DNA update: A link to deep ethnicity

 

Vikings! That conjures up a certain image, doesn't it? I've long been fascinated by tales of the Northern raiders and have a number of books about them in my personal library. Among the world regions my Ancestry DNA ethnicity results come up with are results from Sweden and Denmark. As I have no known ancestors who came from those areas, I chalked it up to Vikings. It only made sense when I could track back ancestral links to Islay and the Isle of Skye, islands on the west of Scotland. It was common knowledge that they were part of the area that been of interest to Viking raiders.

My Scottish ancestry come from my maternal side so that's probably where the Viking link comes in and I used that information in my ethnicity inheritance to separate my maternal and paternal sides when Ancestry came up with the function that allows you to differentiate between inheritance from your parents if they have sufficient differences in their ethnic makeup. I assigned Ancestry's 5% Sweden & Denmark result to my maternal side. But maybe my links to that inheritance came later than the Vikings. After all, they stopped being a nuisance around 1100 or so and genealogical records don't go that far back.

Just to be sure, I opted for the further analysis of my DNA for Viking links at Living DNA as I had also tested at that site. Turns out that my Viking index is 78%, which means that my DNA is more similar to Viking DNA than 78% of all Living DNA customers. They also place my Vikings as coming from Sweden and Denmark rather than Norway.

I found this very interesting and it confirmed my belief that my Scandinavian roots were related to the Vikings but the thing was that I forgot part of the English history that I learned in school. As the Vikings put down roots in the British Isles they were given (or took) what was called the Danelaw. This was described in Current Archaeology magazine as the part of England lying east of a line from Chester to London. It was an area that would include Lincolnshire and I know that one of my family lines, the Tripp line, transplanted to North America in 1630 in the person of John Tripp who came from Horkstow, Lincolnshire. So it left me wondering, did my Viking ancestors end up in England or Scotland or maybe both?

Google Map approximation of Danelaw drawing a line (the roads) from Chester to London, Danelaw being the part east of the line

Sources:

Current Archaeology January 2015, Issue 298 “A prey to pagan people”? The Viking impact on Britain and Ireland” p28-36