Re: French genetics

At 06:54 29/10/98 -0000, you wrote:
>I've a rather important question for anyone who knows something about
>> French history: of what racial stock are the French? Are they descended
>> from the Germanic tribe called the Franks? If so, what happened to all
>> the Romans living there?
>>
>> In the same vein, where did the Normans come from?
>>
>>
>> Thanks in advance for any information you can give me!
>>
>
>This has been for long a very sensitive question in France. For centuries
the nonsensical legend went that nobility was from Frank stock ('sang bleu')
while the rest of the population was Gaul. This was an argument used
successively by the nobility, the revolutionaires, the left political wing,
etc. Centralisation, republican school and military service were the
successful tools for uprooting languages and regional particularisms within
a century. Now that's how John Cowan says : French genes have been
re-re-re-mixed for centuries. Invaders were small quantities but of so
various stocks. You could identify some quite different stocks but I don't
know of a genetical survey that could distinguish them  : Brittons from
Great-Britain, Germanic Alsaciens, people from the northern region were
Vlaams was spoken. Basques have definitely a different standard rhesus which
dilution in population is now used by scientists as a reference to tell the
trek of Indo-Europeans on the European!
>  t!
>erritory. But I read years ago a press article claiming that one in four
French would have a 'foreign' grand-parent by now. One part of family is
from Orleans, another one from Limousin rooting from Marseille with strong
Hungarian and Greek tints and still I think I'm average compared to many
French. From the beginning of this century millions of Italians, Poles,
Spanish, Portuguese and Northern Africans have settled here, so now one in
eleven newborns has a parent from foreign origin.
>
>Mathias
>
>
>
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>
        In my case, I'm mostly Norman, but one grandfather came from
Corsica, and my grandmother was born in Paris from a Belgian mother.

                                                Christophe Grandsire
                                                |Sela Jemufan Atlinan C.G.

"R=E9sister ou servir"

homepage: http://www.bde.espci.fr/homepage/Christophe.Grandsire/index.html