I just found out an interesting fact about my Irish Lineage - I think I may be a Viking perhaps a Gaelic Viking. No not because I love Ren fairs and eating turkey legs and making medieval long bows and wearing Garb, but because we have been doing an extensive Genealogy on my mothers side, and it would appear we have quite a bit of Viking blood in us. I knew of our deep Gaelic roots but I wasn’t aware there was some Norseman blood in there. Norseman blood not of the Dane variety, but from the northern Isles. If that makes sense to anyone. I always thought the Norsemen were from Finland, Sweden, Norway et al.
And I thought my desire to pillage and wear animal skins and eat Steak tartar was just a caveman instinct…I guess I was wrong.
Any other Vikings out there in the teeming millions?
Oh! it’s difficult, it’s more of some lore from one of our ancestors linked to David the Bruce. 13th century lore must be taken with a grain of salt. And this particular relative is a bit eccentric. But I have no reason to doubt her…
My mother’s side is Irish four or five (I think five, but I’m not sure) generations back. My father’s ancestors are British. Apparently, my family has been fighting each other tooth and nail for a long, long time now.
Philip V wasn’t a happy king. He wanted to be like Grampa, but those pesky Navarrese and Vascongados insisted in having their own laws and parliaments. Whenever he sent to Pamplona (and I imagine, to our neighbors over the Bidasoa as well, although he may not have been so conscious of that particular thorn) orders to change the laws so they’d match those of Castilla, the Permanent Comission (Diputación Foral) would sent the orders back saying “contrafuero: se obedece pero no se cumple” (against the law, sorry sir but no can do). So he came up with schemes to claim that the men in the Comission didn’t have the right to be in it.
He had everybody in Navarra who claimed the right to sit in Parliament (pretty much everybody) go through Probanzas de Sangre twice. These were genealogical studies to show that you did, indeed, have this right because your foreparents had it. For a given person, they’d start climbing the family tree until they ran into the person who’d been given the seat in Parliament or a king or someone with a big enough nobility title that there was no need to climb further; this would be done for each of the claimant’s four first lastnames.
I can trace my bloodlines on that side to the 8th century, although we’ll admit to things being a bit wobbly once dates start having only 3 figures. My brothers’ History teacher (an outsider) almost peed herself with glee when they brought photocopies of the Probanzas to class.
My mother is staunchly Irish ( 1st generation American from 1st generation Candian whose parents were Off the Boat Irish.) was really shocked and very peturbed to find out that an odd medical condition with her hand ( something with it ‘locking’ up on her and she couldn’t release her grip) was a genetic gift from the Scandinavians.
