In 450 the Britons appealed to their Roman masters for protection from the
Sea-born raiders of Denmark, Northern Germany, and the Netherlands. None
came. The Angles, Jutes, and Saxons were genetically not Norse. They were
Celt, just as were their soon to be victims. The Norsemen came from the
tribes of Scandinavia, e.g. currently Norway, Sweden, etc. It was however,
the Angles, Jutes, and Saxons who would claim Briton as their own.
Though the Angles, Jutes, and Saxons were not Norse, they too would come to
be called Vikings. They shared both the technology of the longship and the
cultural tendency toward extreme violence and warfare. The Norse word Viking
is in fact a verb rather than a noun. Roughly, it meant to gain wealth by
plunder.
English historians are quick to tell you that when the Saxon King, Harold of
Wessex met King Harald Hardrada of Norway at Stamford Bridge on September
25, 1066, it was one Viking King against another. Likewise, as Harold of
Wessex rushed to meet the new threat from William of Normandy, on October
14, 1066, at Hastings, it was again a Viking King vs. a Viking King.
Thus far, the test results point clearly to Scotland as our most recent
ethnic origin. Interestingly, as one views the one and two step mutations,
England quickly meets Scotland and later, Ireland surpasses Scotland only
behind England. The more interesting item is the fact that one begins to see
matches in other locations like Iceland, Slovakia, Poland, Spain, Russia,
etc. Doesnt make sense you say? Oh, but it does! If one plots the locations
of the matches on a map of Europe and the world, they closely follow the
Viking trade routes down rivers and coastal paths, which fit almost
exactly with the general period of the match.
Clearly most of our family origins are from Scotland but some folks in our
distant past went a Viking!