#434 erkenningsnummer P708816
june 15, 2016 \ newsweekly - € 0,75 \ read more at www.flanderstoday.eu current affairs \ P2
Politics \ P4
One persOn, One Office
SP.A has become the second Flemish party to limit its members to one office at a time, though other parties are unlikely to follow \4
Business \ P6
innovation \ P7
catching up
education \ P9
art & living \ P10
at a standstill
Teaching staff in Flanders don’t remotely match the diversity of their classes, and some educators want to do something about it
Flanders’ only festival devoted to living statues proves just how far the art has come and throws in a few surprises to boot
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Common ancestries
© Courtesy Flanders House
flanders and scotland trace shared heritage at an international conference alan Hope More articles by Alan \ flanderstoday.eu
The University of St Andrews in Fife is hosting a conference that explores the historical links between Flanders and Scotland, including the origin of many Scottish names and the difficulties faced by the first generations of migrants
W
ith the EU referendum in sight, the British are highly attentive to questions of immigration, be it from Eastern Europe or the Middle East. An upcoming conference, held at the University of St Andrews in Fife, however, reminds us that immigration is not a new phenomenon. Taking as its subject Scotland and the Flemish People, the conference, which is supported by the government of Flanders, studies the extent and influence of Flemish migration to Scotland from 1100 to 1700. It also looks at a fascinating project that tests the DNA of Scots who think they might have
Flemish ancestry. By “Flanders”, the organisers mean the County of Flanders, ruled since the ninth century by the counts descended from Baldwin Iron Arm, and extending from Zeelandic Flanders to Lille in northern France. That little is known about Flemish migration to Scotland has to do with its gradual occurrence, over the course of 600 years. “This slow absorption of the Flemish means that it has been difficult to discern their overall impact on Scotland,” says Alex Fleming, a former executive at the World Bank in Washington, DC. “As a result, there is a question as to whether the Flemish influence has been fully accounted for in conventional histories of the country.” After retiring, Fleming, both a former student and lecturer at St Andrews, began a genealogy project to find out where his name came from. He was disappointed with the lack of
resources on the subject. “I realised I needed the involvement of professional historians and genealogists to do a proper reappraisal of the Flemish in Scotland. So I approached St Andrews, which is home to the Institute of Scottish Historical Research.” Not only did the collaboration lead to the Scotland and the Flemish People conference, Fleming also set up a project called Y-DNA with professor Alasdair Macdonald of Strathclyde University in Glasgow. An important question that the project has sought to address, Fleming continues, is why people left Flanders at various times over that 600-year period and what led some of them to come to Scotland. “Three categories of migrants can be discerned: aristocratic, economic and religiously persecuted.” The aristocrats came over with William the Conqueror, whose wife was the daughter of Count Baldwin V of Flanders, in the continued on page 5