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smaadrink
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Last night I was at a meeting and mentioned Shetlink might be a good way of getting a bit of publicity for our project.

 

I was astounded at the reaction I got, I was told Shetlink was just 'Sooth Moothers Tom Tom Drums'.

 

This has got me thinking, how many people on here have their ancestors from the sixteenth century lying in a Shetland graveyard.

 

I have.

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I was astounded at the reaction I got, I was told Shetlink was just 'Sooth Moothers Tom Tom Drums'.

 

Judging by some of the bile spewed out against incomers on the forums, I would say there are a high percentage of inbr... sorry thoroughbred Shetlanders who use the forum.

 

According to the Brothers Keeper program, my ancestry also goes way back, but different branches of the tree also enter Shetland from other countries throughout history (as has always been the case).

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pure blood shelties aye thats rubbish. your the same as the rest of the uk a bunch of mongrels. with a titchy pit of pict, at bit more norse(dane norwegian northern german), some scots.even dare i say some anglo saxon, not forgetting the dutch for those with obliging female ancestors, and any other nationality that has bred with a pure blood. there are so many tall blonde shetlanders about after all.

 

intresting you choose the 17th century to class a person as a true shetlander. you would need to go way further back if at all possable, as a pure blood englander with no irish scots ect. i discover that im not so pure with links to scotland ,norway,sweden, germany ive even got the origanal lords of the isles in the family plus a tartan thou not the correct hairly legs to wear it or the desire, ancestory is fun but to class someone because their 12 times removed granny was from unst is better than the one from birmingham is a load of b---ocks.

 

and even if there was such a thing you would be that in bred you would end up with the most weird gentic illnesses that no outsider would want to lend you there jeans.

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how many people on here have their ancestors from the sixteenth century lying in a Shetland graveyard.

 

I have.

 

Is that one ancestor or all? Surely if it's only one ancestor then you can't guarantee your racial purity. You could be any kind of mongrel, not a proper Shetlander.

 

The 15th Century... so, 500 years... lets say four generations per century for simplicity's sake, so 20 generations....so...

 

Please provide the birthplace of the following:

 

2 parents

4 grandparents

8 great-grandparents

16 great-great grandparents

32 great-great-great grandparents

....etc,...up to

1,048,576 great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandparents.

 

Only then can you call yourself a proper, pure Shetlander! Or are you perhaps being a bit selective in your thinking?

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... not forgetting the dutch for those with obliging female ancestors,

Excellent point. People are forever going on about the supposed Norsky legacy here, both genetic and cultural. I wonder if there has been any DNA investigation focusing on Dutch genes in Shetland? I reckon it must be high. I also find the Dutch much more Shetlandic in their humour and pragmatism than Scandinavians.

 

intresting you choose the 17th century to class a person as a true shetlander.

Did he? I didn't read it that way at all.

 

It is also perhaps worth mentioning that if you can trace a long way back the individuals tend to be fairly dodgy characters (lairds, ministers etc).

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how many people on here have their ancestors from the sixteenth century lying in a Shetland graveyard.

 

I have.

 

Is that one ancestor or all? Surely if it's only one ancestor then you can't guarantee your racial purity. You could be any kind of mongrel, not a proper Shetlander.

 

 

I do not see anything in Smadrinks post about Race. Indeed Shetlanders have always been proud of their Viking roots - hence Up Helly Aa being celebrated each year. Most Shetlanders couldn't give a stuff about 'racial purity' and are more than happy to be 'mongrels'.

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I do not see anything in Smadrinks post about Race. Indeed Shetlanders have always been proud of their Viking roots - hence Up Helly Aa being celebrated each year. Most Shetlanders couldn't give a stuff about 'racial purity' and are more than happy to be 'mongrels'.

 

up helly Aa you mean the victorian creation or the old festival that is simular to lots of other new year activities burning things wether tar wickerwork or animals/people is a lot more celtic than norse.

 

the implyed comment is that if you cant trace your roots back to the middle ages your not a true shetlander. i agree the shetlanders dont care if your from a diffrent culture.

 

i suppose the yearning to be a viking

In Old English, the word wicing appears first in the Anglo-Saxon poem, "Widsith", which probably dates from the 9th century. In Old English, and in the writings of Adam von Bremen, the term refers to a pirate, and is not a name for a people or a culture in general. Regardless of its possible origins, the word was used more as a verb than as a noun, and connoted an activity and not a distinct group of individuals. To "go Viking" was distinctly different from Norse seaborne missions of trade and commerce.

has a lot to do with the old shetlanders desire to rewrite history. what would it have taken for the opressed shetlander to kick out the scots lairds that ill treated them. the english/scots were happy enough to rebel in the 15th-18th centuries against there leaders/kings. why did the shetlanders not. the norse shetlander was happy to nip over the north sea to take on the norwegians so why was there no revolt.

 

the germans had the policy of having to show a 4 generation tree to prove that they were pure german. with the idea that you need to prove about 20 generations hitler would have had difficulty to raise a five aside team. so how many pure shetlanders is there out there.

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I have. I also if I could be bothered to trace all the the emmigrants within the family prove I have ancestors/relatives in all four corners of the globe, does that make me any less Shetlander, Scots? or British?

 

Depends on who you talk to and what their reasons behind asking are, what the aims of Smaadrinks project is and its structure. One thing I notice on here though is that people are quick to jump on a percieved slight or misinterparate what someone has written and before you know it the thread has fallen into a Soothmoother/Shetlander debate on who is and who isn't.

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My post was meant to be satirical, clearly. I was simply suggesting that, since we each have well over a million ancestors who were alive in the 16th century, where they were born or died really has very little significance. It's a distinct possibility that even those of us who weren't born here ourselves could have an ancestor who was.

 

Most Shetlanders couldn't give a stuff about 'racial purity' and are more than happy to be 'mongrels'.

 

That may well be the case, but on the other hand there is a significant number of posters on these forums who, while they may be happy to be mongrels themselves, are not at all willing to accept that those without immediate Shetland ancestry can become Shetlanders. It seem more than a little hypocritical. And when there are people deregistering themselves from Shetlink because of the attitude shown towards folk not born here, I think perhaps that attitude ought to be examined.

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