UK shoes

That's actually pretty cool. I would reckon that's the key, and most likely accounts for a lot of the complaints between American feet not fitting English shoes. Interesting!

But I'm of northern European ancestry...Danish, English, German, French -- mostly Danish, so with that thinking, shouldn't my American feet be English feet too?

Not if you're mostly Danish! lol

Not if you're mostly Danish! lol

But the Jutes were from what is now Denmark & I think they are considered one of the Anglo Saxon tribes.  Besides the Danes being here & stirring up trouble for donkey's years.  Heck, Yorkshire is essentially New Denmark really.

Or maybe I'm not understanding the article, are the Celts the only true British feet?

Maybe the French part of you is really just your feet?

Maybe the French part of you is really just your feet?

You might be right!  They do have that certain je ne sais quoi.

lol

Yay, real evidence for a theory I totally made up! 

BTW, I think Swedish feet (which are probably more similar to modern Danish ones) are longer and thinner than English feet. My mom had a terrible time finding anything to fit her 9.5-narrow feet in the UK. I don't have much hope that I'll do any better with my 11-narrows!

Here is the original journal article by Ms. Jackson, with foot drawings:

http://www.archaeology.co.uk/ca/timeline/sundries/feet/feet.htm

What a load of cobblers!! 

boom boom

Hey, I have Swedish feet!  Now I know what my problem has been all these years!  All of my Dad's family emmigrated from Sweden and I have very narrow feet.  I've always had trouble finding shoes (in the US and here) that didn't slip on the heel and sandals that I didn't slide out over the toe.  Nothing in Clarks has even a hope of fitting.  The only ones that carry narrow sizes are always very expensive so I have maybe five pairs of shoes at any one time and I wear them until they're dead.

http://www.archaeology.co.uk/ca/timeline/sundries/feet/feet.htm

Yup, my feet look an awful lot like those English feet.  My heel may be just slightly narrower & I have that thing where my second toe is the longest toe on each foot.  Other than that, English feet here.  And still I have trouble finding shoes that fit in the UK - save the relatively few stores that offer attractive shoes in size 6.5.

I have the hardest time finding shoes that don't hurt my toes because my toes actually turn up at the ends. My mom says I have elf feet. 

My feet don't look like either English or Irish feet, more of a combination of both - narrow like Irish but toes more like the English? - which makes sense since my ancestry is neither English or Irish.

The point, though, isn't that if your grandmother or grandfather came from Country X, then you are going to have feet that look like Y. What I get from the archaeology journal article is that there is a very wide genetic variation in foot shapes, and as Sumokitty pointed out, the US has more genetic variation, so US manufacturers are going to cater to a wider variety of foot shapes. (As I've said previously, I've noticed that there is a wider variety in clothing sizes available in the US as well, which also probably has to do with the US having a more diverse population.)

For myself, I think my problem may be that while I wore a medium width shoe in the US, I may be a narrow width in the UK. Now I just have to find out where I can find narrow width shoes, as I don't recall ever seeing them anywhere.

What I was told at a big shoe store was "We don't stock narrow sizes.  There isn't enough demand.  If you want narrow we can special order them in certain brands."  But of course you won't know how they fit until the order comes in - and can you then reject them?  Re-order countless other ones until you find one that fits?