Hisham II
AR Dirham

 

Great coins! I had a similar revelation when I signed up for Ancestry.com. A surprise about my ancestry that is. I used to be so proud that I had a great great grandfather who was in the Union Army at Gettysburg. On Ancestry.com I discovered that I had 3 more great great grandfathers who were in the Confederate Army. I had no idea!