The recent sale of a property which has been in our family for over 100 years got me thinking about my ancestors - those I knew, like my grandfather who was born in that property, and those I didn't, who died long before I was born. And I've come to the conclusion that I'm a bit of a mongrel when it comes to those I'm descended from.
I grew up in an area where most people had close family living really nearby, and I was fascinated to learn at school that most of my friends were Bristolian as far back as they could trace (or so it seemd to me at the time). Only my maternal line was truly Bristolian (well, east Bristolian really), my mother's father came from Kent, my father's mother came from Cumbria, and my father's father from Edinburgh. Like all children I wanted to be the same as everybody else and really wished that all my grandparents were Bristolians too. As I got older I really enjoyed the fact that three of my four grandparents were from other parts of the country.
We have family documents from my father's paternal family which go back to the very north of Scotland in the early nineteenth century, and my surname (Yule) always marks me out as having these Scottish roots. I've spent my whole life having to spell my surname carefully as people never quite get it on first hearing it, but when P and I had a holiday in the Highlands it was wonderful to see that surname all over the place and not to have to spell it. We actually encountered a bus company run by somebody that has exactly the same name as me - if I Google my name I come up with loads of bus timetables!!
Because the name Yule has such Norse overtones I've always fondly imagined that somewhere in the dim and distant past my ancestors came over from Scandinavia - perhaps when northern Scotland was part of Norway, and that this explains why I'm fascinated by the cold, northern latitudes. P and I have visited the Shetland islands (utterly beautiful and hard to believe they are part of the UK), Iceland (somewhere I've always been fascinated by), and Norway (absolutely stunning). Luckily, for some reason, P shares my love of cold, remote holiday destinations and we'd both love to return to Iceland one day, to visit the Faroe Islands, and even to go as far as Spitsbergen or Greenland. Even as a child my favourite cartoon was Noggin the Nog, and I'm sure it was because it stirred some distant genetic memory in me.
On my mother's side my Kentish grandfather had German ancestors - evident in mine and my mother's 'Brunhilda' physique, and my maternal grandmother's side of the family are believed to have come originally from Holland.
Now P, who is Swiss, is an absolute thoroughbred. When I first met him I assumed that as Switzerland is smack-bang in the middle of Western Europe, and that as a nation they speak four differnt languages, he would be descended from a variety of different nationalities too. But no, as far back as his family can trace (and I think it goes back quite a few hundred years) they are 100 per cent, absolutely, without doubt, Swiss. Not even a drop of un-Swiss blood has sullied their lineage - what a contrast to me and my family's Heinz 57 varieties ancestors.
I'd love to know where other people's ancestors came from - are you a thoroughbred or, like me, a bit of a mongrel?
