General Chat

If anyone is wanting a good read over Christmas, I've just finished one called 'The British, A Genetic Journey' by Alastair Moffat. It's absolutely fascinating for anyone interested in our origins and actually explains what DNA is - first time I've ever actually understood it! It traces the roots of most of the British people back for thousands of years with some quite surprising discoveries so well worth reading.

Apparently over 60% of Yorkshire women ( like me ) have the purest DNA in the country ( Vikings etc ) but can only be passed down the maternal line. I always knew we were special!

I have the book too :-D

Thank you Susie. That’s another one to be added to my ever growing “To be read” list :-)

The term "British" was pretty well unknown in these islands until the C19. Given the Highland clearances, Culloden, the Orange Plantation and the Irish famine hardly surprising.

After the Act of Union 1801 abolishing the Irish Parliament being British had even less allure.

As the "Empire" expanded the English needed people to fight colonial wars for them. to have their children exported to "the colonies" and so being "British" was a convenient way to provide the manpower.

Taking the economic and political history off these islands and trying to tie it all together using some imposed Britishness in everybody's DNA is unreal.

All in it together.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNWoXlAZdkM

RTR, Have you read the book? I didn't think so.

I think you'll find the book is referring to the British people of today, tracing their roots back. I mean, we who live in England, Scotland, Wales and N Ireland are 'British' today, aren't we?

Try reading a synopsis:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/19075559-the-british

Waffling, and grabbing one word in order to attempt to put something down, when you don't know what you're waffling about is rather sad.

In fact the Cornish, in medieval times, still prided themselves on being descended from British ancestors, rather than Saxon ones - and being separate from England.

Probably not the 'Britain' we have now, as Brittany was referred to as Little Britain (as opposed to Great Britain, with which it shares an etymology), for centuries. Indeed, many of my 'Cornish' ancestors came from Brittany, which was a kingdom in it's own right, and not a part of France until 1532.

So, I think you'll find 'Britain' has been around a lot longer than just from the 19th century, but not in the way you view it, and not in your ancestry - but just because your ancestors weren't a part of it, it doesn't mean it didn't exist!

Thank you Maggie - I thought perhaps I'd just advertised my ignorance in taking such pleasure from a book! I only recommended it as I found it a fascinating insight into where we all came from and thought it seemed very well researched and written in such a readable style for what could have been a dry scholarly tome.

Aaah Susie, we original 'British' people have to state our case! :-D :-D

What I didn't mention was the fact that many Cornish and Welsh went over to Brittany during the 5th and 7th Centuries, and influenced the Breton language.

Then the Bretons went to Cornwall (Norman Invasion) - so how French/Welsh are the Cornish, and how Cornish/Welsh are the Bretons?

I have 2 main DNA elements - Celtic and Northern European.
Dad's side are Cornish, mum's side originally came from, and are mainly Suffolk.
I also have 9.6% Iberian - one G gran was from a New Forest traveller family.

OFGS! Cornish Susie was only suggesting a good read. If Rollo actually looked into the author he would see that he had already written a lot of books on the Scots and Celts.
Having found that out I assumed he had put it all together in one book.

I have a little bit of Cornish but a whole load of ancestors who moved (without leaving home) between rule by the Dukes of Normandy and the British/English etc crown. The rest of me is very English with some Irish. That is being British!

There is always one that thinks he/she knows better that the expert and they in my opinion are empty vessels.
I have got that and a Similar one on kindle, so thank you Cornish Susie for saying that as I wouldn't have found them otherwise.

Not to do with genes and DNA, another genealogy book I found worth reading is The Butcher, The Baker, The Candlestick Maker by Roger Hutchinson. It's described as the story of Britain through its census, since 1801.

Thanks for all your nice comments - and glad other people have enjoyed that book too - I intend to get his other ones. We have a wonderful mobile library service once a month and as we couldn't actually go on the van I have been reserving books for the past year. I've jut ordered the one you recommended so thanks Vera.
Just to clear up my heritage, I am 100% Yorkshire born and bred but when I first came on here 15 years ago I found that someone already had the name SueYorks so opted for Cornish instead as we have lived down here for over 40 years now.

Susie, I'm Maggiewinchester, only because I live here for years too!
Though I did move in January to a village outside Winchester.
It's one of a group of small villages known as 'the Worthys'

I could change my name on here to 'Maggieworthy', but it sounds a bit pious! :-D :-D

From WIKI

BritainsDNA Controversy

Moffat was the chief executive of the company BritainsDNA, which offered genetic analyses of the mitochondrial DNA and Y chromosomal DNA of customers who interested in their ancestry. Moffat's management and promotion of the company generated much controversy and criticism from the scientific community due to his many extraordinary and scientifically unfounded claims;[12] his use of legal threats to stifle scientific criticism; and his misuse of media and celebrity contacts to promote his business interests.[12] Ultimately both the University of St Andrews and the BBC upheld complaints against him,[12] and BritainsDNA ceased trading in 2017.[12]

On the BBC Today Programme, Moffat made numerous incorrect statements, including that the company has discovered Eve's "grandson", that prices were "heavily subsidised", and that 97% of men surnamed Cohen share a common genetic marker.[13] Geneticists at University College London including David Balding and Mark G. Thomas criticised these claims [14] as having no scientific basis and being little more than genetic astrology.[15] Balding and Thomas wrote a series of emails to Moffat and his business partners, encouraging him to retract these inaccuracies. This was met by legal threats from Moffat to silence their criticism of the underlying science.[16] The content of these messages has been since published.[17] Moffat's claims were ultimately retracted by the chief scientist of BritainsDNA.[14]

BritainsDNA was the trade name of one of several commercial companies that comprise The Moffat Partnership Limited, founded by Moffat and partners in 2012.[18] The other Moffat companies providing genetic testing included ScotlandsDNA (the first), IrelandsDNA, CymruDNAWales and YorkshiresDNA.[19]

Isn’t the point that Cornish Susie enjoyed the book and thought others might.

It is down to every reader to decide for themselves whether they agree with what has been written.

:-\ :-\ :-\ :-\ :-\ :-\ here we go again. We can't decide ourselves according to some folk names

If you Google cruwys blogspot + Alistair moffatt you will find a much better read about Moffat by Debbie Kennett.

Ther has obviously been a lot on controversy about his books, but that doesn’t necessarily stop them being a interesting read.

Just posting on here then I can always find it again in my threads.

Thanks for that reference Names. I assume this is the article you are referring to

https://www.mdpi.com/2313-5778/2/4/47/htm

Anyone concerned with inheriting DNA from several generations back should read para 2.1, a bit of which I have included below.

"
Firstly, an individual’s DNA is inherited from recent ancestors in large random chunks, so the contribution of DNA from any particular ancestor can be nil after just a handful of generations (Speed and Balding 2015). Indeed, there is a very high probability that we have not inherited DNA from any specific ancestor more than ten generations in the past. Therefore, each of us has inherited no DNA from the majority of our ancestors who lived just a few hundred years ago. Secondly, we all share common ancestors remarkably recently; it has been estimated that only three to five thousand years ago somebody lived who is the ancestor of every human alive today (Rohde et al. 2004). Furthermore, just a few thousand years earlier we all share exactly the same set of ancestors. These common ancestry dates become considerably more recent for people who are less distant, such as those on the same continent.
"

Hi Kense

That looks like an academic paper. Debbie Kennett is really not a fan. She has a number of entries about him on her blogspot.

I'm sorry I can't post a proper link, neither Edge nor Firefox will allow me to do this on Genes.

This is the one I wanted to post :

https://cruwys.blogspot.com/2014/11/the-ongoing-saga-of-britainsdna-and-bbc.html

There was a notification about Edge and links a couple of months ago. You had to change some setting if you wanted to keep the old system. I think it might be on Edge > ... >Settings > Share copy and paste. If that isn't set to link then switch it.