On This Day: Normans invade Ireland, many merging with native Gaels, now with common surnames - May 1, 1169

[Redleg]

5. Well, I suppose people admire and respect the conquerors

and history is written by the winners. I am intrigued by the need that many people appear to have to identify with their long-dead ancestors. I am both bothered by it and attracted to it. I am reminded by the Ancestry commercial on TV that showed a guy who thought his family was German until he found out, through DNA testing, that they hailed from Scotland. The ad showed the guy wearing lederhosen and then switching to a kilt. It seems almost like cultural appropriation.

I also have to admit that I have a personal animus towards William the Bastard (aka "the Conqueror) based on my many years of study of the pre-Norman English society. I don't have any issues with modern-day descendents of Normans or of those living in Normandy. That is until they mention that William the Bastard had a right to the English throne after the death of Edward the Confessor.