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If you live where I live there is hardly anyone of British background. In this state people are of Irish or Italian extraction mostly. We were settled by the British but that was early on and those people moved west or a few (like my family stayed around) but there have been huge waves if immigrants.
I understand Utah has the highest concentration of English Americans. Aren't a lot of New Englanders descended from Irish, Italians and French and more recently Portuguese?
I understand Utah has the highest concentration of English Americans. Aren't a lot of New Englanders descended from Irish, Italians and French and more recently Portuguese?
Yes, New Englanders had a huge influx of Irish and Italians to work in the mills in the late 1800s but we're got at least one of everything, I think. We've got Portuguese fishermen, not too recently that I know of. We had Dutch back in the 1700s when they had colonies over here. We have Germans, we have French. We have a lot of French Canadians who came here to work in the mils. We have Polish people who worked in mills and on farms.
If you want to find people of English ancestry in New England you need to go up to New Hampshire, Vermont, and Maine where the early settlers migrated and stayed. They were far enough away from the ports of Boston and NY that they didn't get the influx of 19C immigrants. In the northern parts of those states people speak French because they are near Quebec (settled by the French, of course.)
All I can tell you is that a TON of UK residents have participated in the 23andme DNA testing program - and I just don't think they're strictly interested in the health information.
That doesn't mean that British people have the same degree of interest in their ancestry as Americans, or identify with their ancestry in the same vain that Americans do - because we don't. At all. Take it from a person who lives in the United Kingdom - British people do not identify themselves by their ancestral roots. There's no point. Simply wanting to know where your ancestors came from does not equate to being obsessed with your ancestors or whatever country they come from. For example, I'd be quite interested in knowing where my mother's side of the family comes from (my father's side comes from Jamaica) - it's likely to be Ireland or Scotland. However, I have no affiliation with either place, and certainly not Jamaica, and I can live without that information, since it isn't vital or necessary, and if I ever find out, it won't be part of my identity, and I won't go around telling people that I'm Irish or Irish-British - that would be ridiculous, and you'd get a lot of funny looks. Unless you were born elsewhere, you're either British or English/Welsh/(Northern)Irish/Scottish, and nothing else.
Last edited by dunno what to put here; 10-27-2013 at 02:59 PM..
The British have a huge interest in their ancestral heritage. Even if you simply judge it by the sheer number of family history fairs and your family history magazines. Go to a website called GENUKI if you want any more examples.
I don't think we have much to compare over here and I've never even heard of a family history fair in the US. A lot of people on both sides are members of Ancestry and I can tell you from personal experience that the English get just as excited at finding a new "cousin" as the Americans do.
What you don't have are the hyphenated (ancestries?) and that's probably because your families have been there for eons. Ours haven't. Many of us still remember. In the UK even if the immigrant is recent enough to remember they'd probably feel silly calling themselves by both nationalities because nobody else does.
Here, so many do it that it's not considered silly -- not to us anyway. We know what we mean.
What you don't have are the hyphenated (ancestries?) and that's probably because your families have been there for eons. Ours haven't. Many of us still remember. In the UK even if the immigrant is recent enough to remember they'd probably feel silly calling themselves by both nationalities because nobody else does.
Quite. That's the point I was making above - more or less.
I've yet to meet a person who is so interested that they'd consider telling me about their ancestry, or that they have recently discovered they are descendents of a Norse tribe, though. And if they did, I wouldn't be interested. It's certainly not something that crops up - at least, not amongst the people I know, but of course I realise my friends and acquaintances are not representative of everyone in Britain.
I have heard some people making statements such as 'my last name is Scandinavian!' in the past however.
I have really enjoyed finding out about my ancestors i am not obsessed with it but it has been quite enlightening. There is an Irish, Scottish and Jewish link but too far in the past to be anything other than that. I'd say it has become more popular to find out about your family due to the easy access of records, it used to cost a lot of money to do that.
Many Tasmanians go into it due to the many Convicts that were transported here, they love to tell everyone about there ancestral roots. I don't see anything wrong with that.
Yes, New Englanders had a huge influx of Irish and Italians to work in the mills in the late 1800s but we're got at least one of everything, I think. We've got Portuguese fishermen, not too recently that I know of. We had Dutch back in the 1700s when they had colonies over here. We have Germans, we have French. We have a lot of French Canadians who came here to work in the mils. We have Polish people who worked in mills and on farms.
If you want to find people of English ancestry in New England you need to go up to New Hampshire, Vermont, and Maine where the early settlers migrated and stayed. They were far enough away from the ports of Boston and NY that they didn't get the influx of 19C immigrants. In the northern parts of those states people speak French because they are near Quebec (settled by the French, of course.)
Quite. That's the point I was making above - more or less.
I've yet to meet a person who is so interested that they'd consider telling me about their ancestry, or that they have recently discovered they are descendents of a Norse tribe, though. And if they did, I wouldn't be interested. It's certainly not something that crops up - at least, not amongst the people I know, but of course I realise my friends and acquaintances are not representative of everyone in Britain.
I have heard some people making statements such as 'my last name is Scandinavian!' in the past however.
Well, in the 8 years I've lived in the UK, I've come across many people who talk about their ancestry. Granted, they don't talk about being descended from Norse tribes but that's because it's impossible to trace back that far without DNA. We're kind of talking about two different things here - the OP is talking about ancestry which can only be determined with DNA, which is not as popular in the UK as it is in the US. However, that does not mean traditional genealogy is not as popular.
The fact that you admittedly would not be interested if people talked to you about their ancestry is possibly a large part of why people don't talk to you about their ancestry.
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