Read somewhere that 71% of people resident in England do have “English” born grand-parents & with the Normans still lording it over us…

Isn’t it time for a new identity ?

Anglo womble?

It’s part of our history and very deeply rooted. It’s in our language, our genetics, our geography and our law. The only English King ever called “Great” formed our country and made peace with an invading force, so as immigrants ourselves we accepted others. To me it’s something I’m very proud of, and something we can all learn a great deal from.
You can’t simply change facts.

Isn’t it time,we just dropped that Anglo-Saxon bollocks, entirely ?

Isn’t it time for a new identity ?

To fair it’s a while since I heard anyone refer to themselves as Anglo-saxon.

But perhaps I’ve just been in the wrong company.

To fair it’s a while since I heard anyone refer to themselves as Anglo-saxon.

I do it quite loudly in song as I wander the streets after a night on the mead.

If you’re talking about genetic heritage and whatnot, then yeah, “Anglo Saxon” is a totally fatuous identity.

Once you start going back that far then you get into seriously muddy waters, because for most white people in Western Europe we’re pretty much all descended from the same ancestors from about 1000 years ago or so. It’s just basic exponential maths. Count your grandparents, great-grandparents, great-great-grandparents, etc: 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128… you run into the millions and then the billions really quickly, and then you run out of living people in a given generation. People moved around and had babies and just got on with stuff, and as a result we’re all related from not very far back at all. Your common-or-garden English bigot, let’s call him Nigel, is almost certainly as Anglo-Saxon as he is Irish as he is Italian as he is Danish or Welsh or French, and it’s pretty **** funny to think about that. We’re all brothers and sisters, man. Even Nigel. One big happy family.

Although I reckon Nigel maybe needs to spend some time on the naughty step thinking about what he’s done recently.

I do it quite loudly in song as I wander the streets after a night on the mead.

As you serenade the wenches ?

Mint – not Nige. He is clearly a foreigner

We have been occupied since 1066 about 70% of property and wealth still owned by Williams Barons descendants – not a bad result for a rough arse from Normandy

Like to back that up with DNA evidence, mint? There have been tests done on various districts around the UK, and it’s surprising how little many communities have changed over the millennia. Hell, they found a teacher living in Cheddar, who’s DNA traced back to a Neolithic skeleton found deep in one of the caves, and Viking DNA still follows closely the regions that they invaded then settled into the local communities. My surname is apparently Saxon in origin, my family have been within the same eight or ten mile radius for the last 300 years or so. Things have really only changed in the last sixty or seventy years, before that there was little movement among the general populace, most immigration and integration would have centred on ports, cities and growing industrial regions.
Read Cider With Rosie, that’s within living memory for some, when many people scarcely even traveled beyond their own village, a trip into a large town would have been an extraordinary experience, a city once in a lifetime, if that.
Oh, and samunkin, the Normans were Vikings who spoke French; Norman is derived from Norsemen.
Having had their asses handed to them on a plate by King Alfred at Eddington in Wiltshire, they finally got their own back at Hastings in 1066.

My surname is apparently Saxon in origin,

Mine is too, as is my mangers. My mothers surname is of Scotrish origin.

We have been occupied since 1066

Are you suggesting that resistance is futile ?

Human*?

*Seems to be the one identity that the ‘special interest’ groups/individuals have the most trouble identifying with. It could be a giant leap forward for all of us…

oldmanmtb – Member
We have been occupied since 1066 about 70% of property and wealth still owned by Williams Barons descendants – not a bad result for a rough arse from Normandy

Good locals them 😉
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Percy

And not just French but going full circle from previous invaders

He was of Viking extraction.

Though he spoke a dialect of French and grew up in Normandy, a fiefdom loyal to the French kingdom, William and other Normans descended from Scandinavian invaders. William’s great-great-great-grandfather, Rollo, pillaged northern France with fellow Viking raiders in the late ninth and early 10th centuries, eventually accepting his own territory (Normandy, named for the Norsemen who controlled it) in exchange for peace.
http://www.history.com/news/history-lists/10-things-you-may-not-know-about-william-the-conqueror
So truly all mixed up

Controversially, I think the idea of people believing they have special privileges and entitlements because of a historic connection to a region has had its day…

I think a lot agree thats why we just voted to get rid of elected representation in Europe 😉

mintimperial, I think you forgot to factor in the inbreeding (twas the bicycle that saved us)

I certainly hope that the new anti-immigrant sentiment doesn’t result in sending people “back to where they came from” although the ancestor did arrive back in about 478CE. Don’t fancy trying to find any decent offroad biking in Denmark…

It’s to do with culture, history and perceived identity. Not where DNA analysis says some of your ancestors may have come from.

The English were last conquered by a bunch of French speakers who really gave them a shafting for a couple of hundred years. Yet we still speak English. So Anglo-Saxon is as good a name as any.

Ernie-lynch I am going to launch the “Independent People’s Republic of Northumbria” to fight the occupation, bollocks to Brexit I want Enexit (might have to work on our strap line) my plan is as follows –

Alan Shearer – head of state (now referred to as The Leader)
Ant and Dec – PR
We have the Toon Army

Economic plan is to reopen the Mines and sell cheap coal to England as you can’t afford Russian imported gas.

North Yorkshire shall form our Southern Border

What could go wrong

We are about 30% anglo-saxon*, by y chromo analysis http://www.ucl.ac.uk/tcga/tcgapdf/capelli-CB-03.pdf

The Black Country accent is probably the last legacy of Saxon accent, yet York has the highest genetic Saxon lineage, despite its viking prominence too, (tho that’s been overplayed)

Besides which if you had 1 Saxon ancestor out of a hundred in your family tree, doest at still make you Saxon? Ancestry studies are very open to interpretation

, when many people scarcely even traveled beyond their own village, a trip into a large town would have been an extraordinary experience, a city once in a lifetime, if that.

There have been less of analysis on prehistoric skeletons, showing that we were much more widely traveled than in recent times.
The feudal system locked us to the land

*actually germanic, more than just 2 tribes made up their influx, weve also hade previous waves of migration from Germany in the mesolithic, of course Saxon didn’t just appear there, themselves, they too migrated in from elsewhere.

I don’t mind Anglo Saxon tbh .Sometimes, I refer to us as Northern Europeans.
My mate Mike is very proud of his Barbadian heritage and history. The same with Anita, my Slovakian friend . Why not me?
My boy (nearly 4) – has started minesweeping beer,he loves the taste.
Whenever he trys it in public I say “How very Anglo- Saxon” to hide my obvious embarrasment.
It must be in his DNA! 😀

jamj1974 – Member
Controversially, I think the idea of people believing they have special privileges and entitlements because of a historic connection to a region has had its day

Sadly the 52% seem to disagree

My surname originates from Normandy. Great great great whatever was quite the man, travelling with will the conq, hugh delacy and apparently had a claim on gloucestershire. Templar CoA too. Busy chap.
Interesting stuff, kimbers. Thanks.

Interesting comment from CountZero regarding the dispersal (or lack of) his family from a central point over the last 300 years.

We have what I call the ‘family wonks’ on both my father’s and mother’s side of the family. They spend a lot of time working on the genealogy thing. I asked for copies of their research recently and was surprised to see one branch of my father’s family traced back to the early 1500s (give or take a decent margin of error) and my mother’s to the early 1700s.

Until very recently, the nucleus of my father’s lot all lived within a 20 mile radius of Oxford while my mother’s were by comparison, a restless bunch. Orginally based in Glastonbury, they moved to Bath in the late 19th Century.

I had just not appreciated how recent a recent phenomenon mobility actually is.

Yeah, there are three villages in Leicestershire, Lincolnshire & staffordshire that are the same name as my surname, Branston. So I don’t think my ancestors traveled that much either! Although my mothers maiden name is of Germanic Romany descent.

At the moment though I’m not sure what I identify myself as. I’ll stick with British at the moment but i’m a little embarrassed to be English at the moment. Hopefully people don’t tar us all with the same brush as Farage, luckily I think most people are fairly open minded.

had just not appreciated how recent a recent phenomenon mobility actually is.

It’s not though, one of the fallacies of ancestry studies is that you could say you are tied to a place because one of you ancestors lived there, ignoring the many others who may have come from elsewhere
Because we are relatively interbred the effects of locals mating with locals who also happen to be related, biases this hugely as well

Looking at ratios of isotopes in bone vs teeth it’s possible to infer what part of the country people lived in at different times, or how much they moved around

It was originally thought that farming made us settle , but I’d been shown that didn’t occur to much later, we were once much more mobile, just the fact that the Saxons were traveling across Europe to immigrate here shows mobile we were

http://rsos.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/3/1/150522

https://www.reading.ac.uk/archaeology/research/Projects/arch-HE-Diaspora.aspx

Like to back that up with DNA evidence, mint?

Nah, you’re alright. TBH I would advise just ignoring anything I post that isn’t directly related to bicycles for the next few months, especially in the evening. And I’ll try to stop posting drunk. 🙁

It’s not though, one of the fallacies of ancestry studies is that you could say you are tied to a place because one of you ancestors lived there, ignoring the many others who may have come from elsewhere
Because we are relatively interbred the effects of locals mating with locals who also happen to be related, biases this hugely as well

One of the biggest problems with trying to get a picture of social mobility is the scarcity of reliable records before the 18th Century, it appears that my family on my dad’s side originated in Hampshire, settling briefly in the Devizes area, before settling in and around the village of Ford, between Chippenham and Marshfield somewhen in the mid-early 1700’s; but it’s very hazy, and takes an enormous amount of time to try to piece together the details when you’re talking about working-class people, farm labourers in fact.
Another branch on my paternal grandmothers side came from Dorset, it appears, and there does seem to be a tenuous connection to the family of Sir Francis Drake, but then he had a shitload of brothers: nine, IIRC, so it would only be tenuous.
There’s no doubt that there was a lot of travelling going on, with traders coming to the UK from all around the Mediterranean, and possibly even further, there have been finds of Phoenecian coins and jewels, including emeralds and rubies, where trading for tin and the like went on, in Cornwall and in London, but there’s still going to be large areas of the country with very stable populations for very long periods of time.
My surname, Hillier, is common in the south-west, and in the north-east, apparently, due to the earlier Saxon influx moving away from the Norman incomers, there’s all sorts of variations on it though, Hellyer, Hillyer, etc.
We’re a mongrel people, but the Anglo-Saxon is still a strong influence after all this time.
It’s interesting that so many British*, as in Welsh, voted to leave, not quite sure what to make of that.
*As in Britons, coming across on the early land bridge from the Brittany region of what is now France.
Bloody immigrants! 😉

my family on my dad’s side originated in Hampshire

but go back a few more generations and you’re talking about dozens and dozens of sets of ancestors, so you’re really talking nonsense by focusing on one particular tiny strand that happens gives you some sort of a thrill