My Celtic Anglo-Saxon Germanic Nordic Saami Ethnicity

This article (Myths of British Ancestry) suggests that most people with ancestors from England are primarily descended from aboriginal Basques, rather than from the Celts, Anglo-Saxons or Vikings.

Everyone has heard of Celts, Anglo-Saxons and Vikings. And most of us are familiar with the idea that the English are descended from Anglo-Saxons, who invaded eastern England after the Romans left, while most of the people in the rest of the British Isles derive from indigenous Celtic ancestors with a sprinkling of Viking blood around the fringes.

Yet there is no agreement among historians or archaeologists on the meaning of the words “Celtic” or “Anglo-Saxon.” What is more, new evidence from genetic analysis indicates that the Anglo-Saxons and Celts, to the extent that they can be defined genetically, were both small immigrant minorities. Neither group had much more impact on the British Isles gene pool than the Vikings, the Normans or, indeed, immigrants of the past 50 years.

The genetic evidence shows that three quarters of our ancestors came to this corner of Europe as hunter-gatherers, between 15,000 and 7,500 years ago, after the melting of the ice caps but before the land broke away from the mainland and divided into islands. Our subsequent separation from Europe has preserved a genetic time capsule of southwestern Europe during the ice age, which we share most closely with the former ice-age refuge in the Basque country.

Despite that many of English ancestry may be primarily descended from aboriginal Basques, my autosomal STR genetic results indicate that relatively less of my genetic makeup comes from the Basques. Instead, my primary gene pool comes from the Celts, Belgae (Gallo-Germanic tribes), Germanic, Norse and Italian - only then comes a Basque genetic contribution. Consequently, it looks to me that the Ice Age refuge for many of my ancestors may have been more toward the Italian peninsula than toward Basque country. Notably, the Anglo-Saxons originated in Northern Germany, northern Netherlands and southern Scandinavia.

Lands of the Angles and Saxons

Taking all of this together, and given that my mtDNA genetic (U5b1b1-T16192C!) ancestral motherline is aboriginal Saami from Northern Arctic Europe, it looks to me that the indigenous population of Northern Europe constitutes my primary genetic origins more so than does an indigenous Iberian population. Also, I think my autosomal STR genetic results shown below demonstrate that I have significant Anglo-Saxon and Viking ancestry, despite that many "English" people may have a greater overall Basque ancestral contribution than I do. This of course, does not negate the fact that the indigenous Basques (who may also be genetically linked to the Trojans as are thought to be the Swedish Vikings) are also my ancestors.

My DNA Tribes Europa Region Autosomal STR Results

*Celtic (0.95) 921,899.01
*Belgic (0.95) 559,522.46
*Germanic (0.94) 495,966.75
*Norse (0.93) 419,887.28
*Italian (0.94) 318,722.69
Basque (0.81) 313,736.10
Balkan (0.91) 239,382.75
Polish (0.91) 230,188.26
Russian (0.88) 190,356.19
Spanish (0.84) 122,269.92
Finnic (0.91) 92,306.35
Portuguese (0.81) 80,883.71
Thracian (0.85) 41,232.14
*Urals (0.94) 32,020.30
Scythian (0.67) 30,707.03
Greek (0.84) 17,991.77
Ashkenazic (0.52) 10,512.21

Importantly, the Eurogenes K9 chromosome painting taking into account all of the genes on all my chromosomes (as opposed to looking at specific genetic markers as does autosomal STR anaylsis) supports that most of my genetic contribution comes from Northern Europe (as opposed to Southern Europe / Mediterranean).

K9 Chromosome Painting of My Genetic Makeup