Family Secrets: The Melting Pot of Diversity

Family Secrets: The Melting Pot of Diversity

America: The great melting pot.  The McAnally family: the melting pot of diversity.

Recently I found out two things that had long gone unknown to our family.  One, I cannot trace very far, and could be just a family type of an urban legend and the other, with a little speculation of historical migratory facts, could be true.

My oldest cousin let the cat out of the bag by saying that his mother had told him that her father had ancestors that were of Asian decent.  None of the family look Japanese or Chinese but there is a slight family resemblance with the Mongols of the western steppes by some of the older pictures I have seen of my relatives on my grandmother’s side.  So I could be related to one of the Kahn boys.  But who knows and will ever know.  My grandmother’s side of the family are 100% Americans whatever that means.

My grandfather’s side of the family was also 100% Americans.  Of course his great great grandfather came from Scotland, via of Northern Ireland, then back to Northern Ireland, where his father was probably fathered by a Spaniard whose ship was wrecked along the coast of Eire after the Spanish Armada failure.  The Spaniard was probably descended from either Moors or maybe even a frisky Roman legionnaire, who gained his freedom fighting in the Coliseum as a gladiator.  But the McAnally family is 100% American whatever that means. 

The McAnally family of this day and age are Americans by choice.  I have an array of cousins, grandchildren, in-laws, nieces, nephews, and a brother and sister, that when we get together looks like a meeting of the United Nations.  For example I have African American grandchildren, Hispanic and Greek nieces and nephews, a Korean daughter-in-law and granddaughter , a son-in-law from the Balkans, the Gay community is represented, a female impersonator vaudevillian (two different people,) several republicans, a couple of democrats, one bomb throwing anarchist, and one in prison.  Some are still fighting the civil war on both sides.  We have a couple of rich ones, more than enough poor ones, doctors, lawyers, and candlestick makers.  The only group not represented is Native Americans but I do have a half brother and sister that by the tone of their skin is suspect, and I dated an Eskimo girl while I lived in Alaska but I don’t think that counts.  But all in all we are all 100% Americans what ever that means.