This topic is, for me, a welcome diversion for me from the usual political stuff.
Commenting on a Telegraph article, Steve Sailer writes about the class divide between British people of Norman descent and those of Anglo-Saxon descent.
The problem is that the study being written about is based on surnames, with Norman-derived (or at least obviously Norman) surnames considered as 'rich' names, while those of obviously English derivation are the lower-class names.
As I wrote yesterday in a very different context, surnames can be deceiving, especially in countries where different ethnic strains have a long history of intermarriage.
Nothing like the old class warfare card, but what can we expect of the British media, who are even more leftist than our own media?
It seems that just about everyone in Britain dislikes the Normans, and nobody wants to claim descent from them. Yet somebody must be descended from them. Yet it seems that only the rich are counted as their progeny.
It's very common to see the so-called WASPs as arch-villains, representing a greedy aristocracy who keep the 'good people' down; a privileged elite. Normans are, in the eyes of many, what Anglo-Saxons are in this country.
Some silly genealogist, in an article I read once, claimed that ''everyone in Britain is descended from William the Conqueror.'' That's patently silly. It probably wasn't true, even before this tidal wave of immigration swept over Britain. And it is impossible to prove such a statement. The statement presumes that everybody in Britain sort of mated or married randomly, with no endogamous groups who kept to themselves. The Normans of old did intermarry with the Saxon aristocracy very early on, and with the Welsh nobility and the Scots nobility. Of the latter, it's noticeable that many well-known 'Scots' names had Norman origins. Example: Bruce, which was De Brus, a Norman name. Other Scots names of Norman origin include Sinclair (St. Clair).
So while it's true that the Normans did intermarry with local populations, they tended to intermarry with those of their social class -- who were largely Normans. I know this from having done a lot of genealogy research of my own family and others' families.
Still, the Norman names became somewhat anglicized in pronunciation, and later, in spelling. Examples: names like De Beauchamp, or Beauchamp, became Beecham. Other Norman names which became de-Frenchified: Pinkney or Pinckney from De Picquigny. Tolliver from De Taillefer. Marshall from Le Marechal. Power from Le Poer. Warren from De Warenne. Spencer from Le Despenser or De Spencer. Strange from L'etrange. Pomfret from De Pontefract.
Not all Norman names have a 'De' or 'Le' prefix, or a '-ville' suffix to show their origins, nor do they have French-looking spellings.
Many names thought of as very British are originally Norman, like Montgomery, Quincy, Redvers, Richmond, Baldwin, Chesney, Courtney (De Courtenay), Lacy, Mortimer, Macon.
Another family name in my family tree is Calloway, which is from the place name Caillouet. Yet some ignorant relatives of mine believe it to be Irish because it 'sounds Irish.'
By the way, many of the names listed above are from my family tree, so I do know the origins of the bearers of the names.
As to whether the Puritans were 'lower-class' than the Jamestown colonists, there was considerable Norman ancestry among that group as well. Most of the Puritan colonists were middle-class, and the original colonists were carefully picked, hence they were not 'riff-raff' as someone on the Sailer thread says.
I have to note how, based on real-life experience and Internet discussions, Americans do love to over-simplify things, and how, even more, they seem to love to create hierarchies of good guys and bad guys in history, as I noted in my comment on the Sailer thread, which may or may not be posted. But I find this to be especially true as regards to the different British ethnicities. Many people have very definite ideas as to the villains and heroes in British history and culture, even if they themselves are not of British ancestry.
So are all the White British descended from William the Conqueror or from Normans generally? The various peoples of the British Isles (and I don't mean the later immigrants) are of such similar stock that it probably doesn't matter much. But there is undoubtedly a lot more Norman ancestry than is known or admitted, much as there is more English ancestry in America than is known or admitted.
