Scots melting pot

Since we live on one small island, most of our ancestors will, quite clearly, come from the same places (myth and legend aside). The main point to make is that the DNA tests merely show the direct ancestral origins of those tested.

In a melting pot such as Great Britain, armies from England (including Welsh archers) and from Scotland, including both Lowlanders and Highlanders, have wandered about each others’ countries on many occasions, leaving their genetic footprints behind.

Thus, a “Viking” or a “Saxon” discovered by the project may betray direct lineage from those groups, but will, inevitably, also have had ancestors from many other groups on their maternal side. It is a little simplistic to suggest that there are pure Vikings – or any other lot – stalking the streets of Edinburgh or London.

What it does show, however, is that there is no such thing as a “pure Scot”, or “pure Englishman” out there either.

Results of a survey of what constitutes a Scot (your report, 23 April), as to whether it is a matter of having two Scots parents, which seems not unreasonable, to being born in Scotland – but then, not everything born in a stable is a horse, as the Duke of Wellington commented on being asked if he was Irish, because he was born in Ireland – shows that there is a debate on the matter.

It’s enough to make a Nat weep.

I am sure the children of thousands of Scots servicemen and women who were born in Germany, India, Africa or (dare one say it?) England, might rather object to being told that they were not Scots too, which does rather muddy the waters.

Having noticed that there are those who espouse the Nationalist creed who have some worrying question about being born outside Scotland, or being partly something else – and Mike Russell, Wendy Wood and Compton MacKenzie are cases in point – it seems that such people often feel that they need to bolster their claims to Scottishness by going to the extremes of politics.

Andrew HN Gray

Craiglea Drive

Edinburgh