The whole ethnic identity is mostly to identify where in the world you ethnically originated from to other Americans. Because almost every single person in the US is either an immigrant, or a descendent of one. So we identify to each other where we came from as Americans.

Where people go wrong with this is if they happen to be traveling internationally and take this US centric identity with them. If traveling internationally, you could be ethnically from the place you are traveling. But in that context, you'd be American. This is a part of that whole well traveled awareness thing.

The genealogy thing is their curiosity in tracing that ethnic origin with greater detail. I personally don't find it too interesting myself, but different strokes.

Edit: I'd like to add, this is mostly in case other people reading this thread are wondering why this is even a thing. It's truly an annoying behavior.

You're not wrong, this is totally a thing. I'm a euro mutt (I coin for myself) and I can trace some lines.

It's because were all immigrants in a young country. Even the census we take asks where we hail from. I've maked "American" on it the last two times. It is a deal here, and yes it can be annoying especially when you get the tropes going. "Oh my family is Italian we like big families" mean while I'm fourth gen Italian (mixed obvs) and like what, are you inbreeding to stay Italian? Your husbands last name is "smith" like, fuck off. My full first gen Italian great grandmother married a first gen polack and had one kid. One. Fuck off with your stereotypes. This bitch I'm thinking of feed her kids all the american processed foods, give no fucks about the quality of her food ingredients or where they come from, just fuck off "were Italian" bitch shut up.

Potentially annoying American here with a point of clarification: is it annoying just to be interested in one’s heritage, or is it Americans that make that heritage their entire personality?

I also find it maddening, not only because it's silly, but because the analysis is largely crap anyhow.

My mother's family touted their "Irish heritage for three generations", then quickly shut up when their genome analysis "proved" they were instead largely English. I've had to point out Ireland and England's relative positions and ask them if they thought anyone in our ancestry might have ever moved from island to island. Maybe consider that they were from somewhere else in Europe even earlier? Now they're "Irish" again.

Point entirely missed, JFC. They were Irish, their ancestors were maybe English, and way back, their ancestors were definitely African, but I don't see them getting into African cultural heritage. Thankfully.

You're United Statesians. I get the draw: they're looking for genuine but effort-free connection, identity, and belonging in a country whose dominant culture is homogenization, commoditization, and exploitation, but their search for culture through tenuous connections to long-dead ancestors instead of family, friends, and neighbors is just as hollow and unfulfilling.

Don't obsess about great³-Grandpa Pádraig's life harvesting peat from the bogs; he's long dead and probably would have hated you. Embrace what and where you are and utilize and improve what you actually have.

I've always understood it to be a remnant of a culture that de-emphasized genealogy and family pedigree, and had a lot more cultural and ethnic mixing in marriages at an earlier era. In Europe, it seems like there are a lot more family crests and aristocratic titles, from centuries of families maneuvering for political power through strategic marriages and what not, and stronger cultural taboos against marrying and having children outside of one's ethnic group (and religion), at least up until maybe World War II.

So if there's just less to learn from DNA testing (a person who happens to already have records of all 16 of their great-great-grandparents, who all lived in the same geographical area), I'd expect there not to be much demand for that kind of analysis.

Or maybe I'm wrong to focus on the gentry and aristocratic families, and have a misplaced view of how long that kind of stuff culturally persisted in Europe.

"English, Scotch, Welch and Irish" always drives me nuts. You can't even pronounce one of them correctly; how is that honouring your "heritage"?

Jay parlay Francsays trey beein. Jaytude on laycole quart ans.

maybe clearing this up: germany has a hereditary citizenship. i. e. children of germans can get a german passport.

being "german" means owning german citizenship (or citizenship of the one of the former constructs the federal republic sees as its precursors), not owning a set of genes. you can have no 'distinct european genes' (e.g. be ainu?) at all and get citizenship for your kids, as long as you have it. you can be "genetically german" and still don't have a passport.

jus sanguinis usually isn't genetically defined