Tangled Metal wrote:What about the north men? As in Norman. Didn't they originate from northern Europe as in viking areas? They had the fighting skills of the vikings and that was how they got a foothold in France as mercenaries first then becoming landowners, nobles and fully embedded into French life and power. Or something like that as I only half watched the BBC documentary about it a good few years ago.
There's areas of western Cumbria that has very strong viking ancestry. Barrow residents are a particularly strong residual of the viking genes that cause this condition. Little Langdales had its own viking parliament. There's a stone outcrop / boulder that marks it. The little church in wasdale apparently had a beam made out of a part of a viking boat.
Of course I did once get told from an amateur historian of all things Welsh and celtic tell me that there was a celtic tribe living in parts of Lancashire, what is more southern parts of Cumbria and into North Wales. They were forced out and fled into Wales. Their language became old cymru and ultimately modern cymru and part of Wales. IIRC they were the Omric peoples. How true that is I don't know but a part of me likes that story. Not least because a part of my known ancestry involves a Welsh great grandparents moving into the old county palatine of Lancashire. Rounding the circle of migration for my ancestors, perhaps.
Anyway, I digress. My main point is that I find the migration of people into and around our great islands a fascinating and amazing thing that links us all whether English, Welsh, Scottish or Irish. The viking finger is just part of that.
PS I have known Swedish ancestry. Just where did the vikings end? Danish bit Norwegian too? What about Swedish? I never really understood whether the vikings were really from one modern day nation or just a single name for a whole range of peoples from Scandinavia.
Having just returned from Sweden, they suggest the Normans came from Oland, an island on the Swedish east coast.
My family have 2 known threads from southern Sweden, possibly two more from northern Germany and i'm apparently related to half the East End through my Hugenot ancestry (my grandmother was a Hughes, clues in the name!). That's without adding in the others from southern England and south Wales, so far I don't know of anyone in the family suffering from Mick's problem - or Napoleons for that matter.
