How did Family Search come up with this ethnicity part?
Answers
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@Louise Hendrix FamilySearch does not show any ethnicity. The Germany link you are talking about is simply an ancestor who someone has marked born or died in "Germany". If that record was before the 1880s, it is wrong since there was no "Germany" prior to that time. We really need to keep birth location and ethnicity completely separate.
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@Louise Hendrix, as Gail says, birthplace has nothing to do with ethnicity.
Neither does DNA.
Yes, I know, all of the DNA companies provide their attempt at vaguely-geographic breakdowns of people's genetics, but geography isn't genetic, and the databases of reference samples that they base those breakdowns on are incomplete and faulty. They're pretty good at identifying highly-endogamous populations like Ashkenazi Jewish, but absolutely awful at historically mobile and intermixed groups like "German" or "Eastern European". Use those percentages for entertainment only. That is their only value.
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@Gail Swihart Watson to add insult to injury, the marriage of Benjamin McCoy Smith and Elizabeth "Lizzie" Evans is not even in the right order on that page. I'm at my Affiliate Library this afternoon and decided to take a look to see WHAT might have prompted the ethnicity label. And no there is nothing.
It's a ledger page of multiple images but the index is muddled. I have the images if you want them.
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Áine Ní Donnghaile I'm sorry I have not answered sooner. Yes, I would love the image you saved, and the image group or whatever number the image is part of. I'm still gathering courage to install the portal you mentioned. LOL
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@Gail Swihart Watson I've DM'd you the images. The portal is NOT required for these since they are available at Affiliate Libraries.
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I'm still seeing the strange "ethnicity" category. Looking today, at the Affiliate Library, at a 1907 Chicago birth register. Both parents are listed as born in Illinois, but the ethnicity is shown as Canadian.
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:N7CZ-4S8
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