To the English people here: Celtic or Anglo-Saxon bloodline?
I just need to ask you english people a question. Do you have Celtic or Anglo-Saxon bloodline?
I have heard that the Celts moved away to Wales when the Saxons came to England. The welsh and Irish are Celts while the English are Saxons. But I've heard that some English still have Celtic blood?
What about you?
It isn't that simple. You see, England has been invaded over the years by several different groups of people. You have the Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Danish Vikings, Romans, Celts, pre-Celtic tribes, Normans (French-Norse mixtures), and other later groups from Europe, Asia, and Africa. Therefore, most ethnic English people are descended from a mixture of these people. You should also keep in mind that most of the Celtic people of Ireland, Scotland, Wales, etc. are not purely Celtic, as they have a high percentage of ancestry from the original Germanic groups, Norse invaders, and other groups.
The English and the Irish don't have Celtic blood. The Celts originated in La Tène (East France) and spread across Europe whereas the the so called Celtic tribes which populated Ireland and Great Britain prior to the Anglo-Saxons historically came from Northern Spain. It's a lie that they were Celts.
A lot of people have mixed bloodlines, they probably don't even know this. One in twelve Europeans is descended from Charlemagne and nobility intermarried for obvious reasons. Think of how the British Royal Family is (shhhhh, German) and how Prince Prince is (shhhh, Greek)-yet both are descendants of Queen Victoria.
The Crown Prince of Spain is a descendant of Kaiser Wilhelm, believe it or not (through his mother).
Don't you think there is some celtic blood mixed in with English people?
Want to know for sure? Get a genetic test. You may find that your ancestry shows up a little differently than what you think it is. Of course you won't find all the clues.
I'm European, my parents are British and my Grandparents were English.
Prince Prince =Prince Philip
I thought that Prince was the prince of Spain, which would be really weird.
Queen Elizabeth's husband and the Crown Prince of Spain are both named "Philip", but we usually hear the Spanish version of it for the prince in Spain.
Since the term Celt does not refer to a race or necessarily to a genetic ethnicity there is probably no such thing as a “Celtic bloodline”. The term Celt refers to group of ancient tribes (over 100 have been identified) that had similar languages, life styles and religions.
In short “Celt” is a cultural term and not a genetic one.
These related tribes lived at one time or the other over most of Europe, including the Iberian peninsular. One of these tribes even populated parts of Anatolia (Paul wrote to these in the book of “Galatians” in the New Testament.) There is some evidence that the Celts may have ventured much further east than this too
http://resourcesforhistory.com/map.htm
I just read this book, and it sheds some light on this very subject, from a very scientific standpoint, using genetic comparison of large samples of the British population:
http://www.amazon.com/Saxons-Vikings-Celts-Genetic-Britain/dp/0393330753
It certainly answered a lot of questions and cleared up some things I'd been speculating about for a long time. Hope it will be helpful!
Scottish through and through - father from Perth (no! - not the Aussie one - the original!) and mother from Selkirk, a nice wee town in the Borders region of Southern Scotland. As far as I know my Scottish roots go back to time immemorial. As I am fair haired and blue eyed I must be Viking in my blood line. Maybe that's why I love raw rollmop herrings! They are mega healthy and good for you anyway.
The Gaelic Language has just never featured in my life, nor that of of my parents or grandparents or even further back I would reckon - in Edinburgh and the Lothians area you are far, far more likely to hear all of the European Languages being spoken on the streets than you would our native Gaelic tongue, although there is a hard core of Gaelic speaking enthusiasts in this region - but not all that many statistically speaking. Scots, though, is a different matter - it's prolific round here.
Welsh (thoroughly Celtic, and one of the world's oldest tongues) is a much better preserved and widely spoken Language in Wales than is Gaelic here in Scotland - here it is virtually confined to the western and northern fringes of Scotland, in the main. That is one of the reasons (there is another which is very significant for me personally) why I have enjoyed going down to Wales. You have the feeling that you are in a "foreign" country as soon as you cross the border from England, much more so than when crossing from England into Scotland. For one thing, all signs and road markings immediately become bi-lingual, and Welsh places names look decidedly more foreign, and you see them on the roadsigns and town/village nameplates as soon as you cross into Wales. If you look at a detailed OS map of the English/Welsh border area you will see that some of the Welsh placenames have sort of sneaked over the border into English territory, but only just. You can see placenames just inside Shropshire and Herefordshire (both in England and both thoroughly English counties in character for the most part) with very Welsh names - places beginning with "Llan" for example (this meaning a parish linked to a church - every placename beginning with a "Llan" invariably have a saint's name after it, as in Llanrwst - meaning the parish and church dedicated to St Crwst. Wales is absolutely burstng with "Llans" all over the Principality.
The further you travel westwards or northwestwards into Wales the more you will hear the Welsh Language being spoken, even by tiny tots in the kindergartens, which is sure testimony to the determination of the Welsh to keep their Language very much alive and thriving. Learning Welsh is compulsory in all schools in Wales up to a certain age, when students can then choose to continue to learn it or to drop it in favour of other subjects.
I enjoyed watching Welsh TV programs (on the S4C channel, particularly) - especially the news or the favourite Welsh "soap opera" - Pobol y Cwm, which literally means People of the Valley. Although I hadn't a clue what they were talking about it was fun to watch - and when people talk Welsh they seem to do so at about a thousand words a minute - much like the Italians! And sometimes just as passionately! By and large the Welsh are a very passionate and emotional people - much like the Italians, again!
Talking about Shropshire - the English county bordering onto Wales - most of the film "Atonement" was shot at Stokesay Court (the large mansion featured in the film) close to Ludlow, Shropshire, very close to the Welsh border.
DNA studies are beginning to show that the English are mostly
Brythonic (Celtic) in origin; no surprise to anyone who reads about
Boudicca of the Iceni and other tribes which stood up against the
Roman invasion, including the Welsh themselves.
The concept of alien Saxons spread across the English map is proving
to be unfounded. The Saxons came, but they managed to impose their
culture on everyone else, not their bloodlines, which probably only
affected the people in places like East Anglia. Same with the Vikings
in Yorkshire and the Danes in the Thames Valley. The Normans (that were mixed themselves) didn't marry into the people, only into the ruling classes.
Given that, you can see that to talk of the English as an Anglo-Saxon
race is a nonsense. The bulk of English people are Celts or pre-Celtic.
"There is a heavy Teutonic element (Anglo-Saxon, Jute, Dane, Norman French)"
The Normans themselves were not truly Germanic!
<<The Normans themselves were not truly Germanic! >>
Partly they are. Maybe for the most part they are...
When Rollo and his bands of northmen [germanic] sailed up the Seine, they encountered people of Gallo-Frankish stock (part Gallic [Gauls & perhaps some Roman], part Frankish [germanic]).
Rollo married a native, Poppa, who was of the house of (i.e. daughter of Count) Berenger [germanic], and sent their son William to Bayeux (Rouen) the Norman capital in order to learn the Norse language spoken there [germanic].
sounds pretty germanic to me...