Ironically, the best parts of this book are the historical sections, not the confusing and incomplete sections on "The Genetic Roots of Britain and Ireland" (subtitle). The book needs more concise, clear scientific explanations and less personal story telling.

If you are interested in genealogy,you will like this book. Blood tests and cheek swabs of the people of Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and England tells the stories of the invaders,conquerors and the natives of these ancient lands. I found it interesting that only certain parts of Scotland showed a high percentage of Viking ancestry and others a high percentage of celtic/pictish origins. They were also able to tell that certain parts of British Isle, the relationship between the vikings and celtic women was peaceful and not forced. Loved this book!

This is a book of missed opportunity. While he starts with a good premise, there are too many anecdotal stories and too little science. Plus, it was presented backwards in a confusing manner. It took me to the end of my second read before I understood why I wasn't "getting it." He should have started from England, then gone on to Wales, followed by Ireland and Scotland. Sequentially, starting with Ireland didn't mesh with the human migration patterns coming from the European continent through the land bridge.

I will give him credit for trying to include history, archeology and genetics into one volume. If he had a better editor who understood how to organize the material into a way in which is made sense to the reader, it would have been better.

Lastly, I wish he would have stuck to the traditional forms of the haplogroups instead of inventing groups out of wholecloth. I understand why he did what he did, but as someone who is trying to use genetics to follow history through a wide variety of authors, his is the only one that doesn't fit unless you do some extrapolation (Wodan being Haplogroup I, for instance).

Still, despite its nuances, his book does make sense in uncovering some of the genetic origins of the old Roman "Brittania." Now that a decade has passed, it would be nice to see him come up with an updated version, written correctly, to determine whether his original conclusions hold with access to more data.

Easy to read and follow for what can be a complex topic. I find though there were areas of the Isles completely ignored, such as lower Scotland. He concludes everone is basically Celtic, except SE England which had similar genetics he suddenly concluded more closely related to Belgium across the channel. Not saying he is wrong, it just seemed to be a leap that could've been more fleshed out.

The author, billed as the world's first genetic archaeologist, describes a multi-year project to examine the DNA of the people of the (British) Isles. The DNA of the Y chromosome reveals hints at where our male ancestors came from, and the mitochondrial DNA where the female ancestors originated. He mixes an abbreviated scientific summary with the earliest history of Ireland, Scotland, Wales and England, and attempts to look at how the evidence fits with what we know and the legend of our ancient history.

Is it really true that the ancient Britons were driven westwards? Are the Shetland Islanders really Vikings? Were the Viking invasions solely raping and pillaging, or did they bring their womenfolk with them? These and many more questions are addressed.

The style of the scientific sections was sometimes a bit hard work, not terribly well presented, with clan names and statistics being thrown around, and the scientific methodology rather glossed over, but the history was well written and the conclusions fascinating. Well worth persevering with the harder reading sections as overall the book is really quite thought-provoking, if leaving you thinking that the story might have been better presented.

A fascinating exploration of genetics, British history, legend and how they entwine to give us the story of our past. The genetics are explained very simply, making this book really accessible for anyone without a scientific background, and I find Sykes has a real gift for bringing the past to life.

He addresses the specter of racism and its relationship to genetics and the study of our ancestors without giving an inch, which I really appreciated.

Sykes was also deeply helpful to me in trying to understand my own genetic history. I took one of these ancestry DNA tests a while ago and found it interesting, but lacked detail in some areas - all I had was '77% British ancestry, and this is the maternal haplogroup'. It was incredibly helpful to put all this in the context of Sykes research which looks at the genetic history of the British Isles in far far more detail. I absolutely encourage anyone with an interest in the subject to read this excellent primer.

This was an interesting look at the genetic makeup of the British Isles (Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and England). Since a great deal of my ancestry is from these areas and I've become rather hooked on genealogy, I found the information to be intriguing. I wish that the author's ramblings had been edited out of the book (I really don't care where he thinks the best ice cream place is in an area), however.

Not as much discussion about the science of DNA as I expected and way more about oral traditions, mythology and other non-science based topics.

Trying to review this book brings up conflicting opinions. On one hand, it is interesting, and the information contained should be out there to more people. But on the other hand, I found the actual writing disappointing. The work is a bit wondering and flabby. The author have a tendency to go on tangents. Each tangent is somewhat related to the next, but usually in stream of consciousness sort of way that someone would construct a sprawling story after a few drinks.

Related to this, I also felt that there was a shortage of core material as compared to what I felt was filler. Typical popular science (or history for that matter) focuses on the results and discussion part of the process, but this work has included the equivalent of a motivation and methods sections. These particularly suffered due to the combinations of the need to talk around technical jargon with imprecise but more understandable analogies and the author’s tendency to reader a bit.

The shortage of materials is probably related to the relatively narrow focus as compared to the same author’s previous works. Not only does it mean less core content, it also starts to push the limit of what DNA studies can do (as of writing anyways), as the author admits that DNA of Saxons and Scandinavians (Vikings) cannot be reliable separated from each other.

Finally, the author is a geneticist first and it shows in the book. This wouldn’t typically be a problem if not for the fact that the point of the book is to draw connection from DNA results to historical events. His treatment of related subjects such as history and archeology is a bit casual and some times outdated. While never outright wrong (I think), it still detracted from the experience.

However, the final epilogue where the author summarizes the key findings and lessons learned was actually quite good in my opinion, and I am genuinely interested in if further research have yielded more precise results. Though it didn’t quite redeem the book for me.

Dnf. Could not get through it

So many people trace their heritage back to the Saxons, Vikings, and Celts. However, so much of the "evidence" for ancestry came from boasts of victories and made up or embellished stories about who one's ancestors were. Everyone wants a good origin story. Kings and Queens especially needed a very good origin story, one that would convince their subjects that they were indeed chosen by God to rule over entire kingdoms. Back in the days before genome sequencing, or any real science in general, it was easy to make up these origin stories and have people easily believe them. King Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine miraculously found and dug up the bones of King Arthur, long after his death, and claimed him as their ancestor. Other royals, nobles, and common folk alike have bought into these stories. Now we have the technology to sequence people and find out if they have descended from who they think they did or if they will find out that their origin stories are very different from the ones they have been told. 

Bryan Sykes deliciously dissected various tales of battle and tested the genetics against the tall tales. Usually when a land is invaded, the conquering men spread their seed among the native population. As a result, genes are changed along with the culture. It was very satisfying to take the trip along various historical routes with Sykes and find out who lied, who told the truth, and what the migration and conquering pattern of people really was. To provide the sweeping narrative of the book, Sykes and other researchers sequenced  whole groups of people to trace their true origins. One of the most satisfying aspects of this book were the tales Skyes told of blatant charlatans and the efforts made by them to fool the public. I would like to think I would be too savvy to fall for some of these tricks, but if I were brought up in a time of such ignorance about the world, I might have fallen for it. For example, if someone wrote it down in a book, whether it was true or not, the public saw it as absolute fact. 'It is in a book; therefore it must be true." So an author could say what they wanted. They didn't have to back anything up with actual evidence. There was one scholar who was studying Aryan language and concluded that since there was a pure Aryan language, there must be a pure Aryan race. It was nonsense but history shows us how much people bought into that myth-- and how much far too many people still do buy into it. 

Sykes did a great job of presenting various histories of the Saxons, Vikings, and Celts and then confirming or modifying these histories to, for the first time, provide the reader with the most up to date and accurate understanding possible.

SAXONS, VIKINGS, AND CELTS: THE GENETIC ROOTS OF BRITAIN AND IRELAND BY BRYAN SYKES: Bryan Sykes, author of The Seven Daughters of Eve and Adam’s Curse, professor of human genetics at Oxford university, has spent many years of his life studying genes, chromosomes, and DNA; specializing in collecting data from all over the world and tracing ancestral lineages back thousands of years. Sykes was one of the instrumental geneticists in tracing all Europeans back to seven ancestral women. From this, Sykes now takes on the challenge of determining the ancestry of the British Isles. How much Saxon, Viking, and Celtic DNA is left in a modern day Englishman? Saxons, Vikings, and Celts is a bold and ambitious embarkation that reveals the astounding results of Sykes many years of study; while the facts may present more questions of why than answers; Saxons is one of the most important books of the twenty-first century.

Do not be daunted by the prospect pages of DNA statistics, Sykes goes out of his way to break everything down and explain it in a detailed and simple way; he even warns the reader before the “part with all the numbers.” Saxons, Vikings, and Celts apart from being a book about DNA and genetics of the British Isles, is also an amazing source for history. The first chapter is spent setting the scene with Sykes’ career and research. Chapter two is one of the most brilliant summaries of British history: from the end of Roman rule, through the history of King Arthur, past each important monarch, on to the present status quo; Sykes has an innate ability for explaining things in a way that make their connections obvious to everyone. The next few chapters are spent explaining his process for collecting the genetic data throughout the British Isles, first with blood samples from schools and blood banks, and then with plastic brushes that are scraped on the inside of the cheek to get skin samples -- an easier method better received by the people donating their samples. Sykes then dedicates a chapter for each country covering it’s history of immigration with Celts, Saxons, Vikings, and Normans, with the successive chapters covering the genetic correlation of these specific countries.

The last five pages of the book are what the reader has spent the last two hundred and fifty pages reading to get to; here Sykes correlates all the data together and explains the results, which are astonishing to say the least. They essentially boil down to this: the genetic makeup of the British Isles mainly consists of the Britons and Celts who have lived there for thousands of years, while the invading Saxon, Viking, and Norman people are but a minor percentage of the total. What does this all mean? Sadly, Sykes doesn’t really explain this at all – perhaps he is saving it for another book? – nevertheless, the reader is left coming up with his or her own ideas of what these results mean. Were the invading peoples not that great in number? Did they not actually settle in such large numbers, as we think?

While Saxons, Vikings, and Celts may not answer every question you have, the facts that it brings to light with the irrefutable certainty of DNA evidence are enough to spend many years contemplating. Sykes has even started his own company, Oxford Ancestors (www.oxfordancestors.com), where one can sign up and with a sample can have their DNA traced through ancestors who lived, walked, and breathed thousands of years ago. For those seeking more facts and answers from Saxons, Vikings, and Celts, they should visit www.bloodoftheisles.net.

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