The Mamas and the Papas! Three and a half stars.

This was a really fascinating story and for the most part very well told. Sykes' descriptions of the geologic upheavals and the great moving ice sheets that shaped 'The Isles' (Ireland, Scotland, Wales and England) were thrilling.

He paints a magnificent picture of the tiny bands of pioneer humans who braved tundra and seas to migrate from Iberia, the first around 10,000 years ago in the Paleolithic era. They were followed by a second small group of sea faring people who had some agricultural skills and had been in Iberia since Neolithic times. This second group joined the pioneers as the ice receded and apparently coexisted fairly peacefully. Sykes makes a very strong case that the genetic bedrock of all of the Isles, including England, was firmly established some 6,000 years ago by these two related peoples and, at least on the maternal side, is solidly ancient Celtic.

The most genetically significant exception is the maternal ancestry of Orkney and Shetland, where a large settlement of Viking women from Norway were the ancestral mothers of as much as 30-40% of the current population.

The second exception to the Celtic mother-lineage is in eastern and northern England where a group of women of Germanic-Scandinavian heritage helped people about 5-10% of the region. Sykes demonstrates that it is very difficult to distinguish between Saxons, Danes and Normans on a genetic basis, but based on location, he thinks these women were Viking Danes.

That devilish Y chromosome is another story altogether. Here, Sykes reaches back into Celtic, Viking and Saxon legends of feuding clans and conquest to trace the patrilineal history of the Isles. Remarkably, a great many of the men of the Isles carry the Celtic Y-chromosomes of a mere handful of reproductively successful men and their sons like the Macdonalds and Macleods in Scotland and the Ui Neills in Ireland. Pockets of Saxon/Danish Y-chromosomes paired with Celtic maternal mitochondria hint at 'male-driven settlement' with some signs of a partial displacement of the indigenous Celtic men. Yet only in East Anglia does the proportion of Saxon/Dane Y-chromosomes reach 20%. Sykes estimates the contribution of Norman males at an amazingly low 2% (genetically, the Normans seem to have been Vikings who absorbed the indigenous language of the time). The Isles, including England, are deeply rooted in a genetically Celtic past.

I loved the tour of the Isles pre and ancient history and Sykes' conclusions are a sobering reminder that many of the world's worst feuds are family feuds.

On the negative side, I could have lived without the dumbed-down genetics and molecular biology lessons. I do understand that Sykes was trying to humanize the science by giving made-up clan names to various Y chromosome and mitochondrial DNA sequences rather than using the now standard letter and number designation, but he just made it frustratingly difficult for serious family genealogists like myself to figure out how their own DNA fits into the story.

Really enjoyed this. Good mix of history, archaeology, and mythology as a background to the genetic research that went into figuring out where the myth and reality. Fascinating and excellently narrated.

This is intended for a general public, not for the specialist. Just about everything the British reader needs to know about the genetic and archeological evidence about the origin of the British peoples. It's very clear, well organized, I liked it a lot. The only thing about this sort of book is that two weeks later I hardly remember a date, a region, a fact --- so one really ought to have this book on a bookshelf or coffee table and have the whole family read it and discuss it. And it probably ought to be re-read once a year.

I loved this book. I had my doubts about it; having never read anything by him and being as much of an Anglophile as I am, I didn't know what to expect and was terrified that my love of all things related to the Isles might have been shattered. But much to my relief, this book about genetics became somewhat magical for me. I felt the way I did as I was finishing Sir Gibbie by George Macdonald, I didn't want the magic of it all to end. Incredible book; very interesting; well delivered; easy to understand. I look forward to reading his other books.

Lots of History to Go With the Genetic Explorations
I listened to this after finishing The Seven Daughters of Eve: The Science That Reveals Our Genetic Ancestry. Once again Sykes revisits history using the the tools of DNA and genetics to explore some common assumptions, this time about the origins of the people that populated the British Isles, namely the Picts, Celts, Romans, Normans, Angles, Saxons, Danes, Vikings, etc.

He gives a heavy dose of historical background on each of these groups before discussing the genetic studies done by his research team, which went around different parts of the British Isles, such as the different regions of England, Wales, Ireland, and Scotland, including the Islands such as the Hebrides, Orkneys, and Shetlands. They joined blood transfusion donation drives and set up shop at country fairs, asking to collect DNA samples from the local populaces in order to trace DNA through the matrilineal line via mitochondrial DNA (mDNA), along with patrilineal lines via the y-chromosome. What this reveals is a very fascinating and different set of data about bloodlines and heritage depending on which line you trace. If you follow mDNA back through the generations, you can trace it to specific female ancestors of different haplogroups thanks to the frequency of mutations in mDNA, whereas for y-chromosomes there is very little change over time, and there is also the Genghis Khan founder-effort, in which a dominant male line that fathers many descendants will dominate a given gene pool.

What we learn is that the Celtic-speaking peoples that first populated the British isles do not trace their heritage to the many waves of invaders in the past two millennia as is commonly thought, but rather entered the British Isles about 10,000 years ago when other neolithic farmers migrated across the land-bridge from Europe after the end of the most recent Ice Age, and that the various invaders, while intermingling with the local populations, did not decimate and replace them despite the common image of Viking, Norman, and Anglo-Saxon raiders killing all the men and ravaging all the women.

There is also the common misconception that the central European Celtic peoples of the Hallstatt and La Tene cultures in the neolithic age are the same peoples as the prehistoric Celtic peoples of the British isles, but Sykes suggests that while these groups may have shared similar languages, they are genetically distinct. He also spends a fair amount of time discussing the amount of Norse/Danish/Viking blood that has remained in the Orkney and Shetland islands and northern part of England, and how much Norman/Roman/Anglo-Saxon blood populated the Southern part of England. If you want to know more, I suggest you read the book. It's a fairly accessible style that doesn't overwhelm you with too many technical details of the DNA analysis, but provides plenty of explanation of the fundamentals so that you will understand why tracing male/female DNA lines produces such interesting and revealing results. Overall I enjoyed it quite a bit.

What a great idea for a book and a scientific exploration of dna. What a horrible example of the execution of a book. Just plain badly written. And yet the idea of mixing the history, stories and myths with the location of differences of mutation in genes in a particular place, is an awesome one. And yet the science and the statistics of the book itself should have been so much better. I learned quite a bit from this one, but there was quite the opportunity to learn more.

Love this! Because Seven Daughters of Eve was one of my favorite books, I bought this and stored it on my shelf for a while. I recently had my DNA tested, which piqued my interest in genetics. This book answered many questions I had about Saxons, Celts and the history of the British isles. Sykes masterfully summarizes the complex history of his homeland, weaving in mythology, sociology, and scientific methods. His casual, yet enthusiastic style of writing makes genetic history very entertaining!

This is a totally engrossing book for anyone interested in British history or in genetics. The crux of the book is DNA and the genetic origins of the British people but is explained in such a beautiful way that you do not need to be a genetic scientist to understand it. In fact, myself, who has no scientific background fully understood it and found it extremely fascinating.

As Bryan Sykes explains 'this is living history, told by the real survivors of the times. the DNA that still lives within our bodies. This really is the history of the people by the people'

The author combines the findings of his genetic studies with the history, legend and folklore of the islands, Great Britain and Ireland.
He explains how in his first book The Seven Daughters of Eve: The Science That Reveals Our Genetic Ancestry he discovered concrete evidence that Europeans have a predominant hunter-gatherer ancestry from people who settled on the continent 40 000 years ago or more and NOT as was commonly disseminated , by farmers from the Middle East who were supposed to have entered Europe 10 000 years ago.

In the second Chapter of the book 'who do we think we are' Sykes examines the prevailing beliefs, dogma and myths of the past about British history and origins, including the false understanding that the English are close cousins of the Germans through being descended from the Anglos-Saxon invaders who conquered what is now England in the 500-700s CE/AD.
The DNA findings effectively debunk these beliefs (espoused by among others Nazi sympathizers who sadly still exist in England, who believe the Germans are the closest cousins of the English and it was a travesty that the English fought their German brothers in the two world wars (or were tricked into doing so in the case of World War II by the 'wicked Jews')

Instead he reveals that almost the entire mitochondrial DNA (DNA passed down from the females genes) in England is from the Ibero-Celtic peoples that arrived in Britain 10 000 years ago and is fundamentally the same as that in Scotland, Wales and Ireland.
'Even if the entire population of Jutes, Angles and Saxons arrived in Britain, that that could have exterminated all of the Britons, , with their centuries of experience of Roman military tactics. Even if they had managed to kill all the men they would not have managed to kill all the women'
And hence how the DNA proves this. The overwhelming majority of the matrilineal descent of the people in England has stayed constant for ten thousand years, from the original inhabitants of Britain , who were there 8000 years before the Anglo-Saxons settled in what is now England.
As Sykes clearly states ' 'On our maternal side almost all of us are Celts'
'The matrilineal history of the Isles is both ancient and continuous. I see no reason at all from the results why many of our maternal lineages should not go right through the millennia to the very first Paleolithic and Mesolithic settlers who reached our islands around 10 000 years ago. The average settlement dates of 8000 years ago fits in with this.'

As for the Y chromosome (passed down through the male gene) 'still there are far more people with Celtic ancestry in England, , even in the far East of England, than can claim to be of Saxon or Danish descent. In the west of England, the patrilineal line too is almost all Celtic, while in the south approximately 10% of the men now living in the south of England are the patrilineal descendants of Saxons or Danes, this increases to 15% above the Danelaw line, and at the most in England in East Anglia is 20%. So so much for the article in the Daily Mail entitled 'We are all Germans' - that is simply not true.

'Overall the genetic structure of the Isles is overwhelmingly Celtic, if by that we mean descent from those who were here before the Romans and who spoke a Celtic language' All the invasions and opposed settlements since Julius Caesar have barely scratched the surface.

Each chapter on the genetics of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales is preceded by overall histories of these country's in the early periods, and their mythology and folklore (even if you know most of the information Sykes writes in a way which is a pleasure to read.)

I was intrigued to read that there a small number of people in the south of England who can trace ancestry through mitochondria (therefore the female line unbroken) to subsaharan Africa and the Middle East, most likely descendants of slaves brought by the Romans, whose lines have carried on through the generations through unbroken lines of women . As a Jew , I find the idea that there may be found in some people in England who do not know it who carry mitochondrial DNA from generations ago from Jewish women intriguing.

He traces the main ancestry of the Shetland and Orkney islands to Vikings. His style is always engaging and chatty, I enjoyed the anecdotes, and the humour. This is one of the better books on the topics for laymen and historians without degrees in genetic science.
In the field of DNA and history would also recommend the work by Rabbi Yaakov Kleiman DNA and Tradition: The Genetic Link to the Ancient Hebrews to the Ancient Hebrews which traces the ancestry of modern day Jews to ancient Israel.

Professor Sykes skillfully guides us here through the world of DNA tracing and proves that many times, we are not who we think we are.
It sends a clear message to racists who believe in the nonsense of a “pure race”.

I was pretty disappointed with this book. It seemed to build quite a bit on material that the author apparently covered in "The Seven Daughters of Eve," which, unfortunately, I had not read. Plus, the author kept apologizing for presenting "technical" material. I'm sorry, it's a book about genetics. Wouldn't any reader of a book on this topic expect technical discussion? It's not like we're squirming in our seats every time we read the word "mitochondria." At least, I hope not.

Other reviewers of this book stated that it isn't necessary to have read "The Seven Daughters of Eve" to enjoy this book. Respectfully, I disagree. I would suggest reading Mr. Sykes earlier book before reading this one.

A book where science and history collides to give a very detailed genetic study of the Celts, Vikings & Anglo-Saxons. Bryan Sykes is a Professor of Genetics at Oxford University and has led the way in using DNA to better understand the past. For this reason alone my interest was sparked. To me "science is just magic that has been explained." There are so many unknowns in history. When we get given the opportunity to see history through a scientific lense, more information or evidence becomes available to us and more can be explained. When we find new information or new details, we can use that to either bridge a gap, or write an entirely different story. This book shows a comparative and crossing over of each group and its history backed up with archaeological findings and DNA testing. It's a fascinating read, its very interesting to see where historical theories are confirmed or debunked. Definitely recommend the read for any history buff.

3.5. I read this book to understand the history of Britain but it wasn’t what I expected. I read through a ton of genetic discussions waiting for a final summary of the results. But none came. After describing all the genetics of Britain, I expected a lengthy discussion of the implications…but it was barely a chapter. Disappointed with the end though the process was interesting.