N-Y5003 – A Prolific Finnish Lineage in Viking Age England

All N-Y5003 descend from a man who lived 0 AD, likely in Finland. He sired 13 lineages on YFull, three of which are basal samples.

Y5003 computed as Western Finland on the basis of the computed locations of 10 subclades (BY22001, BY6007, Y132182, Y20917, Y24502, Y18420, Z35267, Y6599, Y24000, Y16503) and three basal samples. If the basal samples in Estonia were to eventually form exclusively Estonian subclades with distant TMRCA, the calculated location for Y5003 would move toward Estonia.

One lineage, Y24502, sired two exclusively British lineages in 969 AD (YFull estimate). One lineage is represented by a single man from The Scottish Borders, the other from men from West Yorkshire (Calderdale and Kirklees).

An offshoot of North Baltic N-Y5003 was established around the end of the 10th century, likely somewhere between Yorkshire and The Scottish Borders. I use the label "From North Baltic" because while I believe their deeper Y5003 origins are from Finland, by the time of the Viking Age this particular lineage's founder may have been living elsewhere, like Sweden for instance...

While searching for North Baltic links to England, I found this from Wikipedia "History of Yorkshire":

"The Swedish Munsö dynasty became overlords of Jorvik because the Danes in Britain had promised loyalty to the Munsö Kings of Dublin, but this dynasty was focused on the Baltic Sea economy and quarrelled with the native Danish Jelling dynasty (which originated in the Danelaw with Guthrum)."

Ekerö, Sweden

Interestingly, the House of Munsö is also called the House of Björn Ironside, while the earliest historically attested member of this house is Eric the Victorious.

The origin of this house is in Ekerö, Sweden, close enough to the computed origin of Y5003 to be a potential vector of migration to England.

If closer relatives to Y24502 are ever found in the North Baltic it would shed further light on their migration.

Bjorn Ironside from "The Vikings", wondering whether or not he actually existed

Two other points of interest within N-Y5003:

YF08527 of Westminster is basal for Y5003. While he may have also taken part in the same expedition as Y24502 he does not descend from this lineage, so his migration could be completely different.

BY6007 in Lipetskaya Oblast. This lineage has Russian roots since a common ancestor who lived about 519 AD. How did they get there from Finland?

There is also a Y15159* outlier in Tula, Russia who separated from his Finnish-Estonian siblings around 69 AD. Tula is next to Lipetsk... Why are the only two Russian samples below N-Y5003 in these places?


YF06706 of Troms, Norway is Y24001*. He has a common ancestor with men of Västerbotten County, Sweden who lived around 819 AD. Since their roots are likely from Finland before that, the simplest explanation is that this modern Norwegian descends from men who migrated first to Västerbotten/Norrbotten and then continued overland to Troms through mountain valleys.

I'm not knowledgeable enough on the history of Saami vs Norse in this region to speculate on the cultural identities of these and other N-Y5003 men. Especially due to the large degree of cross-Baltic mixing, at least evidenced by Y lineages of N found on both sides.

So I invite those knowledgeable on these matters or members of these lineages themselves to contribute to the discussion.

These posts are the opinion of Hunter Provyn, a haplogroup researcher in J-M241 and J-M102.

6 thoughts on “N-Y5003 – A Prolific Finnish Lineage in Viking Age England”

  1. Kvens in Finland lived in satakunta and there is many viking warriors graves in Luistari and Paimio. Kvens = Kainulaiset lived in Kaland or Kainuland or Kvenland. More vikings swords are found Finland area than Sweden. Also contacts to russia area where common where was finnic-ugri populations before slavic come to area. Many East roman coins have found Finland from 500 – 1000 AC.

  2. This site might be of some interest, regarding Y:N-lineages in Northern Fennoscandia.
    https://www.saamidna.com/

    A recent ‘Population genomics of the Viking world’ DNA study also included several ancient Y:N samples. Nearly 6% of all collected Y-DNA samples in the study belonged to Y:N.
    https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/703405v1

    PS. No such year as 0 AD in the Calendar, between 1 BC and 1 AD. The Astronomical Calendar year 0000 is equal to 1 BC.

  3. BY6007 have already two tested, whose ancestors lived in the south of Lake Onega in the Vologda region. The Karelian peoples are related to the Finns.

  4. I have a distant/remote cousin who has ancestral linkage to the Berwickshire borders area. We have different surnames but we both have Y-hg N.

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