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Archiver > GENEALOGY-DNA > 2004-05 > 1084273489


From: Steve Williamson <>
Subject: Re: [DNA] Haplotype "Q" in Shetland Islands (Part II - more info)
Date: Tue, 11 May 2004 04:04:49 -0700 (PDT)
In-Reply-To: <20040511055007.28475.qmail@web50403.mail.yahoo.com>


David,
I wanted to add to my reply:

The "owner" of the two boys from Greenland was
Thorfinn Karlsefni. According to the saga, he went
from Greenland to Norway, and then to Iceland. These
two young Greenlanders are the first recorded Native
Americans to make it to Europe, c. 1010. It seems
entirely possible that Thorfinn's boys later went from
Iceland to the Shetlands when they grew up. They were
apparently not really slaves, and were even baptised.
You may have just found their descendants. (see Gwyn
Jones, "The Norse Atlantic Saga," pp. 161, 186, 187)

Whenever two human groups meet each other, they tend
to make babies. It is not surprising to find any Y or
mtDNA haplogroup almost anywhere, which is why
haplogroup assignment alone is not an infallible guide
to ethnicity.

Steve Williamson


--- David Faux <> wrote:
> Hello all:
>
> In the windswept islands of the North Atlantic there
> is a DNA mystery which begs for an explanation.
>
> I was given access to the skeleton findings of a
> Shetland database a while back and was astounded to
> learn that 8% of the sample were typed at haplogroup
> Q - the same percentage as haplogroup I. My first
> "Q" emerged recently in a participant with a
> patronymic surname.
>
> The matches in the Haplogroup Database are 1 exact
> Shetland; and at the one step mutation level, 2 from
> Shetland and 2 from Iceland; and at the two step
> mutation level, 1 from Iceland and 1 from Norway.
> Dr. Wilson also indicated that he has found 1 Q in
> his large Orkney database.
>
> Clearly the distribution pattern points to a
> Norwegian source dating back to Viking times. But
> how did an East Asian haplotype find its was to
> Norway considering that it is not (as I recall) seen
> in any samples of the surrounding countries. I have
> entertained the possibility that a group of
> Greenland Inuit were blown off course 2000 years ago
> - but what will be needed here is a SNP test since
> the samples were not broken into Q versus Q3 (which
> charactieizes Native American haplotypes). Since
> there are Greenland Inuit samples in the database,
> and no mathes emerged, it does seem unlikely, but
> there could be a founder effect here so who knows.
> Fascinating though, and will need to be intensely
> investigated.
>
> David.
>
>
> Dr. David K. Faux, P.O. Box 192, Seal Beach, CA,
> 90740, USA
>
>
> www.davidkfaux.org
>
>
>
>
> ==============================
> Gain access to over two billion names including the
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>
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>





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