When I worked in New York for a few months many years ago, when fishonabike was still on stabilisers. I was hugely amused by answers to the question "Where are you from?"

In all innocence I asked the question, expecting replies like Brooklyn, Queens or even further flung places like Chicago or Texas. Instead people who seemed to me to be young North Americans gave replies like Ireland, Finland and Scotland. I was impressed that they seemed so at home in New York so I asked questions like "Is it very dark in the winter in Finland?" or "Are there a lot of flights to Ireland?"

I was astonished by the reply "I don't know, I've never been to Finland/Ireland". They then explained that their grandparents or even great grandparents came from the country".

I don't know if this is just a big city phenomenon or whether it was unusual. It just makes me wonder if asking where people are from in the UK (especially if we are guessing because their skin colour or accent is different to that most prevalent in the locality) is a much bigger deal than in the USA where many people can go back only a couple of generations to a time when members of their family were not born in the USA.