Professor Mark Jobling of Leicester University, who now seems to be the ultimate authority on Viking bloodlines in northern England within the national project to create a genetic map of the UK, has launched a new exciting study. Men whose fathers’ fathers were born in Cumbria, Lancashire, Cheshire, North Yorkshire, Durham or Northumberland are wanted to take part in it. Special attention is paid to people with such local surnames as Borrowdale, Branthwaite, Haygarth, Oldcorn, Satterthwaite and Thornthwaite. However, all eligible volunteers will be sent DNA sample kits in order to determine if they have Viking heritage. Professor Jobling formulated the aim of the study as follows: “What we want to end up with is a map of the north of Britain showing where the Vikings were concentrated and distinguishing between the Norse Vikings who landed in the west and the Danish Vikings to the east.” The research associate Dr Turi King comments: “The East Midlands is a particularly important area as it formed the heartlands of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Mercia and large parts also fell within the area of the Danelaw, an area dominated Danish Vikings during the 9th and 10th centuries.” How Vikings affected this area is evident in such placenames as Flimby, Birkby, Crosby, Allerby and Dovenby, but the effect on genetics thus far has been less clear. The initiative is part of The People of the British Isles project headed by Professor Sir Walter Bodmer at the University of Oxford. The recently launched research on Viking DNA in Northern England is funded by the Wellcome Trust and forms part of the grant “What’s in a name? Applying patrilineal surnames to forensics, population history, and genetic epidemiology.” It will help to discover the genetic impact of the Angles, Saxons and Vikings on present day Britain. It is important that some of such genetic variation contributes to inherited differences in susceptibility to cancer and heart disease. The study will continue until late 2010, after which the results will be published.
Photo courtesy jriro2000. Used under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic Licence.
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
My father is from county Tyrone in N. Ireland. he claims himself my family has viking blood
This is more of a request really. My husband believes himself to be of Viking descent. His father was from Armagh, Northern Ireland and his father was from Glasgow. His mother is from the west coast of Ireland, Galway. As a gift I would like to discover if this is a possibility or not but am not sure of any reputable places to send off for DNA testing of this kind. I have said this is possibly setting himself up for disappointment but nonetheless it will be interesting to trace back his DNA and see what there is to discover. Any ideas of where I can begin please?
What about the surname Thrailkill? My mother traced that name which is her maiden back to Cumbria or North Umbria and Yorkshire, the first Thrailkill to come to America got married in South Carolina in the early 1800′s I believe, left from Yorkshire.
My mother , before she passed away told me my father who I never met was of Danish origin, with possible viking linage. Both are now deceased I would like to know if you could help me with this.
I live at Crosby Ravensworth, about 12 miles S of Penrith, Cumbria UK.
Some years ago the BBC took some DNA samples, but we never had any individual ‘results, only that there was a lot of Viking blood around Penrith!!!
Now, I am giving a talk to the Lakeland Dialect Society, of which I am President about ‘VIKING’ works in our Cumbrian dialect. I realise that the ‘DANES’, who came across the North Sea and moved over here from Yorkshire, spoke a very similar language to the ‘Norwegian’ Vikings, who came round by Orkney and some of whom sojourned in Ireland, before coming into Cumbria from the West.
Do you know of any specific means of differentiating between the two?
Has your DNA study shown up anything on this question?
We are told that ‘by’ as a place name element is ‘Danish’ – yet in Norway ‘byen’ means the town !!!!
I look forward to your response! TED
Not familier with your dialect since i am Danish but i do know that Danish and swedish are ´almost´ the same…
and in the Viking time i belive that the language was germanian.
But in norway they had another language than germanian in that time period.
and for a bit off topic/in topic
My last name are Knudsen.
Tryed to trace my bloodline over the internet, some months ago.
My last name are only shown in America trough some old ´leak´documents, but knudsen are a common last name in Denmark and are widely spread.
i can thou say i have a genetic error, (ADD) so i dont know if i´m Pure viking blood… but if im a decendant from inbreed or cross breed i sadly dont know.
-Apologies for my lack of english, but i hope that you can use my respond to anything usefull in your TED.
//Klaus J. Knudsen
Has this study officially finished as I would love to be able to get hold of one of the DNA kits as my husbands family have always been told they are of Viking decent, but from where I could not say, the family name is Bakes, so does not fit with any of the above apart from the family coming from North Yorkshire as far back as we can find. Please advise where I can find out more and how I can go about getting a DNA test done.
Thanks
Jo
Wow your website sure knows it’s stuff. I have one small question was Reynolds a Viking last name or name.