Americans? Claim fake but supposedly glamorous Celtic ancestry? Surely not!

[winterbadger]

John McCain probably not really descended from Robert the Bruce...or Charlemagne.

I don't know which is funnier--the British genealogists who have apparently never heard of this popular American pastime of "tracing your roots" back to European royalty (I had a housemate who claimed to be able to trace his family back to the Angevin kings--which begs the question of whether one would really want to be associated with them) or the genealogist who thinks that Robert Bruce's destruction of Stirling Castle was some kind of fraternity prank. He may know a good deal about researching family trees, but I gather he knows very little about the Scots-English wars...

Comments

[wolfette]

it's a bit like "re-incarnation" - everyone claims to have been Cleopatra or Richard the Lionheart - no one claims to have been "Bert the Serf from Unknown Village in Unknown Province" - and they never claim to be descended from him either!

[gr-c17.livejournal.com]

WHAT !!!! Next you'll be telling me my Grandmother from the coal town made up our descending from John Carroll signer of both the Declaration and Constitution!

your just mean

[dativesingular.livejournal.com]

BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

[pisica.livejournal.com]

I thought everyone in Scotland was somehow related to Flora Macdonald???

[wcg.livejournal.com]

I suppose that it gave them something to hang on to during the generations of living in Appalachia. I've noticed that a lot of southern families who trace their ancestors back to the Scots-Irish (aka Ulster Scots) take great pride in the accomplishments of their ancestors who were in the defense of Derry, or some other similar action.

These days we have much better access to genealogical information, and the old family stories (like my wife's grandmother who quite proudly claimed descent from Patrick Henry) are being revealed as the inventions of poor, proud people. In that, at least, they have a lot in common with their Scots cousins.

[zoefruitcake.livejournal.com]

oh dear!