Quotes About Ancestry

Citizenship and ethnicity can become, in certain contexts, restrictive, and perhaps that's one reason I was interested in people who feel compelled to mask their origins and thereby circumvent the restrictions.

I am, of course, directly descended from Brian Boru, the last king of Ireland, a fact certified by my mother and therefore beyond dispute. But as everybody else with a drop of Irish blood in his carcass is also a guaranteed descendant of the old billy goat, I am not overly arrogant because of this royal strain.

I'm the third or fourth generation of actor in my family; I'm sure if they were butchers, I'd be a butcher, too.

My real name is Alfonso. My grandfather and dad are also Alfonso, so I was the third. So my mom just gave me the nickname Trey because I was the third.

Those who boast of their descent, brag on what they owe to others.

Though born in Nova Scotia, I am of almost pure New England descent.

Heirlooms we don't have in our family. But stories we've got.

While someone with the first person knowledge is still alive, while records are still available, while relatives of witnesses can come forward, the stories must be told.

Children rarely want to know who their parents were before they were parents, and when age finally stirs their curiosity, there is no parent left to tell them.

We come from people who found hope wherever they went.

It's the land of my ancestors. I need to set my feet on that soil and see how I feel. I have missed my mother's warm tortillas and many more things than I can name.

Irish demographics reveal two startling facts: There are around 70 million people worldwide who claim Irish descent, and Ireland today has barely half the population that it had 160 years ago, a decline unmatched in the modern world. These facts are explained and connected by the undeniable social reality of nineteenth-century Ireland—emigration.

Can be selectively bred into kale, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower, and more. All are descended from the same ancestor, making this plant very versatile for selective breeding!

Ah, well, old girl, remember the definition of an Anglo-Saxon: A German who's forgotten his grandmother was Welsh.

Kulas were created mainly to maintain a clear genetic pathway through generations. Through this connection, they created runanubandha on the physical and genetic level as well. Kulas were maintained and sustained primarily by creating Kula Devatas, or the deity for the kula.

I walk in Nature's way until I shall lie down and rest, breathing my last in this from which I draw my daily breath, and lying down on this from which my father drew his vital seed, my mother her blood, my nurse her milk; from which for so many years I am fed and watered day by day; which bears my footstep and my misusing it for so many purposes.

18. The way people behave. They refuse to admire their contemporaries, the people whose lives they share. No, but to be admired by Posterity—people they've never met and never will—that's what they set their hearts on. You might as well be upset at not being a hero to your great-grandfather.

at last you, will say (maybe without speaking) (there are mountains inside your skull garden and chaos, ocean and hurricane; certain corners of rooms, portraits of great-grandmothers, curtains of a particular shade; your deserts; your private dinosaurs; the first woman) all i need to know: tell me everything just as it was from the beginning.

The ancestral voices were prophesying war because ancestral voices never shut up, and they hate to be wrong, and war is a sure thing, sooner or later.

To pronounce the name of the dead is to make them live again, said the ancient Egyptians: not always what one might wish.

Children were vehicles for passing things along. These things could be kingdoms, rich wedding gifts, stories, grudges, blood feuds.

It's time for Black people to stop playing the separating game of geography, of where the slave ship put us down. We must concentrate on where the slave ship picked us up.

It's going to be an emotional time for me to see where my great grandfather ministered. It's going to be great to see the fruit of his labor.

One curious thing about growing up is that you don't only move forward in time; you move backwards as well, as pieces of your parents' and grandparents' lives come to you.