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From: "Dora Smith" <>
Subject: [DNA] Question about "Saxon" names and Norman roots
Date: Sun, 1 Jul 2007 11:41:43 -0500
References: <988795.4944.qm@web38811.mail.mud.yahoo.com><008101c7b4d1$497b7260$6400a8c0@Ken1>


I have a question. I'm writing up my notes on the Y DNA of the second of my
Hubbard-Goodrich-Bird trio of closely related E3b1a2 families, and something
occurred to me. Steven Bird thinks they were Saxon because they lived (he
thinks, we know the origin of only the Goodrich family) in East Anglia, and
their names are Saxon.

The Saxons came from the same area as the Danes - both empires centered in
Jutland and points immediately to the south, several centuries apart.
Historical documents make it more likely that the Normans originated as
Danish Vikings than as Norse Vikings.

I am wondering if the names Godric, Brid and Hobart or whatever it was are
actually specific to Saxons, or if anyone from the same region speaking one
of the closely related languages of that area, and quite possibly even
exactly the same language, could have been named Godric, Brid or Hobart (or
whatever the name actually was). I actually have two theories of the
genesis of the name Hubbard/ Hobart; one Danish and the other Saxon.
Godric sounds like a sort of name common all over Western Europe in medieval
times, suspiciously similar to "Roderick", which I think was a Norman name.
Names ending in ic and ich were common to the Normans, Saxons, Franks, and
Goths. Brid sounds more Norse than Saxon to my ear.

Are these names as likely ot be Norman or Danish as Saxon?

I don't think that their haplotype actually tells us that they were in
England before the Normans, only that they must have left Eastern Europe
before the Normans came to England. Steven admits there were atleast two
Norman families - Lancaster and D'Arcy, with E3b1a2 haplotpyes, one of them
not all that genetically distant from the Hubbards, Goodrichs and Birds.
Roman slaves and soldiers didn't go only to Britain, and Jews perambulated
everywhere at all points in time. Either could conceivably have taken root
in Jutland or Friesland before joining one of the migrations to England.
If they didn't leave much of a genetic trail behind them, maybe that means
that whatever brought them to northwestern continental Europe, they weren't
actually very rooted when they went to England? That turns out to explain
how Jewish Y DNA ended up not uncommon among French Canadians.

Yours,
Dora Smith
Austin, TX




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