Are you British or English?

I remember as a lad in the 70's, some American guy with the same surname as us rang my dad out of the blue and wanted us to trace our surname to see if he was related. Our ancestors on my dads side originated in Leek Staffordshire. We went to the church on the hill(name escapes me) in the town to read our surname on the gravestones dating back to the early 1600's, maybe earlier as the tombstones of that age were hard to read as the stones had badly eroded. My dad said that as our name ended in 'ton' it was from the Anglo Saxon era.

So I always say I'm English, then British.
 
bluemoon risin' said:
I remember as a lad in the 70's, some American guy with the same surname as us rang my dad out of the blue and wanted us to trace our surname to see if he was related. Our ancestors on my dads side originated in Leek Staffordshire. We went to the church on the hill(name escapes me) in the town to read our surname on the gravestones dating back to the early 1600's, maybe earlier as the tombstones of that age were hard to read as the stones had badly eroded. My dad said that as our name ended in 'ton' it was from the Anglo Saxon era.

So I always say I'm English, then British.
Click to expand...
Anglo-saxon era = anglo-saxon culture and language in widespread use. Doesn't mean your anglo-saxon. I think surnames came into use around 1200? Land workers etc. often took the name of their local land owner and things like that. Surnames are only an indicator of where your lineage comes from, not the whole story. Take this scenario, your poor Irish ancestor moves to Leek, works for some land owner (could be of Anglo-Saxon origin, could be of an older Irish lineage himself). Anglo-saxon is the common language at the time. Everyone suddenly needs a surname for the census, the landowner adopts a nearby geographical name (ton typically denoted a town, e.g. Ashton). Your ancestor takes his name (you can see why names like Smith may have become so popular). This is an example to make the point - your ancestors could be completely from the area of England, but not remotely Anglo-Saxon (English DNA has been discussed in a few threads to death lately but Anglo-Saxon DNA is a minority).

Of course, there are many scenarios that could have resulted in your surname.
 
CitizenTID said:
Anglo-saxon era = anglo-saxon culture and language in widespread use. Doesn't mean your anglo-saxon. I think surnames came into use around 1200? Land workers etc. often took the name of their local land owner and things like that. Surnames are only an indicator of where your lineage comes from, not the whole story. Take this scenario, your poor Irish ancestor moves to Leek, works for some land owner (could be of Anglo-Saxon origin, could be of an older Irish lineage himself). Anglo-saxon is the common language at the time. Everyone suddenly needs a surname for the census, the landowner adopts a nearby geographical name (ton typically denoted a town, e.g. Ashton). Your ancestor takes his name (you can see why names like Smith may have become so popular). This is an example to make the point - your ancestors could be completely from the area of England, but not remotely Anglo-Saxon (English DNA has been discussed in a few threads to death lately but Anglo-Saxon DNA is a minority).

Of course, there are many scenarios that could have resulted in your surname.
Click to expand...
Calm down calm down I only said i was English ffs! Seriously, I'll leave it there pal as you're a lot more knowledgeable on the subject than I am
 
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