One million Brits can claim to be direct descendants from vikings, DNA study reveals

[Graham]

One million Brits can claim to be direct descendants from vikings, DNA study reveals
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/one-million-brits-can-claim-3225727

MEN from Scotland are most likely to match with almost a third from Shetland testing positive for viking blood.


ONE million Britons can claim direct descent from vikings, a DNA study claimed yesterday.

The genetic study, commissioned to celebrate the season two premiere of hit U.S. TV show VIKINGS on the Amazon Prime Instant Video streaming service and carried out by BritainsDNA, compared gene markers passed from dad to son, from 3500 men to six Norse DNA patterns.

Men from the Shetland (29.2 per cent) and Orkney (25.2 per cent) Islands, heavily populated by the Northmen in the Viking Age, are most likely to have Viking in their bloodlines according to the research.

These two locations top the list of places in Britain and Ireland where the most Norse blood remains, while parts of England have as many as one in twenty direct male descendants.

Other areas of Scotland also feature prominently in the list, with Caithness (17.5 per cent), Isle of Man (12.3 per cent), the Western Isles (11.3 percent) and North West Scotland and the Inner Hebrides (9.9 per cent).


The areas of Britain and Ireland with the highest concentration of Viking ancestry are:

1. Shetland – 29.2 per cent

2. Orkney – 25.2 per cent

3. Caithness – 17.5 per cent

4. Isle of Man – 12.3 per cent

5. Western Isles – 11.3 per cent

6. North West Scotland and Inner Hebrides – 9.9 per cent

7. Argyll – 5.8 per cent

8. Yorkshire – 5.6 per cent

9. North East Scotland – 4.9 per cent

10. North England – 4 per cent

11. East England – 3.6 per cent

12. South West Scotland – 3.2 per cent

13. South East Scotland – 2.7 per cent

14. Central England – 2.6 per cent

15. Central Scotland – 2.2 per cent

16. South East England – 1.9 per cent

17. South West England – 1.6 per cent

18. Ireland (Ulster) – 1.4 per cent

19. Ireland (Munster) – 1.3 per cent

20. Ireland (Connacht) – 1.2 per cent

21. Wales – 1 per cent

22. Ireland (Leinster) – 1 per cent

Dr. Jim Wilson, Chief Scientist at BritainsDNA, said: “The research suggests that the concentration of Norse blood is quite variable, but as the Y chromosome only relates to the nation’s male population and only to one ancestral lineage for each man, there is a very real chance that many more of us are related to the Vikings.

[Graham]

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2014/03/10/article-2577003-1C26285800000578-560_634x898.jpg

[LightHouse89]

the english are too swarthy over all to be related to vikings.

[Stimpy]

Makes sense that the Orkney and Shetland islands has the highest amount of Viking Y-DNA since the settlements there were founded by Vikings.
People have to understand though, that these type of 'studies' are extremely simplified though since Y-DNA is a very small portion of your ancestry. There is also no way to tell for sure how your I1 Y-DNA could have reached the british isles. It could have arrived much earlier than the Vikings with anglo-saxons and other groups with north-european origin, it was probably even there prior to that since I is the oldest known paternal line in Europe and people have always moved around. There were also, already back then Scandinavinas who belonged to R1b/a paternal lines.

[Prisoner Of Ice]

Makes sense that the Orkney and Shetland islands has the highest amount of Viking Y-DNA since the settlements there were founded by Vikings.
People have to understand though, that these type of 'studies' are extremely simplified though since Y-DNA is a very small portion of your ancestry. There is also no way to tell for sure how your I1 Y-DNA could have reached the british isles. It could have arrived much earlier than the Vikings with anglo-saxons and other groups with north-european origin, it was probably even there prior to that since I is the oldest known paternal line in Europe and people have always moved around. There were also, already back then Scandinavinas who belonged to R1b/a paternal lines.

The saami are I1, too, and probably the big source for scandinavia. So I don't think I1 is a good marker for vikings since saami population has taken off like crazy compared to the rest of sweden after the black plague.

England is 50% germanic r1b, probably a lot of that comes from vikings, and the angles and jutes came down from further north in the first place.

[LightHouse89]

The saami are I1, too, and probably the big source for scandinavia. So I don't think I1 is a good marker for vikings since saami population has taken off like crazy compared to the rest of sweden after the black plague.

England is 50% germanic r1b, probably a lot of that comes from vikings, and the angles and jutes came down from further north in the first place.

yes they slaughtered the swarthoid Romanized peleolithic peasantry [well the men] and banged all the women. That is why some of them today look nordic or germanic I think.

[Stimpy]

The saami are I1, too, and probably the big source for scandinavia. So I don't think I1 is a good marker for vikings
No.
The Saami are mostly of haplogroup N1c, R1a, I-M170, and the almost exclusively Finnish L287 and L300 I1 subclades which is not found in other Scandinavians. The Y-DNA people refer to as the 'Viking marker' is I-M253/I1a2 which is the main haplogroup of Swedes, Danes, Norwegians and Northern Germans.


Saami population has taken off like crazy compared to the rest of sweden after the black plague.
LOL. What? Saami admixture is almost nonexistent in central and southern Scandinavians. In northern Scandinavians too for that matter. (Except for the ones that identify as Saami, obviously.)

[Argang]

There hasn't been any studies about Saami I1 subclades, or even N1c subclades.

L300 has so far been found in one swede and five southern finns in the FtDNA projects, and nowhere else. No one knows how much L287 or any other subclade Saami have.

[Smaug]

Hahaha, here it is the "super" Norse influence in the Isles.

[Óttar]

:viking ship I1 Vikings in the Longhouse! :viking ship

[Argang]

I tried to find out what markers were checked exactly, but in vain. So here's conjecture instead:

Most of the Y-clades labelled as "Viking" in this study aren't I1. It is done by BritainsDNA, and looking at their nomenclature there's only one I1-branch - I-S142 aka I1-L22 which they call "Scandinavian" - that's likely to be included in the six haplos they checked. That includes all L22 subclades including Z74, L300, L205, P109 and their subclades (http://i.imgur.com/lRhWljr.jpg). There's certainly R1a and R1b branches included too.

Nomenclature visible here (https://www.scotlandsdna.com/assets/EarthsDNA/img/diagram/YDNADistributionDark.jpg).

[Jackson]

No.
The Saami are mostly of haplogroup N1c, R1a, I-M170, and the almost exclusively Finnish L287 and L300 I1 subclades which is not found in other Scandinavians. The Y-DNA people refer to as the 'Viking marker' is I-M253/I1a2 which is the main haplogroup of Swedes, Danes, Norwegians and Northern Germans.


LOL. What? Saami admixture is almost nonexistent in central and southern Scandinavians. In northern Scandinavians too for that matter. (Except for the ones that identify as Saami, obviously.)

I think in this study they are referring to particular types of R1a, given the percentages. I think in some areas it's a slight underestimate, but only by one or two percent. I think north Germanic input has relatively localised peaks and minor throughout the whole of the Isles.

Edit: That is, Norwegian/Swedish as opposed to Danish. POBI showed the former to be around 5% or less in most areas, but the Danish component looks to be about 20%, although it could have come earlier too.

[Graham]

Btw the map correlates well in Scotland, with the Norse Viking routes. It's no surpise that West Scotland & North Scotland score highest.

Same with Yorkshire, that was a trading ground from Jorvik/York.

Missing would be the more Germanic Saxon farmer in SE English. The North was more Viking Warriors, raiding & looting.

[Artek]

I think in this study they are referring to particular types of R1a, given the percentages. I think in some areas it's a slight underestimate, but only by one or two percent. I think north Germanic input has relatively localised peaks and minor throughout the whole of the Isles.
Yes, I think everything points out to an R1a. Their nomenclature is weird. S198(damn, no one but them uses it) a.k.a Z282 is not kurgan but just "Corded Ware", S298 vel L664 is not Yamna but "Corded"(or a Single-grave culture) as well. And I don't understand why there is no Z280 listed. Such results indicate undersampling.

[Argang]

Hahaha, here it is the "super" Norse influence in the Isles.

It's just Y-DNA, the similarity of scandos and British Isles in genomewide ancestry is beyond doubt. Even the Estonian Viking facade is no joke, Irish turned out in Eurogenes' test to have more IBS-sharing with Estonians than French - never mind anything more southern.

[paksaltopam]

Maybe this is why I always come up as British and not Danish and German on DNA tests.

[Caismeachd]

I have some Norse DNA and my family originally comes from Argyll.

[Incal]

Btw the map correlates well in Scotland, with the Norse Viking routes. It's no surpise that West Scotland & North Scotland score highest.

Same with Yorkshire, that was a trading ground from Jorvik/York.

Missing would be the more Germanic Saxon farmer in SE English. The North was more Viking Warriors, raiding & looting.

Graham, a fellow Scot of yours told me last week that Anglo=Sea and Saxon=Axe. Is that true?

[Grace O'Malley]

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2014/03/10/article-2577003-1C26285800000578-560_634x898.jpg

I wonder how they worked this out? It doesn't make sense to me as the Viking settlements in Ireland were on the East coast so a place like Dublin which was a Viking settlement is the same as Wales which had no Viking settlements. I also don't know why the other places in Ireland have fractionally higher percentages than Dublin. I wonder if this is something more ancient showing up? It makes sense for Orkney & Shetland though. Also the map shows Donegal on the North West coast to be part of Northern Ireland when it is part of the Republic.

[Dál Riata]

Scottish Viking R1a from Argyll here! :viking ship

[Graham]

Graham, a fellow Scot of yours told me last week that Anglo=Sea and Saxon=Axe. Is that true?

Absolutely nae idea. The Germans or Danish would know best. imo.

[Anglojew]

The thing about studies like this is that it only claims for direct descent eg YDNA. If my maternal grandfather is of Viking descent I'm not considered in this study but aren't I also of viking descent? Also, we would assume that female descendants would double the heading of "one million" to two. For these reasons there's probably half of England with some Viking ancestry.

[Prisoner Of Ice]

I wonder how they worked this out? It doesn't make sense to me as the Viking settlements in Ireland were on the East coast so a place like Dublin which was a Viking settlement is the same as Wales which had no Viking settlements. I also don't know why the other places in Ireland have fractionally higher percentages than Dublin. I wonder if this is something more ancient showing up? It makes sense for Orkney & Shetland though. Also the map shows Donegal on the North West coast to be part of Northern Ireland when it is part of the Republic.

Bikings from dubline colonized wales.

[Cristiano viejo]

Only one million? there must be many desilusional members here in Apricity... any Brit claim be descendant of Vikings.

[RandoBloom]

Nothing to be proud of, products of rape

[Proto-Shaman]

The areas of Britain and Ireland with the highest concentration of Viking ancestry are:

1. Shetland – 29.2 per cent
Interestingly Shetlands seem to be the region preserving the most Viking ancestry and at the same time showing strong genetic kinship with the central asian Kyrgyz people. See: The Genetic Link of the Viking – Era Norse to Central Asia (http://www.davidkfaux.org/CentralAsiaRootsofScandinavia-Y-DNAEvidence.pdf)

[Annihilus]

The thing about studies like this is that it only claims for direct descent eg YDNA. If my maternal grandfather is of Viking descent I'm not considered in this study but aren't I also of viking descent? Also, we would assume that female descendants would double the heading of "one million" to two. For these reasons there's probably half of England with some Viking ancestry.

You are already turkic now you want to be viking too?

Actually it could quite be possible, but is there a place for a turkicviking in this world?

[Black Wolf]

Only one million? there must be many desilusional members here in Apricity... any Brit claim be descendant of Vikings.

Pretty much...I would say that almost all Brits and most Irish people probably have some form of old Norse/Viking ancestry.

[Anglojew]

You are already turkic now you want to be viking too?

Actually it could quite be possible, but is there a place for a turkicviking in this world?

Direct Turkic descent but I'm also of partial-Viking descent. Various Gedmatch Eurogenes tests have me as 25% Swedish (as much as I'm showing as Near-Eastern).

[Stimpy]

Nothing to be proud of, products of rape

Vikings were ladiesmen. They bathed at least once a week, used grooming products and even took care of their teeth while, in the rest of christian Europe, washing yourself was prohibited and they even used urine to clean themselves.
No wonder the vikings impregnated so many wiminz everywhere they went, they were competing with guys who hadn't bathed in their entire lives, smelled like urine and on top of that weren't even allowed to touch a woman before marriage.

[RandoBloom]

Vikings were ladiesmen. They bathed at least once a week, used grooming products and even took care of their teeth while, in the rest of christian Europe, washing yourself was prohibited and they even used urine to clean themselves.
No wonder the vikings impregnated so many wiminz everywhere they went, they were competing with guys who hadn't bathed in their entire lives, smelled like urine and on top of that weren't even allowed to touch a woman before marriage.

The only way they could touch an english woman is by raping her. They didnt live in England any time to woo someone. Get of the boat, break in, steal and rape.
And now products of that are proud of it

[Graham]

Only one million? there must be many desilusional members here in Apricity... any Brit claim be descendant of Vikings.

Well it's only direct-descent & in our culture with clans etc.. is an important historical line, more important than autosomal anyway/ :P


Autosomal Norse is actually lower though if you want to check that, because femal lines are less so. But Scotland isn't as represented in some areas.

http://imageshack.us/a/img542/9092/j7if.pnghttp://imageshack.us/a/img203/2848/dwes.png

[Graham]

The only way they could touch an english woman is by raping her. They didnt live in England any time to woo someone. Get of the boat, break in, steal and rape.
And now products of that are proud of it
You should look up Somerled (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somerled) as the 'Lord of the Isles', it's not all rape and plunder.

[justme]

You should look up Somerled (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somerled) as the 'Lord of the Isles', it's not all rape and plunder.
She's speaking about her own... SLAVS.

[Stimpy]

The only way they could touch an english woman is by raping her. They didnt live in England any time to woo someone. Get of the boat, break in, steal and rape.
And now products of that are proud of it
Well, that's a very simplistic way to view it.
The vikings had many settlents on the British isle and the rest of Europe which means they definitely had lots of time to 'woo' someone. These settlers, some, who had a predominantly Norse culture and spoke a Norse language even until the 1800s are the people who made the largest genetic impact on the places the visited, not the ones who raided, traded and/or fought in wars for some months and then returned to Scandinavia.
Obviously rape took place, like it always has, but that wasn't what made the largest genetic impact. I don't think raping was something that Vikings liked to busy themselves with more than anyone else during this time neither. Alot points to quite the opposite actually.

[Caismeachd]

They raped and stole women. The Faroe isles are 50/50 Norse and Scottish. Scottish through the female line.

[Graham]

The Island I have a wee bit of ancestry from..

History

The Norse name ‘Papay’ means the ‘island of the Priests’ and was given by the Vikings suggesting that missionary priests of Celtic origin may have formed a community here, perhaps as early as the 6th or 7th century. Papay ‘Stjora’ means the ‘big island of the priests’ to distinguish it from another priests’ island called Papay Little.

After the earls of Orkney lost Shetland in 1195 Papa Stour became the personal property of the kings of Norway, and was held by Duke Hakon of Norway, later King Hakon V. It was during this time, at Easter 1299, that a dispute arose between the Duke’s bailiff and a local woman called Ragnhild Simunsdatter (‘ daughter of Simon’) over taxation and rents on the island. These events were recorded in what is now known as the ’1299 Document’, which is Shetland’s oldest surviving document. This dispute took place at the Biggins farm and, following excavations by Dr Barbara Crawford of St Andrew’s University, the remains of a mediaeval Norse wooden house called a ‘stofa’ was uncovered. In 2007 /8 the Papa Stour History Group togther with craftsmen and students from Norway undertook a partial re construction of the stofa which can be visited at the Biggins.

Although Shetland was pledged to Scotland in 1469 the Lairds of Norway kept their estates in Papa Stour until well into the 17th century.

By the 18th century two Shetland lairds owned Papa Stour, Thomas Gifford of Busta and Arthur Nicolson of Lerwick. They maintained a prosperous fishing industry known as the Haaf, carried out in the summer season using six man boats known as sixareens.

In the 19th century the population of 360 inhabitants was stabilized by the opening of the Crabbaberry fishing station. Unfortunately the advent of the steam drifter which centralised the fish curing industry in the Lerwick, and the lack of peat for household fuel, reduced the population dramatically.

By 1940 only 100 remained in the isle and these only through help supplied by Government war grants. After the war, with the men away at the whaleing and the children having to go to the mainland for secondary education, the population continued to fall and by 1970 it had reached a critical stage. Only sixteen people still remianed, when through an advertisement in the national press a number of young couples came and settled. The school was re opened and for the next twenty years the population remained stable. But since 2000 numbers have dropped to less than 20 and the isle is in need of re population.

[Argang]

Well it's only direct-descent & in our culture with clans etc.. is an important historical line, more important than autosomal anyway/ :P


Autosomal Norse is actually lower though if you want to check that, because femal lines are less so. But Scotland isn't as represented in some areas.

http://imageshack.us/a/img542/9092/j7if.pnghttp://imageshack.us/a/img203/2848/dwes.png

Is that really autosomal or MTdna? As far as autosomal PCA's and admixture runs go, Western Norwegians and Danes seem to be indistinguishable from British Islanders which would make it hard to separate an unique "british" component. I've seen Norwegians end up 100% Irish in McDonald's test.

[Graham]

Is that really autosomal or MTdna? As far as autosomal PCA's and admixture runs go, bdWestern Norwegians and Danes seem to be indistinguishable from British Islanders which would make it hard to separate an unique "british" component. I've seen Norwegians end up 100% Irish in McDonald's test.It's a multi-million pound project.. With hopefully autsomal samples from Anglo-Saxons in the future.

------------

http://www.isogg.org/wiki/People_of_the_British_Isles
The People of the British Isles (PoBI) is an ongoing population genetics project based at the University of Oxford.


So far PoBI has sampled around 4,500 blood samples. The project looks at around 600,000 single-nucleotide polymorphisms (genetic markers), including genes on Y-DNA and mtDNA..

The project is run in collaboration with Professor Peter Donnelly at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics.

The British samples have been compared with around 6700 samples from Continental Europe.

[Jackson]

Is that really autosomal or MTdna? As far as autosomal PCA's and admixture runs go, Western Norwegians and Danes seem to be indistinguishable from British Islanders which would make it hard to separate an unique "british" component. I've seen Norwegians end up 100% Irish in McDonald's test.

It's autosomal DNA, but of course it's hard to distinguish NW Europeans but most of that is probably much older, and some areas are comparatively more northern European due to later incursions. Basically these yellow and Green clusters form the majority in Norway and Sweden, the greener ones are more Norwegian yellower ones more Swedish, although they don't make up 100% of DNA there, so the actual figure could be a few percent higher, but it's in the right region.