Looking for my English backgrounds

[Kirbstone]

When I travel up north to that part of our Emerald Isle which remains in the Sterling Area I get some smiling Monarchs out of the bank here and for change I'll only accept bronze buttons (£ coins) + change, no notes up there.

T.

[Since1982]

Seems to me you all should get together and decided what country you live in. California is a STATE in the United STATES. As is Rhode Island or Massachusetts. or any of 50 total states, Including Hawaii. If you can't get over referring to us as "The Colonies", perhaps you should declare war on us again and see if it works out any better than the last two times you tried it.

I was just asking a question about my heritage, I wasn't looking to be insulted or badgered, which is what I got. I was happy about my heritage from your side of the North Atlantic Ocean. Maybe I was wrong. If so, I'm sure you'll let me know.

[Kirbstone]

Don't let the blabberings of those Sassanachs upset you, Skip. We Gaels in Eire have to put up with this all the time and at very much closer range, too. The Brits think we still live in the 'British Isles' and always refer to them as such. We refer to them simply as 'These Islands'

When we boast about anything we have which is bigger/longer/wider &c than anything in Britain we say that the such-and-such is the largest/loudest/ugliest in 'These Islands'!

T.

[Ray]

Skip, I think we are all aware of the political and geographical makeup of the USA. Additionally, I don't think you will find many people referring to the USA as one of the Colonies.

If you were insulted at what followed, please consider that your geographical ignorance inadvertently insulted some of us who are British but not English, and we were simply seeking to address that lack of understanding. This approach is likely - one hopes - to minimise inadvertent offence being caused in the future.

[Milfmog]

We Gaels in Eire have to put up with this all the time and at very much closer range, too. The Brits think we still live in the 'British Isles' and always refer to them as such.

Not at all. Very few of you live in Ireland; last time I looked the figures were around 8m people in Ireland and 40m Americans claiming to be Irish...

We refer to them simply as 'These Islands'

I guess that saves remembering where you are when you wake up after a good night out

Have fun,


Ian.

[Kirbstone]

That's Ian Milfmog hallucinating again. Perhaps the double vision resulting from his last 'Good night out' tells him that we number 8 million.

Our 2012 census this year revealed that the Republic's population stands at 4.87 million, give or take. Add another 1.5 million living in 'The North' . That makes a grand total of about 6.4 million.

He's partly right, though. In the US of A there are far more Irish Passport holders than our population here.

T.

[Since1982]

After getting nothing but nastyness from Ray since he joined, everything good I have to respond to him with is inside this bubble>> Enjoy, Ray. > o <...Enjoy reading your bubble, Ray?? If you have anything to say that's intelligent, please say it now, then again, maybe "intelligent" is not a word in your vocabulary.

To everyone else, excuse my comments to Ray please, I can only stand so much nastyness before I respond in kind. To anyone who is hurt in any way by my comments to Ray, they are " only "to him and no one else. I have nothing unfriendly to say to anyone else. Only good thoughts and feelings towards everyone else.

[Jock]

When I was a growing up, my country was always referred to as "Great Britain" and we were all "British". I remember a series of ads in the 70s called "I'm backing Britain". Our cars have GB international plates, our currency abbreviation is GBP and in fact our internet suffix was .gb before a swift change to .uk. It seems as though the change to UK has been very recent, and to me odd. United Kingdom is surely a description of the country. We don't refer to France as "The Republic" for example. Much as I love the Irish, it would make life easier if Ireland was one nation (a topic in itself) and then we could go back to being good ol' Great Britain.

Mind, if Scotland becomes independent we are hardly a United Kingdom, so what then? Answers on the back of a 1000 drachma note

For the whole 9 yards on The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, see - http://cgpgrey.squarespace.com/blog/the ... -engl.html

Right, tub thumping over.

A useful site for surname searches is http://gbnames.publicprofiler.org/
(be patient as it always seems slow). It is a very neat site that shows a map of These Isles divided into counties with the density of your name indicated. Fantabidoozie!

BTW I wish I had a pound/dollar/Euro for every time a thread went off topic or somebody got offended here "It's life, Jim, but not as we know it."

[Milfmog]

United Kingdom is surely a description of the country. We don't refer to France as "The Republic" for example.

The full titles of the countries, enshrined in constitution / law are:
"The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland" and "The Republic of France". The most remarkable thing about that is that there seems to be an agreement across the English Channel / La Manche about the proper way to name a country.

For the whole 9 yards on The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, see - http://cgpgrey.squarespace.com/blog/the ... -engl.html

Excellent, succinct explanation of the various names and interrelationships. Best of all, it does not contradict anything that I believe I know nor anything I wrote above.

Thanks for that link.

Have fun,


Ian.

[Since1982]

Next time I am interested in learning about my background, I think I'll skip it, since some folks are STILL babbling on about 300 year old wars. Get OVER it. Sheesh..

[Milfmog]

Skip,

You said you were looking for background from this side of the puddle...

I might add that the act of Union might be 300 years old but there is serious talk of a referendum in Scotland to see if it should be torn up and replaced with something else in a couple of years time; so it is hardly irrelevant ancient history.

Have fun,


Ian.

[straightfairy]

While I remember , Skip, the link below may prove of interest (while not providing solid information).
You put your email in, your gender and can then search several surnames to find origins and worldwide frequency distributions (i.e. how many people per million share your surname) which can be broken be down into regions for many countries.

http://worldnames.publicprofiler.org/Main.aspx