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funnyfarm
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Joined: 26 Mar 2007
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Location: Face Palms, Canada
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 Posted: Wed Jul 21, 2010 4:57 pm Post subject: Sami ancestry among the Vikings |
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I didn't know where to put this, I'll put it here (hey, maybe Cat should make a subforum about Vikings).
I am wondering about any knowledge of Sami ancestry among the Vikings.
I have a lot of "Viking" blood in me, on both side of the family (French-Canadians descend from Normans), and my DNA test showed a lot (and I mean a lot) of Sami in the genes.
Trying to do some reasearch, but I know there would be people here who are more knowledgeable about this stuff.
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an.cat.dubh
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Joined: 22 Aug 2007
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| Posted: Wed Jul 21, 2010 5:37 pm Post subject: |
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There's a difference, as you know, between 'Viking' and 'Scandinavian' or 'Nordic'. Viking is a culture, a way of life connected with seafaring - and as far as I know Saami people never did it, they relied on hunting and reindeer breeding. They used to lead a nomadic lifestyle, and 'Vikings' treated them with a mixture of awe and superiority. Ethnically, 'Vikings' (i.e. Scandinavians) originated from mainland Europe and are a Germanic people, and the Saami have their roots somewhere in northern Siberia. Of course, it was inevitable that at some point the two intermingled, so some Scandinavians do have Saami ancestry (I personally know a few). The point is, until the 20th century the Saami used to be looked upon as inferior (more or less like the Aborigines in Australia), and children from mixed marriages (usually the woman was Saami, rarely the other way round) were often frowned upon, so it's quite possible that some of them emigrated to North America to avoid the stigma. That would explain your mixture of Saami and Nordic genes. Just my theory, of course  . |
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funnyfarm
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| Posted: Wed Jul 21, 2010 5:51 pm Post subject: |
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| an.cat.dubh wrote: |
| There's a difference, as you know, between 'Viking' and 'Scandinavian' or 'Nordic'. Viking is a culture, a way of life connected with seafaring - and as far as I know Saami people never did it, they relied on hunting and reindeer breeding. They used to lead a nomadic lifestyle, and 'Vikings' treated them with a mixture of awe and superiority. Ethnically, 'Vikings' (i.e. Scandinavians) originated from mainland Europe and are a Germanic people, and the Saami have their roots somewhere in northern Siberia. Of course, it was inevitable that at some point the two intermingled, so some Scandinavians do have Saami ancestry (I personally know a few). The point is, until the 20th century the Saami used to be looked upon as inferior (more or less like the Aborigines in Australia), and children from mixed marriages (usually the woman was Saami, rarely the other way round) were often frowned upon, so it's quite possible that some of them emigrated to North America to avoid the stigma. That would explain your mixture of Saami and Nordic genes. Just my theory, of course . |
That wouldn't explain it, though. My father's family came to Canada in the 1970s. My mother's family has been in Canada for 500 years, and they came from an area of France invaded by the Vikings.
My maternal line mtDNA also shows some genes that are common among Sami, however the specific haplogroup is interestingly enough also common among North African Berbers, and the Moors were of Berber stock and they ruled Spain and parts of France for 700 years, so maybe that's where it came from on my mother's side.
But I seem to have Sami genes on both sides. That's why I was asking.
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Óli Gneisti
Furze
Joined: 14 Apr 2008
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| Posted: Wed Jul 21, 2010 10:36 pm Post subject: |
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The Sami are referred to as "Finns" in the old Icelandic texts. They seem to have been a part of the world of the vikings. The Sami/Finns were mostly known for the prowess at magic. I think I recall some shapeshifter story.
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roger
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Location: Vestfold ,Norge
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| Posted: Sat Jul 24, 2010 2:40 pm Post subject: |
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Being Sami is more a cultural thing than an ethnic thing, these days at least.There is a lot more norwegians with some sami genetic heritage,than people actually concider themself sami.
I`m willing to bet that if you gene tested the whole of northern Norway,you would find sami genes in a pretty huge percentage of the population.
When it comes to samis in the viking age,they appear frequenly in the sagas.The first norwegian king Harald Hårfagre (fairhair) even had four sons with the sami woman Snøfrid , Halvdan Hålegg. Gudrød Ljome. Ragnvald Rettilbeine and Sigurd Rise.
http://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?hl=en&sl=no&tl=en&u=http://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sn%25C3%25B8frid_Sv%25C3%25A5sedatter&rurl=translate.google.com&usg=ALkJrhi9UYVsL4vq_LQRIXWD8P4qi4A8yA
(Translated by google)
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=no&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.geni.com%2Fgenealogy%2Fpeople%2FSn%25C3%25B8frid-Sv%25C3%25A5sesdotter%2F6000000001200379081
If you look at the ancestry of the norwegian kings you will see that the Sami woman Snøfrid is the foremother of for example the toughest bastard in the norwegian royal line,Harald Hardråde:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harald_III_of_Norway
I`m pretty sure that the story about Harald and Snøfrid is not unique,and that these things happend frequently
This discussion actually make me want to test my own genes,my family is northern ,so it is very likely to turn up some sami or finnish genes in there,but i don`t think there are any norwegian companies doing this.
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Last edited by roger on Sat Jul 24, 2010 3:07 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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roger
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| Posted: Sat Jul 24, 2010 2:53 pm Post subject: |
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| an.cat.dubh wrote: |
| The point is, until the 20th century the Saami used to be looked upon as inferior (more or less like the Aborigines in Australia), and children from mixed marriages (usually the woman was Saami, rarely the other way round) were often frowned upon, so it's quite possible that some of them emigrated to North America to avoid the stigma. That would explain your mixture of Saami and Nordic genes. Just my theory, of course . |
The stigma you mention here does simply not exist at least not ethnic,only cultrally.The most common thing to do in these kind of mixed marriages,was to esimply identify as norwegian,and never talk about the sami heritage,and no one would ever mention it (typically norwegian attitude by the way)
My uncle (married to my fathers sister) spoke sami every time he got drunk,and had clearly some typical sami about his look,but if someone had asked him if he was sami (no one ever did),he would have told you to fuck off and never mention it again.
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Sveinn
Urchin
Joined: 01 Oct 2009
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Location: Gamla Uppsala
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| Posted: Sun Jul 25, 2010 5:30 pm Post subject: |
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I'm exactly the same. Strong Scandinavian roots... but on the DNA test it says Saami...
The answer might lie in how the DNA tests work... I'm assuming you're talking about Haplogroups. I'm Haplogroup H which is Northern Scandinavia, where Saami people live. But it doesn't mean my ancestors were Saami, it just means that I share most of my DNA with people who currently live in that region. So perhaps most Saami people have a lot of Scandinavian blood due to this so-called "intermingling" 
So it doesn't mean you have any hidden shapeshifting talents though. 
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funnyfarm
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| Posted: Sun Jul 25, 2010 10:13 pm Post subject: |
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| Sveinn wrote: |
I'm exactly the same. Strong Scandinavian roots... but on the DNA test it says Saami...
The answer might lie in how the DNA tests work... I'm assuming you're talking about Haplogroups. I'm Haplogroup H which is Northern Scandinavia, where Saami people live. But it doesn't mean my ancestors were Saami, it just means that I share most of my DNA with people who currently live in that region. So perhaps most Saami people have a lot of Scandinavian blood due to this so-called "intermingling"
So it doesn't mean you have any hidden shapeshifting talents though. |
Well for women, only the materal haplogroup can be tested and that came back as U5, being among both Sami and North African Berbers, and like I said, the Berber seems more realistic because my mother's ancestors came from a part of Europe that was under Moorish rule (Western France, with some Spanish in there).
But I have Sami genes on other chromosomes as well, and found a Sami relative, 5th cousin, in Relative Finder (I got the whole test) and we share segments on chromosome 15.
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roger
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Location: Vestfold ,Norge
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| Posted: Sun Jul 25, 2010 11:50 pm Post subject: |
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| an.cat.dubh wrote: |
| There's a difference, as you know, between 'Viking' and 'Scandinavian' or 'Nordic'. Viking is a culture, a way of life connected with seafaring - and as far as I know Saami people never did it, they relied on hunting and reindeer breeding. They used to lead a nomadic lifestyle, . |
This is only a myth,the reason for this is this misconseption is the romanticied focus on the raindeerherders (wich is really only a minority).There was at least as many sjøsamer (sea samis) as there where these stereotypical raindeerherders
http://www.snl.no/sj%C3%B8samer
http://www.google.no/images?hl=no&rlz=1T4SUNC_noNO373NO374&q=sj%C3%B8samer&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=univ&ei=T7xMTLGQMo-QON3s1ZUD&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ct=title&resnum=4&ved=0CC4QsAQwAw
Their culture and language is almost gone,but their genetics are not,all the way along the northern coast they assimilated into the norwegian society.They were not killed,they were not driven away,they simply integrated into the norwegian population.This suggests to me that a lot of us northerners have sami genes.
There`s a lot of focus abroad on how bad the samis where treated here in Norway,but this was the way weaker groups were treated by stronger all over at the time,it was not right to try to take away their langage,but that was the wayit was done in those days (it was what the danes did to us actually),fortunately humanity have grown a little wiser since then.
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roger
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Joined: 24 Apr 2007
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| Posted: Sun Jul 25, 2010 11:54 pm Post subject: |
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| funnyfarm wrote: |
| Sveinn wrote: |
I'm exactly the same. Strong Scandinavian roots... but on the DNA test it says Saami...
The answer might lie in how the DNA tests work... I'm assuming you're talking about Haplogroups. I'm Haplogroup H which is Northern Scandinavia, where Saami people live. But it doesn't mean my ancestors were Saami, it just means that I share most of my DNA with people who currently live in that region. So perhaps most Saami people have a lot of Scandinavian blood due to this so-called "intermingling"
So it doesn't mean you have any hidden shapeshifting talents though. |
Well for women, only the materal haplogroup can be tested and that came back as U5, being among both Sami and North African Berbers, and like I said, the Berber seems more realistic because my mother's ancestors came from a part of Europe that was under Moorish rule (Western France, with some Spanish in there).
But I have Sami genes on other chromosomes as well, and found a Sami relative, 5th cousin, in Relative Finder (I got the whole test) and we share segments on chromosome 15. |
A good blog about sami connection with the berbers here:
http://saamiblog.blogspot.com/2007/08/from-black-sea-areas-to-northern-europe.html
It is in both norwegian and english.
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óþörf jötna sonum. |
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anker
Listamaður
Joined: 09 May 2007
Posts: 1640
Location: Zealand - Denmark
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| Posted: Thu Jul 29, 2010 10:36 am Post subject: |
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Seems like an interesting family history, Funnyfarm. From deep south to Ultimo Thule. 
Off course the Sami are mixed up with the rest of the Scandinavians. I bet, if I took that test, it would also show some Sami origin. And I would be proud of it. 
a.e. |
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funnyfarm
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Joined: 26 Mar 2007
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| Posted: Mon Aug 02, 2010 5:19 am Post subject: |
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| anker wrote: |
Seems like an interesting family history, Funnyfarm. From deep south to Ultimo Thule.
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If you think that is interesting, you should see how my family spread out after they crossed the pond. I have relatives from the Caribbean to the Canadian Arctic. It's amazing how much people move when you put that into perspective.
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Breidablik
Gand
Joined: 24 Mar 2007
Posts: 929
Location: Göteborg Sweden
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| Posted: Tue Aug 03, 2010 6:04 pm Post subject: |
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| anker wrote: |
Off course the Sami are mixed up with the rest of the Scandinavians. I bet, if I took that test, it would also show some Sami origin. And I would be proud of it.
a.e. |
Here in Sweden was they usual to be seen as low as to Västerås,
in the old days, and there are still familys in that town who are sami's
but dont have theirs tradition left,
church was hard to them back then. 
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