Morning all, I have travelled extensively across Scandinavian and Baltic countries and I would say by far the majority are blond haired certainly not dark haired. Red hair is traditionally associated with the celtic peoples and indeed the Scotlands DNA project has specifically introduced a test for the "red hair" gene as part of its portfolio because Scots are among the most prone nations in the world to have red hair just as Scotland is the home of the debilitating illness multiple sclerosis with the highest per capita in the world being in the Northern Isles. The reason the red hair gene is being tested for within DNA projects is because there are apparently far more people who carry the gene than actually demonstrate it by having red hair. Being "ginger" is now very trendy and indeed there have been several gatherings recently of red headed people to try and break various records. Meanwhile my thoughts go to the people of Glasgow following the terrible police helicopter crash last night which landed on the roof of the packed Clutha Vaults pub on the Broomielaw just after 10pm last night. The pilot of the stricken copter must have behaved very heroically because he could have hit any of the surrounding housing and clearly the flat roof of the bar was his best hope of avoiding a catastrophe. There are some dead, presumably including the pilot and 2 police passengers. One of the heroes was the Labour MP Jim Murphy who was nearby and rushed to help pull survivors from the wreckage as did very many passers-by. Mark -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Dora Smith Sent: 29 November 2013 20:08 To: iain.mcneill; [email protected] Subject: Re: [Lanark] Viking red-haired roots I didn't know you all didn't realize how deeply the Norse penetrated into British Celtic territory. I thought red hair was being wrongly attributed to the Norse. The Norse are thought of has having red hair. Now, I frankly don't see a whole lot of red hair among photos of people in Scandinavia and Denmark; in fact, they're more likely to be medium to short and have dark skin and dark hair, that for some reason today is commonly associated with people of Scotch Irish stock in the eastern United States. Otherwise they are tall and good looking by English standards and have blonde or brown hair. It is possible that those who became Vikings were some subgroup of them. If as is thought the Norse are partially descended from relatively recent invaders from the Asian steppes, they could have maintained something of a warrior class, despite the fact that allegedly most Vikings were farmers whose homeland had run short of land. Two Y DNA haplogroups are common in Scandinavia, Indo-European R1a, and I1. I1 is a paleolithic haplogroup, it would be quite something if the people who bore it had any sort of bright colored hair, though I've an idea that in eastern Europe it became reddish early. Red hair has been a Celtic stereotype since ancient times, and is also a stereotype of certain Celtic subcultures such as Wiccan families. Dora