saxons
appearance: c. 100
dispersal: c.
ascendancy: west germans[1]
the saxons show up around the time that they overthrew the chauki. the earliest reference i've seen is ptolemy that puts them at the base of the jutland peninsula. however, linguistically, the chauki could not have been the ancestors of the saxons because the chauki were 'yngvaeones' and the saxons would have been west germans and hence irminones. so, it does not seem right to start the saxons off in the north - more likely is that they really did start off a little further south. their northward movements are likely part of what pushed the swedes into sweden.
"english", despite the name, is mostly descended from old saxon. however, the closest language to english is not saxon but frisian. it is also said that kentish and anglian were pretty close. so, we can conceive of a large confederation of closely related tribes - saxons, angles, frisians - moving north-west and eventually over the channel. they themselves were probably pushed north by an expanding celtic/frankish confederation that eventually became the sicambrians.
descendancy: west (british)
descendancy: east (german)
[1]: the role of migration in the history of the eurasian steppe, andrew bell-fialkoff, 2000
[2]: the germanic invasions, lucien musset, 1965
page last updated august 22, 2004