The Norfolk Portraits

1932: The Wedding of Ernest and Ivy This image is an AI restoration and colouring of a 1932 wedding photo capturing the marriage of my grandparents, Ernest William Curtis and Ivy Maud Tovell, at Limpenhoe, Norfolk. This project tracks the direct matrilineal line, represented here by the bride and her mother, Caroline Tammas-Tovell, who is seated beside her.

I have mapped a hypothesis of the route my mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) has taken over approximately 1,000 generations. This journey commenced with the emergence of "Helena" 25,000 years ago in the Levant and concludes with my mother in a Norfolk village.

A Childhood Snapshot This is an AI restoration of a snapshot of my mother as a young girl, being "forced" to pose with a kitten by her brother, Dennis.

The Biological Engine: A Story of Fluke and Resilience

Mitochondria are a story of fluke and resilience. Billions of years ago, they were likely independent bacteria. At some point, they were engulfed by a larger cell but escaped digestion; instead, they formed a symbiotic partnership. The mitochondria provided energy, and the larger cell provided protection. They became the power plants located inside almost every cell of our bodies. Just as a city needs electricity to keep the lights on, our cells need a specific kind of "chemical energy" to keep us breathing, moving, and thinking.

Because they reside in the cytoplasm, outside of the central nucleus, they contain their own autonomous DNA. It is the mutations or variants on that mtDNA (in my case, Haplogroup H6a1a8) that I have been following. For geneticists, mtDNA acts as a vital marker; we can date variants and pinpoint their emergence to a specific time and geographic location. It is uniquely useful because, unlike nuclear DNA, it does not recombine or "shuffle" with each generation. Rather, it follows a strict line of descent. Traced backwards, it follows my mother, her mother, and her mother before her—along that unbroken matrilineage, all the way back to "Mitochondrial Eve".

A Legacy of Resilience: The Cache County Study

For students of Integrated Ancestral Studies (IAS), however, this is more than just a marker. It appears that those of us carrying H6a1a, H6a1b, or their descendant "daughter" lineages (such as H6a1a8) may have inherited a significant biological advantage.

The Cache County Study on Memory in Aging—a long-term investigation involving over 1,000 residents of northern Utah—sought to understand why Alzheimer’s disease (AD) clusters in families and why there is a notable "maternal effect." Researchers discovered that individuals belonging to the H6a1a and H6a1b sub-branches of the Helena lineage had a significantly reduced risk of developing Alzheimer’s.

While the exact biological mechanism is still being researched, the findings suggest that these specific mitochondrial lineages are more "resilient" to the ageing process. Their variants are located in genes responsible for the electron transport chain—the machinery that generates cellular energy. For this project, it adds a profound layer of meaning: the route this DNA took over 1,000 generations isn't just a map of migration, but a 25,000-year-old legacy of cognitive resilience. This may explain why Alzheimer’s has plagued my paternal line, yet remained notably absent from my maternal family.

The Journey of the Matrilineage

Matrilineal Staying Power From the perspective of human population genetics, I have noted the remarkable resilience and "staying power" of women across prehistoric societies. Men come and go, but the mtDNA remains. Consequently, Europe has become a broad matrix of diverse mtDNA haplogroups, while a relatively small number of Y-DNA haplogroups dominate. Warriors arrive and are later vanquished, but those who actually till the soil and produce often remain as the enduring genetic background.

The Norfolk Thread Records show that my matrilineage has been incredibly localised in south and east Norfolk since at least 1661 CE. I find it highly probable that the line was present there during the Late Medieval period, and I have further postulated that it may have lingered in this area as far back as the Iron Age. While these theories are based on rational conjecture—factual certainty only begins with that 1661 baptism—the proposed 25,000-year route suggests many instances of "settling" for centuries or even millennia. I view mtDNA as a genetic thread that weaves different cultures together.

H6a1a8: An Iron Age Haplogroup Throughout this journey, I have associated H6a1a8 specifically with the Western and Central European Iron Age. The clues exist in ancient DNA samples found in North Berwick, Scotland, and in its modern distribution. I hypothesise that my matrilineage likely entered the British Isles following the Late Bronze Age migration events from the south, but prior to the Anglo-Saxon "North Sea Migration Continuum."

Admittedly, I may be simplifying these movements. The journey may not have always been a linear "westward" trek from the Volga; the reality is likely far more complex. What I have attempted is to narrate a believable route through 25,000 years, acknowledging that many alternatives may exist.

Closing Log

I hope that someone finds the Ovum series useful, today or tomorrow. This is the personal journal of a Time Traveller left open.

To follow: 

an index bringing together Ovum (my mtDNA narrative) and Odyssey of Y (my Y-DNA narrative). From there, I shall move on to other subjects within Integrated Ancestral Studies, including:

• Restored and colourised photos of my late uncle's Korean War tour. The 1951/2 Royal Norfolk Regiment in colour. National Servicemen in action.

• Viscount Melbourne as Home Secretary personally petitioning for the release of my swing rioter ancestor. The incredible pardon from transportation by the man who a few years later transported the Tolpuddle Martyrs. By his whim alone do I exist today.

• AI for time travel. Strengths and weaknesses.

• Reflections on a forty-year journey through the tracing of ancestors.

• My 18 year old Boer War veteran ancestor of the 9th Foot.

• A fresh look at my late father's metal detector finds from Norfolk, and what they suggest about the boulder-clays of the East Anglian Plateau.

• Identifying struck flint and prehistoric stone tools

• Idyllea: Revisit my adventure tale of three siblings at the close of the Mesolithic period.

• Local history, archaeology, genealogy, genetics, prehistory and more.

If anyone finds these logs one day, then enjoy.

It is now 440 CE in the Tas Valley of what is now called Norfolk, England. My 51-times great-grandmother is a young girl, playing in the ruins of the old city of Venta Icenorum. Other than squatters and salvage-hunters, the city has largely fallen into decay and is mostly deserted.

Her people are Romanistas - Romano-Britons. They are the Christian, Romanised Britons of the 5th century, and they have good reason to pray. It has been more than thirty years since the last legions departed Britannia. The shore forts stand derelict. The economy is in crisis, and their society is shattered.

Her father is a decurion, a local magistrate and landowner. He has witnessed the decline throughout his life. His tenants are restless, their economy still clinging to the memory of the coin, yet they scratch the heavy local soils with light ards that barely bite the earth.

​But a new people are settling these lands, arriving from across the North Sea. Their culture is alien, having evolved free of imperial history. They are industrious workers and brave warriors. They use heavy iron-shod ploughs and brute strength to turn the stubborn clay soils. They rely on barter and tender—trading their surplus products rather than coinage.

​The father is wise. He understands the value of cultivating a strong relationship with these new tenants, mercenaries, and trading partners. They may speak in rough Germanic tongues and worship pagan deities, but they promise a way out of the crisis. These are the early arrivals of a people known as the Angles. They have arrived as mercenaries and pioneers, and have brought a dearth of brides. My 51-times great-grandmother was always destined for an arranged marriage.

Her father had made a wise decision. Her husband's family proved they knew how to get the best out of these difficult soils. Their imported culture inspired the local Romano-Britons; by leading through example, they became the new leaders of the valley.

This AI image visualises the aging couple. They sit at home in a comfortable Anglo-Saxon house. I've asked for a cross section to demonstrate the earth pit basement below the wooden floor. These features left archaeological traces known as SFB (sunken feature building).

​Cultures often change, but those who work the soil frequently remain. This underplayed rule applies more so to the women—a rule that can be observed through the mtDNA record.

​Rationale

​Recent genomic studies—most notably the 2022 Gretzinger et al. study—suggest a significant genetic turnover in Eastern England, with up to 74% of the ancestry in areas like Norfolk being attributed to Continental Northern European populations.

​At first, this sounds like support for the old 'mass Anglo-Saxon invasion' story of Hengist and Horsa. However, the researchers stress that this immigration event was spread over as much as 600 years, from the early mercenaries up to and including the 9th and 10th-century Danish (Viking) farmers. This represents a long, drawn-out North Sea Immigration Continuum.

​Therefore, integration was often a more peaceful process, occurring one generation at a time. It is easy to see the economic advantage of marrying into North Sea communities. Was there conflict and coercion? I am sure some existed; horror stories based on fact likely served the tabloid-like religious lessons of early monastic historians like Bede.

​These new arrivals—the 74% of East Anglians who conquered the boulder-clay soils—were certainly prominent among my general ancestry. Their mixed descendants, the founders of an English identity, settled in their farmsteads, largely unmoved by the later Norman aristocracy, eventually becoming my high medieval ancestors.

Anglo-Saxon DNA

I have previously blogged details and a summary of recent investigations into Anglo-Saxon DNA in Anglo-Saxon Migration - the latest genetic evidence 2024. 

Anglo-Saxon copper-alloy brooches, parts of a cruciform brooch or a square-headed brooch recovered by my late father in a field at Morley St Botolph, Norfolk (recorded).

Cherry Hinton, Cambridgeshire, James Alexander Cameron on Flickr

Most of our nuclear DNA recombines with every generation. But a yDNA Haplogroup is a genetic marker that follows along the direct paternal line, passed down from biological father to son. Follow it back, and it will follow your father's father's, father's, etc.  Most NW European males carry a yDNA haplogroup of R, or I. Sometimes G, J, E. However, I have a variant of L, defined by a mutation coded M20 (L-M20). yDNA haplogroup L is regarded as Non-European and some will insist that it is South Asian. I can reliably trace my own paternal line back to 18th Century Oxfordshire / Thames Valley.  yDNA haplogroup L is NOT seen as European. It is seen as an Asian genetic marker. The males of two English families share my own mutations: BROOKER of Oxfordshire and CHANDLER of Basingstoke, Hampshire. My next closest yDNA matches are men from Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, India, and Lebanon. 

Cherry Hinton, Cambs.

Excavation of a Medieval Cemetery. Ancient DNA revealed.

Genetic history of Cambridgeshire before and after the Black Death

Cherry Hinton 919 (sk3262) was related to a female (mother, or sister?) number 947 (sk3262) with whom he shared his mtDNA haplogroup U5b3e His yDNA was sequenced as L-B374.

 L-B374 Today

Documentary Paternal line.

I have proven descent from John Henry Brooker, through genetic matching to support the documentary evidence. I and my sibling share some centimorgans of autosomal DNA with descendants of his sister. Additionally, smaller segments are shared from the prior few generations, to support that this paternal line is biologically true, at least back to Generation 5 (great great grandparent). He was the only one of my great grandfather's not to be Norfolk-born.

If I follow his paternal line (BROOKER) back using traditional genealogical method, I follow it back to the Thames Valley borderlands of rural Oxfordshire and Berkshire. I have good, strong documentary evidence back to my direct paternal line 5 x great grandfather, Edward Brucker, born 1757 at Long Wittenham, Berkshire.

Support for my 6 x great grandfather being a John Brooker born 1722 at Hagbourne, Berkshire in 1722 is pretty good. His father before him I have verified, was another John Brooker born 1691 at Hagbourne. His father was Thomas Brucker, also baptised at Hagbourne in 1658.  If biologically true, he would be my 8 x great grandfather and that would place my Y chromosome in Hagbourne, Berkshire in 1658. The Chandlers who share the yDNA descend from a Thomas Chandler who lived in Basingstoke, Hampshire during the late 18th century. At some point prior to that, our two paternal lines must merge.

Anything earlier than 1658 Hagbourne, too much doubt creeps in, but I have candidates stretching back a few generations waiting for more supportive evidence. They are in the Wantage/Uffington area of Oxfordshire. Caution - they may be incorrect. Another candidate in in Whitchurch, Hampshire.

I've researched the BROOKER surname:

Distribution of BROOKER baptisms AD 1550 - AD 1600 by English County.  County boundaries modern, but East and East Surrey united for historical purposes.  Includes records of derivations of Brooker surname.

During the 16th Century CE, it was not a common surname in Oxfordshire and Berkshire. Its origins are the Sussex / Surrey area. It is possible that I had a Brooker surname ancestor move up through Hampshire into the area. I think that our surname picked up the yDNA in Hampshire, or in a South English port. My favourite hypothesis is that a South West Asian sailor visited, and left a son there early into the Medieval.

This hypothesis might seem unlikely, yet it brings me to:

Updown Girl

Wikipedia - UpDown Girl

In 2015, the Peopling of the British Isles (POBI) research group, published this paper:

The Fine-scale genetic structure of the British Population  Leslie, Winney etal POBI 2015

It proposed that the Early Medieval migration events commonly known as Anglo-Saxon (a better term to include the 9th Century surge could be Anglo-Danish), has been exaggerated. They concluded that the modern English had only 10% to 40% descent from these Continental immigrants, with the remainder majority reflecting earlier Iron Age / Romano British ancestry.

An independent 2016 investigation by Schiffels, Haak etal looked at ancientDNA from cemeteries in Cambridgeshire. The results supported POBI's conclusion, proposing:

'East English population derives 38% of its ancestry from Anglo-Saxon migrations'

• POBI 2015 suggested 10% - 40% Anglo-Danish
• The small scale Schiffels, Haak etal report of 2016 suggested 38% 'Continental Northern European'  (Anglo-Danish) in the Cambridgeshire region.

The 2022 study based on hundreds of ancient remains increased the percentage of new arrivals. They conclude that it is higher further east, closer to the North Sea, but declines as an average in Western England.  At its peak in Eastern England, they projected that Anglo-Danish accounted for 76% of the genome:

'the individuals who we analysed from eastern England derived up to 76% of their ancestry from the continental North Sea zone, albeit with substantial regional variation and heterogeneity within sites.'

This is a higher estimate than that proposed by the previous two studies.

Above image copyright of openstreetmap.org.  Modified to show local districts of Broadland and Flegg.

Flegg is a district of two hundreds, consisting of a total of 22 parishes, set in Broadland, in the east of the East Anglian county of Norfolk.  It is thought that with the higher sea levels of the Roman period, that it would have effectively have formed  an island bordered by reed beds, marshes, river valleys on the west and south, and the North Sea in the east.  As sea levels decreased slightly during the Anglo-Saxon period, and drainage systems advanced, so Flegg became better connected to the "mainland".

Roman East Norfolk showing Flegg as an island:

The name "Flegg" is Anglo-Danish in origin, as are many of it's parish names such as Ormesby, Rollesby, Hemsby, Stokesby, Filby, Scratby, Mautby, Thrigby, Billockby etc.  No other district in East Anglia, a region that formed a part of the 10th Century Dane-Law has such a concentration of Scandinavian place-names.

In this post I want to record some transcriptions taken from some studies in my book collection, that relate to Flegg, or to the wider area of Broadland (East Norfolk), during the earlier Medieval period.

The Origins of Norfolk.  Tom Williamson 1993.  Manchester University Press.  ISBN 0 7190 3928

The Norfolk Broads - A landscape history.  Tom Williamson.  1997.  Manchester University Press ISBN 0 7190 4801.

"The Broadland fens and marshes are nowhere so extensive that the traveller loses sight of the 'upland'.  Even in the middle of the Halvergate marshes the higher ground can be seen, low on the horizon, often picked out by the lines of woodland growing on the relict 'cliffs' of the former estuary.  Some of the higher land once comprised islands: Flegg covering some 78 sq km, between the Bure and the Thurne.".

"During Middle Saxon times - roughly the period between the mid-seventh and late ninth centuries - the local population probably increased once again, and more complex forms of social and economic organisation developed.  The Broads area became a part of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of East Anglia, which was roughly coterminous with the modern counties of Norfolk and Suffolk.  It is possible that the uplands here were more densely wooded than most parts of Norfolk at this time, in spite of the excellence of much of the local soil.  Certainly, many place-names in the area seem to refer to woodland: Acle for example was the ac leah, the oak wood; Fishley, 'the wood of the fisherman'; while both East Ruston and Sco Ruston incorporated the term hris tun, 'the settlement among the brushwood'.  It is possible that, remote from the main centres of power in East Anglia, and exposed to the threat of continued sea-borne raiding, the district was relatively sparsely settled, principally used for grazing.  The importance of the latter in the local economy is again suggested by place-names: Horsey was 'the horse island'; Woodbastwick and Bastwick both incorporate the element wic, 'a grazing farm, ranch'; while the names of Winterton and Somerton - the winter settlement and the summer settlement respectively - suggest the practice of transhumance, the seasonal movement of livestock to distant pastures.  Extensive areas of seasonal grazing must have been opening up in the form of low-lying fens and marshes as the estuaries here began to silt up.  The role of Broadland as an area specialising in grazing and the exploitation of woodland - complementing the arable specialisms of other parts of the East Anglian kingdom - is also perhaps indicated by a particularly noticeable feature of the area at the end of the Saxon period.  Domesday book shows that a very large proportion of the population here was classed not as bondmen - as villeins, sokemen or bordars - but as free men, liberi homines.  Such individuals were very thick on the ground both in Flegg, and on the uplands bordering the south of Broadland, and the power of manorial lords in these areas was correspondingly circumscribed.  There are many views on the nature, and significance of such men: but one interpretation is that they were the descendants of Middle Saxon peasants whose main role had been that of herdsmen or shepherds, and whose obligations to king and nobles were thus less servile or onerous than those of arable producers."

"Elsewhere in Norfolk and Suffolk free men were more thinly spread, although they were almost everywhere a more prominent feature than in other areas of England.  Like other distinctive aspects of East Anglia's social and tenurial structure, they are often interpreted as a consequence of the settlement here, during the ninth and tenth centuries, of immigrants from Scandinavia.  While in reality, the origins of Norfolk and Suffolk's medieval idiosyncrasies are much more complex than this, a Viking elite clearly did come to dominate the East Anglian kingdom around 869 when, according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, 'The host went from Cirencester into East Anglia, and occupy that land, and share it out.'

In restricted areas there also appears to have been large-scale peasant immigration from Scandinavia.  One of these was Broadland.  Viking place-names - especially those featuring the suffix -by, 'farm, settlement' - are densely clustered on the island of Flegg (a name itself derived from a Scandinavian word meaning reeds), widespread in Lothingland, and scattered more thinly along the upland margins of the Yare and Waveney."

"Whatever the nature (and extent) of Viking settlement in the area, there is no doubt that by the time of the Domesday survey in 1086 the upland parts of Broadland were no longer a sparsely-settled landscape of woodland and pasture.  They were now - together with the neighbouring clayland areas to the south and west - one of the most densely settled and intensively farmed regions in the whole of England.".

"The region's dense population, and complex social structure, are manifested in another way: in the small sizes of parishes, and thus in the large number of parish churches.  Indeed the upland areas of Broadland have one of the highest densities of parish churches in Britain.  Many of these (although not the present structures) were already in existence by the time of Domesday: their proliferation reflects not only the comparative wealth of this fertile region, and the need to house large congregations, but also perhaps the confused tenurial structure of the locality.  Families of freemen may have been keen to endow churches in order to establish their status: church-building was the mark of the lord, rather than the peasant."

"In East Anglia, in contrast [sic to the classic "great open fields" elsewhere in medieval English parishes - PB] medieval agricultural systems were much more flexible and individualistic: seldom were the strips widely scattered across two or three great 'fields' but were instead more closely clustered in the vicinity of the peasant's homestead, and individual farmers had more freedom of choice about what they grew and when.  In the west of Norfolk, such freedoms were somewhat limited by the institution of the 'fold course' - the right of the manorial lord to graze sheep across the tenants' land for much of the year.  In Broadland however - where the power of manorial lords was more circumscribed - fold courses were rare and tenants enjoyed almost complete freedom over how they organised their cropping, and rights of grazing over others' land were often limited to the period after the harvest."

Medieval Flegg.  Two Norfolk Hundreds in the Middle Ages East and West Flegg, 1086 - 1500.  Barbara Cornford.  2002. Larks Press.  ISBN 0 948400 98 6

p 16. "Flegg farmers have always distinguished between the upland and the marsh (The upland in Flegg is all land over five feet above sea level)."

p20. "Yarmouth has always been the market town and urban centre for Flegg.  In the Middle Ages corn from Flegg fed the town.  For centuries Flegg farmers and small-holders have sold their livestock, vegetables and fruit at the Wednesday and Saturday markets."

p22. "The Danish settlement of East Anglia began after 880 AD, when, according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the Danes occupied the land and shared it out.  They must have come to Flegg in considerable numbers for they gave names to thirteen out of twenty-two villages in Flegg."

p22 "The name Stokesby, which is Saxon in its first element and Danish in its second, is an interesting one.  Not only does it suggest the mingling of the two groups, but it may also explain why the Danes found the Muck Fleet valley virtually empty.  The Saxon word 'stoc', pronounced with a long 'o', was used to describe an 'outlying pasture near water where cattle are kept for part of the year'.  If this is true of Stokesby, then the Danes may well have found only cattle-minders in the valley, with perhaps small and scattered settlements around the heath to the west."

p23. "Most of the Danish village names in Flegg incorporate a personal name, such as Orm (Ormesby), Malti (Mautby), or Hrodulfr (Rollesby).  Dr Sandred believes that these are the names, not of warrior chiefs, but of free farmers, more interested in acquiring land than pillage and warfare."

p24-25. "Danish words have survived in Flegg as they have generally in Norfolk.  Holme means an island and is applied to an area of dry ground in the marsh, often a gravel bank.  Winterton and Somerton Holmes are sufficiently well drained to be ploughed and contain farms.  Medieval field-names include 'gate' for a road, 'wong' for a furlong or collection of strips in the open fields and the 'syk', a marshy strip of land by a stream.  These words are still used.  Ferrygate and Damgate are roads in Martham, villagers go 'over the wongs' from the church to the hamlet of Cess, or through the 'syk' meadow, marshy ground, which was once a navigable stream, marking the boundary between Martham and Bastwick.  One Danish name has vanished.  The hamlet of Sco, mentioned in the Domesday survey, lay where Martham, Bastwick, and Rollesby meet around the present Grange Farm (OS TG 437 172), but Sco never became an ecclesiastical or civil parish.  The word is Danish, from skogre, a wood, and is appropriate for a settlement at the bottom of Speech Oak Hill."

p29-30. "A few words of explanation are needed about the terms used in the extract.  The hide was a Saxon measurement of land, which notionally contained 120 acres.  In Norfolk, the Danish word carucate, also 120 acres, was used instead of hide.  The carucates and acres recorded are not very accurate measurements but they give a rough idea of the size of a manor dmesne ir a freeman's farm.  The demesne was the home farm of a manor and its produce went to the lord of the manor for his use.  Villeins and cottars, or bordars as they are called in Norfolk, were attached to the manors and provided much of the labour force on the demesne.  Serfs, possibly slaves, were present in small numbers on a few manors.  Freemen and sokemen were always regarded as free tenants.  The number of ploughs is always recorded on manors and on the freemen's and sokemen's holdings.  The word 'plough' includes a team of eight oxen."

p31. "The two Flegg Hundreds, along with others in East and South Norfolk, were the most densely populated in the county.  The freemen, villeins and other tenants were heads of households with dependant families.  I was surprised to see how close the number of Domesday households were to returns from the first Census of 1801.  Many readers will have some idea of what life was like in Norfolk two hundred years ago in the days of Nelson, Parson Woodeford and the Agricultural Improvers.  It is important to remember that Norfolk was probably as busy a place in the late eleventh century, as it was several hundred years later."

"Over two thirds of the inhabitants of Flegg were freemen and sokemen, that is men and women of free status, but it is not always easy to define their position in society.  Sokemen are almost always attached to manors and on some manors had specific services to render to their lords.  On manors belonging to St Benet's Abbey they were often employed as ploughmen.  In theory at least, freemen were free of all feudal control, but most had commended themselves to a powerful lord in order to gain protection.  These freemen, in commendations only, as Domesday says, had minimal obligations to their lords.  They could sell their land, often without even consulting the lord.  They had the right to attend the Hundred Court and to take part in its deliberations.

Freemen and sokemen were numerous all over Eastern England, their numbers declining towards the west.  Historians have thought that it was a Danish origin or influence which enabled the freemen to maintain their independence from feudal pressures.  A more likely cause is now thought to have been the general economic prosperity of eastern England that helped the freemen to withstand the pressures of the feudal lords."

p33."Villeins and bordars account for only a third of the tenants.  Whatever their exact legal status, they were certainly under close control of their manors on which they lived and where they provided most of the labour on the demesnes.  They had their own farms, but the size of their holdings is nor recorded.  A  hundred years later the usual villain holding in Martham was about twelve acres, but there were wide variations.  Bordars had smaller holdings, perhaps about five acres.  Bordars are particularly numerous in west Flegg where the small manors sometimes relied entirely on them for labour.  Only twelve serfs are recorded in Flegg."

p36. "Corn was not the only valuable commodity produced in Flegg.  Both salt production and sheep farming brought in extra income.  The spring tides up the river Bure flooded pools in the estuary with salt water that gradually evaporated in the summer sun and wind.  The resulting brine was taken to earthenware pans on the marsh edge where the brine was heated until the salt crystallised.  At the time of Domesday, Flegg was the centre of salt production in East Norfolk."

p53. "In the twelfth century the introduction of windmills gave the landlords other sources of income.  By 1200 windmills at Herringby and Rollesby had been recorded and by 1300 windmills were common in all Flegg villages.  At the same time the use of horses for ploughing meant that the lords were less dependent on the ox-drawn ploughs of their freemen and sokemen to cultivate the demesne.  By 1245 ploughing was done by horses on the Abbot of St Benet's manor of Ashby and no doubt on most other manors."

p91. "At Martham, as was usual in East Norfolk, a tenant's holding was not a block of land, but a collection of strips in the open fields, usually in the fields nearest to the tenant's home, although some holdings were scattered more widely in the village."

p138. "The Black Death arrived in Norfolk in the spring of 1349 and spread up the river valleys from Yarmouth.  It was particularly severe in South Norfolk, along the Yare and the Bure valleys and on the coast."

p139. "The Inquisition Post Mortem taken after the death of Thomas de Essex in 1351 for his manor of Runham states that all the tenants were dead.".

p144. "It is surprising that Flemings left the Low Countries to work in England after the Black Death.  Flemings were employed in many places in East Norfolk in the 1350s.  In 1355 a Fleming was hired to cut and harvest five acres of wheat in Martham for which he was paid 3s. 4d.  This separate entry suggests that perhaps he worked away from the other harvesters.  The next year a Fleming was employed for eleven days to thresh seven quarters of wheat at 3d. a quarter, which is considerably less than the usual rate of 5d. a quarter.  I have found Flemings mentioned at Rollesby, Ashby, and Scottow.  St Benet's Abbey employed twelve Flemings for the harvest of 1356.  Perhaps these men went round in a gang hiring themselves wherever they were needed.  It is difficult to understand why they came across the North Sea to seek farm work.  It has been suggested that the Black Death did not claim so many lives in the Low Countries where the standard of living was higher and resistance to the disease greater than in most of Europe."

I'm stopping there.  I could take it through the Peasant's Rebellion and the Late Medieval.  I highly recommend Barbara Cornford's little book.  She in particular, has dissected the manorial records of Martham, Norfolk.  She successfully brings the Medieval in that manor to life.  Not so alien.  People were still clearly very much people as we know them.

Summary

On a personal, genealogical level, I have many, many Broadland ancestors on my mother's side recorded over the past 400 years or so.  However, their main cluster area was immediately to the south of Flegg, along the Yare valley in Broadland.  But tracing back - some of the lines there had moved down from the general region of Flegg - Moulton St Mary, Acle, South Walsham, Stokesby, Repps-with-Bastwick, Herringby, Rollesby, Ormesby, etc.  Therefore on a personal level, I've enjoyed researching this history, as I most likely had many ancestors on Flegg a few centuries earlier, during the Later Medieval at least.

I don't have very many photographs taken on Flegg.  Once I've completed the Wherryman's Way long distance trail, I need to explore the churches and landscape of Flegg.

On a Population Genetics Level - 3 points.

1. The 1348 Black Death.  It killed a lot of families.  At least one third of the population died, in addition to a famine and hard times that preceded the disease for several years before the outbreak.
2. Once again, I find evidence of admixture in East Anglia, from the Low Countries.  The long term link across the North Sea to the Lower Rhine Valley.
3. Movement during the 15th Century.  As Feudalism gradually collapsed over the 150 years following the Black Death, more and more people started to move around England - away from their ancient manors and parishes.  Cornfield noted three brothers from Martham during the 15th Century.  One ended up in Ely, Cambridgeshire, another in Halesworth, Suffolk, and the third in London.  Should any of the brothers had returned to the manor they would have owed money to their lord.  They didn't, people were moving around by then.

Flegg doesn't yet have a great landscape history of the Late Prehistoric.  It does have an importance during the Romano-British, with the Fort of Caister etc.  The current story picks up during the Middle Saxon, where we currently get the impression that this last wild landscape of East Anglia was picked up - vulnerable to sea raiders.  It's natural resources at first exploited for woodland materials, then more so as grazing land and pasture.  It's almost bizarre concentration of Danish place-names and words from the Late Saxon period.  I cannot think other than that an Old Danish-speaking people - at the very least, a significant immigration, settled here, and finally founded villages and farmsteads with names.  It's not the traditional story of raiding, marauding Vikings, but of the immigration of farmers.

By Domesday it's full of people and production.  A centre, an agrarian hub.  The imposition of feudal pressure by Norman lords being resisted for centuries by local freemen farmers.  They say that Norfolk does different.  Flegg certainly did, with it's proto-capitalism and relatively (to the West Midlands for example) free labour markets.

Worth recording and appreciating.

Thurne Mill.

July 2018 - I recently completed a BERT (Basic Excavation and Recording Techniques) Course in Archaeology at the SHARP Project in Sedgeford, Norfolk.  I've been interested in archaeology for decades.  My interested probably kicked off during the early 1970's when as a kid, I witnessed a number of excavations around my father's shop in Norwich.  Around 16 - 21 years ago, I was a keen amateur archaeologist.  I studied part-time for two years with the UEA, and gained a certificate in "Field Archaeology & Landscape History".  I contributed as a volunteer field-walker, or as I liked to call it, surface-collection surveyor.  I carried out a one man survey of over thirty compartments with disturbed soils in Thetford Forest.  Here is a link to the web archive of my old project website Thetford Forest Archaeology.

My main interest was in survey methodology, late prehistory, and in British lithics.  However, Life moved on as it does for me.  Years later, I look at the SHARP (Sedgeford Archaeological & Historical Research Project) website, and spot their course, BERT (Basic Excavation & Recording Techniques).  I remembered field-walking for a day at Sedgeford, with the UEA group, around 19 years ago.  The Sedgeford Project was still up and running after all of these years!  I'd never excavated before.  I liked field-walking as it gave me independence to carry out all aspects of the project.  But even though I had a long term interest in archaeology - I'd never myself, as much as lifted a trowel at a dig.  Time is moving on - I decided to add it to the bucket list of life, and to execute it.  I signed up for a BART Course to commence and run for six days in July 2018.  This is what I experienced.

SHARP (Sedgford Archaeological & Historical Research Project) is a project both to a) deep research over a long term period, one English village parish, set in the North West Norfolk landscape - using multiple archaeological and historical research methods, and b) in democratic archaeology, where locals, members of the public, amateurs, students, enthusiasts, and volunteers can contribute to and become involved in a high quality research project.  Archaeology is demystified, as volunteers often gain enough experience to become supervisors and trainers at the Project themselves.

I'd say that they have achieved both of those goals, and over an incredible 23 year period - and still going strong, with plenty of excavations and other research possibilities to keep them busy in that one small Norfolk parish, for many years to come.  Indeed one very important lesson of SHARP - is that Sedgeford is just one rural East Anglian village parish.  Not particularly special.  Out of some 1,200 or more East Anglian parishes.  Yet it has proven to provide decades of research and opportunities.  For those that believe that Archaeology is all done and dusted, think again.

The setting.  Sedgeford, a parish in the north west corner of the East Anglian county of Norfolk.  A few miles from the coast of the Wash and the North Sea.  July 2018.    A small stream passes through the village.  In past times, it was a navigable stretch of Heacham River.

The UK has been in a drought for several weeks, and are in what the media refer to as a "heatwave", the hottest and driest for over forty years.

Above image copyright from openstreetmap.org.

I purchased a place on the BERT course at the off-site rate (GBP £290).  Full Rate On-Site (GBP £430 - there is also a concession rate) would have entitled me to a pitch in their camp, as well as to evening meal, evening community activities (some of which may require a further fee), and to breakfast.  I know that I was missing out on that aspect of the SHARP experience.  During the week, evening activities included a quiz, a game of cricket, a lecture, and at the end, a storytelling evening followed by a punk rock act!  However, as my interest was in the archaeology, I couldn't justify the extra cost when I could drive home to sleep and rest each evening.

There were a number of things that I was notified of that I needed: a few basic tools, including an archaeology trowel, a leaf trowel, a plumb bob, line level, pencils, 5 metre steel tape, a broad rimmed hat, sun lotion, etc.  Of those, the most essential were the archaeology trowel, pencils, the hat, and sun lotion.  In addition, had I known, I would have brought a pen, a drink mug, food dish / bowl, and knife and fork.

Day 1. Sunday

Day 2. Monday.

Day 3. Tuesday.

On Day 3 we had training on the identification, context, and recording of small finds in an excavation.  We each had to complete the session by filling out a small find record, complete with description, context, dimensions, description, and a drawing of a metal artefact.

Next session was Bulk Finds - cleaning and treatment of different materials such as daub, bone, shell, ceramics, etc.  We were taught to systematically keep bulk find trays with context tabs.

Some more trowel work in Trench 23.  Practical assessment of the ability to plot a plan of a trench and features.

Day 4. Wednesday

Training with a Dumpy Level - in order to record height of excavation features and small finds.

Training in site photography.  How to clean and prepare a feature such as post holes, take photographic records, fill in the photography register, use metre sticks, context boards, etc.

More general trench trowelling and other work.

Day 5. Thursday

Environmental Archaeology.  Trained to strain soil samples in a flotation tank, in order to separate light organic material, heavier bulk finds such as daub, from soil.  We also sorted through the bulk finds from a flotation sample - separating finds such as daub and bone.

I and another student, Anna, were asked to excavate a sondage on the edge of Trench 23, in order to test if a Saxon dated drainage ditch continued in that direction.  I particularly took great joy in that work - but so hot in the heat-wave.

Day 6. Friday - Goodbyes.

We had a recap on excavation recording.

An introduction to geophysics and non-intrusive archaeological methods.  As I studied non-invasive archaeology with the UEA for two years in the past, this was like a recap and update for myself.  However - we got to play with a magnetometer (flux gradiometer) out in the field, which was certainly a new experience.

We also had an introduction to reporting.  Each week, the new crop of BERT students have to complete a new section of a report for the Trench 23 excavation.

I was allowed to complete my beloved sondage trench, and yes - it revealed the soil stain of the Middle Saxon ditch:

We were presented our BERT certificates.  With another student, I was tasked to guide some members of the public visiting the excavation.  We got the thumbs up from a supervisor.  At close of the week some of us made a presentation to the SHARP team about what we had been learning.

Summary

It wasn't just trowel work, site photography, dumpy levels, or even flotation that I learned about and experienced over the week.  What I also discovered were human stories and community.  I saw a sort of collectivism in action, in the form of People's Archaeology - individuals helping each other up.  I enjoyed the work.  I enjoyed meeting like minded people on their own journeys.  So much so that I'm looking forward to returning next summer as a volunteer at Sedgeford.  Last day was actually emotional.

Thank you SHARP.

The above image illustrates of some of my ancestral locations, as according to documented genealogy.  As can be seen.  I have quite a lot of East Anglian ancestry.  What might also be observed, is the location of East Anglia, and of South East England, in relation to Belgium, the Netherlands, and North East France.

I'm an East Anglian.  Much of my family tree is East Anglian.  Before documented genealogy picks up my family trail, who were the East Anglians, what were their origins?  The traditional answer would be that they were the descendants of the Angles.  An early 5th Century AD tribe, that relocated from Angeln, now in Schleswig Holstein, on the North Germany, South Denmark border.  Them, and maybe a few Saxons, Jutes, Suevvi, etc.  All pretty much from what is now North Germany and Denmark.  See the map below:

Archaeology sort of backs this up ... but also offers some slight alternatives.  At first, British Archaeology supported the Historians - that there was a near genocidal event during the 5th and 6th centuries, where the Anglo Saxon tribes arrived and displaced the Romano-Britons that had until then, lived in South East Britannia.  There certainly is plenty, even, overwhelming evidence, of Anglo-Saxon culture if not settlement in East Anglia at this time.  Below are the locations of a few of the many Anglo-Saxon cemeteries found in East Anglia - and their closest artifact correlations on the Continent - in Northern Germany:

It's all adding up.  However, then, a new trend appears in British Archaeology that plays down the Anglo-Saxon invasion hypothesis. From the 1980's onward, some British archaeologists started to argue that they saw patterns of land use continuity between the Romano-British and Pagan Saxon periods.  They argued there was no archaeology of genocide.  No battle sites.  No mass graves.  Instead they proposed that only limited numbers of Anglo Saxons arrived - and that their culture was largely adopted by the Romano-Britons that already lived here.  Some even suggested that no Anglo Saxons came here - it was merely a cultural import.

Then Genetics stepped in.  Most notably with POBI (Peopling of the British Isles) 2015, but also with a number of other studies, often comparing the DNA from excavated remains to modern populations.  They proposed a new middle house consensus.  No there was no genocide.  The modern English have more old British ancestry than Anglo-Saxon.  However, there was a significant Anglo Saxon immigration event.  But they mixed, intermarried.  Anglo-Saxon culture was adopted, but Anglo Saxons had not displaced the Britons.  They had married them.  The modern English it seems have around 10% to 40% Anglo Saxon ancestry, and 60% to 90% British.  Sort of watered down Celts.

The assumption that we have made, is that rural populations on the front-line immigration - such as East Anglians, were the most watered down, with highest percentages of Anglo-Saxon ancestry.  Why not.  The archaeology would support that.  The East Anglian landscape is littered with Anglo-Saxon, and Anglo-Danish place-names.  It is the most Anglo-Saxon landscape, and later, was firmly within the Dane-Law.

My Ancestry

It's all over this blog.  However, in summary, I am an East Anglian.  Born at Norwich, with all four grandparents of Norfolk birth.  I have been researching my family tree using genealogy, for thirty years, on and off.  I have accumulated the recorded names of 490 direct ancestors.  Around 80% or more of this ancestry lived here in East Anglia.  At Generation 6 (3rd great grandparent), my ancestry was 97% South East English, and 3% Swiss.  This is demonstrated in this fan chart of my recorded ancestry:

If that's not East Anglian enough - look at the right hand side of that fan chart, my mother's side.  My mother has 225 of her direct ancestors recorded, and everyone lived firmly in East Anglia.

I have documents, likenesses in family photos, and family stories to back my narrative ancestry; but I am also gradually building biological evidence through the use of DNA matches to other testers, that share a common ancestry with me, that correlates well with the shared DNA:

That the vast majority of our ancestry is very rural, and poor agricultural working class, would suggest that we have had ancestry here in East Anglia for a very, very, long time.  I have traced some lines back to early parish records in the 16th Century.  I would expect that many of our ancestors belonged to peasant families in Medieval Norfolk and Suffolk.  These, I'd expect were the descendants of Anglo Saxons, Romano-Britons, and Danes.

Here comes the paradox.

Population Genetics and the DNA

Documentary evidence confirms that I'm an East Anglian, and English.  But when I tested with the commercial DNA-for-ancestry vendors, such as 23andme or FT-DNA, my results, although seeing me as pretty firmly, a North West European, doesn't really see me as particularly British.  23andme suggested only 32% British.  They instead suggest that my ancestry is rather Continental.  High levels of "West European" or "French & German".  I at first assumed that this was ancient or early medieval ancestry, my Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Danish East Anglian roots showing through.

But is that the case?  Analysis using some of the latest calculators challenge that.  Here are the PCA locations of myself and my mother, on one such calculator.  This one (By David Wesolowski) includes many modern references grouped on language family, but also includes some references from actual ancient DNA in Northern Europe, including some extracted from Anglo Saxon remains in Cambridgeshire, close to East Anglia:

You see the red squares represent the Anglo Saxons in Cambridgeshire?  Mine and even my very rural East Anglian mother's place well to the right of them, closer to modern day Irish speakers, overlapping with modern day French speakers.  More Celtic it seems than Anglo Saxon.

Here's another PCA showing our positions (red myself, orange, my mother), this one by Lukasz, but based on the Eurogenes K36 calculator:

It puts me closer to Flemish then Walloon, followed by SE English.  Finally a third PCA, from Eurogenes K15: 

We consistently position between SE England and North France, Belgium, and the Netherlands; rather than between SE England and Northern Germany and Denmark.  It appears that we relate closer to Normans, Belgians, Walloons, Flemish, and Dutch - than we do to modern day North Germans or Danes.  Here is our K36 Oracle maps by Lukasz:

My mother has a slight more pull from Denmark and Schleswig Holstein.  Perhaps this is from early medieval Angle/Danish settler in East Anglia?  However, we both pull strongest outside of England, from the Low Countries.  Flemish, Dutch, and Walloon come up as closest Continental matches.  I'm not surprised.  I've noticed for some time, that the big vendors appear to give some testers of Normandy, Hauts-de-France, Belgium, and the Netherlands ancestry, very similar results to my own.

If our results were at all representative of East Anglians of local ancestry, then the modern East Anglian is perhaps as much, or more of a Belgian than he or she is a Dane or Angle.  So I've added a secondary circle to the map that I used above, to illustrate what are popularly beleved to be the origins of the East Anglians.  The new blue circle, represents not what history or archaeology suggests, but what my family's DNA currently suggests:

Note that I have included South East Britain in there - because clearly, there was no displacement.  The Romano-Britons were among our ancestors.

The Language Connection.

It has long been noted, that the very closest dialect or language to English, is West Frisian.  Old Frisian and Old English (or Anglo Saxon) were close.  Linguists group them together as "Anglo-Frisian".  Why is this?  If we all descend from Angles and Danes?

When did our "Belgian" ancestors arrive in Britain?

By Belgian, I'm referring to ancestors that we share not only with Belgians of local ancestry, but also the North French, and the Dutch.  Answer.  I don't know.  All that I am pointing out, is that the DNA of my East Anglian family appears to be more like that of people that today live in that part of the Continent, than in Denmark, Norway, or even North Germany.  However, here are a few ideas:

1. The Bell Beaker.  During the Late Neolithic.  We believe that the British Bell Beaker people largely crossed over from the Lower Rhine Valley.
2. The Belgae.  I'm not quite so sure about this one, but let's just go with it.  Roman historians recorded a late Iron Age migration from the Belgium area, into South East Britain.  They described them as using a Celtic language and culture, but being closer related to Germanic tribes to the east.
3. An unrecorded migration from Northern France to Southern Britain during Late Prehistory.  This one was suggested by POBI 2015, that claimed to detect a relationship between the Southern British and Northern France, that they claimed was most likely Late Prehistoric.
4. Roman Britain.  Britannia was often administered along with Gaul.
5. Saxo Frisia.  Saxons didn't only Southern Britain, they also settled the Low Countries, where they took the name of the earlier tribe there - the Frisians.  Did many Anglo-Saxon settlers actually crossed over from Frisia?
6. Norman.  1066 and all that.  A whole new elite arrived, often bringing artisans and supporters with them.
7. Angevin and Medieval French.  For a time, large regions of France were ruled along with England.  French artisans, merchants, monks, priests, etc.
8. The Elizabethan Strangers.  Protestant refugees were invited from the Low Countries, both Dutch and Walloons.  They particularly settled towns in South East England such as Norwich, and Colchester during the 16th and 17th centuries.
9. The Huguenots.  French Protestant refugees that arrived during the 17th and 18th centuries.
10. Background migration.  My favourite.  In addition to all of the aforementioned proposed migration events, the slow, gradual contact between South East England and the Low Countries / Northern France, that has always been there.  The drip-drip in the background.  That the North sea and Dover Strait separating the two areas is so narrow.  Merchants, refugees, masons, artisans, weavers - the Dutchmen and Frenchmen recorded as Aliens in many post medieval surveys.  The fishermen from Haut-de-France that frequently beached on the Norfolk coast.  The dutch herring fishermen that traded herring at Yarmouth market.