Anglo-Normans of England

[Oliver109]

Because England was part of the Angevin Empire that encompassed basically the Western half of France. I've read before that the Normans recruited from all over France in their invasion of England, famously many were Bretons and Flemish (the Bretons ended up receiving land in Cornwall). Genetically the French ancestry in England also seems to be more diverse than just from Northern France. If you remember the first 'Norman' Archbishop of Canterbury was Anselm from Aosta (then Burgundian, now Italian).

I imagine the bulk of the recruitment would have come from the actual Normandy region though, otherwise there would be names or variants of names like Poiters, Limoges and Nantes cropping up which doesn't seem to be the case.

[Creoda]

I imagine the bulk of the recruitment would have come from the actual Normandy region though, otherwise there would be names or variants of names like Poiters, Limoges and Nantes cropping up which doesn't seem to be the case.

Probably, but with the French migration I'm mainly talking about after the conquest. Most ordinary French migrants may have just taken occupational, patronymic and English toponymic names (i.e. John of Lincoln). If you've looked at this period it's extraordinary how suddenly and quickly the English as a whole changed their names from Anglo-Saxon (i.e. Hereward) to French names (i.e. Robert, John) at the beginning of the 12th century. It obscures the French migration since suddenly all the English pretended to be French.

[#Oda#]

Every native English person or person of part English descent has Norman blood
We all descend from a comparatively v small founded population. All our bloodlines intertwin if you go back far enough

I went through my ancestry on Ancestry DNA, and along one line I descend from the aristocratic Lowther family of Northern England (if you go back far enough along enough lines of ancestry you will find an aristocratic lineage almost guaranteed....it took me around 30 generations back)

This family, like all aristocratic families of England ultimately descend from Normans

Okay, but this one single line won't have surrendered detectable pieces of DNA to you anymore - at least not in the ancestry composition. Maybe a tiny segment within the DNA matches if you are lucky.

[Oliver109]

Probably, but with the French migration I'm mainly talking about after the conquest. Most ordinary French migrants may have just taken occupational, patronymic and English toponymic names (i.e. John of Lincoln). If you've looked at this period it's extraordinary how suddenly and quickly the English as a whole changed their names from Anglo-Saxon (i.e. Hereward) to French names (i.e. Robert, John) at the beginning of the 12th century. It obscures the French migration since suddenly all the English pretended to be French.

That's interesting though i think the upper class still kept the French names i.e Seymour, Furneaux

[Creoda]

Okay, but this one single line won't have surrendered detectable pieces of DNA to you anymore - at least not in the ancestry composition. Maybe a tiny segment within the DNA matches if you are lucky.

True, names by themselves mean almost nothing, but the commonness of Norman names reflects their disproportionate influence and genetic success in outbreeding the general population. In the classism of England it's easily forgotten that even the modern lower classes are descended more from the medieval upper class than from the medieval peasantry and serfs. It's apparently a mathematical certainty that every English person born since around 1950 is descended from King Edward III (1312-77). It also correlates with average skulls having become more gracile since the late medieval period.