Shetlanders with "dark hair and swarthy skin"?!

[fenifur]

This post made me laugh! it  could read  as though the women had beards-which the  men  liked   
Not often you see a Roman statue with a  beard , was it usual for the Roman army to have facial hair?I can imagine the romans banning it.
I`ll leave the women out of it!!!!!
                                                    Viktoria.

Lol! You never know... 
You're right the Roman's did indeed prefer to be clean shaven (I think in the army even then it was a requirement) which is, I suppose, why a few of them commented on the 'Briton's' propensity for having them.

[sallyyorks]

Hi Sally,

Apologies! It was his granny!
She was Catherine Ashe - his father's mother from County Kerry.
Heywood

No worries, the info on wiki and the tree I posted is confusing

[Rena]

Not sure why people from the Shetlands wouldn't have 'dark hair and swarthy skin' in particular.

I had an in law who was extremely dark and swarthy, as were his parents, and his family were from rural North Yorkshire going back centuries. All the lines in the tree had local surnames commonly found in the local parish registers.

One of my own lines, ag labs from the rural areas around York, were very dark and swarthy too.

The singer Bjork is from Iceland and she is quite dark.

Hi sallyyorks - I landed on this thread because there's a similar thread about DNA that we're both contributing to.  Additionally I was born and bred in Yorkshire hence my interest in your contribution. 

Yorkshire was supposed to have been laid waste by William the Conqueror from Normandy, known as "The Harrying Of The North".   Contemporary chronicles record the savagery of the campaign, the huge scale of the destruction and the widespread famine caused by looting, burning and slaughtering.  He was the king who introduced surnames in 1068.

[sallyyorks]

Not sure why people from the Shetlands wouldn't have 'dark hair and swarthy skin' in particular.

I had an in law who was extremely dark and swarthy, as were his parents, and his family were from rural North Yorkshire going back centuries. All the lines in the tree had local surnames commonly found in the local parish registers.

One of my own lines, ag labs from the rural areas around York, were very dark and swarthy too.

The singer Bjork is from Iceland and she is quite dark.

Hi sallyyorks - I landed on this thread because there's a similar thread about DNA that we're both contributing to.  Additionally I was born and bred in Yorkshire hence my interest in your contribution. 

Yorkshire was supposed to have been laid waste by William the Conqueror from Normandy, known as "The Harrying Of The North".   Contemporary chronicles record the savagery of the campaign, the huge scale of the destruction and the widespread famine caused by looting, burning and slaughtering.  He was the king who introduced surnames in 1068.

Yes The Harrying was probably worse in Yorkshire. I believe William mentioned his regrets about it on his death bed, and he mentioned Yorkshire/the area in particular.

Just posted this in the other topic about the Oxford University/Wellcome Trust DNA research/findings. West Yorkshire stands out in the map, it seems to be the area once known as Elmet, could be a coincidence or not. Interesting study.

Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics Who do you think you really are?
http://www.well.ox.ac.uk/who-do-you-think-you-really-are
'The analyses suggest there was a substantial migration across the channel after the original post-ice-age settlers, but before Roman times. DNA from these migrants spread across England, Scotland, and Northern Ireland, but had little impact in Wales.  These migrations, probably over many years, are probably the largest single contributor to the DNA of much of modern England, but effectively nothing is known about them.'


(The other rootschat topic mentioned)
Roman Empire in the UK and DNA of the Roman Legions
http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=776883.0

[sallyyorks]

The Scottish Parliament voted for the Union as the "Parcel of Rogues" (Robert Burns) accepted English gold, they had probably no alternative as the English navigation Acts prohibited Scotch shipping, acts against the importation of Scotch Linen & also a ban on Scotch cattle which would have destroyed the Highland economy. Britannia, as ever, waived the rules.

Skoosh.

'Robert Burns'?
Ah well, you might have a point there Skoosh, because he practically invented 'Scottishness' didn't he ? 

[Skoosh]

No he didn't Sally, Scotland has lots of poets who pre-dated Burns, although none as good in my humble opinion. Unfortunately England & English-ness died in 1066 & was replaced by a Norman slave-state which the conquerors owned lock stock & barrel & has been a damned nuisance to its neighbours ever since.

Skoosh.

[Rena]

Many Scots are swarthy, we're a very mixed breed. Shetland has been settled by Scots since before it was aquired by the Scottish crown. Scott is a common  name in the Borders and there are Shetland landowners of that origin.
Skoosh.

Coincidentally,  two different am. researchers of my father-in-law's Bamff/Aberdeenshire line that I'm following have the same story that one of their ancestors was a refugee from the Spanish Armada.  This story hasn't been handed down by descendants in the male line that I'm following, thus I'm supposing that the ancestor was the father of a bride.

Coincidentally too, my OH and his father both had olive skin and black hair, which presumably could be called "swarthy". I was supposing that it was inherited millenia ago when the Romans and their slaves came to the mainland of the British Isles but since coming upon this thread, I'm now wondering if my OH's Morayshire sailors lines (Findlay/Marshall) could have originated further north.

[Skoosh]

Could be Rena, some "Ross-shire Seaboard" fisherfolk's descendants are as black as the back of the fire! The Paterson's even claim descent from a seal! 

Skoosh.

[Rena]

Could be Rena, some "Ross-shire Seaboard" fisherfolk's descendants are as black as the back of the fire! The Paterson's even claim descent from a seal! 

Skoosh.

Interesting, but the OH's Moray sailor, James Findlay, was actually a ship's carpenter born in late 1700s and I don't know whether he sailed on ships registered in Aberdeen or helped built them in Aberdeen.

It's my dad's folk who hailed from the Black Isle and if everyone was mostly swarthy, my line must have stuck out like a sore thumb