My parents told me I'm British, Welsh, French, Acadian French, German and Native American... but never Jewish. I recently found out I have Jewish ancestry as well.
Is this a common occurrence: to hide such ancestry? I'm not trying to be Jewish by religion. I'm just talking ancestry. (I'm happily and logically Agnostic and will be until I'm dead and gone.) I sincerely hope I didn't say anything offensive, I don't even know what offends y'all.
Depending on how far removed your are from your Jewish ancestry (you didn't state in your question), it is possible that your parents simply didn't know. As for "why," your ancestors may have hidden their Jewishness to avoid persecution or to better integrate into society (which until recently did not look kindly upon Jews). It is also possible that your ancestors had converted away from Judaism, and thus suppressed this ancestry.
On a related note, children who were hidden during the Holocaust with non-Jewish neighbors were often not told that they were Jewish and were raised as gentiles.
