This book is not particularly well executed. The history parts are at once too quick and too detailed in a weird sort of way. The use of names to specify the age and type of DNA was hard to keep track of. Yet, it's a fascinating topic and I'm glad someone did the research and wrote it.

Interesting but at times very technical and dry. The author tabulates their findings into "clans" of their own devising which they apparently discuss further in other books, this is a bit confusing and odd if you haven't read those other books. I also feel the author needs to reiterate that the DNA they've looked at and the "clans" are north western European and there are likely many other "clans" from elsewhere in the world.

Since most of my genealogy and DNA comes from the British Isles, I was very interested in this book and overall found it fascinating. There was a lot of work to develop this information and understanding how that work has evolved was quite interesting. I would have preferred a little more straightforward information on the genetics part and not the genetics-for-dummies version; I suspect people who would read the book would already be someone informed on the basics. I didn't really understand the clan names and had thought there were other standards for that, though he did make it easy to see the classifications and referenced them clearly. I was just getting ready to lament the lack of maps and charts and then found them at the end of the book. I did find them quite helpful though colored maps might have been even clearer. I would also not discount the value of mathematics as that is how we understand large amounts of data and the relationships and validity of the data. The author's passion and love of his work and his subject matter comes through very clearly and is very appealing. Well done.

I read this back in February. It was a very interesting read. If you're interested in genealogy and your genetic roots this is a must read.

My goodness, what a black hole of DNA data analysis and Celtic history...but in a good way.
Im not sure what the editors had the author leave out, but it must not have been much!
Still, by the end you are very happy to have taken it all in.

Even though this was not fiction, this was really a page-turner for me. Most of my heritage is English-Irish-Scottish, so I was incredibly intrigued to read about the studies that Bryan Sykes and his colleagues have been involved in regarding the genetic history of the British Isles. I've always had a keen interest in both my personal genealogy and in genetics in general, and this brought it all together for me, as well as placing it in an historical frame of reference. Based upon previous research Mr. Sykes has performed and published in both The Seven Daughters of Eve (also an excellent book) and Adam's Curse, the genetic foundation of Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and England were further investigated with the aim of determining if perhaps the legends and oral histories of the Isles do indeed have any roots in fact. I won't give away the results here, but I will say that I was really surprised by some of the outcomes, and it certainly gives me a new perspective on my own genetic past.

This book is 5% the story the genes tell and 95% retelling the same history we already know. Interesting, but maybe skip this and just listen to interviews about it as everything interesting could be covered in a magazine article (or an interview).

A fabulous book that contains wonderfully written sections on the geography, mythology, history and genetic make-up of the British Isles. It has sections on Ireland, Scotland, England, Wales and the Northern Isles, with even a bonus piece on Iceland. It dramatically improved my understanding of the British Isles. Not light reading, this is a serious book with some difficult passages when it gets down to the brass tacks of the genealogy, but if those passages are too tough, his summaries and conclusions on genealogy would suffice and a reader could skip lightly through the hard bits.

A fascinating account of the author's genetic DNA studies of volunteers in Britain & Ireland, trying to tease out the ethnic origins of the ancestral groups from which the modern populations are descended.

I thought this book was absolutely fascinating, even as someone who already has read a lot about the history of the isles. This is a phenomenal starting book for those who are not so familiar with the history of the isles, its people, and especially the DNA analysis. Extremely interesting and really makes you feel connected as a descendent of this land and its rich history

"Oral myths are closer to the genetic conclusions than the often ambiguous scientific evidence of archaeology."

2018 Popsugar Reading Challenge prompt: A book tied to your ancestry.