Genetics of the British and Irish people

Well, right now in the Normandy Y-DNA Project the most frequent subclade is R-L21 (R1b1b2a1b5 or R1b1b2a1a2f). That could change, since it is a new project, and membership numbers are still relatively small. But with the y-dna profile in Northern France not all that different from that right across the Channel in Britain, it makes things difficult to sort.

I've heard different figures for the numbers of Normans who settled in Britain, with 8,000 being in the very low range. There could have been three or four times that number. I don't think their circumstances paralleled those of the Germanic invaders in Iberia half a millennium earlier. The Normans controlled a much more advanced military, administrative and ecclesiastical system than did the various motley tribes of Germans in Iberia, and the Normans were just a short boat ride across the Channel from their original homeland.

Again, I wasn't positing "total replacement" of the native Brits/Anglo-Saxons by the Normans or anything even close, but I do think the Normans (and their compatriots, the Bretons and the Flemish) made an impact, probably a fairly sizeable one.
 
The Visigoths also totaled in the tens of thousands.
The Visigoths were around 200.000 (all historians agree with this) and they all ended up blending with the native hispanoroman population
 
Well, right now in the Normandy Y-DNA Project the most frequent subclade is R-L21 (R1b1b2a1b5 or R1b1b2a1a2f). That could change, since it is a new project, and membership numbers are still relatively small. But with the y-dna profile in Northern France not all that different from that right across the Channel in Britain, it makes things difficult to sort.
The R-L21 can also be from the Celts, Anglo-Saxons and scandinavians

I've heard different figures for the numbers of Normans who settled in Britain, with 8,000 being in the very low range. There could have been three or four times that number.
These figures would still be minoritary, what was the population of Britain at the time of their arrival ?

I don't think their circumstances paralleled those of the Germanic invaders in Iberia half a millennium earlier.
Take in account the Visigoths ruled and controlled all of Iberia , the Suevi had their Kingdom in all the NW of Iberia, the Franks controlled the Spanish March....The Visigoths were the seed for the creation of Spain
 
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Yes, and all of them could have had a significant impact, but none of them had the sort of sophisticated military, administrative, and ecclesiastical system the Normans had.

I would still argue that the Normans made a sizeable contribution to the y-dna of the British Isles, since they established a lasting aristocracy there.
 
A new PCA analysis by O'Dushlaine et al. shows that the Scots are genetically intermediate between the Irish and the English population.

The FRAP analysis reveals, quite surprisingly, that the Irish, Scottish and English strongly cluster together, and are indeed almost undistinguishable compared to the three other populations tested (Portuguese, Swedish and Bulgarian). The sharp difference between British and Swedish markers shows the little influx of Scandinavian genes in the British Isles. It also contradicts the idea that the English are mostly of Germanic descent. This study concludes that the English have only marginally more Germanic blood than the Irish (a matter of of 5-10% more).
 
A new PCA analysis by O'Dushlaine et al. shows that the Scots are genetically intermediate between the Irish and the English population.
The FRAP analysis reveals, quite surprisingly, that the Irish, Scottish and English strongly cluster together, and are indeed almost undistinguishable compared to the three other populations tested (Portuguese, Swedish and Bulgarian). The sharp difference between British and Swedish markers shows the little influx of Scandinavian genes in the British Isles. It also contradicts the idea that the English are mostly of Germanic descent. This study concludes that the English have only marginally more Germanic blood than the Irish (a matter of of 5-10% more).

Why are the Irish more frequently dark-haired?

And would this make the white English largely of Celtic origin?
 
Why are the Irish more frequently dark-haired?

And would this make the white English largely of Celtic origin?

Here is something on the physical appearance of the Irish from Carlton Coon's old The Races of Europe, the details of which were based on a study of 10,000 Irishmen by Harvard's Department of Anthropology.

The hair color of the Irish is predominantly brown; black hair accounts for less than 3 per cent of the total, while the ashen series (Fischer #20-26) amounts to but one-half of one per cent. Forty per cent have dark brown hair (Fischer #4-5); 35 per cent have medium brown (Fischer #7-9); reddish brown hues total over 5 per cent (closest to Fischer #6, #10), while clear reds (Fischer #1-3) run higher than 4 per cent. The rest, some 15 per cent, fall into a light brown to golden blond category (Fischer #11-19). Thus the hair color of the Irish is darker than that of most regions of Scandinavia, but not much darker than Iceland; it is notably different from Nordic hair, as exemplified by eastern Norwegians and Swedes, in its almost total lack of ash-blondism. The rufous hair color pigment reaches a world maximum here; not so much in reds as in the prevalance of golden hues in blond and brown shades. The lightest hair is found in the Aran Islands, where the commonest shade is, nevertheless, medium brown; in the southwestern counties there are more goldens and at the same time more dark-browns than in Ireland as a whole, while the Great Plain runs fairest of all. Red hair, with a regional maximum of 8 per cent, is commonest in Ulster, rarest in Waterford and Wexford.

In the proportion of pure light eyes, Ireland competes successfully with the blondest regions of Scandinavia. Over 46 per cent of the total group has pure light eyes, and of these all but 4 per cent are blue. Very light-mixed eyes (equivalent to Martin #13-14) account for another 30 per cent, while less than one-half of one per cent have pure brown. There is probably no population of equal size in the world which is lighter eyed, and blue eyed, than the Irish. The almost total absence of gray eyes corresponds to the equal paucity of ash-blond hair. Compared to eastern Norway, Sweden, and Finnic and Baltic groups, the eye color is disproportionately light in comparison to hair color. Regional differences, while not great, are of some importance. The ratio of pure blue eyes falls to 33 per cent in Kerry and Clare, and rises to 50 per cent in other regions - Carlow and Wicklow in the southeast, and Armagh, Monaghan, and eastern Cavan in the North. On the whole, the east is lighter eyed than the west, as it is lighter haired. At the same time the Presbyterians are blonder than the Catholics, who are in turn fairer than the members of the Church of Ireland.

If the hair color of the Irish is darker than that of the English, it would seem to be only marginally so.
 
Why are the Irish more frequently dark-haired?

Not sure about that. The Irish have more red hair than the English. With England it's especially Eastern Englanders that are blond, which is also the region with the strongest historical Germanic settlements and the highest percentage of I1.

And would this make the white English largely of Celtic origin?

Yes, indeed. That's in line with the high percentage of R1b-L21 everywhere in Britain and Ireland, including England.
 
One problem I have with this report is their sampling point for Ireland is Dublin. Dublin was originaly a norse settlement before the Anglo-Norman invasion. It was then the centre of the "English Pale" for several hundred years. After all the term "beyond the pale" came about to describe the areas controlled by "ye wilde irishry"

The study on a "Genetic Atlas of "British Isles"" had sampled in Rush (village north of Dublin city) that show some Norse admixture. Their control sample for a more general Irish population was by sampling in Country Roscommon in western Ireland an area that was under native Irish rule until the early 17th century.

Some commentary I've seen on difference between swedish and english populations is due to their been a finnic admixture in Sweden, this pulls the general swedish sample away from the english one. I would have thought that as we know the "Anglo-Saxons" originated along the North Sea that they would have sampled in Netherlands/Northern Germany/Denmark.
 
Do you think the Angles carried much S28 in any flavor? If so, how much came to Britain and where?
 
hi, my father is originally british from the gloucestershire area of england...i have tried searching for y-dna results specific to this area but cannot seem to find anything...anyway my father has pitch black hair, noticeably tan skin (moreso in youth) and what you would call a 'roman nose', our family name Cullimore also come from a long line of farmers in england, even starting strawberry farms upon arrival in australia....where is it possible for me to get one of these DNA tests? i would have the same y-haplogroup as my father, correct? so i could just get tested and then i would know what his haplogroup would be??
 
This is fascinating stuff, but sorting through all of the numbers, dashes, and percentages can be mind-boggling. I came here to learn about these very topics, so I refuse to give up. Keep up the posts, all. I am growing more inclined to have my own Y and Mt dna checked.
 
Do you think the Angles carried much S28 in any flavor? If so, how much came to Britain and where?

The consensus appears to be that the S28 variety of R1b is a good candidate for a La Tene Celtic marker. Given its distribution in Europe I can see why that is. I don't have a breakdown on percentages in Britain.

Strains of R1b such as U106/S21 and even more so, the rarer, U198/S29 are better candidates for clades carried by the Angles. Having said that, most population geneticists look chiefly for I1 as echoes of the Angles.
 
Not sure about that. The Irish have more red hair than the English. With England it's especially Eastern Englanders that are blond, which is also the region with the strongest historical Germanic settlements and the highest percentage of I1.



Yes, indeed. That's in line with the high percentage of R1b-L21 everywhere in Britain and Ireland, including England.

As an Englishman, I concur with your observations of blondness up to a point, Maciamo. Certainly, the English of the eastern side of the country are blonder than their western neighbours, especially the largely Celtic Welsh of the far west. I agree that this does correlate to some extent with levels of I1, for example the levels of blondness are high in East Anglian Norfolk which has the highest I1 level [32%] in Britain. However, by east English we must also include the county of Yorkshire [northern location, but east of the Pennines] as a very blond county.

There are pockets of blondness further north, and in the north-west at that too, for example around Penrith in Cumbria according to Sir Walter Bodmer.

Blondness is not solely confined to England either. Take a look around the Lothian area of lowland Scotland, where the people are largely of Anglian rather than Celtic descent, and you will see a largely fair population.
 
Funny; I have dark hair now, though I was blond as a child. But the hair on my arms and legs is reddish-blond. And when I can bothered to grow a beard, I have blond hairs mixed in with dark brown.
 
When I meet people from the islands I sometimes have the feeling they have the biggest variety of phenotypes in the whole world: blond, red, black, brown and all kinds of facial traits. If it depended only on looks, every person in Europe could tell me he or she is British/Irish, I would believe them! *lol*
Add former colonial immigrants with British passports to that, and every person in the world could make me believe :LOL:
 
When I meet people from the islands I sometimes have the feeling they have the biggest variety of phenotypes in the whole world: blond, red, black, brown and all kinds of facial traits. If it depended only on looks, every person in Europe could tell me he or she is British/Irish, I would believe them! *lol*
Add former colonial immigrants with British passports to that, and every person in the world could make me believe :LOL:

Don't forget, Britain consists of four lands-England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. The large British cities may contain 'multi-racial' populations in their inner-cities, but there are still distinct, phenotypical patterns to be discerned in the populations outside of the large cities. Recently, Robin McKie's The Face of Britain book and tv series [ drawing on the work of Sir Walter Bodmer and his team] made this very clear. Just taking regions within England as an example, there were discernible patterns in terms of the aggregates of facial characteristics between, say, Devon and East Anglia. These phenotypical differences in the still 94% 'white' British population reflect the differing degrees of Germanic and Celtic admixture.
 
Don't forget, Britain consists of four lands-England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. The large British cities may contain 'multi-racial' populations in their inner-cities, but there are still distinct, phenotypical patterns to be discerned in the populations outside of the large cities. Recently, Robin McKie's The Face of Britain book and tv series [ drawing on the work of Sir Walter Bodmer and his team] made this very clear. Just taking regions within England as an example, there were discernible patterns in terms of the aggregates of facial characteristics between, say, Devon and East Anglia. These phenotypical differences in the still 94% 'white' British population reflect the differing degrees of Germanic and Celtic admixture.

Spot on, Yorkie. It's easy for the metropolitan politicos and journalists to paint us all as multi-cultural, but the DNA and cultural heritage constitutes the vast majority of the population.
 

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