Also of interest is a DNA study which was recently completed of the Viking influence in the British Isles and Ireland. This is not, of course, to confuse the Vikings with The Family but it is to raise the issue whether any DNA studies have been undertaken?
Thanks again.
Yes, one rather famous (or infamous) study found that the Sa'ami, the Chippewa, the Berbers and some other American Indian groups (iriquois, Cherokee, Choctaw, etc.) carry a genetic marker unique to the Sa'mi.
That blew the ethnologists out of the water. They'd always believed the Sa'ami were a Turcic people who'd originated in Siberia somewhere. Genetic studies demonstrate that they have no more East Asian ancestry than other white folk ~ 5% to be precise ~ which is now generally believed to reflect some Ice Age or immediate post Ice Age gene transfers (my guess is trading girls over centuries you move those genes thousands of miles).
The most extreme notion to arise out of this is the idea that the Clovis people were, in fact, Sa'ami. The idea is they had boats, fished and hunted seals along the edge of the North Atlantic Ice Shelf, and went back and forth from Europe to America to Europe to America for many centuries.
An East Asian group from Siberia beat them to Oregon, and probably beat them to Wisconsin too (the famous Oregon human coprolite and a pile of butchered elephants from 14,500 years back play a part in that one).
Current belief is the Sa'ami are simply the first of many different groups that moved out of the Western European Refugia as the Big Ice melted and opened up new lands. They traveled further, faster, and harder and managed to become a genetic isolate for up to 15,000 years ~
Lancaster was a major piece of New Sweden in the 1600s. About 1700s Penn, the Quaker, decided to start bringing in Quakers from England.
The Sweden colony folks were predominantly nominal Lutherans so the Quakers tried to convert them to the "true path". Swedish ministers were brought over to "defend" their colonists. This entailed bringing in big, strong churchmen to beat down Quaker missionaries messing with their people.
People were rough in those days and fistfights were not thought of as all that serious.
Some of the Lancaster Swedes and Sa'ami moved to Bucks County to get away from this. Read the history of Daniel Boone's family regarding that.
A smarter bunch relocated the colony to York PA on the other side of the river.
Later on the King of England used Lancaster as a dumping ground for German refugees ~ I think he didn't like the Quakers!
Roughly, if you find an ancestor from Lancaster in the 1600s, he or she is a Swede or Sa'ami. If the date slops over into 1701 to about 1725 or so, they are invariably Quaker. You get up beyond 1725 you find Germans ~ sometimes pretty obviously so. due to the interlocking ethnicities started by the Old West Gothic speaking people back in the 6th and 7th centuries, some German, English and Swedish surnames ARE IDENTICAL, so be very careful.
Your Sa'ami ancestors will probably have Swedish surnames and live in Lancaster county up to 1700, and then they live in York county.