This is not going off topic so, please bear with me. I play Welsh music, where the fiddle tradition all but died out for many years, only reviving in the 50s and 60s. There is, therefore, no traditional style. Does this then, make the music less authentic? Of course not. Look, as well, at the collection of John Thomas, an eighteenth century Welsh fiddler, and you will find, among all the traditional tunes, snatches of Handel's Water Music. Then there is John Clare's collection from deepest Northamptonshire with several Welsh tunes included. Why are these anomolies there? Because they were popular and the fiddler or whoever, got paid to entertain. And music can travel a long way. Listen to the Welsh tune On Tredegar Moor http://www.ukmagic.co.uk/song_welsh/ar_ben_waun_tredegar.html
and compare it to Waters of Tyne. Should one country, therefore, have it removed from its traditional canon? And who can lay claim to Soldier's Joy? Isn't this so universal that every country can accept it as part of their tradition?

As for styles etc, I believe that we have become far too academic and removed from the original source. Thomas hardy talks about the village band playing for dances and church services. A mish-mash of musicians of varying competence playing whatever they could lay their hands on. There may have been individual players who rose above the ranks and brought their own style to the music but, most of the time it would have been a group of amateurs helping their fellow villagers to dance and get drunk.

All hail these fellows. We all them our existence. Somewhere in the mist of time, one of our ancestors was probably the direct result of the dancing and drinking.