FalkirkEagle
Junior Member
- Messages
- 3
- Reaction score
- 0
- Points
- 0
How Celtic the Scots are is an interesting question and one that's important to me. I am of Scots ancestry on my father's side, and I know for a fact that my great-grandparents came from the lowlands in Scotland. Through paper-based records, I have traced my paternal line back approximately 200 years. However, I don't know whether my father's side of the family is Celtic. My mother's side definitely is, as her father was of Highland Scots ancestry and her mother was of Irish descent.
Interestingly enough, I stumbled across a surname-related resource on the web that says my surname is a locational surname and that people in Scotland with that surname are Celtic upland hill farmers. To the casual observer, though, my surname would appear to be quite Anglo-Saxon, and even downright Germanic.
From my research I have also discovered that my family name appears to have originated in southwestern Scotland, an area where many Ibero-Celtic tribes existed. The confounding factor is that my surname is found on both sides of the Scots-English border, and also in parts of eastern Scotland, and northeastern England not far from the border, and on top of that, the spelling of the surname on both sides of the border is the same. Most of eastern England is generally accepted to be predominantly Anglo-Saxon in terms of genetic make-up.
Adding further to the conundrum is the fact that my surname has an English and a Scottish branch, and neither is genetically related to the other. There is also some evidence to support the idea that the surname is derived from a middle-English word meaning 'stream', and at the same time, there is a Gaelic word that means the same thing and it has a spelling that is quite close to the spelling of my surname. As an aside, it's worth noting that Gaelic was widely spoken in the Scottish Lowlands up until 1100AD or so.
In an effort to begin to resolve the confusion, and to dip my toe into the complicated waters of DNA genealogy, I had my DNA tested through Connect my DNA. Connect my DNA doesn't claim to help you determine your ancestry or which haplogroup you belong to. Instead, it shows you where in the world you are most likely to find people whose genetic profiles are most similar to your own.
The results of the test were quite surprising. It shows that I am most similar to Macedonians, and least similar to Scots! The Irish come in fifth place amongst the ten countries with people who are genetically most similar to me, and that does make perfect sense, as I do have considerable Irish ancestry.
Insofar as the Connect my DNA test doesn't offer ancestral information, it does offer some tantalizing clues as to ancestry and haplogroup. If the test was indeed accurate with respect to the Macedonian DNA I might possess, then it leads me to suspect that my haplogroup might be E3b, or I2b. Both haplogroups have been found in Scotland but at very low frequencies, and Scottish men with those haplogroups are believed to be the descendants of Roman soldiers who were recruited in the Balkans and Macedonia, which is to say that they're not really Celtic at all. However, none of this excludes the possibility that my haplogroup may be the famous R1b that is associated with Celtic tribes in Britain, as R1b does exist in Macedonia at frequencies between 5 and 8%.
Something that further supports the possibility of a R1b haplogroup in my paternal line is that Austria and the Czech Republic also come up in my genetic profile results, but in second and third place. Hallstatt, Austria is the seat of the famous Celtic 'Hallstatt Culture' where the majority of the people there belonged to the R1b haplogroup and migrated to all parts of central Europe and Great Britain. Celtic tribespeople from the Hallstatt Culture were also found in the southwest of what is now the Czech Republic.
In an effort to determine my actual haplogroup and whether my paternal line is English or Scottish, I've ordered a Y-DNA test from FamilyTree DNA. I haven't yet received the testing kit, but I will report back with the results once they become available.
Interestingly enough, I stumbled across a surname-related resource on the web that says my surname is a locational surname and that people in Scotland with that surname are Celtic upland hill farmers. To the casual observer, though, my surname would appear to be quite Anglo-Saxon, and even downright Germanic.
From my research I have also discovered that my family name appears to have originated in southwestern Scotland, an area where many Ibero-Celtic tribes existed. The confounding factor is that my surname is found on both sides of the Scots-English border, and also in parts of eastern Scotland, and northeastern England not far from the border, and on top of that, the spelling of the surname on both sides of the border is the same. Most of eastern England is generally accepted to be predominantly Anglo-Saxon in terms of genetic make-up.
Adding further to the conundrum is the fact that my surname has an English and a Scottish branch, and neither is genetically related to the other. There is also some evidence to support the idea that the surname is derived from a middle-English word meaning 'stream', and at the same time, there is a Gaelic word that means the same thing and it has a spelling that is quite close to the spelling of my surname. As an aside, it's worth noting that Gaelic was widely spoken in the Scottish Lowlands up until 1100AD or so.
In an effort to begin to resolve the confusion, and to dip my toe into the complicated waters of DNA genealogy, I had my DNA tested through Connect my DNA. Connect my DNA doesn't claim to help you determine your ancestry or which haplogroup you belong to. Instead, it shows you where in the world you are most likely to find people whose genetic profiles are most similar to your own.
The results of the test were quite surprising. It shows that I am most similar to Macedonians, and least similar to Scots! The Irish come in fifth place amongst the ten countries with people who are genetically most similar to me, and that does make perfect sense, as I do have considerable Irish ancestry.
Insofar as the Connect my DNA test doesn't offer ancestral information, it does offer some tantalizing clues as to ancestry and haplogroup. If the test was indeed accurate with respect to the Macedonian DNA I might possess, then it leads me to suspect that my haplogroup might be E3b, or I2b. Both haplogroups have been found in Scotland but at very low frequencies, and Scottish men with those haplogroups are believed to be the descendants of Roman soldiers who were recruited in the Balkans and Macedonia, which is to say that they're not really Celtic at all. However, none of this excludes the possibility that my haplogroup may be the famous R1b that is associated with Celtic tribes in Britain, as R1b does exist in Macedonia at frequencies between 5 and 8%.
Something that further supports the possibility of a R1b haplogroup in my paternal line is that Austria and the Czech Republic also come up in my genetic profile results, but in second and third place. Hallstatt, Austria is the seat of the famous Celtic 'Hallstatt Culture' where the majority of the people there belonged to the R1b haplogroup and migrated to all parts of central Europe and Great Britain. Celtic tribespeople from the Hallstatt Culture were also found in the southwest of what is now the Czech Republic.
In an effort to determine my actual haplogroup and whether my paternal line is English or Scottish, I've ordered a Y-DNA test from FamilyTree DNA. I haven't yet received the testing kit, but I will report back with the results once they become available.