This DNA Map Shows Where Your Scottish Family Really Came From
Traced in the DNA
3,499 views
DESCRIPTION
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In 2019 geneticists took the DNA of more than two thousand people from Scotland, Ireland and northern England — every one with grandparents born within a few miles of each other — and let the computer sort them with no map, no surnames and no history. The computer drew Scotland. Not one country, but separate peoples, and the lines fell almost exactly where the kingdoms of the 600s and 700s had been: the Picts, the Gaels of Dál Riata, the Britons of Strathclyde, the Angles of Northumbria, and the Norse in the islands.
Tonight we read that map region by region and put dozens of Scottish surnames back on the ancient people they belong to.
📍 Shetland — the Norse pawn of 1469; closest in Britain to western Norway (Halcrow, Tulloch, Leask, Manson, Laurenson)
— Your ancestry test's "Scottish %" can't draw this map — here's why
📍 Orkney — the earls' saga and the Sinclairs (Flett, Linklater, Isbister, Rendall, Drever, Spence)
📍 The Western Isles — the foreign Gaels: MacLeod, son of Ljótr; MacAulay, son of Óláfr; MacIver, son of Ívarr
📍 The north-east — the Picts never left; plot every Pit- place-name and you've drawn Pictland
📍 Argyll — Dál Riata, Dunadd, and the kingdom across the water from Antrim
📍 The south-west — Strathclyde and Galloway, Whithorn, and the Scotland that looks like Ulster
📍 The south-east — Northumbria, Old Melrose, and the DNA that ignores the Tweed
📍 The Central Belt — the honest twist: where the clusters melt, and where two million emigrants sailed from
And at the end: what the DNA shows about HOW the Norse came — as families in the Northern Isles, as men in the Hebrides.
Which region is yours? Tell me in the comments, with the surname.
🔎 TRACE YOUR SURNAME: https://dnaorigin.org
Type in your surname and it does the research for you: which region of Scotland the name began in, which of these old peoples it belongs to, what it means, the clan or family, when it crossed to Ulster, America or Canada, and the families who carried it before you. Or scan the QR code on screen.
Sources used in this episode: Gilbert et al., "The genetic landscape of Scotland and the Isles," PNAS (2019); Leslie et al., "The fine-scale genetic structure of the British population," Nature (2015); Gilbert et al., "The Irish DNA Atlas," Scientific Reports (2017); Goodacre et al., "Genetic evidence for a family-based Scandinavian settlement of Shetland and Orkney during the Viking periods," Heredity (2005); the Orkneyinga saga; the Annals of Ulster; Bede, Historia Ecclesiastica (731); the Book of Deer; the Treaty of Perth (1266); the 1468/69 pledge of Orkney and Shetland; the Old Parish Registers of Scotland; the 1851 Census of Scotland.
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This DNA Map Shows Where Your Scottish Family Really Came From
Traced in the DNA
3,499 views
DESCRIPTION
======================================================================
In 2019 geneticists took the DNA of more than two thousand people from Scotland, Ireland and northern England — every one with grandparents born within a few miles of each other — and let the computer sort them with no map, no surnames and no history. The computer drew Scotland. Not one country, but separate peoples, and the lines fell almost exactly where the kingdoms of the 600s and 700s had been: the Picts, the Gaels of Dál Riata, the Britons of Strathclyde, the Angles of Northumbria, and the Norse in the islands.
Tonight we read that map region by region and put dozens of Scottish surnames back on the ancient people they belong to.
📍 Shetland — the Norse pawn of 1469; closest in Britain to western Norway (Halcrow, Tulloch, Leask, Manson, Laurenson)
— Your ancestry test's "Scottish %" can't draw this map — here's why
📍 Orkney — the earls' saga and the Sinclairs (Flett, Linklater, Isbister, Rendall, Drever, Spence)
📍 The Western Isles — the foreign Gaels: MacLeod, son of Ljótr; MacAulay, son of Óláfr; MacIver, son of Ívarr
📍 The north-east — the Picts never left; plot every Pit- place-name and you've drawn Pictland
📍 Argyll — Dál Riata, Dunadd, and the kingdom across the water from Antrim
📍 The south-west — Strathclyde and Galloway, Whithorn, and the Scotland that looks like Ulster
📍 The south-east — Northumbria, Old Melrose, and the DNA that ignores the Tweed
📍 The Central Belt — the honest twist: where the clusters melt, and where two million emigrants sailed from
And at the end: what the DNA shows about HOW the Norse came — as families in the Northern Isles, as men in the Hebrides.
Which region is yours? Tell me in the comments, with the surname.
🔎 TRACE YOUR SURNAME: https://dnaorigin.org
Type in your surname and it does the research for you: which region of Scotland the name began in, which of these old peoples it belongs to, what it means, the clan or family, when it crossed to Ulster, America or Canada, and the families who carried it before you. Or scan the QR code on screen.
Sources used in this episode: Gilbert et al., "The genetic landscape of Scotland and the Isles," PNAS (2019); Leslie et al., "The fine-scale genetic structure of the British population," Nature (2015); Gilbert et al., "The Irish DNA Atlas," Scientific Reports (2017); Goodacre et al., "Genetic evidence for a family-based Scandinavian settlement of Shetland and Orkney during the Viking periods," Heredity (2005); the Orkneyinga saga; the Annals of Ulster; Bede, Historia Ecclesiastica (731); the Book of Deer; the Treaty of Perth (1266); the 1468/69 pledge of Orkney and Shetland; the Old Parish Registers of Scotland; the 1851 Census of Scotland.