L'aura del Campo

Am I Swedish ... enough? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Am I Swedish enough? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I was raised thinking I was Swedish.

My father's family was very Swedish. My mother's wasn't but she learned to make Swedish meatballs to impress them. They were herring eaters and beer guzzlers. A lot of stocky blonds.

We knew they came from Småland, from a long line of Carl Johansons and Johan Carlsons. The changed their name to the parish they came from. They lived off wood and hazelnuts in the middle of nowhere.

I've since been there.

I suspect I know why they left. It's an area of furniture making and some family went actually went into that business in America.

But, I also knew I had heritage back to Alsace, Germany, England and Ireland. 3 of 8 grandparents came from areas considered French or German.

But the area I grew up in was heavily German an anything less than 110% wasn't German enough. But, at least I had my Swedish heritage.

Then along came DNA testing. It has improved somewhat since my mother,sister and I took the test.

We had some shocks. Too much English. But, at least the Irish rootlet was there.

And there was lots of Slavic and Finnic that my forefathers didn't talk about.

And Iberian and Italo-Greek... what?

I'm much more Portuguese-Spanish than German.

There was practically no German in my mother either and less in me and my sister which means there was little or nothing in my father. His father spoke fluent German.

When I visit Sweden people speak to me in Swedish. I have my father's smile and the squat body structure of a Goth. The Svea are the tall blond ones.

Now my sister tells me that further tests indicate we may have some Norwegian blood as well.

Well, my handshake isn't firm enough, my eyes don't pierce the back of your head and I'm not pleasant regardless of the circumstance.

I'm what a Norwegian would call a "damn head-headed Swede".

I can live with that.

Peace, Kåre
3.juni.2019

PS: I love Jana Hisham's video. The first part is very key to what my blog's about:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EMW0W5VtLA

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