Saturday, May 23, 2015

Genetic Map of Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland

POBI, Peter Donnelley, Genetics, DNA, Genealogy, Genetic Map
The Peopling of the British Isles Project (POBI) published the results of its study in Nature in March 2015.  Anglo-Saxons, the Vikings, and the Romans receive a fair amount of attention. Orkney and Wales appear to be the most genetically distinct. The results were widely reported in the media; most articles show the genetic map.

The official press release from the Wellcome Trust, who funded the study, is here.

A newsletter from the POBI is here (PDF) and a video on the Wellcome Trust YouTube channel is here. The video was shot while the POBI team was collecting data in Islay.

UK mapped out by genetic ancestry: a brief summary of the findings, from Nature, includes a 5 minute interview with Peter Donnelly, director of the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics in Oxford, UK, who co-led the study .

Genetic study reveals 30% of white British DNA has German ancestry: a summary from The Guardian. There is also a 25 minute interview with Peter Donnelley here.

Britons still live in Anglo-Saxon tribal kingdoms, Oxford University finds: this summary from The Telegraph places the genetic map next to a linguistic map. Of course, it shouldn't be surprising that there is similarity between the two maps: people tend to have children with those who live near them and speak the same language.

There are two posts on the study at Dienekes' Anthropology Blog here and here. The comments are especially interesting as they are written by people who appear to understand the scientific process of genetic testing. And some of the commenters were participants in the study.

Who do you think you are? Most detailed genetic map of the British Isles reveals all: from The Conversation explains a bit about how the study was conducted.

Where Do We Come From? Britain's DNA Map: from Sky News includes the news story they aired on the project. One of the researchers featured in the story is Peter Donnelley.

And finally, Are the WELSH the truest Brits?, is a heavily illustrated piece from the Daily Mail. It also includes a video from the Natural History Museum on DNA and Migration patterns.

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