Britons share the most DNA with people from France and Germany — countries which were home to the Angles and Saxons that moved into the British Isles after Roman rule collapsed in the 4th century.
The modern English are genetically closest to the Celtic peoples of the British Isles, but the modern English are not simply Celts who speak a German language. A large number of Germans migrated to Britain in the 6th century, and there are parts of England where nearly half the ancestry is Germanic.
The English largely descend from two main historical population groups: the West Germanic tribes, including the Angles, Saxons, Jutes, and Frisians who settled in Southern Britain following the withdrawal of the Romans, and the partially Romanised Celtic Britons who already lived there.
Modern Britons are descended mainly from the varied ethnic groups that settled in Great Britain in and before the 11th century: Prehistoric, Brittonic, Roman, Anglo-Saxon, Norse, and Normans.
The genetic map of Britain shows that most of the eastern, central and southern parts of England form a single genetic group with between 10 and 40 per cent Anglo-Saxon ancestry. However, people in this cluster also retain DNA from earlier settlers.
The Welsh are the true pure Britons, according to the research that has produced the first genetic map of the UK. Scientists were able to trace their DNA back to the first tribes that settled in the British Isles following the last ice age around 10,000 years ago.
While people from Ireland, Britain, or Scotland tend to be genetically similar, genetic clusters show that even within countries, there are distinct regional differences, and this update captures some of that.
They were also found to have most similarity to two main ancestral sources: a 'French' component (mostly northwestern French) which reached highest levels in the Irish and other Celtic populations (Welsh, Highland Scots and Cornish) and showing a possible link to the Bretons; and a 'West Norwegian' component related to ...
While Highland Scots are of Celtic (Gaelic) descent, Lowland Scots are descended from people of Germanic stock. During the seventh century C.E., settlers of Germanic tribes of Angles moved from Northumbria in present-day northern England and southeastern Scotland to the area around Edinburgh.
The United Kingdom is an ethnically diverse society. The largest ethnic group in the United Kingdom is White British, followed by Asian British. Ethnicity in the United Kingdom is formally recorded at the national level through a census.
The population in Orkney emerged as the most genetically distinct, with 25% of DNA coming from Norwegian ancestors. This shows clearly that the Norse Viking invasion (9th century) did not simply replace the indigenous Orkney population.
British people live in the UK. They are people who live in England, Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland. British people can also either be English, Scottish, Welsh, or Irish (from Northern Ireland only).
Genetic study reveals 30% of white British DNA has German ancestry Analysis over 20 years reveals heavy Anglo-Saxon influence, with French and Danish DNA coming from earlier migrations than the...
From this, it was calculated that the modern English population has approximately 6% Danish Viking ancestry, with Scottish and Irish populations having up to 16%.
But while the Romans, Vikings and Normans ruled Britain for many years, none left their genetic calling cards behind in the DNA of today's mainland Caucasian population. That's the message from the most comprehensive analysis yet of the genetic make-up of the white British population.
Scotland and Ireland are close neighbours, and it is no surprise that commercial ancestral Y-DNA testing and the resulting hundreds of Y-DNA Case Studies conducted at Scottish and Irish Origenes have revealed lots of shared ancestry among males with Scottish or Irish origins.
The “truest” Celtic bloodlines existing today belong to those from the Scottish Highlands, Perthshire, Northwest Scotland and the descendants of the ancient ruling families in Ireland and Wales.
The Irish have Viking and Norman ancestry in similar proportions to the English. A comprehensive DNA map of the Irish has for the first time revealed lasting contributions from British, Scandinavian, and French invasions.
In England, the average citizen is 37% British, with a smaller Irish heritage of 20%. English people have the largest French and German influence at 20.45%, and they are also 9.39% Scandinavian.
It's thought by scientists in recent years that the Welsh might be Britain's most ancient people on the island! The reason for this theory is that many Welsh remain genetically distinct from English and Scottish people, with a genetic mutation present from the last Ice Age, 10,000 years ago.
English did not become the English language until the 430s when the Jutes, Angles and Saxons began moving to Britain. It is interesting that the Germanic blow-ins to Celtic Britain only invaded that land 1,600 years ago - about nine hundred years after the Gaelic speaking people settled in Ireland.
Far more Australians are descended from assisted immigrants than from convicts, the majority of Colonial Era settlers being British and Irish. About 20 percent of Australians are descendants of convicts. Most of the first Australian settlers came from London, the Midlands and the North of England, and Ireland.
In the 2021 census, 8,385,928 people, or 33% of the Australian population, stated that they had English ancestry (whether sole or partial). It is the largest self-identified ancestry in Australia.
A larger percentage of people with Australian ancestry (29.9% compared to 25.7%) A larger percentage of people with English ancestry (33.0% compared to 29.4%) A larger percentage of people with Australian Aboriginal ancestry (2.9% compared to 1.6%)