A History Of The Union Jack Flag of England Explained

the family history Foundation my gosh this is going to be fun one we are looking at history of the Union Jack Flag explained that is the Union Jack it's the English the British flag all mixed in one with the Scottish and Irish flag but this classic iconic piece of symbology and vexillology what is vexillology it's the study of flags and so we're going to look at history of this Union Jack and explain its component part why it has horizontal and vertical stripes why does it have diagonal stripes and what are the white and red blue what does it all mean where does it come from well it's history of the British Isles and at the very end you have to stick around because I'm going to explain terms like Great Britain and England and the United Kingdom did you know that they're actually different terms that kind of overlap so we're going to give you little bit of terminology so you can educate yourself and you you can understand exactly what this iconic piece of flaggery means and so basically starting soft welcome to the family history foundation and like subscribe if you want and make sure to get yourself ready because here we know because what we know as the history of the Union Jack Flag is three layered cake or like three Legos consisting of one the English Cross of Saint George right to the blue and white white Scottish saltier Cross of Saint Andrew and three the red and white Irish cross of Saint Patrick all of that is what you see here in our flag below okay so it came at different points in times it started off with the English flag and slowly got sort of layered over to produce this iconic Union Jack that's what we have Union Jack because it's union of several different countries politically and geographically and historically okay so the Union Jack Flag came into its current and final form in 1801 with the kingdom of Ireland's Union with the Kingdom of Great Britain okay so this historic Edition changed the name of the nation to its present United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland which is the formal name for the United Kingdom okay United Kingdom of Great Britain which we'll talk about later where that what that means geographically how to pinpoint that on map and Northern Ireland okay so here's our Union Jack and when we want to decipher what it means right you can tell all your friends at the party or the next time you see flag you can point out exactly you know where they all came from and of course this piece of vexillology is still currently found in many flags across the world former British colonies or Associates of of the British Empire at one point most commonly throughout the Caribbean and Hawaii and few other places okay so here we go as you saw in the beginning image this is how we decipher it okay so look closely at the English Saint George cross right and follow the arrows okay this is very important and we're going to go through this bit by bit and look at the evolution of how these layers overlap with one another but just to kind of clue you in right this cross here is the original cross which was on white background and if you're English you would recognize this and including this white bit here right because the whole field of the flag of the English cross is white okay and then overlay that is the Scottish Saint Andrews cross right so these sort of diagonal bits here and the blue okay these diagonal white bits and the blue because the Scottish saltier cross is blue field with white and then the Irish saltier cross which and I'll explain the term saltier coming up if it's unfamiliar to you which is basically these red bits here with white background so this is what it comes from and that's it pretty simple but it's all historical okay so let's get into the history of it and in order to understand the history of our Union Jack Flag one must learn bit about the history of England there's no going around that okay maybe you didn't want history lesson coming to here but we'll keep it brief okay the current idea of Great Britain has its origins in the ancient Anglo-Saxon English crowns and their conquests of the outlying territories of Wales in Scotland and we're talking medieval times here right pre 1066. although the Anglo-Saxons did war or battle against the Welsh it was really the plantagenet dynasty that ultimates ultimately subdued the wealth wealth boy Welsh Scots and Irish think some of my DNA are kicking back with that statement Welsh Scots and Irish ironically though the Welsh would later gain renial control which is kingly control or monarchical control during the Tudor dynasty and the Scots of course during and somewhat before the Stewart Dynasty and also I'm kind of adding in that the Kings of Queens of Scotland had been intermarrying with the English royalty Anglo-Saxon royalty before the Quan quest in 1066 so ultimately very much intertwined with what we consider early English dynastic genetics genealogy history okay so in essence the Union Jack is lego-like interpretation of History woven into the fabric of this iconic flag and this is where vexillology if you highlight the sports the study of flags where it meets history okay and fascinating fascinating stuff and the history of the Union Jack started out with England alone and subsequently added each Conquest we'll just in parentheses call it union because it's Union Jack into its design and Scotland in 1707 and then Ireland in 1801 and then Northern Ireland in 1922 okay so let's look at these one by one and we start off with the English flag of Saint George Saint George's cross which is very very iconic if you are English and have English genetics as well and this is very very powerful sort of source of imagery and the interior core okay of our Union Jack is the English flag represented by the cross of Saint George the patron saint of England and this is still symbol of national and cultural heritage so we're going to Overlay right all of our other designs over this cross and it's going to produce this mishmash which kind of ends up being very very beautiful iconic flag but this is the base of it right England's always the base of it so after years of war against its Western and Northern neighbors England never entirely subdued the wild and crazy Scots no one actually has rather through acts of usurpation and attrition via the tutors the Scottish King James the first eventually took over the English Throne after the death of Queen Elizabeth and kind of connecting to American Roots James the first was claimant to the throne as the son of the legendary Mary Queen of Scots did you know that and it is for Queen Elizabeth that the state of Virginia is named she was the Virgin Queen and also for James the first that the first permanent English settlement in America was named Jamestown and if you want to go and visit Jamestown you can certainly go if you're in the neighborhood in Virginia otherwise you can actually head over to the family history foundation and I'll leave link in the description below of my visit to Jamestown and you can check out 30 pictures images that took of the museum and of the grounds the graveyard there at Jamestown and you can see all these lovely lovely pictures along with an explanation of of what you're seeing so yeah head on over there and anyway back to our article here so that's our English flag Now sort of keep this in your mind visually we're going to Overlay this Scottish flag of Saint Andrews so very very powerful imagery as well it's blue background with white salt here okay the Union Jack is the Scottish flag represented by the saltier cross of Saint Andrews the patron saint of in Scotland sorry it's the contribution to the flag and again saltier okay is heraldic element actually so and found in heraldry represented by diagonal cross as you see here right or an x-shaped symbol so this is called saltier cross okay and it's overlaid onto this right and we get the next version of it okay which looks like this okay you see the English St George St Andrews cross which produces the next in the series before it became our modern Union death so when the English flag was combined with the Scottish flag it created the following version of the Union Jack which was the official flag of Great Britain from 1707 until 1801 so during those years it was the flag of the Empire and both of the original English and Scottish flags are still flown in their individual forms individual forms as matter of national and cultural Pride so it's it's really cool to sort of reflect on that okay and it's really sort of easy to see that and what we're going to do when we add the next flag of the Irish is going to fill in this White Strip here with another red band okay and this is the Irish flag of St Patrick and we all know who St Patrick is because we have Saint Patty's Day not St Patty's Day Saint Patty's Day St Patrick's Day do not ever call it Saint Patty's Day that is an Abomination so this red salt here of the Union Jack is the Irish flag represented by the saltier cross of Saint Patrick and the flag above represented the islands of Ireland yet we know that there are Ireland and Northern Ireland now Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland Northern Ireland belongs to the United Kingdom now okay and essentially all of Ireland is Irish it's just their political associations that divide the islands themselves as the Republic of Ireland seceded in 1922 at Northern Ireland state with the British okay so this Red Cross is saltier flag is also part of the lore of Saint Patty's Day okay and it's funny that St Patrick was not English nor was he monk so you can learn about more of that lore in the article wrote here on family history Foundation .com and this cross you see in you know few different flags across the world again it's heraldic element so it's something found in heraldry so this shape can be found in the state flag of Alabama with logo in the middle basically the state flag of Alabama is this and then with sort of Shield logo in the middle is the state flag of Florida and also the island of Jersey okay and again think English Channel not Jersey Shore okay and there are got to be few more as well okay so and that's it you lay over overlay these three and here are all the elements that combine into the Union Jack and that's that's where you get it pretty cool pretty nifty and now you know and you can combine those elements but we've mentioned England we've mentioned Scotland we've mentioned Ireland we've mentioned the British Isles we've mentioned Northern Ireland we've mentioned all these different things but what does that represent in your mind if you sort of use your mind know could you picture the difference between the British Isles and say Great Britain did you know there's difference well part of this article is actually devoted to sort of deciphering that because really like to explain the differences between those it's just really good to know so I've have list here of the British Isles terms of the British Isles explained okay so and made little key maps so that you can actually understand the words so we're going to cover Britain Great Britain okay United Kingdom and we're also going to cover British Isles and Ireland did you know all those are actually different terms okay maybe Ireland for sure but Britain Great Britain United Kingdom British Isles and Ireland yes there are actually four different things for most people they're all kind of the same if you're not familiar with the area so let's actually get in there and you can head over to the article which is in the link in the description box below obviously to take your time read it get to the maps and sort of study it on your own if you want to Britain is as say this term is bit cryptic as it can refer to multiple things okay it's kind of like Swiss army knife of tools for the area it it's Geographic the geographic term Great Britain and the political term United Kingdom okay because it's it's both political and Geographic Britain refers geographically to Great Britain which you see in the map below and the political term United Kingdom which is different sort of ball of Wax or just plain England okay so you can use it colloquially as Britain I'm from Britain and Britain is catch-all term for when you're too lazy or indisposed to actually say Great Britain or the United Kingdom okay semantically there's there's different usages of the word right and that's not uncommon so aside from that the rest of the following terms are should be very precise actually when you use them and the next term is Great Britain okay now this is geographic term okay Great Britain is geographic term referring to the singular Island okay and should have put little asterisk right here which includes England Wales and Scotland okay so England where my mouse is moving up and down Wales and Scotland okay however the definition definition includes its outlier Islands such as the Isle of Wight right the Isle of Man and also the orkneys up here okay so technically Great Britain although by definition it says the island it should be an island chain because it also includes these islands up here okay so out following this little red line is actually what Great Britain is it's this okay the main island and all its subsidiary Islands That's Great Britain that's what you're looking at if you've used the term before and it doesn't fit with what you think it is now you know and you should use it sort of coordinate with this okay so what is the rest of the terms yeah Great Britain is actually different from the United Kingdom okay this is the United Kingdom it's basically the same outline except it includes Northern Ireland okay basically the same except this term as say United Kingdom is political term okay because it it includes the member countries of the Kingdom that's United all of these separate countries are part of single United Kingdom okay they're their own Sovereign countries within the United Kingdom political conglomerate whatever you want to refer to and it's referred to the United and the formal name is the United Kingdom of Great Britain Great Britain and Northern Ireland okay and this political amalgam includes England okay Wales Scotland and Northern Ireland okay so England Wales Scotland and all of the islands and Northern Ireland there you go looks like big bunny rabbit doesn't it basically both subsets Great Britain and Northern Ireland as its name implies people have shortened United Kingdom obviously to the UK you hear that lot of UK music I'm from the UK whatever I've been to the UK whatever is even shorter version of the already shorter version of the longer formal variant defined above which is this okay that's the longer formal variant and it's kind of colloquialism if you like and you know you might not even find it on the BBC because it's that informal okay so the United Kingdom and say that because took that from the BBC website which sort of disallows its usage so thought that was kind of funny but so that's the United Kingdom right Great Britain including Northern Ireland and we have the British Isles which is whole different like for genealogy genetically you know say I'm from the British Isles my DNA is from the British Isles in doing research and that includes everything right and so this is catch-all so the British Isles are the whole lot everything and this is geographic term okay but it's also political term geographically it refers to the entire set of islands which includes Great Britain and Ireland okay Great Britain and Ireland the two islands or Island chains another way of looking at this is by political definition it's the British Isles include the political complement of the United Kingdom right this and the Republic of Ireland okay and that's where you get the British Isles so either way you want to Hash it up like to do geographically it just it creates less tension think and so the British Isles is the whole lot that's it British Isles pretty simple okay and finally Ireland again you can Define this politically or geographically like to stick to Geographics because it's that much easier it's just the whole island right these are island nations the geographic term referring to the island of Ireland that's it right and the island of Ireland includes both the Republic of Ireland right down here as well as Northern Ireland which belongs to the United Kingdom okay so and this is also political term depending if you are unionist or nationalist in Ireland so that's it you have all your terms you understand the British Union Jack and we're taking you back to the top and saying thank you for sticking around hope you enjoyed this and found this of value have an awesome awesome amazing amazing day thank you