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?

What did you ask ChatGPT to come up with THAT 😆

My ancestors were immigrants from Odessa. They fled from anti-Jewish persecution in the Russian Empire in the late 1890's/early 1900's...they even anglicised the family name.

A friend with a similar back flag round to you sent me this quixotic speech about being of Cockney stock. You’ll be in tears by the end, so watch it when you aren’t at work.
m.youtube.com/watch?v=8T5rZLPwoKc&t=1804s&pp=2AGMDpACAdIHCQkeAaO1ajebQw%3D%3D

My mother’s father’s family emigrated here about 150 years ago from France - her had a job as a hairdresser to Queen Victoria! . My father’s father emigrated here about 120 years ago from Jamaica. Both grandfathers married more established scottish girls, although they had both (coincidently) been born in S America.

Why are you assuming they didn’t? Some of my ancestors did move abroad. My grandparents emigrated to Australia. My great-grandfather moved to Canada, but joined the CEF when WWI started, and ended up back here. Another great grandfather worked and lived all over the world.

Remember that we all have 8 great grandparents and 16 great great grandparents. It would be highly unlikely that every one of them ended up moving. But even if they did, it’s possible to be a white British person in the UK and still have had ancestors who have emigrated.

Because they liked it here

I’ve spent decades working on family history and genealogy. I feel okay making assumptions.

And yet records show that many many people did it.

Australia was actively marketed (misleadingly so) as utopia.

I have a Saxon surname so assume that my long-ago relations moved here from the near continent and liked it.

Busy being worked into an early grave in the mines, or having children until they expired.

Some of my family went to Australia; not their choice. We found their transportation records.

Yes, many did. But they were still a very small proportion of the overall population. The majority of people prefer to stay in their home country unless they have a very good reason to move.

From what I can see from my family tree, we were always able to make a good living in the UK so we never felt the need to leave. That and one very dubious ancestor turned King's Evidence in 1830.

I know what is meant by white privilege.

Evolution, tribal behavior, migration drivers and technology.

As a species, we evolved in Africa, all had dark skin. Migrated in waves, other human species went extinct.

Those who migrated north eventually lost Melanin, and we went from being hunter gatherers to farmers, thus removing much of the drive to migrate. And technology helped us to survive longer.

And here we are.

Edit. Forgot to say, as a species we developed the notion of countries, and language developed.

Once our species had language, and the languages were different, we all sort of stayed where were.

What a strange thing to say. Most people's ancestors were living in poverty and working long hours in gruelling jobs.

@Mrswhiskers87please explain it

I'm in the UK because abortion wasn't legal in ireland and she wasn't married. She came to England for less judgement.

I remained here because my adopted mum was ill and being 26hr flight away from a woman who was under palliative care for years was too far.

I'm assuming because they didn't want to, were scared to, were not religious zealots, were not transported, did then moved back and/or they did not have the money.

I wonder where @boltj lives and if they've emigrated away from the UK?

Same!!

All of my great grandparents were very ordinary people, but they all moved from the UK to the other side of the world at some stage - and that was much more than 100 years ago.

We might be related 🤣

Or just really, really poor. Where I am, Massachusetts, the vast majority of white people's ancestors came from Ireland or southern Italy. Those places were HARD, way back when. Immigrants came here from those two places out of total desperation, and many didn't survive the journey.

My Cornish family did emigrate to the US but two branches came back during the Great Depression.

My family are British but they moved around a lot for work - DM Cornish, DF Bradford ended up in Scotland