How english, welsh and Irish am I?

[LizzieW]

So going back to g.grandparents I'm definitely English, even if I'm a hybrid of many different counties.

Lizzie

[Jean McGurn]

I think basically unless you have a bloodline relative born outside the British Isles then maybe calling oneself 'British' covers all of Scotland/Ireland/Wales/England, not too sure if the Isle of Man, Scilly Isles and the Channel Isles come under British Isles or not.

Jean

and I'm pretty sure that no-one from Ireland would call themselves British

I thought that until the early part of the 20C  (can't remember the date) Ireland was part of Britain, most counties gaining indepence from the UK apart from those in  Ulster who wanted to stay. 

Jean

 

[shanew147]

The British Isles is a Geographic term, not a political one. Ireland was part of the United Kingdom until 1922. The full name for the U.K. before this was The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, after this date it became The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

Great Britain refers to England Scotland and Wales.

Even though my ancestors were born in (southern) Ireland when we  were part of the United Kingdom, they would be considered Irish not British.



Shane

[Blue70]

The Isle Of Man and Channel Islands are not part of the UK. I think they are Crown dependencies. They have their own governments but they have a special relationship with the UK so that in some ways they are treated like parts of the UK. For example the Isle Of Man has links with the North West Of England for such things as Health, Education and regional TV coverage.

The term British is frowned upon by some people in Britain they would rather be considered English, Welsh or Scottish. Likewise some people in Northern Ireland consider themselves to be both British and Irish. My Irish ancestors were all British Subjects because they came over in the 1800s when all of Ireland was part of the UK.

I have no idea of how my Irish ancestors thought of themselves they probably felt more Irish because Liverpool had a religious divide that meant Irish Catholics retained a strong sense of identity. One of my Welsh ancestors couldn't speak English so she must have felt like a foreigner. My Manx ancestors would have seen IOM as a nation in itself.

C   

[shanew147]

back to the original question about the origins of our ancestors - in my case mostly Irish, some English, and a small percentage Scottish. If I go back further there are surnames in Ireland of Normal origin involved, so possibly Norman/Welsh ancestors derived from around 1169 also..

According to DNA analysis, some male line connections with southern Europe / Iberian Peninsula .


Shane

[Blue70]

Most of my ancestors were from western Britain and Ireland so their roots may go back to the very ancient migrations from Iberia and North Africa rather than the later migrations.

C

[toni*]

my parents were born in Sussex as was i which would make me 1/2 Sussex and 1/2 Sussex or 1 whole Sussex however my grandparents were born in Cornwall, Sussex, Ukraine and Leicester so i would then be a 1/4 of each of these
my partner was born in Sussex but his parents in Leicester and Sussex so he would be 1/2 of these going further back he has Irish Leicester Yorkshire and Sussex so 1/4 of these
its so confusing i cant go back further than this

i guess i had 8 gt grandparents and would i be 1/8 of their birth place?

my children gt grandparents are obviously mr and my partners grandparents so would they then be 1/8 cornwall 1/8 ukraine 2/8 leicester 2/8 sussex 1/8 irish and 1/8 yorkshire ?

 

[Annie65115]

I have a tissue type which originates in eastern Turkey. I'd guess that somewhere in the mists of time, an ancestor travelled the silk route.

However, I am not in the least Turkish, and if you could see me, you'd definitely think me a bog-standard-issue anglo-celt mongrel type! The only thing is that despite having blue eyes and reddish hair, I have a yellow skin tone (rather than pink) and don't burn easily in the sun!

Now my dad would, if pushed, admit that his grandmother was Welsh. In fact, I now know that although she was born in Wales, her parents moved back and forth a few miles across the border; only one of her parents was born in Wales; and the whole family left Wales when she was tiny and never went back. So was she really Welsh?

Another 2xgt-grandmother was born in Scotland, but only because the family had moved there for work temporarily. I don't think that she was Scottish, she was just born there.

My Irish - born ancestor may have been descended from Scottish prostestants who moved there decades before he was born - and who knows where they had come from originally?

When all's said and done, I don't consider myself a constituent of the ethnicities/birthplaces of my ancestors. Their stories are interesting (to me!) -  the social history of why people moved is interesting on a wider scale - but I come from where I was born, not from where they were born.

I would love to find out about the silk route traveller though!

[nickgc]

When all's said and done, I don't consider myself a constituent of the ethnicities/birthplaces of my ancestors. Their stories are interesting (to me!) -  the social history of why people moved is interesting on a wider scale - but I come from where I was born, not from where they were born.

Bravo!  Well said.

Nick