To be confused about my partner's nationality

[ForestryForever]

Good evening,
My partner's parents were both born in Wales. They both lived and grew up in Wales. As adults they both left Wales and lived in England, where they remained.
Whilst married and living in England, they had a baby - my partner. My partner was born, raised in and grew up in England, and still lives in England.
What nationality is my partner?

British like the rest of the family.

If we're the case of being able to have two passport I would think he will be entitled to both depending on the treaty between nations. English by rights and Welsh by inheritance.

Ethnicity is not simply cultural. You're Welsh by ethnicity if both your parents were Welsh. It doesn't matter what culture you were raised in or belong to or identify with, it's not subjective.

Surely there are different ways of being Welsh?

My grandma was born in Wales to English parents. Always considered herself Welsh, had a Welsh accent, but wasn't ethnically Welsh.

Meanwhile my brother-in-law was born in England to Welsh parents, considers himself Welsh, supports the Welsh rugby team, etc. Ethnically Welsh but has an English accent and has never lived in Wales.

I don't think it's for anyone else to say one of the above is Welsh and one isn't, is it? 🤷‍♀️

It's interesting that he's getting a hard time for 'kicking off' - but op clearly is much too invested in this, and doesn't seem to want to accept him as Welsh - he's probably just completely fed up of being undermined about his own identity!

One of my ancestors married a Roma Gypsy, another side is possibly Jewish. I agree that nobody is 100% Celt for example.

Interesting question. My dad's parents were Greek but he was born here. His other brothers born in Greece. Pretty sure he considers himself English with Greek parents.

Don't think he'd get angry and shout about it though. Why's he getting so riled?!

I’m English, my husband is Scottish. We have two boys, one born in England who has an English accent and one born in Scotland who has a Scottish accent. They’re not old enough to understand the concept of nationality yet, but when they are they can choose to identify as either Scottish, English or British. If we were both Scottish / English then I would say they would be the same as whichever we were because that’s their genetic heritage, not just where they were born.
TLDR; I don’t think your partner can be called “half English” when he has no genetic heritage from an English parent. DNA wise he’s welsh, but he also sounds a bit of a knob about it, it’s not an insult to be English.

Anecdotes are not data. Migration does not mean ethnic groups don't exist. If it did, actually no ethnicity would exist. In what possible universe do you think your personal family genetics are relevant to whether or not the Cornish can be described as a distinct population. Surely you realize that's insane?

I think it's becoming less common now but that's just how it is in my family. Maybe not a very adventurous lot. :-) Migration is why I have married someone of different heritage and why my children are half of two nationalities. I have broken the mold. My child married someone of a very different ethnic heritage to either of us, so it's getting quite diverse now. Before me though, no diversity at all. I suppose my children have much more varied and wide spread roots than I do.

I am not. Culturally you are Welsh but ethnicity you are white and no real difference to the Scots or Welsh or Irish.

The factual answer is that he's British. Wales is a country within the nation of the UK. Therefore he's a British national. If he wants to call himself Welsh he can do so, but that neither Welsh or English are his nationality.

He's absolutely not 'half Welsh' - he'd be half Welsh if only one of his parents was (is) Welsh.

Probably because OP incorrectly categorised him, and then doubled down on insisting she’s right and he’s wrong. About his own heritage.

Of course it's subjective. What do you think "ethnicity" means if you think it's objective and encompasses "Welsh"?

this is such a stupid discussion...i wonder how many people have actually done their family trees? I have at least 6 different nationalities within mine, both European as well as Welsh, English & Scottish, some recent, some more distant , hence why I am British through and through because the British are an island race who have been colonised many times throughout history and now are becoming increasingly more diverse due to immigration. We can identify culturally with being "Welsh" or "English" but DNA wise we are all likely a big mix up .I get why the ethnic Welsh speakers in remote areas of Snowdownia or Anglesey feel like this but those of South Wales and the border countries aren't much different to those on the other side of this "border". DNA wise those from the remote areas of Wales are likely to share DNA similarities with those from France & Ireland as this reflects our history whilst those in central /southern England may share a lot of Germanic and Danish DNA features. I think its amazing to be proud of our own cultural heritage ,this is what helps pass on language and important traditions, but there seems to be a of of trying to draw "lines" of being superior to people from other cultural backgrounds.

Ethnicity is not the same thing as race.

The way I see it, [and I've been wrong before !] , England , Wales and Scotland [not sure about Ireland as I said previously] are countries , so we are English , Welsh or Scottish , but together we form the UK, which is a nation so we all are , in effect , British as a nationality .

The UK is a State, not a nation. Wales is both a nation and a country but not a State.

I haven’t? You’re so angry and wound up about your own agenda that you aren’t listening to other peoples points, you’re too busy shouting. I didn’t say at all that it doesn’t prove they are not a distinct population, my original point was about individuals and DNA.

This is a complex one, not least because people tend to have all sorts of opinions on what you are (or, more painfully, aren’t) which may be different to how you feel yourself. I think the most important thing here is how your partner actually feels, because each situation is different. If his family was very strong about their Welsh identity, he may strongly identify as such even though he was born and raised in England. Conversely, if they were very keen to adopt an English identity and tried their best to assimilate when they moved, then he may feel very English.

He may feel both and neither at the same time.

My kids have 3 passports. One is from my home country (they have never lived there but have the most family exposure from that side), one from DH’s country (the UK, where they were born and lived as babies), and one from where we currently live and where they are growing up. They hate it when people ask where they are from or what nationality they are as it is a very long-winded explanation. Their mother tongue is English, which is not the spoken language where we live, nor is it the language of their school life. Their identities are very muddled as they are from lots of places and nowhere at the same time, and they have weird accents to match.

What nationality would you say they are?

Not sure why you’re getting your knickers in a twist.

My English parents moved to Wales when I was a baby. My brother was born there. My brother and I were raised in Wales and both speak Welsh.
I consider myself English but with a love for Wales. My brother considers himself 100% Welsh.
We are both correct and it has never been an issue. Why do you care? Your husband considers himself Welsh as he has Welsh parentage and was brought up to be Welsh. Let him be.

Whoever said it was my ancestors. I doubt it. More like that of the royal family and aristocratic families. 😂 but yeah blame any person who is English for past wrongs.

Montserrat 🇲🇸 is a British territory in the Caribbean. It's not considered to be a country, because it "belongs" to the UK of Great Britain and N.Ireland. We know about Scotland, Wales , England but not all the Brits in that live in British territories.

So when I went back home, I realised that nobody saw me as a British person, the typical "Go back to your country" sh*t. But I realised I don't have a country, just a tiny island of 5000 inhabitants.

Migration does not mean ethnic groups don't exist

It means that many are existing less and less as the world gets smaller.

How do you define Welsh ethnicity? I note you haven't done so yet. How much of your heritage needs to be Welsh to be called ethically Welsh? There are genetic differences between North and south Wales, but as a whole Welsh people carry much genetic material from varied sources, a 2020 genetic study said it was 58% of their ancestry to the Brittonic people, up to 22% from a Danish-like source interpreted as largely representing the Anglo-Saxons, 3% from Norwegian Vikings, and 13% from further south in Europe such as Italy, to a lesser extent, Spain and can possibly be related to French immigration during the Norman period.

What IS Welsh ethnicity? Do you mean people whose entire family come from Wales? Is someone with one English grandparent Welsh enough? What about if you're Patagonian Welsh and your parents, grandparents and great grandparents were born in Argentine and you speak Spanish?

You haven't defined Welsh ethnicity at all, you're just shouting at anyone who you think doesn't get what you think youre' saying.

@Kiswahili That was kind of my point. It's a bit ugly to want such a narrow definition. Most of us are lots of things genetically and him being so aggressive about whether he's 100% welsh doesn't really imply that he would for example accept that a brown-skinned Brit can "really" be English or Welsh, if their parents were born somewhere else. For most people, identity is language and culture, not genetics. His attitude is not my cup of tea.

The UK is not a nation, it's a State made up of more than one nation. When you say everyone is British by nationality you mean by citizenship. Nationality and citizenship are not actually the same thing although they are used interchangeably in a lot of contexts. That doesn't work in the case of Wales because it is a nation but not a State. Welsh nationality therefore exists entirely separately from citizenship, or any legal definition.

'British' is also used as simply a collective term for all the nations that live in the UK, again separate to citizenship.