What’s the Genetic (DNA) History of Cornwall and Devon? The Celtic Origins of Cornwall Revealed…
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- Опубліковано 3 лип 2024
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What’s the Genetic History of Cornwall and Devon? The Celtic Origins of Cornwall Revealed…
What’s the genetic history of Cornwall and its neighbour Devon, the historic counties in Southwest England? Cornwall today is the only region of England which still speaks a Celtic language, Cornish, a Brittonic language which is related to both Welsh and Breton, and which would have been related to the now extinct Cumbric and possibly even Pictish.
When looking at the genetic landscape of Cornwall, one fascinating aspect is that there is a clear genetic distinction between Cornwall and Devon, even though the two historical counties border each other, with the division tracking well with the modern county boundary.
In fact, the genetic differences between Cornwall and Devon are comparable to or greater than those between northern English and Scottish samples. A key explanation for this is that Saxon influence was much greater in Devon than Cornwall.
Despite the fact that Cornish is one of the 6 Celtic languages still spoken today, the People of the British Isles found that there was no single 'Celtic' genetic group. In fact the Celtic parts of the UK (Scotland, the North of Ireland, Wales and Cornwall) are among the most different from each other genetically. For example, the Cornish are much more similar genetically to other English groups than they are to the Welsh or the Scots.
This study also found that there is a notable contribution of DNA from northern France in many parts of Britain, although this is not present in Wales. This suggests there was a sizable migration from Northern France into Britain after the original settlers of Britain following the last Ice Age, but before Roman times. This genetic footprint is prominent in both Cornwall and Devon, and reaches as far north as Orkney.
Sources:
Settlers: Genetics, Geography and the Peopling of Britain - Oxford University Museum of Natural History - www.oum.ox.ac.uk/settlers/
Oxford University Museum of Natural History - Genetic Ancestry and the People of the British Isles • Genetic Ancestry and t...
University of Oxford - Who do you think you really are? A genetic map of the British Isles www.ox.ac.uk/news/2015-03-19-...
University of Oxford - People of the British Isles - Population Genetics and Facial Genetics www.peopleofthebritishisles.org/ www.peopleofthebritishisles.o...
Leslie S, Winney B, Hellenthal G, Davison D, Boumertit A, Day T, Hutnik K, Royrvik EC, Cunliffe B; Wellcome Trust Case Control Consortium 2; International Multiple Sclerosis Genetics Consortium; Lawson DJ, Falush D, Freeman C, Pirinen M, Myers S, Robinson M, Donnelly P, Bodmer W. The fine-scale genetic structure of the British population. Nature. 2015 Mar 19;519(7543):309-314. doi: 10.1038/nature14230. PMID: 25788095; PMCID: PMC4632200. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...
#cornwall #devon #celtic
Chapters:
0:00 The Genetic History of Cornwall and Devon
3:16 Support
Thanks for watching! Please let me know your thoughts below...
This is the kind of specific nerd stuff my brain craves! Thank you!
Thanks Natalie
My maternal grandmother’s family of 13 moved from St. Ives, Cornwall to the States in the 1920s. Thanks for covering my Cornish roots.
Thanks Jen
My ancestors are from Veryan in Cornwall. They are buried in the church yard, the name is Trounce, the family tree goes back to 1575, and even records a marriage into the Carter family (Carter family of King of Prussia). Thank you for your interesting channel. I have subscribed and liked. Let me know if there are any more Trounces out there!
Thank you
Fascinating! I recently saw an episode of "hidden villages of Britain" in Pembrokeshire. Penelope Keith spoke to a woman who still speaks fluent Welsh, she sang a song in Welsh & said she learned no English till she started school. That wasn't unusual in her part of Wales she said.
I think that is wonderful. I'm all for people maintaining their individuality & learned languages & the language of their ancestors.
Welsh has been taught in most Welsh schools for a good while now and many many Welsh people speak Welsh. Pembrokeshire is perhaps one of the most anglicised parts of Wales (my mother lives there), but still alot of Welsh speakers. Cornish speakers however are rare. I live in Cornwall and perhaps 10 years ago i heard there were just a few hundred Cornish speakers, but recently heard there are alot more .. perhaps between one and two thousand speakers.
Pembrokeshire is so famous for having little Welsh to it. They all it ‘Little England Beyond Wales’. A lot of place names are English
Devon still has some celtic culture. For example Dartmoor has a lot of celtic history and there's celtic crosses in devon and stuff
I would also say a lot of our cultural values are celtic
Totnes is very much still Celtic, I believe.
We share pixies, pasties, combes, cream, saints and our historic architecture is very similar in both. The differences increase as you go east and north
There is an interesting history of Breton onion farmers sailing to Plymouth and travelling in the area selling onions. I come from a long line of Cornwall and Devon families. There is a family " story" from one of my Cornwall lines of an onion seller way back taking on a cornish surname!!
My great-grandfather's parents were Cornish. THey moved to Australia when he was a baby so he grew up there, came back to England to go to university. He met and fell in love with an Irish Catholic and emigrated to Canada because a Protestant Quaker and a Catholic could not live in England peaceably. Your channel content is fascinating.
I'm Cornish from liskeard. Loved the video short and to the point. Onen hag oll
My family is here. I’m a Slade. ( slade, sladden, Slaton)
Hmmm this is very interesting... alotta possible explanations... For one I heard that when Britain invaded by the Saxons and Angles it was just the literatate elites with money who fled across the channel to seek refuge with celtic tribes already in Britainy. Second conversely I also heard that when Romans invaded Gaul the northern most Gaulic Celts fled to Britain to seek refuge in colony they established previously in Southern Britain. They did later push north after they
arrived (not sure how far north) but couldn't push into Wales due to warlike nature of the tribes already existing there.
Hey Ste. Diddorol iawn (very interesting) I don’t know much about Devon, or it’s people, but I know from doing my family tree, that Yr Hen Ogledd (The Old North) and the Welsh who once lived in Alt Clut, some of their descendants moved to Cornwall, so I know that there is definitely a Welsh link in Cornwall, in fact, Scotland, Brittany, Wales and Cornwall all seem to be linked.
Thanks Stella, very interesting points
Devon is essentially half Cornish and half English- it's also right next to south Wales and before rail and roads was closely connected. If you search deeper into genetics you see Devon and Cornwall are most closely related to the south Welsh, though there was a lot of immigration from the English westcountry in industrial times
How wonderful, Lutey is my Grandpa's name and this exact spelling I can trace back to 1717 in a Parish Registry. Before that is get a bit muddy. On man in Widsor was tell me that we may have come from Scotland, any thoughts? Thank you.
Thanks!
Thanks Rob, much appreciated
I have some Cornish ancestors: Treloar, Johns, Chenoweth, Soame. There are few other names I can't remember.
Treolar sounds very Cornish. Chenoweth sounds anglo saxon to me. Interesting though.
@@hardywatkins7737 Chenoweth is from Cornish language and comes from chy (house) and noweth (new)
As an old Kernowyon. You got this right. Meur ras ha Duw re sewenal.
Yeh, you're Scottish! I can tell! 🤔🤣🥰🤗💖 Hello from Southern Québec, Canada! 🇨🇦
Hello from Exeter.
Northern Frans was Old Belgium in those days, not French in that time but some kind of Belgian Tribes, The Atrebates and 2 other important Belgian Celtic tribes, see old Belgian map and the original 12 Belgian Celtic tribes.
Ahhh i miss you Kernow! ❤❤
Hi, did a group leave approx 200 years after settling in Kernow to head to the east Anglia region ? Iceni tribes etc. cheers :)
My mother's paternal origins are from Falmouth and her maiden name (very much a Cornish one) is clearly French in origin. The French themselves are largely of Celtic origin, though especially in the Northwest so it would be a pretty seamless genetic blend between the two.
What is your mother’s maiden name? I’m Cornish from Falmouth.. My family name is Rowe a well known Cornish name..
@@lindathomas5500 Julian
Our Cornish name is the same in English French Welsh and Cornish - in fact Cornish and French are way more similar than Cornish and English
My Cornish Great-Grandmother's maiden name was 'French'.
My ancestors were Cornish. I have a Cornish surname dated from the 1600's too. I do have my DNA results somewhere to hand.
My family migrated from Cornwall in the sixteenth century and settled in Virginia.
That would be the 17th Century -- we didn't get started here until 1607. I know some Schaffners who live in Richmond Virginia right now.
I thought all my Dads family were from Devon but I still got 15 % from Cornwall! DNA
The genetical / DNA results from 2015 aren't quoted fully in this video. Why ?
Much of my family originates Fri Illogan Cornwall. Mayne family
I am Cornish from West Penwith and can converse in Cornish. Dyw genes
Some of your men came up to work with us at Crofty when Geevor went West. Good miners. Chons da🏴☠👍
@KernowekTim Right on cock, all my family on both sides worked the mines of Pendeen, Geevor and Levant for generations. I am proud of my mining heritage and Cornwall, too! Dyw Genes
Why do you stretch out your words at the end of sentences at times? Just curious
What Viking influence shows in Cornwell DNA?
Strange because when i've seen genetic maps of Britain, Cornwall is depicted as having 'different' genetics .. usually a pink colour on the maps?
I live in Cornwall and my job advisor said she had a genetic profile done and said she's 100% Cornish. So go figure i guess?
Cornwall is somewhat distinct yes
blu sea water in CORNWALL is great ....and acient tunels
I’m From Long Island,New York!!❤️
My 12th great Grandfather born in Berrynarbour Devonshire 1591 sent to Jamestown Virginia as indentured Servant 1620.
It's hard to trace any history back before that other than the surname with date of death earlier than 1590s.
I guess from there it will take genetics to unravel the rest of my ancestory.
My question is how accurate would genetics actually be other than migration patterns .. No actual particular locations, names and dates.
My mum’s from the Isles of Scilly and prefers to be known as Scillonian than Cornish.
Cuz it’s not apart of cornwall 😂
the people maybe moved from a differet celtic part of the south coast of england.... hence they speak english there now ... also cornwall was bigger before
👍
Just to let you know that Cornwall has never been legally absorbed into England. As a Cornishman I have to say that to call Cornwall a part of England or to call the Cornish English is a major insult
Bigot😂
For me I think Cornwall apart from being a county of England should be a British country like Scotland, Wales, the Isle of Man and Northern Ireland too
Likewise Devon should as well
Cornwall is part of England. 🗿
It's a part of the UK and Britain. No amount of bullying a very small minority people will change that. @@zwerg8474
The genetic line is also true between Devon and the majority of England
Aliens who like lace and thick cream ...
i'm 1/4 cornish but lived in devon my whole life lol. Nah i hate the cornish passionately apart from my nan ofc
My brother claims to have traced some of our ancestry back to some Britonic kings of Dumnonia .. around 350-400ce ... if not under direct Roman control, most likely under heavy Roman influence. Thanks to history it's easy to trace back to Alfred of Wessex and a little beyond but then it gets a bit murky .. going back to king constantine of Cornwall and then to the Dumnonian kings. I think i can confidently say that Alfred's line did intermarry with the Celtic Britons.
I'd like to know more about that time in Cornwall and Devon.
Looking at my genetics, i have like 20% anglo saxon and the rest is Welsh with a bit of Irish and Scots and a drop of Norwegian, and a good helping of 'southern Britain/northern France, - To my mind this group represents the brythonic peoples of Gaul and Southern Britain, perhaps representing the Belgic migration.
So genetically i feel very brythonic and 'southern', .. i have dark hair, slightly olive skin, but also feel like a cross between Dumnonia and Wessex.
Cornwall has never had a King Constantine..
@@lindathomas5500 Constantine (/ˈkɒnstəntiːn/, Welsh: Cystennin, fl. 520-523) was a 6th-century king of Dumnonia in sub-Roman Britain, who was remembered in later British tradition as a legendary King of Britain. The only contemporary information about him comes from Gildas, who castigated him for various sins, including the murder of two "royal youths" inside a church. The historical Constantine is also known from the genealogies of the Dumnonian kings.
I know who he is, but wanted to correct you where you state king of the Cornish. He was never King of Kernow. Also you realise that the only mention of him is from Gildas! Sorry I’m Cornish, and I have spent over a couple of decades researching my Cornish history!
Here is a list that a number of Kernow historians have created on Wikipedia’s Cornish portal. I know a couple of them that worked on this list, it’s as complete as can be with the documentation.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_legendary_rulers_of_Cornwall
@@hardywatkins7737
@@lindathomas5500 If you are a high king of Dumnonia, then you are also high king of the territory of Cornwall/Kernow. Dumnonia (in this political context ... of Constantine) is ancient Devon and Cornwall, and yes there were different kingdoms within it. And yes there were two major indigenous groups ... the Dumnonii and Cornovii, but i'm talking about a post Roman era.
But you do realise that there were two tribes right, both had there own rulers most of the time. @@hardywatkins7737
Like germanics
Their a lot of ginger people down here in Cornwall, Celtic's are known for being ginger
What a stereotype that is. Alot of celts had dark complexion and dark hair as they came from Spain and the continent too.
@@benfisher1376 but it isn't a stereo type, having ginger hair is in the genes
@gilliantregear1268 oh geez. Having red hair is not peculiar ti "celts"
@@benfisher1376 no it isn't, but it's more common if you were!!
Yeah the red hair is a steriotype. I believe it comes from our steppe ancestry (all Europeans have really ancient steppe ancestry ... it's something all Europeans have in common). If you notice, Scandiniavia, Germany, Russia ... all the northern countrys have alot of red hair. To my understanding the red hair in say, Ireland and Scotland comes from a couple of thousand years of Norse and Danes (technically 'germanic') skirting our northern shores and settling. And then you think how Dublin, Edinburgh, the Danelaw ect was all settled by Norse and Danes. I find it slightly amusing that the Scots claim to be Celtic but are so much like the English, having a good amount of Germanic/Scandinavian dna. If you want to see original Britonic looks, go to wales where they have a lot of dark and brown hair, brown and blue/green/brown eyes.
I live in Cornwall and there are not all that many people with red hair ... just the usual amount (no more than the rest of England). A typical Cornish person, like the Welsh really, will have dark hair and brown or blue eyes, like a Cornish woman i know who's dna profile describes her as 100% Cornish ... she has brown hair/brown eyes.
Nothing against redheads though, i totally fell in love with a beautiful red head once, but some of them do fall for this myth though that Celts have red hair (like my ex).
I think if people REALLY want to know their ancestry they should get their dna profiled.
Genetically the Cornish are much more similar to the rest Of England than they are to other Celtic nations. As you pointed out. How Celtic or even Cornish is Cornwall these days? The 2021 census showed only 14% of the population of Cornwall considered their identity as Cornish, and another 1.6% selected Cornish in combination with one or more UK identities. Cornish people are a minority in Cornwall now. Cornwall has been inundated with people from elsewhere in recent years, mostly from other parts of England.
Well i'm from Devon but i don't put Devonian on forms. I don't identify as English either, i generally identify as British. So what does a census really tell you?
Except the other celtic nations aren't all that similar to eachother either.
@@hardywatkins7737 Fair point about not putting Devonian on a census form. My point was that it doesnt seem many people living in Cornwall seem to identify as being Cornish particularly. The same question in Wales or Scotland would get a large majority of people saying they identified Welsh or Scottish and not British or anything else. The 2021 census in Wales shows 57.5 per cent of Wales' population indicated their sole national identity to be Welsh; a further 7.1 per cent indicated it to be both Welsh and British. The results for the 2022 census in Scotland have not been released yet, but Im sure they will be similar or possibly show greater numbers of people identifying as Scottish. Genetic studies like the one author has mentioned have shown that the other Celtic nations are not that closely similar. The presenter says this at 1.03. But each Celtic nation seems to show more distinctions from the general English population, apart from Cornwall which are more similar to the rest of England.
@@TheEggmaniac What distinctions do you have in mind? To my eyes everyone in these isles 'culturally' are much the same but just speak differently from eachother - I mean they all do the same things and the only real uniqueness is in the language and many many regional dialects and accents.
I had a girlfriend once .. a Scottish redhead, from Edinburgh who unexpectedly stood up one day and announced "I am a Celt!". - Stupidly i replied "No you're not!" .. which pissed her off, but her surname harks back to Scandinavia and i'm willing to bet her genetics are largely germanic/scandinavian .. but she's identifying as a Celt anyway because she's from Scotland and she's bought into the stereotype 'Celts have red hair' idea. She didn't speak Scots or Scottish Gaelic but to her credit had learned to write ogham letters.
So they question i ask is 'does identifying as a Celt make one a Celt? - subjectively i suppose it does but i want to know what is a Celt objectively? ... Today, in modern times? Is speaking a Celtic language enough to call oneself a Celt? ... i'd say it's a great start, culturally. Is being born within the borders of Wales or Scotland for instance, enough? - I think that just makes you Scots or Welsh but not Celtic. So is it having a reasonably pure genetic lineage back to ancient, or not so ancient Celtic peoples? I think that's probably most compelling but for myself if someone has a strong genetic celtic population lineage and speaks a Celtic language i'm ok with them calling themselves a Celt but i think they should acknowledge that culturally, modern 'Celt' culture bears little in common to their ancient Celt ancestors. The 'actual' Celts who lived their farming culture and had their art styles, and lived and came together by the seasons and festivals and believed in the Celtic gods.
On a different note, i've lived in Cornwall for about twelve years, in Launceston, once a capital of Cornwall, just over the border of the Tamar .. so not even deep into Cornwall, but there are many many local people who identify as Cornish .. really a large portion of the local population even, who's families are from Cornwall. You very rarely .. never, hear anyone actually speak Cornish on the street but of course there are maybe a couple of thousand speakers it is becoming slowly more popular to learn Cornish but i can't see it becoming anywhere near widespread ever. It'll remain a niche thing. You do hear a strong Cornish accent quite often though. The Cornish have an identity and self image based around, yes a Celtic past, but moreso around tin mining, pirates and shipwrecks and the plentiful coastline and maritime past, witches, fishing, surfing, pasties, clotted cream, cyder and all that regional stuff. It's Cornish but not Celtic.
@@hardywatkins7737 The distinctions are the genetic differences that author refers to. I believe he is taking this from the Oxford University study, The People Of The British Isles, which had been ongoing since 2004. But you would have to check that with him. It shows that Cornish people are genetically closer to other English people than they are to other Celtic nations. But also shows them to be genetically distinct to Devonians.
You ask an important question, what does make someone a Celt today? I think its mostly a cultural identification. You dont have to be from long line of people from that area. But you need to be brought up in a Celtic nation. Being Celtic is about the music, the history, the art and the language. Though you dont have to speak a Celtic language but having an understanding of it helps. Its about identifying with these cultural differences.
To me there is something almost contrived about people speaking Cornish today. The language died out about 100 years and has been brought back. But some words have to be guessed at, as nobody knows how they were actually spoken. If that enhances their life and feeling of identity, then I wish them well.
These days anyone can identify as what they want to. It would a good theme for another video from the author of this. What makes someone Celt? The people of the different parts of Britain do still have a common heritage and there are lots of similarities. Were probably still closer to each, than we are to any other nations. We have so much history in common.
Im Cornish and our family xan be traced back to 1013, but we came from the low lands of Germany, Its a shame that we have a cornish language yet its not taught in schools like wales ireland. Corish people are very passionate about their heritage and really do dislike people from the otherside of the tamer bridge.
As a proper Cornishman we tend to class ourselves as Cornish rather than English. Any name starting with Tre, Pol, and Pen is a big thing in Cornwall. Remember folks Jam on your scones first.
I'm from Devon but I always put jam on first! :D
@@dawnross2514 correct. Can't really spread jam on top of cream.
@@kaizomb there are those who would disagree but we'll leave them to their messy scones!
I'm from Devon also. Jam on first. It's common sense.
@@hardywatkins7737 perfectly said.
What this man fails to realise is that words change and some words are a blend of one language and another.
My guess is that the VIKING influence on all the Celtic countries had a big infuence on "Celtic" DNA. The Vikings had a huge genetic influence on both Scotland and ireland and a lesser influence on England. Brittany's nearest neighbour is Normandy , a place with a strong Viking heritage. When William the Conqueror invaded England he had many Breton soldiers in his army, thus many people with a Breton heritage returned to Britain! My understanding of the modern "Celtic" identity is a linguistic and cultural heritage rather a racial heritage..
Its a racial heritage in Ireland. They are definitely Celts, from Gaul.
@@johnpatrick5307 true
Vikings were a minority everywhere they settled though. They took native wives. Scotland, Ireland, Wales and Cornwall are all majority Celtic in genetics as is Cumbria with places like Northumbria and Herefordshire being around half Celtic. Even Orkney is mostly Celtic, Viking jarls intermarried with Celtic women
@@realitywins9020
Britain was colonised by Welsh-speaking Anatolian farmers about 1000BC - so the population of Britain is NOT ethnically Celtic.
Wrong, the Irish came from Iberia not France
Kernow is not a county, it's a duchy and also the high sheriff of kernow Swears fealty to the duke of kernow not the king of England making kernow a separate entity to its noisy neighbour England.
The main reason, in my opinion, that England is desperate to lay claim to Cornwall is the fact that, geologically, Cornwall is extremely rich!
Devon was stolen by England…
Everywhere was stolen by England.
I think UK mean UNITED BORDERS OF PEOPLE THAT IVE NEVER EVEN MET 😂😂😂
Englands so raceless we on average don't even know the countries that make it up ...
UK 30x races flags languages borders counties
England raceless
Cornish is believed to have died out in 1777... a process to revive the language began in the early 20th century, and competing factions of enthusiasts came to an agreement on a Standard Written Form in 2008. In 2010 Unesco reclassified Cornish as "critically endangered" and no longer extinct. By 2010 there were 300 fluent speakers, the same number as today.
Meur ras dhys, Albanach 😊
Nonsense on stilts. Pseudo "science". Phoenicians travelled to and from Lebanon to Cornwall and Devon for tin. The Romans stationed men from africa who were legionaries in Britain. The people who built Stonehenge were from Northern France and Belgium. Our genes are much more mixed up than we know.
How do we know our genes are more mixed up than we know 😂
Fun fact: although Cornwall is a county of England, it isn't actually in England. Quite a lot of the Duchy of Cornwall isn't in Cornwall either.
The Celts went to england
Cornish isn't still spoken. Cornish was a dead language but now some people have learnt it and speak it a bit as a hobby. Nothing wrong with that but it's not the same thing as "still spoken".
There are no places in Devon beginning with Tre unlike Cornwall.
No but there are a lot of places with Cornish elements to their names in West Devon, Brentor and Brynsabach to name but two.
Black white English flag
Green white black English flag
Arms and legs spinning English flag
Dragon breathing fire English flag
20x more = UK (England raceless)
WE THE CORNISH People's NEED TO PROTECT OUR ANCIENT CORNISH CULTURE FROM MODERN FRONTLINE CULTUREL ASSUALT...
You are not your DNA.
Is not Celtic
Celts are from Spain france
Wales Is Cool!!🏴It’s Not Whales People!!🐳
Less of the 'county' and 'England' please 😉 We don't call ourselves English, and we call our territory 'The Duchy', just like Wales is 'The Principality', thus, Devon is England, Cornwall is Cornwall. Murrasta sos ha kemerewgh wîth.
Cornwall is not Celtic!