What are the are the chances.......?

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Question:

what are the chances that my ancestors came from another ethnicity!. i have traced all my maternal relations to the 1920s and before and they are all white !. they all lived in the south wales uk and my mother;s farther came from the barnsly aria if this helps!Www@QuestionHome@Com

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker:

African and Asian immigrants really didn't start coming to the United Kingdom in substantial numbers until the 1960s!. Moreover, in most cases, like most immigrants, they headed for urban areas rather than rural Wales!. Consequently, your chances of having ancestors outside a rather limited gene pool if your family has lived in Wales as long as anyone has cared to document their existence there is statistically rather small!. Of course, at some point in time, perhaps, during the Crusades, an ancestor could have met and married someone from another ethnicity!.

Case in point--my mother suffered from a rare disease similar to Lyme disease in 1986!. Although we live in Central Texas, tests determined that her maternal ancestors were of Celtic lineage for at least 25 generations back, and the only other instances of this disease occurred in Scotland and Ireland!. During the last few years, I've traced my mother's ancestry to the Island of Eigg in the Inner Hebrides as well as Ayrshire, Scotland, and Derry, Ireland!. As far as I can tell from looking her family tree up on Ancestry!.com, her heritage is very Scottish and Irish!. Www@QuestionHome@Com

There were slaves in the UK back as far as the 1700's, with people trying to abolish slavery since the end of that era!. So unless you research right back to those times, you will never actually know!.

If you had watched the BBC programme " who do you think you are", with Ainsley Harriots( the TV chef) genealogy, you would see that he was absolutely taken aback to find that he had "White" ancestors in his family tree!. All brought about by the slave trade!.

You will never know for sure unless you research right back!. I have gone back to 1500 with my husbands tree, and that is the only way you will see!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

Small!. People married partners from their general locality, and of course they would have much the same ethnic background!. The further back you go, the less people travelled unless they had a trade!. Not everyone was a sailor travelling to foreign parts and perhaps bringing home an exotic bride!. There was a certain amount of slavery, mostly from neighbouring countries, the sail-in-and -grab-and-get-out-again variety!. For example, St!. Patrick was grabbed from Wales and brought to Ireland to be a slave there!. In UK most of the invaders were Viking or from Europe, mainly France!. In all the examples, think caucasian!. Folk like us!.

On the west coast of Ireland, the Spanish Armada shipwrecked, and survivors made their way ashore and many of them stayed and intermarried with the locals!. We are told that Irish people with brown eyes and dark hair who suntan easily could attribute this to genes from long forgotten Spanish sailors!. I don't know if any of the Armada boats made it to Britain - there could be ancestral connections there so!.

If you find your ancestors travelled far and wide, then indeed you may find another ethnicity somewhere!. But as people lived mainly parochial lives, it could be a surprise skeleton in your closet!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

Since your ancestors come from the south of Wales is it VERY likely that there are other ethnicities in your make-up!. The reason being that in the 1840s shiploads of workers from Somalia and Yemen were brought to Wales and their genetic legacy can be seen in many Welsh people today - just look at Tom Jones, Shirley Bassey and Kerry Peers!. All that tight curly hair and dark complexion isn't because they're Celts!Www@QuestionHome@Com

You can never tell, just because the paperwork says all white doesn't mean someone somewhere didn't stray at some time, plus everybodies DNA is similar, black, white, brown, yellow, all the same, only a tiny portion is unique to the individual, and you havnt done your fathers trace as yet, so you never know what you will find, during the last war, when there was a lot of US troops here a fair few babies were born with US fathers, then taken on by UK men, some knowingly, some not, every family has one or two skeletons in the cupboard!

There was a case I know of, it happened to my mothers friend, this was back in the 1940's she had black twins, her white Austrailian husband wasnt impressed to say the least, it turns out her husbands great grandfather was Aborigine, he had no idea as it was hushed up, times not bieng so enlightened back then, it turned out tragically in the end, the twins mother killed herself as she couldnt stand the shame, and they were put up for adoption, hard times back then!.!.!.

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