Who do we think we are?

The English are, without mincing words, a mongrel race.  We have, mixed up in our blood, vestiges of Celts, Saxons, Angles, Jutes, Danes, Vikings, possibly Romans, and definitely French.  Well, Norman - and the Norman blood is basically Viking, Norman being a corruption of Norseman.  That, at any rate, was my thinking.  Of course, all those racial sources are centuries old and there have undoubtedly been more blood-types thrown into the mix during the last couple of hundred years, but I am concerned here with the long ago.

I wouldn't say that my ideas have been blown out of the water exactly, but they have most definitely been subject to - shall I say - modification.  Research published earlier this month shows that there are distinct DNA grouping around the country.  For example, the Cornish DNA is different from the Devon as shown on this map.

The research studied the DNA of "white British people who lived in rural areas and had four grandparents all born within 50 miles (80km) of each other. Since a quarter of our genome comes from each of our grandparents, the scientists were effectively obtaining a snapshot of British genetics at at the beginning of the 20th century."

What is quite surprising is the lack of Norman influence in the DNA, most people being distinctly Anglo-Saxon.