What are your roots?

Jonny69

Jonny69

Jonny69

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This could be a fun thread, especially with our 'Racism' thread running... :p

I'm a Londoner, born and bred there. I technically live in Kent but it's still inside the M25, so still live there.

Go back a few generations and things get a bit different. I'm not English at all, by any stretch of the imagination. On one side of the family is complete poverty with Irish coming over to work digging canals and roads (navvies), and Jewish living in the east London slums, arriving here as Ukrainian gypsies in the mid 1800's. Then on the other side of the family there are jewellers on Bond Street in London, actors now over in the US and rich land developers in Essex.

What about you?

Edit: all wealth has been squandered btw :p
 
There is no knowledge of anything but Scottish ancestry on either side of my family. The whole family as far back as older relatives could ever say came from in and around Perth and Dundee.
 
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i am complete london, my whole family are from south east london, going back to my great grand-parents... i move around a lot atm though with work and atm im in kent but i am a bermondsey girl =] and proud...... although could never live there again now ive seen the better sides of london =]
 
Croydon born and raised, parents from London and Liverpool, go back a couple of generations and my family were in Cork and Galway, that's as much as I know.
 
Completely Welsh. Grandparents on one side from the coal mining valleys. Grandparents on the other side from the capital Cardiff. Parents both born in my home town as I. :)
 
Born in Great Yarmouth, but spent most of my life in Scotland. Lived throughout the World though.
Mother born in Scotland, grew up in England. Father born and raised in England.
Mothers side are Jewish immigrants from Ukraine, Odessa in particular and have Great Great Uncles in Newton Mearns (where else) that are still of the Jewish persuasion, with one (who's also gay, a textbook Jew I believe! :p) who went to prison on a fraud charge (no, really, I don't think they are very good Jews), though no closer family links to the religion.
Apparently my family were given the name 'Needleman' when they came over, so there's a strong possibility that if you have that last name we may be related.

Fathers side are pretty standard British, bit of Irish thrown in for the mix but nothing stands out. His father was a Detective Chief Superintendent of the Met in the 70s.
 
Don't know really.

The last few generations on both sides that I know of however, lived and died in London. I was born in Essex, and live there now. Guess I broke the mold.
 
Born in England to a Scottish Father whose Scottish heritage goes back as far as the 17th century before it disappears into antiquity. My mother is American, whose ethnicity is American Native Indian and heritage includes an Italian Grandfather.

So it's all a little muddled to be honest, still I have a pretty good all year tan complements of my Mom.
 
Lived in Kent all my life, parents were brought Up and lived in Kent. My Mum Granddad was Spanish I beleive.
Boring really.
 
Irish travellers on one side, in the UK for about 5 generations now, bit of English in there too. On the other side Welsh and I recently found out Jewish immigrants but don't know from where. I grew up in Wales have lived in the US and consider London and Surrey home (probably for good). My wife is half polish, her dad was a refugee. So our kids are in order of importance to me Welsh, Polish, Irish, English and something else.
 
Tom0 said:
Completely Welsh. Grandparents on one side from the coal mining valleys. Grandparents on the other side from the capital Cardiff. Parents both born in my home town as I. :)
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Good point. I have a Welsh surname, so there's a Welshman thrown in there somewhere too :D
 
Dads side are inbreads from the west country. Mums side is Sunderland and German although no one knew great great grandad was german till he died and his german passport was found. Further back I'm not sure but mums massively into family tree and has traced it back hundreds of years.
 
Born Edinburgh. Father from Aberdeenshire, mother from somewhere near Galashiels or surrounding areas..

On my fathers side ancestry wise they were initially French nobility who also done a bit of Mercenary Knighthood on the side, and they were invited by William the conquerer to England to help subjugate the population. Eventually the families were invited by the Scots house of Dunkeld to court up here around one hundred years later, and stayed pretty centre (ish) of that court and power for hundreds of years to come. Some crowning duties as well etc.

There was an unfortunate incident of some people being burned alive in their castle and homes at some point, so my whole family on that side was banished from Scotland to go and have a jolly on a Cruisade. Some made it back though, and got their lands bestowed upon them again up near Beauly.

Generations after my family owned large estates and farms in the N/E, however that is not here today. These were lost in power struggles before I stood upon this earth. I am infact the last person to bear this family name from my particular branch of it. I have some pretty kick ass family heirlooms however. Not a prominant Scottish family size wise, but they certainly seemed to feature in a lot over the years.

My mothers side, who knows. She was adopted, perhaps from originally a half English parental background. However, the family she was adopted into was very loving and were originally working class people from Edinburgh, and historically before that originally the 'lowlands' of Scotland – pig farmers if you want to take the family ancestry here at face value.. Originally working class, several family members become accountants and bankers etc and done very well in London in the 80's and since. Wealth, I'm still not quite sure. I guess in the hundreds of millions, guess I might find out more in the future however. (wink wink, I might get my 'name' wealthy again. from 'pig farmers' :p)
 
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Kent boy here, me mam's Irish (proper Irish, not NI) and my dad was born in Canterbury but his grandparents were Russian (at least one of them was) and there's a bit of confusing ancestry on that side. It's simpler on the Irish side - turtles all the way down, as it were.
 
Ahleckz said:
Born in Great Yarmouth, but spent most of my life in Scotland. Lived throughout the World though.
Mother born in Scotland, grew up in England. Father born and raised in England.
Mothers side are Jewish immigrants from Ukraine, Odessa in particular and have Great Great Uncles in Newton Mearns (where else) that are still of the Jewish persuasion, with one (who's also gay, a textbook Jew I believe! :p) who went to prison on a fraud charge (no, really, I don't think they are very good Jews), though no closer family links to the religion.
Apparently my family were given the name 'Needleman' when they came over, so there's a strong possibility that if you have that last name we may be related.

Fathers side are pretty standard British, bit of Irish thrown in for the mix but nothing stands out. His father was a Detective Chief Superintendent of the Met in the 70s.
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That's really interesting! You probably know this but, on arrival in England, the Jewish were given surnames based on their skills or job. Mine were 'Magasiner' (newsagents) and the name survives today on my grandma's side.
 
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