babyblog

I'm with your dad on this one... you can see "tribes" in different cities in the UK and definitely in different countries.

I recognize people from different parts of the UK, Italians, Greek, Arab, Spanish, Irish (North and South look very different!), Americans have a certain 'look' about them, but I've never really been able to identify a 'Canadian' to date. Most people (all people!) are relatively recent immigrants or descendents of immigrants and therefore they're an eclectic bunch to look at...but dad has identified a couple of things on their faces which he says are Canadian traits, now I can't help staring at people! I think I will have to study my friends more closely to see if they follow this 'rule'!

Other than the fact that we all tend to have snow and ice dripping from our faces much of the year, I can't see that there would be a stereotypical Canadian face, for the reason you cited: almost all of us are either immigrants, or descended from immigrants within the last couple of generations. So we have genes from all over.

My dad was born in Scotland to ancestors who had apparently been from around the same part of Scotland for several generations. My mom was born in Yorkshire; I think her dad's side had been there for a while, but she has Irish on her mom's side.

I can't see, then, that I'd have much in common with my next-door neighbours, who are immigrants from somewhere in northern Europe. Or with my sister-in-law, who has a variety of groups in her ancestry including several generations in Canada. Or my girlfriend, whose heritage is mostly Dutch, including grandparents on one side who were born in Holland. So why should I look any more like these people than I look like you?

I am with Katie, aka and her dad on this one.

Looking at people I find it easy to see where they are from, in Livingston, I could point out people who are not from this area - all the locals look like puddings.

I think that there is a Canadian 'face' too - one can tell the difference from an American - I am not sure that what it is yet, but there is a deffo something.

Just because your family comes from all over the place, doesn’t mean that there isn’t something looks wise that you have in common with your neighbour.
My kids are from English parents, who are from English families going back as far as one can, but they still look like their classmates.
Seeing as though you are highly likely to have a similar diet as them and lifestyle as your neighbours and not a Norwegian, or Dutch, or Irish or Scottish one. And the type of food we eat determines what we look like - I think.

What it must be, is a reaction to the climate and environment we live in, which produces certain characteristics, subtly and slowly but does so all the same.

With immigrants, they have to adapt to their new environment, and therefore I suppose may change subtly, and their children more so, etc.

We were also discussing clusters of diseases - you may remember an early post where I said I'm concerned about Autism as there's been several cases of it around here & it's known to occur in clusters. Well apparently a widely held belief / theory is that each part of the world has it's own climate, it's own environment, it's own bugs, diseases, germs, etc. If you go on holiday to somewhere like Mexico and you'll likely end up with holiday tummy because you aren't used to the water, but the locals are. This is also true of everywhere in the world to varying degrees. So as we as a population move around more, and always don't stick to the same environment in which we grew up, we're constantly exposing ourselves to different germs, bugs, etc, that we're not immune to..... and hence clusters of diseases do occur particularly in areas of growth where people have moved from all over to be there.

Well yeah, Canadians and Americans look different; they look like hicks and rednecks :-)

Of a survey of 2 men at the school bus stop just now, 1 of them had 'the canadian face' and the other didnt!

Musta been a furriner :-)