Miriam C. wrote:In the very nicest way---is the Queen English? Or her children?
Certainly not - she's mostly German and Dutch, with a bit of English thrown in. Until 1917 her family's name was Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. Her husband is Greek/Danish, so 'as mongrel as the rest of us' would be a good description of her children.
The European royalty until quite recently inter-married most of the time - the British king and the German kaiser on opposite sides of the First World War were first cousins. Not that royal inter-marriage seems such a bad idea when you look at the line of divorces they have produced since stopping this practice. Rather like Hollywood marriages in that respect......
However the DNA testing can't say anything about countries, only about racial and ethnic groups - the only distinctions within Europe that can be tested are between northern and southern European racial groups.
Miriam C. wrote:....as a young teen I found out we were part French.
As the whole of this thread is off topic, I'll carry on this thought.
The Huguenots are an important part of current UK thinking on immigration. They were desperately poor when they arrived (escaping persecution in France) and were treated like dirt by most Brits, who thought they were nothing but trouble. They flourished hugely, made some big contributions to the prosperity and welfare of Britain and were completely absorbed into the 'native' population. As I come for the south-east of Britain, it's likely I have Huguenot blood.
More enlightened people nowadays recognise that the Huguenots were the first of the immigrant groups that we know about in some detail, which made big contributions to our society (materially and intellectually). This process carries on today - first or second generation immigrants from South Asia (India/Pakistan/Bangladesh) are a much bigger proportion of new millionaires here than their numbers would suggest. In the last three years Britain has absorbed over half a million Polish and other Eastern European (mostly temporary) immigrants largely without problems and adding about 1% to the UK growth rate.
The idea is beginning to form that immigrants are frequently the economic drivers and that to prevent immigration would be to shoot ourselves in the foot - though I don't suggest that this anything more than a minority view in my country. It would seem to me an equally good question to ask in the USA.
Andrew
