Am I Scottish?

[Grooticle]

I have one Scottish great grandparent, was born in Scotland and lived there till I was 9.

My other ancestors were English, and I’ve lived in England since I was 9.

So I don’t think I’m Scottish (although I might say I’m “originally from Scotland” if it came up).

Turns out a close friend (who is very definitely Welsh) thinks of me as being Scottish, which I was surprised by, and now I’m curious what other people would think!

My DH has an auntie who was born and raised in the US. She moved to Scotland 15 years ago, is married to an SNP councillor, has a daughter with a beautiful but quite hard to pronounce Scottish name, and insisted the daughter went to a Gaelic primary.

My husband is born and bred Scottish, moved to England 20 years ago and has an extremely English wife.

During the independence debate, it was mentioned by some of the more ardent SNP members in the family that auntie was much more of a "proper" scot than DH because she chose to be. We got pretty fed up with the indyref and the prospect of another one is not filling either of us with joy!

What makes you 'extremely' English? Just interested in why you've described yourself that way.

I'm from darn sarf and have a very southern accent. I went to a c of e school. I had about as standard a middle-English upbringing as it's possible to have. That's all.

@Babdoc

The population of the UK is such a lovely intermarried mixture of all the home nations - we have been fellow citizens of one country for three centuries- that it is divisive and largely meaningless to call ourselves anything other than British. I was born and raised in England, my DH was half Scottish and half Dutch, our DC were born and raised in Scotland, where I have lived for 45 years. Which is why the whole unpleasant independence debate sickens me, as it creates such artificial and unnecessary divisions between families. I’d say you are British, OP.

You call yourself English all the time on here, why can't people call themselves Scottish?

@Grooticle

To my mind you certainly qualify to describe yourself as Scottish, but I don't believe that there's any 'requirement' for you to do so if you feel more personally comfortable with another nationality.

I'm born in Scotland, to one English and one Scots parent, have lived in Scotland my entire adult life besides one small excursion for work-related business that took me out of the country for a few years.

I describe myself as 'Scots', mainly because I don't really have any other claim to another nationality other than English in certain specific scenario thanks to my parentage. I have never lived in England, have hardly spent more than a few weeks there in my entire life, so I certainly would never consider or refer to myself as English.

British is a completely alien concept that I do not relate to whatsoever. There's no such nation as 'Britain', it's not a country, neither is the United Kingdom, so it's nonsensical to me to ever describe yourself as British or United Kingdomite.

I thought it was interesting that a recent study showed that the only people residing within the UK who primarily describe themselves as 'British' are a proportion of those living in Northern Ireland. Especially bizarre since it's not even in 'Britain'. Just goes to show that this absolute nonsense that the UK is a 'country' is nothing more than a lunatic fringe view. It's a unitary political state, nothing more, nothing less. There's no such thing as 'British' or United Kingdomite nationality, no matter how much raging cases of craven Scots cringe like Badoc might try to pretend there is.