Given concerns listed in the UK gov thread perhaps we should establish who is one of the native people of this land becoming a minority.
This land, is for the purposes of this thread, England, Wales and Scotland, people from made up places such as The Channel Islands need not apply.
For me I'm born in England, of immigrants and therefore not native.
Born and raised in England to English parents, live in Scotland, other half is Welsh. About as British as it possible to be.
How far back do you you want to go though? According to a man my dad met in a pub my surname indicates Viking origins🤷 Assuming no illegitimate offspring in the last millennium and a half of our family of course
My very distant ancestors, along with all modern humans, were from in and around the rift valley, although maybe a small percentage of Neanderthal DNA in there too
How far back do you you want to go though?
This is just chatting as it's a pointless question in reality. I'm happy with how you feel rather than detailed genealogy.
This thread is like going back to the '70's with the jokes about there was this English man, Scotsman etc
I'm guessing no Northern Ireland in this UK and why always the English was always mentioned first rather than the leeky Welsh for a change
How many generations back do both parents (x2) have to go (and thus grandparents x4, great grandparents x8 etc) ALL born in UK to be native?
My maternal grandparents were born in Ireland. So, if I do get kicked out, at least I can get an Irish passport.
If you can't provide a fully documented family tree back to approximately the mesolithic era, with citations, then anyone resident in the British Isles is 100% of immigrant descent imho.
English with a Welsh Mum and English Dad married to an English Wife with a Welsh Dad and an Irish Mum - She (my wife) has an Irish Passport though because it make travelling easier.
For me I'm born in England
By some definitions that makes you a native, given that the word's Latin root means "to be born". It's a pointless argument as those who are trying to make capital from this will bandy words around without ever making a clear definition of what they mean by "native". Hint - it's probably exactly the opposite of what the stiff upper lip crowd used the word for in the days of empire.
How many generations back do both parents (x2) have to go
As I said it's a pointless question in reality. I'm happy with how you feel rather than detailed genealogy.
My maternal grandparents were born in Ireland. So, if I do get kicked out, at least I can get an Irish passport.
So do you feel native of this land or not?
This is just chatting as it's a pointless question in reality. I'm happy with how you feel rather than detailed genealogy.
Based on this im very native. Both parents and grandparents born in UK but on my mothers side before that all Irish. But the whole idea of native lineage rather than just born in UK falls apart very quickly as there is no hard rule on how far back you go before a non UK born ancestor appears in anyones mix.
If I go back far enough I'm from Africa.
Rift valley-ish.
England, Wales and Scotland, people from made up places such as The Channel Islands need not apply.
I deffo am, but my kids defo aren't....
I was born in Scotland and have lived here all my life. However my parents moved up here from England a few years before my brother and I were born and for some up here that prevented me from being Scottish. Ironically when my mum started researching our genealogy a few years back she discovered that my dad's family had roots in Scotland about 30 miles from where I grew up and they still live.
Dunno!
I'm adopted but my birth place is down as a small town in Nottinghamshire. And I have a British passport.
No idea of my birth parents origin! 🤷♂️
Are any of us actually natives?
I suspect that most Americans today would consider themselves native to the US, though the Native Americans might have an objection.
I suspect that most Americans today would consider themselves native to the US
So do you consider yourself native of Wales, Scotland or England then?
Are any of us actually natives?
Adrian Targett has a pretty good claim. Matrilineal DNA back to Cheddar man (7000bc ish).
I consider myself a native of this land. Given the choice I would probably rather have been a native of another land though.
born in England, parents english of welsh heritage and welsh, I live in Scotland.
family moved to Staffordshire from Normandy sometime in the 11th century. 😉
My maternal grandparents were born in Ireland. So, if I do get kicked out, at least I can get an Irish passport.
If I could get an Irish passport I'd be bang onto it right now. Sadly I don't qualify as my grandmother's grandmother came over from Cork, other than that then I've no real clue, I assume all my ancestors are from more or less the same area or north west England
I don't care enough to check.
Adrian Targett has a pretty good claim. Matrilineal DNA back to Cheddar man (7000bc ish).
People of Somerset mostly share the same DNA shocker! 😉
I am british of english descent and Scotland is my home. I am one of the people of Scotland but no0t one of the scots people
If you live in a country, make it your home then you are one of the people of that country.
My DNA has a lot of Sami in it apparently. I also have a german great great grandfather
the only thing that matters is where you call home
I was born in England and so was MrsL. We live in Wales and both kids were born here and both think they are Welsh 🤢
Makes me sad on a daily basis (except for one weekend every early Spring 😀)
Only read a couple of posts but just came on here to say (boast) that I just got an Irish passport. Ha! In your face, Brexit!
Have to say they made it a lot more onerous than last time I got one (which I foolishly let lapse). Suppose that's unsurprising given that there has been a big increase in applications in recent years.
Bit of Irish in my mum's side. Dad's side, our surname is very much local to Staffs and Cheshire ! Dating back to 1086.
MrsF however, her mum was from German descent, her dad French descent, with some English chucked in. MIL wasn't keen of 'foreigners' (her maiden name was of German descent)... Got to laugh.
We can go back 5 generations before finding anything other than English ancestry but then we also discovered our that our 6x gt grandfather is also our 5x gt grandfather - you've got about 64 ancestors by that point so not a problem, or at most 63 in our case 😄
@lister, would you care to expand your post re: emojis please?
Hi @ambrose : my post is probably missing a tongue-in-cheek emoji after the green one. And a rugby ball after the smile.
Was supposed to be more light-hearted than it probably came across. I love Wales and am proud of my kids...
Massimo d'Azeglio - L'Italia e fatta. Restano da fare gli Italiani (We have made Italy. Now we need to make Italians).
I see English as an ethnicity and British as a civic identity.
If my wife and I who are both English moved to China and had a child, that child would be English. We could all become Chinese citizens with Chinese passports but we still wouldn’t be ethnically Chinese.
Non of that really matters that much. What we’re really talking about is mass migration, multiculturalism, identity, culture, integration, assimilation etc.
In my opinion the multicultural experiment has completely failed and it was always going too. I think a multi ethnic society could work but that’s not the same thing.
I was born here, my Mum was born in Ireland, Dad in England.
Does that make me a 'native', I neither know nor care, tribalism ain't for me.
I'd say I'm native enough. My uncle traced his (and therefore my mother's) family right back to the Norse settlers (so 1000 ish years) and while we don't know on my Fathers side our surname dates from about 1300 AD so it's likely that his side of the family has also been here for a while! My wife is another story though! 1/2 English, 1/2 Dutch ,French stepdad, Born In India. She has family in France, Netherlands, Sweden, Germany,Canada, USA, Malaysia, Maldives,India. Not sure what this makes our kids!
I see English as an ethnicity and British as a civic identity.
english can also be a civic identity as can Scottish - or if you want more accuracy "part of the people of england" ( or Scotland) IMO
We are all a nation of immigrants - very few of the first arrivals on these islands are left as a distinct ethnic group. Successive groups of immigrants have arrived on these shores. How long does your family have to have been here for you to be ethnically english or Scots or welsh?? Anglo Saxon for goodness sake - thats danish and german. Our royal family is german
Do your DNA - on my fathers side I am the usual british mix of Danish, german and and French. On my mothers side there is this weird Sami link.
Mostly. I think I'm something like 3/8 Irish on my mother's side and 1/32 French on my father's, but born and raised on the east coast. Of course, I'm now a totally non-native invandare in Sweden, so...
I'd say I'm native enough. My uncle traced his (and therefore my mother's) family right back to the Norse settlers (so 1000 ish years)
Incomer! 🙂
Old man's family are from around Doncaster.
My mum's from East Anglia with Scottish roots (there's a statue of my great great great great great grandad on Prince's Street in Edinburgh).
I escaped the island age 24.
I'm English both sides for at least 200 years.
Do I get a badge?
Im 3 of 4.
Great grandparents are Irish. In fact our surname originated from there(DNA test gave 100% Irish) Grandparents and parents were born in Scotland.
I was born in a little village in Bedfordshire - Hence 3 of 4.
Given concerns listed in the UK gov thread perhaps we should establish who is one of the native people of this land becoming a minority.
the actual ancient britons have almost disappeared. They are the nearest we have to a native population. Most of the rest of us are incomers of various sorts over varying periods of time. Anglo Saxons most of us. Immigrants. some Normans as well. Immigrants
No blood that is not Irish as far as I can find.
Over time I discovered that my ancestry is entirely Irish — no Great Britain heritage at all. My cousins on my father’s side took part in a Trinity College study on Rh‑negative blood types, and the results were fascinating. Rh‑negative appears to have originated from a mutation roughly 30,000–35,000 years ago, with particularly high prevalence in certain European regions, including Ireland and areas with Basque ancestry.
So rather than being shaped by later migrations, it seems my family line may trace back to some of the oldest populations in this part of the world.
Of course we're all from somewhere else back in time.
I was born in Worcester, parents Welsh, my brother was born in Wellington NZ, my parents moved back before I was born after they worked out in NZ for a bit, was my brother and immigrant, were my parents. My brother moved to NZ when he was about 20, was he an immigrant then or not? It's very confusing isn't it.
I am confident however that as I am white Rupert Lowe will not try to report me when he is king
I'm British (English+Scots) far back enough to be considered native, but as I live abroad now with no intention of moving back I'm very happy to give my spot to someone else!
A bit of a mixed bag as I'm English born, as were my parents, my grandparents are 2 x English, 1 X Indian, 1 x Polish.
Lived in Scotland (22 years total), England (28 years), Wales (6 months)
Born in India and registered to the British High Commission one month later, and they got my birthday wrong.
If I follow the surname of my parents:
England born parents.
Grandparents 3 England and 1 Welsh born.
Great Grandparents: Schull in southern Ireland and a few places in Nottinghamshire.
Great great grandparents: Southern Ireland Baltimore and Bantry, or other side of family is Caithness and Nottinghamshire (the surname on very earliest record we can find has the Danish spelling....)
So Celtic bred..so nah, not a local.
So do you consider yourself native of Wales, Scotland or England then?
Not really.
I'm variously European, British, English, Lancastrian, Accringtonian, Fern Gore-ian depending on how granular you want to go. I was born here as was every family member as far back as I'm aware. But to my mind at least, "native" implies a degree of indigenousness which would be difficult to define or justify.
It's also a racially loaded question, especially in the current climate. Are people whose family from grandparents down were all born here but their great-grandparents born in ****stan considered "native"? How far back do we need to go?
Is the question “am I”, or “do I consider myself” a native?
Neither answer really matters when it is someone else that will make the judgement based on their own criteria.
In my opinion the multicultural experiment has completely failed and it was always going too. I think a multi ethnic society could work but that’s not the same thing.
Go to London, report back.
Multiculturalism works just fine when it's exactly that. Where it falls apart is when you have "us and them."
I would be interested to hear where you live and what your experience of multiculturalism is which formed your opinion.
I've often wondered why "we"feel we lost in 1066 when in reality "we" probably won.
I did some studies on this in my degree (paleo-anthropology - You should read my thesis on the evolution of dentition in Australopithecine and Paranthropus subspecies, its a real page turner) ...Anyway mostly if you're white/British you can trace 4 generations back (Great-great grandparents) from you and all the living relatives live within about a 25-45 mile radius, it's statistically more likely that your entire ancestry going back to roughly the early medieval period have lived there. This is the case for 'most' of the UK population. Some people can push back even further, and have DNA common with Romano-British, and there's technology now that can trace you to the bell beaker people. However, we're none of us descended from the early HG groups that were displaced by the Bell-beaker people, (roughly c.10000YA) so we're all immigrants. Personally: Irish, Scots and Anglo-****stani.
Depends on who is asking and their reasons for asking, I guess. In the not-so-distant past, the ancestry of a certain country was studied in great depth by those wanting a more "pure" ethnic state.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/feb/18/nazi-letters-paper-restorers-holocaust-research
I also want to add: day 1 of university I met a girl and we got chatting. Turns out I was born in India and lived in village X for 6 years and am white. She was born in London to Indian heritage parents, moved back to India when 6 months old and lived there for 2 years in village Y which was across the fields from where I was at the same time. We had literally spent our early years within shouting distance of each other. I qualify for dual nationality, we did not think that she did as it was her grandparents who moved to the UK and she was born here (knowing India, these rules on nationality have changed again...)
Yet as someone of colour, she faces all sorts of questions about her heritage. I as a white person never do. Yet she would argue other than skin colour I have more claim to being 'Indian' in some ways....
Of my eight great grandparents five were born abroad-two in Italy, two in what is now the Irish republic and one in Germany. My paternal Grandfather came from a village on the Hampshire/ West Sussex border and my sister in law has traced is family back at lest 250 years in the same village. So I guess I am a bit native.
I've often wondered why "we"feel we lost in 1066 when in reality "we" probably won.
In what way? The numbers who came over as part of the Norman conquest was very low comparatively and whilst plenty who have been in the UK for years would have some Norman ancestry it would mostly be outweighed by those who suffered.
Hence the selective impact on the English language mostly at the elite level.
Father: Indian, Born in Karachi, ****stan. A naturalised British citizen, serving in the British Army at the time of my arrival into the world.
Mother: White, English southern lass from Plymouth.
Me: Born in Germany, a BAOR hospital. Went on to serve 24 years in the British Army myself.
Due to global travel as a child then my subsequent service I've considered myself British. Mixed race, so tick the 'White/Asian's box on forms, census etc.
So, yeah, I'm native. Just a funny shade.
My great grandmother was from Guyana, descended from slaves from Mali (according to my DNA), she married a Scotsman. My mother is from Yorkshire, although I grew up in Scotland. I was born in England and grew up in Scotland. Having lived and worked in England for 33 years, I am now living back in Scotland. Mrs DB is from Kent. We both consider ourselves Scottish.
I see English as an ethnicity and British as a civic identity.
If my wife and I who are both English moved to China and had a child, that child would be English. We could all become Chinese citizens with Chinese passports but we still wouldn’t be ethnically Chinese.
Non of that really matters that much. What we’re really talking about is mass migration, multiculturalism, identity, culture, integration, assimilation etc.
In my opinion the multicultural experiment has completely failed and it was always going too. I think a multi ethnic society could work but that’s not the same thing.
Thanks for your explanation. I'm seeing and experiencing something similar on a much more local level here in the Scottish Highlands and Islands where and it's a difficult balance between "incomers" keeping the place alive but, at the same time, replacing culture and tradition.
I can certainly claim an almost complete 5 consecutive generations all born in England. Just 1 great-great-grandmother born in Ireland (whose father was born in England, and in army, sent to Ireland). All fully documented with citations.
Probably makes me more English and more British than the average "sport are troops" "muslamic rayguns" bunch.
If anyone asks, I just say "European", which is probably pretty accurate, and probably covers nearly every direct ancestor for the last 1000 years or so.
I've often wondered why "we"feel we lost in 1066 when in reality "we" probably won.
The Black Death has had more of a lasting impact on our ancestry than 1066
Born in Kenya, British parents serving abroad, so I have a British passport and I'm "native" at least 4 generations back.
That might not protect me from a Reform ICE campaign.
I always think that being a native of a given place means that you were born there. My daughter is a native Bolivian… but she has other identities. I also feel that my ancestry is only relevant in a sentimental and personal way. I live somewhere where people are continually referencing how locally based their ancestry is… they do it to secure their entitlement and legitimacy and get one up on others. As it happens I have loads of ancestors from within a few miles of where I live now… but I don’t feel that I should use that fact to make my opinion on anything seem more legitimate, however tempting it may be to do so, especially when one appears to be losing an argument;-)
My mother was from Doncaster but I think her parents moved there from Wales. Father was born in Scotland but an army kid so moved about. His mother was a McDougall so probably a big percentage of British ancestry.
Has anyone paid for one of those DNA tests where they claim to be able to detail your origins?
I was born in England so I’m native.
I agree with NBT though, if I had Irish grandparents I’d an Irish passport to make living and travelling to the EU abroad.
I’m a citizen of the world..
We both consider ourselves Scottish.
In Scotland we often hear the diaspora referred to - but not in England... 🤔
Says British on my passport. Said the same on my parents passports and so on back two more generations.
So I guess I'm as close to native as you get all things considered.
If asked I say I am British.
Got my DNA done a few years ago. 85% Scottish, 13% Irish and 2% Norwegian. My mum is into doing family tree stuff so we know where the Scottish/Irish comes from but have yet to discover any Norwegian connection. I am not in the UK now so am an immigrant myself.
5000 years. anyone arriving after that is an immigrant
You're out by a little this https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/the-making-of-an-island.html suggests the cut-off is 20,000 years!
Joanne Lumley was born in ****stan.Do we not consider her British?
No idea what's happened with the post above.I must have broken some rule or other.