this is not something people outside the us reflect on. it's a common trope that us-americans go to europe to find their roots and whatever and nobody understands what they even mean by that.

Nationalism—the idea that there ought to be (or ever was) a 1:1 correspondence between countries, cultures, and ancestry—is a 19th-century invention unsupported by history, anthropology, or genetics. Ancestry tests that categorize results by country are obfuscating real data to meet a demand for pop pseudoscience.

Culture and identity has little to do with ancestry or actual ethnicity. It’s strongly correlated but ultimately we are what we were raised to be.

I'm quite fond of Russian art.

I was hoping for better answers than the ones you got! Here's my take as a Swedish/American dual citizen.

Swedes and Norwegians are genetically so similar that genetic tests can't make any meaningful distinction between them. They've interbred for thousands of years, since long before Norway and Sweden emerged as distinct kingdoms. Whether your ancestry is more Swedish or Norwegian doesn't really matter since the two are very closely related genetically, culturally and even linguistically (Swedish and Norwegian languages are highly mutually intelligible). While there's no way to know for sure without a well researched family tree, you're almost certainly a mix of the two.

Unless you've researched and know this not to be the case, it's even possible that your ancestors were from a part of Sweden that was historically Norwegian and that's why Norwegian culture was passed down to you. For example, Jämtland was ceded to Sweden in 1645 and even today Norwegian culture has a strong presence there.

Lucky for you, there's WAY more Norwegian culture in the US than there is Swedish culture. Unless you're prepared to do some serious genealogical research to arrive at a conclusive answer, I'd say don't worry about whether you're technically more Norwegian or Swedish -- just keep enjoying the Norwegian culture you've known your whole life.

yes, I'm not born in Poland and I didn't grow up speaking Polish though I'm learning it on-and-off, but I grew up with people proud of their Polish heritage and always ready to learn more about their heritage country so I consider myself to be Polish. I'm like 16% Spanish and mostly English :]

It does come off as insecure when someone makes a culture they have little connection to a large part of their identity rather than just showing an interest in it, but most of the time it’s harmless and not worth making a big deal over. I would loosely define being part of a culture as fitting in with other members of it: ability to express yourself in the native language and understanding its nuances, familiarity with customs and mentality, not feeling out of place when around natives/locals regardless of your ethnicity or ancestry.

Reminds me of this weirdo dude in college who had family issues and clung to every single random ethnicity from his test. Starting wearing Native American jewelry and such.

Reincarnation can be significant.

Oh, & genetic-testing is notoriously inaccurate, unless one is paying-for 1000x oversampling..

100x oversampling is the bare-minimum I'd consider useful.

The reincarnation thing: my "home" is what my soul/continuum remembers as "home" from some life as a buddhist Himalayan monk, many centuries ago.

To say that I don't fit this modern world well is understatement.

Wrong values, wrong instincts, wrong frame-of-reference, wrong reactions, wrong everything.

Once I undertood it, then .. life made MUCH more sense.

My unconscious has been trying to make my world fit its memory of my ( previous-incarnation's ) world, & that's impossible.

Once that became understood, then adapting & outgrowing-the-problem could begin.

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