Do white British people know why they are in the UK?

[boltj]

Do they wonder why their ancestors didn’t move away to USA, Canada, Australia, NZ etc in colonial times or recently?

I assume they didn’t want to.

My grandmother was one of eleven and her mother and all her other siblings moved the USA; whereas my grandfather had emigrated to New Zealand and had just come home to marry when WWI broke out

According to the parish records, my lot were too busy growing wheat and barley in Wiltshire, to go sailing off around the world.

My parents moved us to NZ. As an adult I moved myself back, Like a homing pigeon, after travelling & working all over Europe I now live 3 miles from where I was born.

I'd guess they were happy & doing well in the UK.
We found some letters in my grandmother's belongings - I think from one her great Aunts or something - whose sister had emigrated to the US in the late 1880s. They were incredible - long, loving letters from a sister she knew she would never see again. Times were obviously hard, she spoke of her husband and son, and of how she would "post this letter when she could afford postage." Very poignant.

What is the point of this post??

I mean originally because their ancestors left Africa. My DD did a family map recently and we're all over. Not all white though. Or British.

No, I have never wondered this.

My dads side never moved anywhere, 100% British as far back as I can go and on DNA
my mums side - my ggg grandfather came from Barbados and married a Scottish woman

I believe we’re supposed to be shamed for what we don’t yet know about while also being ashamed for not knowing about it.

Meanwhile, they’ll be a great many backgrounds on this forum, most of us just trying to do our best to survive, while also being good people.

My ancestral background is wide and varied so um... No idea. 🤷🏼‍♀️
Why I'm still here? I can't afford to move abroad yet.

Yes. Is this one of those posts designed to make white British people feel vaguely ashamed and hate being British? Because that really doesn’t have an up side for anyone.

Because most people don't emigrate. They stay put.

Nor me. And I am white British.

My parents wanted to emigrate to Canada.

My father was an only son (adopted as he later discovered). My Gran didnt want him to go as shed miss him and her grandchildren.

Sadly she died when I was 6.

Mind you, I had great long term relationships with my other grandparents.

I've never wondered this at all. My family is a mixture of white British and Irish, with roots going back into both Wales and Scotland.

I'm quite happy where I am and as I am, although I have travelled a fair bit at times. I don't live near my hometown, but I am still in my country of birth. What's wrong with that? Why shouldn't I be?

As others have said, the majority of people don't emigrate.

Simply this.

This is such an odd premise for a thread.

Most of them moved from the countryside where they were worked to death as labourers to the cities in the hope of better lives and jobs to support the Industrial Revolution. Their lives in many cases were grim, several relatives lived in the slums of Angel Meadow, Manchester. Worked to death in cotton mills having had family worked to death in mines before that. Their lives may have been “White British”, but their living standards, life expectancy etc was grim. Their big moves, from rural to cities made life not much better, if at all, why risk the long Atlantic crossing to the New World when the last move they made wasn’t great? The rich got richer, same everywhere.

Their lives may have been “White British”, but their living standards, life expectancy etc was grim

You're describing my grandparents' lives - grandad a miner, nan worked in the cotton mill. And then had 8 kids. Mum followed her into the mill at 14. So much for white privilege.

They weren’t convicts, neither were they due poor in search of a better life.

My grandfather's entire family emigrated to Canada. He was the youngest child (under 5) and was left behind as they felt such a young child might not survive the tough first years as immigrants. He was fostered (by all accounts happily enough) by family friends but aside from meeting his dad during ww1 when he was sent to Europe, he never saw any of his family again.

No?
My mum’s side came to the U.K. from Eastern Europe just as WW2 really got its boots on - guess they just went to the closest safe place with water between them and the carnage.
Dad’s side went from Ireland to Scotland and eventually onto England.
I’m the only one (in living memory at least!) who came to another country and that wasn’t emigrating by choice - my DH is military, and they decide where we live, not us.

My ancestors emigrated to the UK from Ireland. That’s all I know. I personally moved to the USA so my future line can thank me or hate me for that.

Why would the entire whire population of Britain choose to move? Peole move because of circumstances but actually many people are just happy in the country in which they were born.

My dad's side tried to emigrate, put all their money into it, and it didn't work out and came back.
My mum's side emigrated here in the 19th century.