Huddle 'Up Celts

        The upper valley of the Danube, along the middle Rhine was the first playing field of this Teutonic francize. Yes sir, Teutonic it seems and, my "Y-Chromosome Phylogenetic Tree" would place these folks as Haplogroup R. Here we go again, the same beginning haplogroup as the Saxon but, events will move on down the hallways of time and, mutations would produce some distinctive changes. Anyhow, they also were an Indo-European speaking team of folks who played their way southward and westward to lands west of the Rhine.

       Certain factors need to be considered as they were my ancestors of the day. First, they had been on this "Island of the Mighty" [the way my ancestors saw this place] for hundreds of years before any of the other teams even got close! Let's see now, Norman-French 1066 A.D., Saxons ca. 400 A.D., the Church before 300 A.D. and my Celtic ancestors around 500 B.C.! Say what!! Almost a thousand years before the other teams even got into this game of life. A few exercise fields would have been planted. Wonder if this is why my Welsh ancestors considered their family a "plant"? 

       A second factor to be considered is their earliest name. Cimbrians, Cimbri, Cimbrias, Cymric appear on some early name calling days. These names appear in use before the Romans huddled their teams along the Danube. Wow, names, names, and more names were used. Much will yet to be discussed about the "Cymry".

P.S. One of my earliest guidebooks to Wales, "Blue Guide Wales", states on page 28, "The name Wales derives from the Anglo-Saxon 'wealas' meaning 'foreigners'." Hum ... more to come. This book is by John Tomes, 7th edition, A & C Black (Publishers), London, 1990.