How British are you?

crispybug2

Following on from the EU referendum and an "interesting" discussion with my nakedly racist neighbour, with all this talk of getting "our country back" how British actually are we? More pertinently.... How British are you??


From my immediate family history, on my dad's side we have Ukrainian refugees from the Russian Revolution and on my mum's side there are French, Dutch and Armenian descendants, which begs the question, when "our country" is taken back where will I be deported to?

sungod

britain has always been a melting pot, the ignorant, nutters and bigots don't care about that, for them things were once better, then 'they' came, now things are worse, it's much easier than confronting their own failings

anyway, back on topic...

hopping back to the grandparents, 50% scottish, 25% english, 25% polish, the latter having managed to get out before the nazis got to them

FatTed

Grandparents:- 25% French, 50% English, 25% Irish

rolf_f

Fathers side - pretty definitely English as far as male line goes (which, of course, means nothing whatsoever!).
Mothers side - mother German, grandfather German, grandmother Polish.

So pretty European really.

Anonymous

Rolf F wrote:

Fathers side - pretty definitely English as far as male line goes (which, of course, means nothing whatsoever!).
Mothers side - mother German, grandfather German, grandmother Polish.

So pretty European really.

You're practically royalty by the sounds of it. Do you have any plans to marry your cousin?

veronese68

Born in Italy of an Italian mother and English father and have always considered myself to be both. The Italians call me English and the English call me Italian. Having lived here since I was two I generally considered myself more English than Italian, or at least I did. I've never had an Italian passport as I had never felt the need before now.
The saddest thing to come out of all this is that some racist fools seems to think it gives them carte blanche to abuse foreigners.

ddraver

100% British I suppose, My mother's side of the family is Welsh but i try to keep that quiet. Father's side is all british as far as I know and my surname is Manx

I don't actually live there however...

seanoconn

50% Irish, 35% English, 15% Portugese royalty with Polish parents in law

Alex99

Britishness means a mixture as far as I'm concerned. So, I'm 100% British. I'm also European.

Unfotunately, there are a very significant, possibly a majority, that also consider themselves to be truly British, that I don't identify with, and that hold values that I see as non-British.

bompington

Alex99 wrote:

Britishness means a mixture as far as I'm concerned. So, I'm 100% British. I'm also European.

Unfotunately, there are a very significant, possibly a majority, that also consider themselves to be truly British, that I don't identify with, and that hold values that I see as non-British.

Part of being British is surely the freedom to be un-British?

rolf_f

Maglia Rosa wrote:

Rolf F wrote:

Fathers side - pretty definitely English as far as male line goes (which, of course, means nothing whatsoever!).
Mothers side - mother German, grandfather German, grandmother Polish.

So pretty European really.

You're practically royalty by the sounds of it. Do you have any plans to marry your cousin?

No, but only because I don't have any cousins.

4kicks

I am, or at least I feel, significantly less British after referendum.

Alex99

bompington wrote:

Alex99 wrote:

Britishness means a mixture as far as I'm concerned. So, I'm 100% British. I'm also European.

Unfotunately, there are a very significant, possibly a majority, that also consider themselves to be truly British, that I don't identify with, and that hold values that I see as non-British.

Part of being British is surely the freedom to be un-British?

No, I don't think so. I see Britishness as (or maybe want Britishness to be) tollerant, secular and multicultural. People can go ahead and not have those values, but to me that is un-British.

It's just my view of what I think Britain should be like. Some people have said they feel "less British" after last Friday's result. I have a feeling, which I think is the same thing, but I don't feel like I have changed, rather a chunk of the UK has.

pblakeney

Alex99 wrote:

No, I don't think so. I see Britishness as (or maybe want Britishness to be) tollerant, secular and multicultural. People can go ahead and not have those values, but to me that is un-British.

Strangely, I have always had the opposite opinion of the majority.
As such, the result shouldn't have come as a surprise, but it came as a shock. 100% British.

Pross

Fully Welsh as far back as I've managed to check (only 3 generations).

bobmcstuff

Scotland via Northern Ireland on my dad's side (Scotland was about 200 years ago mind). Norman and Anglo Saxon on my mum's side - think they're home counties through and through.

So far have lived in Bristol, Durham, Manchester and Aberdeen (and spent substantial amounts of time elsewhere in Scotland), so consider myself very British (and European).

DeVlaeminck

English on my dad's side, Scottish on my mum's side but born and grew up in England and lived most of my life in England apart from some shortish periods living abroad.

I don't think of myself as particularly patriotic though I must have an attachment because if I think my home town, county or country are being unfairly criticised I will take offence.

lakesluddite

As far as I've looked (or been told), both parents lineage is hewn from the West Yorkshire soil, so...

100% English. 100% British. 100% European. Not necessarily in that order.

Oh, and 100% against Brexit.

bompington

Well, I do have at least one Huguenot ancestor (French protestants fleeing persecution in the 17th-18th centuries) so there has to be a possibility that someone wants to send me back.
Apart from that there's the usual mishmash of Welsh (my name is Owen, family left Wales for London in late 19th century), Scottish, and English. And I've married into Irish as well...
The bit of ancestry that pleases me the most is that one of my great-grandmothers came from Broughty Ferry - basically a posh suburb of Dundee where all the Jute barons lived (Jute sacking was a huge industry in Dundee). When I moved to Dundee my Dad was surprised to discover that Broughty Ferry was actually in Dundee - his Gran had always told him that she came from "Broughty Ferry, near Perth": Perth being a much posher county town 20 miles away.
The family house was a rather nice mansion, but we seem to have come down in the world a bit since then.

veronese68

bompington wrote:

When I moved to Dundee my Dad was surprised to discover that Broughty Ferry was actually in Dundee - his Gran had always told him that she came from "Broughty Ferry, near Perth": Perth being a much posher county town 20 miles away.

Was your great grandmother an estate agent?

bompington

Veronese68 wrote:

bompington wrote:

When I moved to Dundee my Dad was surprised to discover that Broughty Ferry was actually in Dundee - his Gran had always told him that she came from "Broughty Ferry, near Perth": Perth being a much posher county town 20 miles away.

Was your great grandmother an estate agent?

No, a Victorian. There are vague tales in the family that she "married beneath her station", so she may have been a bit sensitive on that score...

veronese68

bompington wrote:

No, a Victorian. There are vague tales in the family that she "married beneath her station", so she may have been a bit sensitive on that score...

That would explain it. That was probably more frowned upon then than being an estate agent is nowadays.
I really hope you're not an estate agent. :oops:

pottssteve

"Britishness" is a state of mind...

prhymeate

100%, English parents, Welsh grandparents and Scottish great grandparents. Given the way the referendum went, I unfortunately have no options for dual citizenship anywhere. What being British means, beyond ancestry, I'm not really sure.

florerider

Prhymeate wrote:

What being British means, beyond ancestry, I'm not really sure.

irony in a protest vote against government, led on by a multi millionaire ex City broker Euro MP?

pinno

Oh ma boab, I might be related to Bompington. Grandmother (Mor Mor if you're Scandinavian - makes a sense: Mother's Mother) was French Huguenot. Grandfather (Mor Far: My Mothers father) was a dodgy bloke from Dublin.
Far Far (should have worked this Scandinavian Grandparent system out by now) was Welsh and Far Mor was as cockney as Chas and Dave. Me: (Mor sonn) born in Kenya.
Right mongrel me.

verylonglegs

I think both sides of my parents go back to north west Scotland, around 1800 I think, not sure before that. One of my Dad's sisters does actually have a very detailed family tree she has researched but I've not seen it to see how far it goes back and to where.

Britishness by the way..if you don't like cricket then don't even pretend you know what it means

orraloon

Both parents were from NE Scotland, and we have tracked the families back into the 1700s, none of them strayed from Banffshire / Aberdeenshire.

So is somewhat odd when my daughter worked for a spell after university in a DNA testing company and we ran some samples; my genetic markers revealed 7-10% genes typical of Vietnam, S E Asia more generally.

So what is nationality? As the saying goes, we're a' Jock Tamson's bairns (look it up)

Garry H

Welsh, as far back as I can go. Original Britons!

Lived in Scotland for over twenty years and married an Irish.

sniper68

Welsh(Grand parents) and Scottish(great grand parents) on my mothers side.English(Grand parents) and German/Polish(Great Grand parents)on my dads side.
I'm a born and bred Yorkshireman.
So I consider myself to be a European,British Yorkshireman 8)

Anonymous

Scottish father, English Mother. Some Irish going back a few generations. Go back far enough im sure there is plenty or Saxon, Dane, Norman, Roman, Norse, Angle, Jutes and Picts.

Bloody foreigners huh?