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Having olive skin, dark hair and eyes but being 100% welsh.

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I have read a lot of Latin and Anglo-Saxon sources that describe the Welsh as being dark-haired and dark or olive-skinned.

However, my mum is Welsh and very dark, but my grandmother told me that we have a many-times removed ancestor who was a black slave (I think from Bristol where the slave trade flourished). This explains my mum's hair at any rate - it looks like an afro and she has to use afro products on it sometimes.

Who cares what you look like? Britain is such a melting pot anyway

Reply 21

Spinnerette

I'm welsh and so are my siblings my sister and my cousin have the same colouring as you do. Whilst I have blonde hair, blue eyes, typical welsh look I suppose. Catherine Zeta Jones also has similar colouring.

I suppose it's like the Black Irish. I'm guessing that somewhere a long the line there was an influx in either, Italians, Mediterranean people who came to Wales to live.

Reply 22

bexicle89

Wales has a very large population of Italian migrants though, more than anywhere else in Britain [excluding London for size].

Reply 23

The Dark Poet

You probably have relatives from South Europe or the Middle East, or beyond.

Reply 24

EskimoJo

bexicle89

Wales has a very large population of Italian migrants though, more than anywhere else in Britain [excluding London for size].

How comes?

Reply 25

username133326

when the spanish armada were sailing home having gone round the top of the british isles, some got shipwrecked after that...resulting in spanish blood in western ireland, scotland and therefore possibly wales

Reply 26

simonwales

I've always wondered about this! A lot of my family and welsh friends have dark hair and eyes (i'm as mousey as they come unfortunately) and even welsh celebs like Gethin and Steve Jones look like they could have some sort of mediterranean heritage.

interesting!

Reply 27

Stettin

Just tell them you ancestors didn't work in the coals. They had time to get a tan while the other welshmen became pasty.

Reply 28

Holamigo

Well I thought the typical welsh look was blue eyes, dark hair and pale skin! and why don't more people have similar features to me who live here? Instead of them always askin where I come from?
Its not that I care what I look like, I just want to know where it's come from and if there's anyone like me!

Reply 29

username234673

Holamigo

I have Welsh family! :biggrin:

They look nothing like you. :frown:

In fact, they're all the typical Welsh look you have just described. :sad:

Reply 30

Holamigo

mikeyd85

I have Welsh family! :biggrin:

They look nothing like you. :frown:

In fact, they're all the typical Welsh look you have just described. :sad:

yeah? its strange. Maybe I have got it from gypsies who were once in my family lol

Reply 31

username234673

Holamigo

yeah? its strange. Maybe I have got it from gypsies who were once in my family lol

Unless both your parents have olive skin / dark eyes etc... as recessive alleles. That could work. :smile:

Reply 32

Joy Division

Are you the secret lovechild of Tom Jones? He is "Welsh" btw.

Reply 33

Xica Da Silva

^ on the topic of tom jones when i first saw him and I really thought he had some sort of black ancestry.

Reply 34

simcard2007

burningnun

Aren't olives greenish brown? U ill bro?

lolll

Reply 35

Joy Division

Tom "inverse MJ" Jones

Reply 36

Alexander Tomaszewski

The OP could well be an indigenous Brit. Some celtic variant or other. The Welsh and Cornish are part of the same genetic family as the Basques of Northern Spain.

The Welsh generally are somewhat darker, take Gavin Henson for example.

Reply 37

Holamigo

mikeyd85

Unless both your parents have olive skin / dark eyes etc... as recessive alleles. That could work. :smile:

Actually both my parents have dark hair and brown eyes - my dad did have really jet black hair when he was younger and my mum has brown. They both have dark skin - but in a tanned way if you get me lol my mum is always sitting out in the sun and my dad works outside so he looks black in the summer - he goes that dark.

Reply 38

Holamigo

Joy Division

Are you the secret lovechild of Tom Jones? He is "Welsh" btw.

aha how ace would that be!!

He's from south wales though, all my family have lived in the North!

Reply 39

DisgruntledMoth

I was thinking that recently about Catherine Zeta-Jones, who, I can't be bothered to check, but I'm fairly sure is Welsh. Yet, she is olive-skinned and so on. At least she is in 'The Darling Buds of May'.