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?

No, they don't. 😂 What an odd question.

I'm 4th generation Australian. My ancestors moved very early on to make a better life. My great grandmother was born on the ship. My parents moved here in the 60s as my dad was doing a PhD at Cambridge. He moved back, my mum stayed here, both remarried. I lived in Australia for a while , came back for a job and married a Brit. I miss my girlfriends and some other things but I actually prefer it here. My dad died in 2019

I my family tree, someone came over from Ireland, possibly due to the potato famine?
Someone is from France many years back.
My grandmothers cousin left for Australia, can see the ship records, when she was very young, some upper generations are in America and canada.

Are you asking non white British people to speculate? That’s how your post is worded.

but you aren’t going to come back are you.

My Great great Uncle emigrated to Canada with his wife. Northern Canada... log cabins and huskies kind of life.
She starved to death one winter while he journeyed to get food and help. He came back to the UK afterwards a broken man. The rest of my mother's side were either mostly vicars or publicans, and stayed in Hampshire. Dad's side far north and Nordic roots , poor as dirt and worked the mines.
My son has emigrated... lovely to visit but actually I love the UK, it's weather, theatre, history etc and have no desire to leave that behind.

Same here, I have never cared a jot about it.

That’s a huge assumption. Most people didn’t have the means or anywhere to go even if they did leave. Family support networks were much stronger then too.

They weren't in the Puritan religious groups who wanted to found a theocracy in the US. They weren't so impoverished they were motivated to go to Canada / Australia just to find work.

I've heard it suggested that the difference between the British and American national characters is because Americans are all descended from the people who thought they would go and start a whole new life and risk everything and obviously it would work out; the optimistic people. And we're descended from the pessimists who didn't take risks. It's a theory...

Why would they want to? It's a big upheaval and perhaps they were happy here.

Mine didn’t because although they had hard lives and dangerous work (Welsh miners) they also had a close knit community with lots of support and plenty of nearby family. They’d have needed everyone to go.

Because historically people tended to emigrate mainly out of economic necessity or due to persecution at home. Most people didn’t have the economic wherewithal to move unless they were in fairly desperate circumstances. Hence a lot of emigration out of Ireland as a result of the famine, to the US and elsewhere.

Emigration is by definition the harder path to take so most people don’t do it unless there’s a strong driver. There are increasingly now people who relocate for jobs or lifestyle reasons but thats a new phenomenon.

Britain has, for most of its history, been a relatively stable country so the impetus to relocate your entire family with all the upheaval that brings, hasn’t been there.

Tell me you've been drinking without telling me you've been drinking

Odd question really, maybe because it is our land and our heritage, we live here, we were born here, we belong here, mostly are families have a deep rooted link here from generations ago. We even speak English pretty well on the whole. Why would we move away or why would our ancestors move away from such a fabulous country with such a rich and diverse culture and wonderful scenery? Ok the weather is a bit wet but thats better than a hell of a lot of other lands.

This looks like the same shit that gets posted on Quora.

They all went to Melbourne AUS in the 1850's, why do you think the place has such good pizza and coffee and cafes?😁 They are the second biggest group after "Anglo-Celtic " to this day. A lot went to the US. And the rest stayed home.

I do think there is something to that. The whole culture of calculated risk taking and ambition in US society has its roots in the idea that if something isn’t working for you, you pick yourself up and try somewhere else. Their society was built on this principle and it runs deep.

They were either too rich or too poor to move or simply content with where they were.

Most people don’t want to move away.

Because we were assimilated and haven't broken free.

Star Trek and Queen fans 😄

Yes for me. Also most white british prople are not 100 percent british.
I have done quite a lot of work on my family tree and dna.
My great grandfather was swedish and did travel to the US on a boat, but then travelled back and ended up in Wales. I have Finnish Italian and Azkanzi & Jewish DNA too. Though no current links to the finnish or jewish community.
Most of my heritage is from either england, ireland, scotland or wales, but also a lot of cornish which was at one time its own country.
I have a great, great great grandmother born to a huge merchant family in Bristol, she was cast out and disinherited by her family for marrying an Irish Sea Captain, so I have Irish heritage too. I have a great great great grandfather who was known as the copper king who travelled to Africa and became a famous copper miner and trader with books abput him and a place named after him.
One of my great great gtandfathers was Mayor of Doncaster.

Unlikely. Even now, with easy transport and communications, most people do not move to the other side of the world unless there's a good reason. 200 years ago, it would have been way worse. If you hae a 'great life', why would you go in a long, dangerous and unpleasant voyage to face great uncertainty on the other side of the world, probably never seeing your home or loved ones again?

NZ or Australia is a long way to leave a 'great life' behind.

I had an ancestor moved from Ireland to England. I have always thought he was not very enterprising as could have moved to US too but he only got to great port (then) of Liverpool - when ships were leaving all the time with migrants from all over Europe to USA. Both my parents moved to South Africa as single people.

In my family some had farms, some had businesses, all had friends and relations. Starting over from scratch is hard work, the climate here is mild, and the population wasn't - on the whole - trying to kill them. (On one side there was the initial small-boats incident in the 11thC, a bit of anti French sentiment a few centuries later, and then the temporary unpleasantness inbetween Charles I and Charles II, but apart from that we mostly got along OK.)

Some moved away, because there's always an interesting option over the horizon. And their descendents are, obviously, not here. But most stayed because they had no particular reason to go.

Yes, I know why I'm here. Somebody told me once "we're all immigrants" and I was intrigued. I'm a Cockney, one of the last of them. I've been tracing my family tree. I've got back as far as 1650, all my family were living in Whitechapel, Spitalfields, Stepney and Bow. I've spoken to my elderly relatives. They fought in the Wars. There was a great community. They told me tales of everyone looking out for each other, how clean the streets were, how proud they were to be British.
It's just a shame for me that the Cockney indigenous land and culture has been destroyed and no longer exists.

Until the 20th century the two main drivers behind permanent migration to those countries were:

1. transportation
2. famine.

If your ancestors weren’t found guilty of a crime and weren’t starving they usually stayed out with their family around them. Most British people lived within 10 miles of their entire family. Why would they leave that for the unknown?

Transportation is the big unspoken in American history. Most Americans with British ancestors who arrived there in the 17th and 18th centuries have convict ancestey. The transportation wasn’t as organised or centralised as it was for Australia after American independence. Instead, someone with a relatively minor conviction by modern standards (theft of goods worth £100+ today) would be given the death penalty. This could be commuted to transportation for a fee. A middle man would pay the fee and the cost of transportation. He then sold the debt to an employer in the Americas. The convict would then work to repay the debt. He was also accruing more debt for his board and lodgings, so often never became a free man and remained an indentured labourers for the rest of his life. He lived in the same conditions as slaves and worked alongside them, but unlike slaves, his children were free. If his family came with him, his debt would be that much bigger and harder to pay off. They too would be indentured labourers.

Interestingly enough - my dad had several opportunities to move and didn’t like the look of it either time.
His brother moved to South Africa, (late 60s) and his dad went too after his wife died.
My dad had offers to go and help with finding a job- including one as a ‘trainee mine captain’. Thanks but no thanks was his answer to that. (He would have been the least suitable person in the world for a role like that - intellectual type and complete push over and soft touch. If mum says no, ask dad - or better still ask dad first)
He also went to a talk about the £10 pommies boat trip to Australia- and apparently the guy showed them all the shiny nice presentation- then gave them the nitty gritty realities after and put him off completely.
After they married my mum did get him to move countries- all the way to Wales!