My grandfather came over from Germany to get out of Hitler's sights apparently, he was a rather outspoken opposer at the time. Ended up teaching English and German at Sheffield Poly.
Quite ironic that I turned out to be a Nazi. Apparently...
Born and raised in England to English parents. Ancestry DNA test suggest I'm 55% Scottish and 14% Irish, though I'm yet to find any Scottish/Irish ancestors. This is sort of backed up by my mother's maiden name - Magee
However, FamilySearch has my tree filled in (by assumption or other contributions) way back to around 800AD, when my 40-odd X great grandfather was Norwegian, which would explain my urge to pillage 😉
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
And yet you mock their accent.
You're Russ Abbot and I claim my 5 poonds!
Ancestry DNA test suggest I'm 55% Scottish and 14% Irish
Its worth noting that these are rather flawed. Their suggestion is based on current location/samples(I think isolated to just their users but I am not sure). So it doesnt really handle recent population movements (bit ironic given what triggered kilo to start this thread). I rewrote this a couple of times since I am really undecided. What is the most likely scenario for someone checking their DNA. Do they want to prove their "heritage" or are because they arent sure of it? Answers on a postcard since I have no idea which one would win out or indeed something else.
nickc comments on some if you trace a few generations back there is relatively good statistically argument for it going back further but its those few generations and all the exceptions eg if you bounced into one of the "new" urban areas.
We could go back 4000 years to the Amesbury archer found in the Stonehenge landscape but, whoops, isotope analysis shows them to be a johnny foreigner coming over here and chatting up our women whilst flashing his bronze knives.
I'm English both sides for at least 200 years.
Do I get a badge?
Nope. But you're eligible for a tattoo or two.
I am as native as finding a durian tree in Northumberland.
I was born in England of an English dad and German mum (they married in the aftermath of WWII). I've spent all my life living in England and occasionally visited Germany on holiday where I feel very much at home too. So I'm European.
worked in genetics for a while (cancer stuff not geneology) also worked on genomicsu englsnd 100,000 genomes project
anyway even if you think your family history ties you to a specific region ....
about 1 in 10 families that weve looked at in linkage studies had at least 1 kid whos parent(s) werent who they thought they were
so even if you think your parents and grandparents etc are British or whatever, theres a reasonable chance that one of them might not be who you think they are
ultimately its all nonsense, something that defines us as human is our ability to shag absolutely anyone, theres enough evidence of us mating with other species: denisovans, Neanderthals and at least one other unknown species evident in our DNA to prove that
and thats a strength, the deeper your gene pool the more likely you are to have acquired a wider range of traits especially things like immunity, compared to more inbred populations risking genetic diseases , being proud of your inbrededness seems daft
for me, my mums mum from Glasgow, her dad from Portsmouth, my dads dad was a cockney with irish roots, his wife half chinese half londoner and my genetic data echoes that: saxon, celt and a bit of han chinese (but I 100% echo the comments above about genetics companies being very unreliable with geneology stuff, you can make it spit out whatever you like with some very tiny changes to parameters) - i also have relatively high neanderthal % which makes me more original British than some others as Neanderthals were here first!! bloody immigrants arriving in small boats walking through doggerland as the glaciers retreated
whats cool is that i have the genetic data on my hard drive
original British than some others as Neanderthals
You may want to go and read that link I put on the previous page which suggests that Homo antecessor arrived 950,000 years ago. We're literally all incomers!
As an immigrant in another country I think about this kind of thing a fair bit. I've spent almost half my life outside the UK. A friend asked me last year whether I consider myself British or Australian now. It's complex for me because as time passes i've definitely lost affinity with certain aspects of 'Britishness', but I wouldn't say I felt Australian exactly.
Maybe family history is partly responsible.
Grandfathers were English - traced back to 1500s AFAIK. But (to reverse the narrative) they both went overseas and stole their women!
Grandmothers were German and ethnic Armenian.
The Armenian grandmother was born in Sudan and lived there and in Egypt until she met a RAF chap in WW2 and was granted British citizenship. Then they married and she moved to England after the war to be shunned by the rest of her husband's family as she was "an African". She actually had no official citizenship until then because her parents had arrived as refugees from the Armenian genocide in Turkey. My great grandmother was one of (presumably) very few people that were smuggled out of Trabzon by Christian missionaries when the rest of the Armenians were killed. Great grandfather was also Armenian and escaped from another part of Turkey. Very little information about their background was passed down by my grandmother or great aunt (who moved to Italy), I suspect it was traumatic being children of genocide survivors who lost all their relatives.
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.
Define ‘native’. Seeing as the first ‘natives’ of these islands after the last ice age 35,000 years ago were Neanderthals, followed by a succession of peoples from what is now Europe, among them the first farming communities from the Anatolian area around the Mediterranean, what is now Türkiye, followed by a wide range of Neolithic peoples, then later waves of arrivals over hundreds of years, I’d be very interested indeed in discovering exactly who the ‘native’ people are. Even in the area of Wiltshire I live in there were Anglo-Saxons, Scandinavian Vikings, Romans, a whole mishmash of invaders, many of whom settled over the last 1-2000 years.
I’d like to know who the minorities are. Enlighten me.
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.
What’s ‘made up’ about the Channel Islands? They’ve been occupied for centuries, if not millennia, a remainder of the original land bridge between Britain and Europe, precisely the reason that Cornwall and Britanny share a common language, and where Britain gets its name from, and the various tribes that made up the pre-Saxon occupiers, the Britons, often referred to as Celts, get their names from.
The Channel Islands are just as important as any other region of Britain, including the Isle of Man, which, like Cornwall, Wales, Scotland and Eire, share variations on an original language.
We can play this game all night, as to who is a ‘native’. There is one individual who probably lays claim that trumps everyone else’s on here, he’s a school teacher in Cheddar, Somerset, who shares his DNA with a Neolithic individual who’s skeleton was discovered in the caves there, so a direct link going back several thousand years.
I'm English both sides for at least 200 years.
Do I get a badge?
Nope. But you're eligible for a tattoo or two.
I have a connection, on my dad’s side, through a lady called Annie Drake, who’s connected to Sir Francis Drake’s family, but he had eight brothers, a more recent connection is to John Drake, a Royal Marine, who served on eight navy ships, including HMS Victory, and a ship called the Birkenhead, which sank off of the South African coast, with the greatest loss of life at sea until the Titanic, which established the principle of Women and Children First, and which he survived.
My surname is probably Anglo-Saxon, hardly surprising, seeing as the first King of a unified kingdom of the Anglish, King Alfred the Great, had a hunting lodge in town, and was in residence when the Viking Great Heathen Army attacked at Christmas, driving him and his army into the Somerset Levels.
I think I’ve got a good claim to being a native… 😏
Oh, and I’ve got a tattoo or two, well, thirty-odd, but who’s counting…
Why do you say the Channel Islands are made up? Are the people there not allowed to say they are British? What about places like Shetland etc? Are they made up too? 🤷🏽♂️
Can get about 200 years back on Ancestry.com. Mainly London, Essex and Suffolk based.
Why do you say the Channel Islands are made up? Are the people there not allowed to say they are British? What about places like Shetland etc? Are they made up too?
Everyone knows the Channel Islands were developed by t.v producers as a vehicle to promote John Nettles (pre his Midsomer role) via the medium of Jim Bergerac, as such they are outside the scope of this highly scientific exercise. Shetland proved to be a less enduring t.v detective show ( no fighting, lots of moody staring off into the distance, etc doomed it to failure in this regard) so is allowable.
Define ‘native’. Seeing as the first ‘natives’ of these islands after the last ice age 35,000 years ago were Neanderthals,
So Reform voters really are true natives? Who knew?
What is the most likely scenario for someone checking their DNA. Do they want to prove their "heritage" or are because they arent sure of it?
in my case my mum was curious and testing mine checks both paternal and maternal lines
just curiosity
Like so many in the North West of England my great-grandparents came over here when they ran out of spuds. The supermarkets here must have had better stock control, or something...
I'm one generation too late to qualify for an Irish passport, unfortunately. My mum got hers, post-Brexit
Sort of, both my mothers and fathers family can trace at least *someone* back 4 or 500 years, mostly London, Norfolk and there abouts until the end of the 18th century, then a bit of moving about, Manchester, Birmingham, bits of the south coast.
Unfortunately, between then and now we've added threads from Scotland (with *likely* Nordic roots due to surnames), Irish (but only traceable back to pre potato famine era), Belgian and French. Mostly added in the last 4 generations. So no idea if i'm a native or not, or even if i ever was...
And now i'm Swedish.
In Ireland its really referred to as the The Great Famine / The Great Hunger (An Gorta Mór). In a village near where my dad lived as a child 29 people were buried in one day.
Seeing as the first ‘natives’ of these islands after the last ice age 35,000 years ago were Neanderthals,
They weren't islands 35,000 ya. Plus the Paviland burial site remains is a similar age range, and that's HSS remains. It's likely that the two species co-existed.
In Ireland its really referred to as the The Great Famine / The Great Hunger (An Gorta Mór). In a village near where my dad lived as a child 29 people were buried in one day
You're allowed to joke about that genocide / ethnic cleansing - it was all just a misunderstanding, nothing to see. Yes a million starved to death and the population here has never returned to pre-famine levels but these things happen and it was literally ages ago.
Kilo demonstrating how I fail the native of the lands test 😄
Moved from Lancashire to Derbyshire last century. Definitely an immigrant in this southern land.
Half naturalised - I do say 'Ey Up' as a greeting. But no 'Mi Duck' after it. So not fully assimilated.
Similar here. I was born in Leicester, but have lived in Yorkshire longer.
Approx 16 years Leicester to 33 in Yorkshire, 1 year travelling the world. Am I allowed to call myself a Yorkshire man.....
Ancestry DNA test suggest I'm...
If you've done Ancestry DNA, you can export the file, and import it in to MyHeritage DNA for free. It is not possible the other way around.
When MyHeritage crunches the data, it will come up with significantly different ancestral regions. Saying you're 45% English or Scottish, when every direct ancestor you can find in the genealogical era is English is pretty normal.
Oh and probably a load more possible cousin matches.
For both, neither are right. They only give an opinion based on statistical matches of DNA segments, vs a pool of reference trees. And for the stuff like Thru Lines, treat all of that with a pinch of salt, just like other member trees. They can be anything from a fully cited tree with references made by a professional genealogist to someone who has clicked "yes" to every hint, and created a nonsense tree. I have both, I have informed cousins that they have published publicly viewable nonsense, and 5 years later it's still all there.
It can be handy to help break a brick wall, though, or to give more evidence to prove/disprove family lore about possible ethnic ancestry eg Indian, Native American, Slave trade etc.
Oh and make sure to check back with both sites every 6 months, as your ethnicity will change every time they update their database.
Yup, just had that conversation with some family members who were surprised how much their stats had changed between two sets of tests with the same company. I managed to change the conversation before they got onto the test kit they bought for me one Christmas and have never used (and never will).
I’m a total mish mash. Born in England. I have Jewish ancestry back to 1700’s, Ukrainian grandfather, Welsh and the usual for the London area connections to the old rural counties that surround London.
like a dog of the market in the 70’s
@politecameraaction ive moved moved my reply here
as its clogging up the government thread...
Just out of interest, does this kind of ethno-linguistic Darwinism also apply to Irish and Welsh language and culture that's at risk of extinguishment by English, Scottish Gaelic that's basically dead, all the aboriginal and indigenous peoples of the US, Canada, Russia, Brazil and Australia that have been overwhelmed by outsiders moving in, etc etc...? "Just STFU and roll with it?"
yes & no ..... a language changing is not the same as dying out, languages have to change as the world changes around them, they have to incorporate new words and phrases or they will die out, Gaelic needs a word for microwave, generative AI etc etc
Describing the idea that post war 'hyper-mobility' as the norm as a way to dismiss people's fears of mass immigration is generally wrong, and a bad argument. .
yes & no theses things happen in waves
spread of yamanya horse culture & the wheel, vikings, normans, European peopling of the americas, slave trade, windrush and the backwash from empire - we taught the world our language, told them how great we were and are surprised they came here?!
Speed of change and numbers of folks. The availability for average Joe to move about over long distances cheaply - either legally or economically is approx 100-150 years old, and post-war hyper-mobility - ie planes; is one to two generations max. This sort of movement of these numbers of Humans is unprecedented in our history outside of mass war or plague. Add to the fact that for the last 40 years; non-mobile groups - i.e. people born working and living in the area their families have come from haven't had a good deal from neo-liberal policies that has seen employment leave, and nothing replacing it, and have fallen behind in comparisons to people who have had the opportunity to go 'somewhere else' for education or work - for whom hyper-mobility is the norm. This isn't a right/left issue, it's a 'from here' and 'from nowhere' argument.
again not necessarily, the scots irish, Italian etc entering americas were largely drawn from the poorest escaping starvation & religious persecution (sound familiar)
more recently the ten pound pomnes, saw a million brits move down under
and mass war and plague are not that uncommon in our history! ots kind of a permafeature of humanity
Should we let in anyone who wants to come here? Or discriminate?
we already do discriminate based on things like income, need, skills shortages etc
skin colour is not the criteria we should use
and mass war and plague are not that uncommon in our history! ots kind of a permafeature of humanity
They're actually not. This is the point about historiography. Our written documentation is of wars religion, politics exploration, and so on- the interesting stuff. But this isn't 'everyone's experience' If you wrote the history of a Joe Blogs family starting in the early medieval period, it would be the story of generations of Joe's doing exactly the same thing that their father did, in the same place interspersed with periods of pressed conflict and disease, but those things aren't "permanent features".
gain not necessarily, the scots irish, Italian etc entering americas were largely drawn from the poorest escaping starvation & religious persecution (sound familiar)
The migration to the USA is largely the history of our very recent past from about the 1890, most US families know where their grandparents or great-grandparents came from for this reason. But it's still (compared to the entirety of Human existence) a relativity new phenomenon
Should ease of assimilation be a factor? If I was to move Australia it would be easy, I speak the language, our cultures are very similar, shared history etc. If I moved to Denmark it would be more difficult, I’d have to learn the language but the culture is still broadly similar. If I moved to Afghanistan it would be much more difficult, learn the language and a vastly different culture.
If I was to move Australia it would be easy, I speak the language, our cultures are very similar, shared history etc
And you’ve got an australian user name so that’ll help.
If I moved to Denmark it would be more difficult …but the culture is still broadly similar.
What is that based on? Why would Danish customs and culture be any more accessible?
If I moved to Afghanistan it would be much more difficult, learn the language and a vastly different culture.
Maybe you’d pick it up quicker if you were immersed in the country. Isn’t finnish one of the hardest languages to learn and they’re white - go figure?
If I was to move Australia it would be easy, I speak the language, our cultures are very similar, shared history etc.
My bet is that you only know the language and culture of the European colonisers, not the, what's the word now?... Natives!
If I moved to Afghanistan it would be much more difficult, learn the language and a vastly different culture.
Maybe you’d pick it up quicker if you were immersed in the country.
Agreed.
Would you also agree that if I moved to an area of Afghanistan where the vast majority of people were English, spoke English, had English shops, did English things it would make if vastly more difficult for me to integrate?
Would you also agree that if I moved to an area of Afghanistan where the vast majority of people were English, spoke English, had English shops, did English things it would make if vastly more difficult for me to integrate?
Well if that was the done thing you'd integrate perfectly in that area.
Tbh I'm not really that interested in your lowbrow race and culture wars mithering, I thought the hot air was being kept in the politics thread .
more recently the ten pound pomnes, saw a million brits move down underSweden lost around 1.3million to the US between 1830 and about 1900, peaking in the 1870s to 1890s after a few years of bad/failed crops. The country only had abut 2.5 million when it started...
