I think the biological/anthropological view is probably closer to the truth than the classical historical view.
Records and documentation were for the 1%. Those scribes who were not "one-percenters" were writing to please their Lords and Masters and Patrons. The "one-percenters" were writing to please themselves. Just another "O" in the diary of Samuel Pepys.
The "history" of Europe, the one we learn in schools, is largely propaganda. The elites live in one world and everyone else has been overlooked.
I see it in my own family. Our casual genealogy is a fabrication. My surname is supposedly something Scots Presbyterian. My great aunt even got it all mapped out back to the Domesday Book during the eugenics fad of the 'twenties (very nice how that all works out for white protestants, isn't it?) and went so far as to live that lie. My grandfather knew different, that this myth of respectability began when some anonymous Catholic guy jumped ship in San Francisco, probably because he was tired of being flogged for insubordination. New name, new world. Undocumented immigrant. It helps to be a quick study. Give 'em what they want.
A similar thing happened in my mom's family. One of her ancestors was a mail order bride from Europe to the new Mormon settlement in Salt Lake City. Her fabricated genealogy impressed the rubes. But she didn't like sharing a husband so she ran off with a U.S. government surveyor. Her descendant were pretty wild too. One of them had an affair with a Mormon church official and had a kid. Our family knows that, but it's not in the records. So far as the Mormons are concerned she had a miraculous 11 month pregnancy while her husband was away on business on the East Coast. So my mom's surname isn't legit either.
The actual biological dad was a scoundrel himself. He claimed to be White Anglo Saxon. Please... he would have been at home in any photo of IRA members.
It got stranger when my crazy grandma died. She left detailed instructions about the way she wanted to be buried. The Funeral Director asked, somewhat befuddled, "She's Jewish?"
Not that we knew.
So far as I can tell my mom's family motto is just tell 'em you're a Christian so they don't pester you." Pagan, European Jew, Christian, Scandinavian... something. They lived in the wilderness. They never went to church or temple. They were all very good at being where the fighting was not. My mom's dad went so far as to be a pacifist during World War Two. They put him to work building Liberty and Victory ships. His other option would have been jail. My dad's dad was an Army Air Force officer who wanted to fly planes but they decided he was too valuable as a "fix-it" man to get shot at. Dashing young officer who got people deemed essential to the war effort out of jail.
Anyways, I think most of us carry the genes of people who did their very best to avoid becoming part of the historical narrative. Those unnoticed "Dark Age" feudal people were living their lives unnoticed, even making ball bearings, water wheel mills, and iron plows, all doing their best not to become part of the historical narrative.
Becoming part of the historical narrative is usually a bad thing.
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