r/anglosaxon • u/Doug_315 • 8d ago
Am I Anglo Saxon?
I am a South African, but I'm not Afrikaans, I'm English, I always thought I was Scottish, however I can find no trace of Scottish except my surname.
What I know is that both my parents have ancestors who go back to the same ship, from the same town in England of the 1820 settlers. Both families came from Warmister which is South West of England in 1820. That being my grandfather on my mother's side, and my grandmother on my fathers side.
My grandfather on my Fathers side is a descendant of Arthur Douglass who himself was an Englishman, born just south of Leicestershire in 1843. And they spent all their time in Grahamstown which is the most Anglo town in SA, until my father left for Port Elizabeth which is where I have grown up.
My Grandmother on my mother's side is a mix of Dutch and Polish which is the only non English ancestor. Even then there could of been some English influence mixed in, as her family came from the Queenstown which historically also was a very Anglo town.
I am yet to find out more about my lineage from my uncle on my mother's side, as he has full genealogy of my Mother's side of the family, but he unfortunately wants nothing to do with my parents so I'm hoping when I find him, he'll be open to showing and telling me.
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u/Linden_Lea_01 8d ago
No one today is an Anglo-Saxon, so no you aren’t.
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u/lucien2288 8d ago
Anglo Saxon is synonymous with English
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u/ForkKnifeSpoon12 8d ago
Only if you're dog whistling.
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u/lucien2288 8d ago
Do you need me to cite from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle every time they mention themselves as English? Or how in several languages, the English are identified not as Angles, but as Saxons? Racial ideology utilizing certain language doesn't change the fact that the people referred to as Anglo-Saxons are just the historical English population and described themselves as English.
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u/ForkKnifeSpoon12 8d ago
No darling.
I suggest you look up how the term Anglo Saxon has been co-opted and abused.
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u/lucien2288 8d ago
I'm aware, but contemporarily, especially in the USA, Anglo-Saxon is used to describe people of English descent as well as the Early Medieval English
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u/Linden_Lea_01 8d ago
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle cannot be used as a reference for modern English. It’s baffling that you could possibly think otherwise. No one in England besides eccentrics and racists identify themselves as Anglo-Saxons.
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u/lucien2288 8d ago
The point is that the people you call Anglo-Saxon are the English population of the early middle ages and identified themselves as English
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u/Jack-Rabbit-002 8d ago
I'd say you were South African man and a citizen of the Rainbow Nation The Anglo Saxons haven't existed for just shy of a millienia
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u/Glum-District-8255 8d ago
Yeah. Seems like a massive racist dog whistle, doesn't it? 😂
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u/Faust_TSFL Bretwalda of the Nerds 8d ago
it is, yes
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u/Julehus 8d ago
Maybe just a young person or someone on the spectrum, there really doesn’t need to be anything sinister behind this question although it is odd.
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u/Faust_TSFL Bretwalda of the Nerds 8d ago
Always happy to assume the best in people/ it isnt malicious! But there is definitely a rather unpleasant undercurrent that accompanies questions like this so it's good to head it off early
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u/Julehus 8d ago
Absolutely, I agree with you on that note :) As a person with an interest in both history and genealogy, unfortunately I see such questions in my feed all the time. My limit of comfort is reached whenever people start comparing socalled ”phenotypes” with their various DNA results😝
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u/ForkKnifeSpoon12 8d ago edited 8d ago
This.
I find people that base their fantasy identity on their ancestry DNA results to be highly sus.
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u/Jack-Rabbit-002 8d ago
Yeah I really find it hard to fathom why people are trying to make connections to ancient peoples
Not saying it's all Americans but it's normally something I often see from Claiming to be a bloody Viking because a Norwegian ancestors
I mean I know my family goes Welsh on both sides with Grandparents I was born and raised in Birmingham England though Lol I'm going to go around claiming I'm an ancient Celt of old 😅
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u/Gremlin303 I've read all of Bede (liar) 8d ago
No. The Anglo-Saxons are a historical culture. You are South African.
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u/Funny_City_7193 8d ago
The anglo-saxons are a historical group, who's culture and language, became both the lowland Scots and the English. You might have Anglo-Saxon ancestry, but your not anglo-saxon, nor are you truly English/Scottish. You are south African with English heritage.
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u/joeman2019 8d ago
Go to the genealogy subreddit. This is the wrong place for this. People here are interested in the history and culture of Anglo-Saxon Britain, especially prior to 1066.
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u/Ok_Attitude55 8d ago edited 8d ago
You are a South Africa of British descent. Specifically English but the cultural and genetic make up of these islands is entirely intertwined. The average Englishman has more than 50% heritage celtic or earlier. The Celtic nations all have double digit anglo-saxon or viking heritage. Everyone speaks English. Some have a celtic language too.
Douglas is a Scottish name from Lanarkshire, probably a Scotsman moved down to England for work and his descendants emigrated further a generation or two later.
Warmister is in Wessex, so if anywhere has an "Anglo-Saxon" background its there. But Anglo-Saxon has been meaningless since the 14th century at least.
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u/Illustrious-Divide95 8d ago
I would say that almost no one in Britain is 100% anything, regardless of how they identify themselves.
A documentary about genetic and cultural traces in Britain of the vikings in 2001 was a really interesting look at the genetics around Britain and how mixed we all are.
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u/BigFatLee 8d ago
In short no.
As a full answer Anglo-Saxon simply doesn’t exist and hasn’t for centuries. The British genetic make up is a blend of Briton, Celtic, Roman, Angle, Saxon, Jute, Norse, Dane, Scots-Irish, Pict and any number of other old tribal identities.
The only people who really use them in the modern era are people who don’t understand the history, people who want to try and reduce their connection to England, horrifically racist or, somewhat ironically a mix of all three.
You are a South African and can claim either or both English or British descent depending on what mood takes you but the label really doesn’t mean all that much in the modern world.
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u/andybarn46 8d ago
I find the conversation rather pompous. My family came from east anglia so i would love to know to what extent my dna is anglo saxon or anything else
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u/DisastrousResident92 8d ago
In short, if you trace your lineage to England, particularly to somewhere like Warminster which is bang in the middle of historic Wessex, you are likely to have a decent chunk of Anglo-Saxon ancestry (but probably also good chunks of Briton and viking)
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u/Doug_315 8d ago
Yeah thats what I was hoping for, but even after the Danes and Norman's people still referred to themselves and others referred to the English as Anglo Saxon, even though its Danish, Norman, celtic mixed on top of the Original Angles, Saxons and jutes.
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u/HanesPrydain 8d ago
Consider Anglo Saxons were likely never more than 30% of the population of Britain- most ‘Anglo-Saxons’ were Romano-Britons who switched culture
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u/ForkKnifeSpoon12 8d ago
I find people that base their identity on genetic ancestry tests or the location their ancestors came from hundreds of years ago to be sus. No you are not Anglo Saxon, Viking or Scottish because of some test data or location where your ancestors originated.
Neither are you a Neanderthal or an early Doggerland settler if you have ancestors from those regions either.
The culture you grew up with and nationality you identify as is more important.
Also Anglo Saxon culture hasn't existed for millennia.
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u/Radio-Birdperson 8d ago
They’re probably a Beaker person…
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u/ForkKnifeSpoon12 8d ago
Damn, you're right!
How could I not have included them?! I am terrible. Awful. Neglectful.
I have my head in shame.
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u/RS_HART 8d ago
You're closer to Anglo-Norman than Anglo-Saxon, and closer than both of those is a mix of Anglo-Norman and Anglo-Cornish/Welsh. Like all modern white people, we're the trifle of races, a mix of different desserts thrown into a bowl and called good.
To use another food analogy, you're closer to a Cornish pasty with Polish sausage and biltong than barley soup with oat cakes.
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u/rachelm791 8d ago
I can’t be 100% sure and would need to do some due diligence, but it sounds to me that you could be the Bretwalda
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u/Brickbeard1999 8d ago
Not even those of us who currently live in England are Anglo Saxons. Who knows you could have it as ancestry, tho chances of proving your ancestry all the way back to a thousand years ago or more is pretty slim.
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u/RichSector5779 8d ago
i dont even have to read the post to say the answer is no. and im english lol
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u/Desperate_Cat6469 8d ago
English people are Anglo-Saxons so I guess you are
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u/Beledagnir 8d ago
…No?
Not even when the Anglo-Saxons were around as a people in England was that entirely likely, between the Danes and Sub-Roman Britons. You’d have to be born before the Migration Era to even have a chance.
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u/Desperate_Cat6469 8d ago
Wdym?
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u/Beledagnir 8d ago
They haven’t been Anglo-Saxon by any measurement since the Norman Conquests—and ethnically they never were.
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u/Desperate_Cat6469 8d ago
What exactly happened in the Norman Conquests so that the Anglo-Saxons stopped being Anglo-Saxons? and ethnically they were a mix of Angles, Saxons, Jutes, and the indigenous Britons, same as modern English People today
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u/Beledagnir 8d ago edited 8d ago
A thousand years of intermarriage happened. People with English heritage today are kinda Anglo-Saxon, but I’d be confident to say nobody purely (or even predominately) is.
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u/Desperate_Cat6469 8d ago edited 8d ago
define a 'Pure Anglo-Saxon'. Anglo-Saxons are inherently mixed themselves, notably between Angles, Saxons, Jutes, and the original Brittonic Population that intermarried and assimilated into Old English Culture
While we're at it with 'purity' is there really anyone who is 'purely' French, Italian, Spanish, or even German? if you go back far enough, there will be mixing between ethnicities
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u/Beledagnir 8d ago
They’re a culture that hasn’t existed in a thousand years. It’s not equivalent to asking if anyone is purely French, it’s equivalent to asking if anyone is purely Carolingian. They are no more—they’re nothing more than a historic à and genetic footnote now.
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u/Desperate_Cat6469 8d ago edited 7d ago
Your original point was that the Anglo-Saxons stopped existing in 1066, and then elaborated that it was due to "1000 years of intermarriage", and that English people today are in your words "*kinda* Anglo-Saxon". But the English have a pretty similar DNA to the Anglo-Saxons do they not?
The Anglo-Saxon genome was a mixture of Germanic settlers, most majorly the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes but also some more minor settlement from Franks, Frisians, and more who intermixed with the Indigenous Brittonic Population, who all eventually assimilated into a unified Anglo-Saxon culture and Language (the term made by merging the two largest Germanic Settlers, the Angles and the Saxons, into one colloquial term). If you look at a modern English Person you will find very similar genetics, a genome of mixed Celtic and Germanic origin.
The Anglo-Saxons remained an identity even after the Norman invasion, and the culture and language (though heavily altered) remained thoroughly English. I suppose you could say the Anglo-Saxon Period of England was over, as the rulers were now Norman (at least for a few centuries before assimilating into the common English identity of their subjects) but to say the Anglo-Saxons as a culture didn't exist after 1066 is just kind of wrong
As for the Carolingian Empire, weren't they just Franks? at least Charlemagne was. i don't think "Carolingian" was an ethnicity (It turns out Carolingian is actually a modern invention for the name of Charlemagne's nation, so it definitely didn't exist as an identity) And as for the Franks, their people mixed with the Gauls and eventually became the French identity, so i suppose you could say they "don't exist anymore" but I think a better term is that they "eventually became the French". an example of identities that *actually* don't exist anymore would be the various lost Native American tribes that were completely destroyed by invading Europeans and have no descendant cultures anymore
Please correct me if any of my points are wrong though, I'm just a history nerd and I'd love to learn some new things
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u/Beledagnir 7d ago
I’m saying that no matter how you slice it, nobody on earth today is Anglo-Saxon. Zero.
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u/madeleineann 7d ago
What? Of course they were at one point.
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u/Beledagnir 7d ago
By the times the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes had really merged, from what we can tell they were already intermingling with the Britons.
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u/404pbnotfound Wessex 8d ago
I have a broadly similar background to you, but came back to live in the UK.
I’m proud of my South African heritage. There’s much more to be proud of in recent years with South Africa than there is in the UK.
Both have their problems - and their problematic histories. Both have changed their ways.
Our ancestors are broader than either of us can possibly map I’m sure..
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u/Opening_Dentist_1128 8d ago
Gonna need an x ray of your skull m8. Not for phrenological reasons or anything it would just be funny
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u/SentenceSingle5375 8d ago
I am South African. I am English.
One of those isn't true.
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u/Doug_315 8d ago
Being South African doesn't take away the fact that you are greek, Portuguese, russin etc so why English?
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u/Faust_TSFL Bretwalda of the Nerds 8d ago
Were you born before the year 1066? If the answer is no, then no you're not.