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I am a fair skinned redhead (a strawberry blonde with bluish green eyes) and I have redheads on both my maternal and paternal side. My mother was a redhead, her ancestry was either English or Welsh on her father’s side (we aren’t quite sure which but his family name is more commonly Welsh than English) and German on her mother’s side. My father was born in Norway but his father supposedly also had some Scots in is line and perhaps some Basque. My father’s paternal aunt was according to him, a strikingly beautiful, tall, blue eyed redhead. My dad was blonde at birth and as a child but his hair turned dark, nearly black by the time he reached adulthood and working outside in construction, he got very tan and never burned. I on the other hand sunburn very easily as did my mother.

My Norwegian grandmother claimed that our family was descended from Eric the Red, something about our “family crest” and stories passed down on her father’s side, but I take that with a bit of a grain of salt as I bet a lot of Norwegians claim this.

I am interested in getting one of those 23andme DNA kits; I think it would be interesting, perhaps even clarify some of my ancestry.

As far as the British Isles and the Scandinavian influence, both on culture, language and genetics, don’t forget that the Vikings did not just conduct pillaging raids but they also settled large areas of Brittan, i.e. the Daneland. Then they, the Anglo Saxons who were Germanic, were invaded by the Normans…. the Normans being decedents of Norsemen who settled in the north of France, the area known as Normandy.