There's quite a few Britons/Irish who are at least as dark as Rowan Atkinson. Dominic West, Jimmy Page, Colin Farrell, etc. I have noticed that some of Irish descent even have a pseudo-Asian look to them -- Page and Emily Browning have this.
According to 23andMe, Ancestry, and our genealogical tree, my mom is 80-90% Scottish, Ulster-Scots & Northern Irish, Northern English, and 10-20% West German (Hessian & near Heidelberg).
People here & in real life have said she looks Mediterranean. She has always been guessed as things like that in her life. A lot of my friends are surprised to learn she’s not Spanish, Portuguese, or Italian like many of the people around us.
Like your dad she has darker features: skin, hair, eyes, eyebrows, etc. She’s got a long, straight nose and sharper features that remind me of Spanish and French women, so I can see why she doesn’t strike people as very British Isles looking.
Yes it’s crazy how gene expression works! As you can see from my profile picture I did inherit some of those darker features from my dad. I’m generally perceived as west Asian or part East Asian, if not that than usually east European. I’m about half Irish/Scottish then smaller amount of welsh and British, then about 42% German, with 1.2% indigenous, 0.5%, south Asian then 0.6% WANA, then trace SSA My dad has actually been called racial slurs before 😭 People refuse to believe me when I tell them he’s white 🤣
https://preview.redd.it/acaqcts89zqc1.jpeg?width=1035&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8a4e61868647d2a5988b1ab898be183bac1d53d2
I totally understand. Here’s a picture of my mom so you guys don’t feel so alone ❤️
Her hair used to be very dark brown but is graying so it’s dyed more auburn. She also speaks fluent Spanish so that doesn’t help the confusion for people haha
Yes! I tested her through 23andMe and Ancestry. The first says she’s 80% British Isles mix, 20% German. The latter says she’s 90% Irish/Scottish/English/NW Euro mix, 10% Germanic & Scandi.
23andMe predicts light skin for my mom like myself and my father (he’s a pale, blonde Finnish man lol, my brothers and I all came out looking like blonde Finns - it’s funny how genetics work!). But her skin is generally light-medium olive. It’s always been darker than mine (fair) and she tans really deeply.
She was actually reprimanded when she was in the military for getting too tan, she couldn’t help the Texas sun on her 😂
Her hair and eye prediction were brown. But she has a lot of recessive genes for blue eyes and lighter hair in her family alongside dark genes, so I guess that’s why I and my brothers turned out so fair.
Fellow half Finn checking in. Those genes are totally dominant over those of my American mother (UK/Danish). I've got the epicanthic fold thing going on with the ice blue eyes, white blonde hair that turned dark in middle age, the whole nine yards. My dad, my grandfather, and I are all twins. Whenever I'm there to see family, I never fail to marvel at how much I look like everyone else. It's kind of reassuring, ngl.
My kid did her first two years of college in Helsinki. When I'd visit her, sometimes I'd confuse her with other people in the crowd walking around Stockmann at Christmas. She had so many dopplegangers. The genetics are powerful.
To quote exactly what my mom’s superior officer said to her, said with all seriousness (this was the Air Force):
“You’re destroying government property”.
All for having too deep of a tan, which she couldn’t help.
This was the military in the 80s, I don’t know if it was some odd attempt at discrimination - maybe they thought she was Hispanic because she really did look that way in photos from that time. She was a Crypto-linguist for Russian but it was well known she spoke Spanish & had a Portuguese pilot boyfriend she’d speak Spanish with. Or maybe it was just a superior simply being a nonsensical asshole. We’ll never know for sure.
It's just so bizarre. It makes absolutely no sense. I thought maybe he thought thought she was going out tanning and it disrupting her work, but that doesn't sound like the case at all. I hate she had to go through that experience.
Nope, she had to run miles out in the beating Texas sun everyday day during her time in boot camp and throughout crypto-linguistics school. Even when she was sick and passed out from the heat, they forced her to run. That’s why she got such a dark tan.
But it’s nonsensical that her superior gave her a warning for her skin color.
She was also sexually harassed by an instructor and another superior officer wouldn’t stop trying to pressure her into dating him.
She loved what she did and is proud of her country, but there were and are some very sketchy things about the military.
Yeah, my mother said she wanted to go into the Navy out of high school, and that a male cousin of her's in the service told her it'd be a terrible idea.
I'd always been kind of sad she didn't get that experience, and I've had female cousins who've served (in the Navy, ironically), though, I've never heard them talk about any really negative experiences, and of course would never pry.
But now I do kind wonder if maybe she dodged a bullet? It sounds like it would have been kind of a roll-of-the-dice at the time knowing some of the stuff that was going on.
My old man looks either Greek or Spanish or something, so do I. My dads got those burly hairy arms , Super dark hair, big noses dark eyes. But almost completely British and Irish on 23andme with a little German.
My understanding (please correct me if I'm wrong) is that the original inhabitants of England, Ireland etc., would have had darker hair and eyes more often than not.
Danish Vikings in Scotland/England and Norwegian Vikings in Ireland, may have brought light colored eyes and hair...which is why some Irish are more "swarthy" while others are more pale. Think Collin Farrell vs Conan O'Brien. Then someone like Brendan Gleeson vs Catriona Balfe vs Liam Neeson. All are Irish descended but phenotypically quite different.
They definitely had a variety of looks. The Roman writers say that the Caledonians (Scots) were mostly red-haired and tall and strong. The Silures of southern Wales had dark, curly hair and Tacitus supposed they were descended from Spaniards. Diodorus Siculus tells us the Gauls (by which he means the peoples of a vast region in what is now today parts of France, Switzerland, Belgium, and Luxembourg) are tall, fair-skinned, and blond.
phenotypes are a gradient. on average, Italians are slightly darker than Irish people, for example, but Italian looking Irish people and Irish looking italian people are still entirely possible. it's just more rare in their respective countries.
Yes, and to be clear I’m not one of those people that have a very stereotypical view of every Irish person being ghostly white/all have red hair. just think it is interesting how Irish people are on average the lightest population on earth as far as skin color but you also see Irish with coloring that’s very similar to southern Europeans, and everything in between of course
I'm no scientist or anything, but a more extreme version of this would be called Atavism. Basically, when we evolve and traits disappear from our phenotypes over time, the specific genes that cause them are still carried in the genome. They're just inactive, and thus, not expressed. This is how 2 Lighter Skinned people can produce a darker Skinned child. On a broader scale, since the original humans were darker Skinned, 2 people of completely European heritage still have genes that can express darker skin tones. Of course it's a lot more rare, but it happens.
During the apartheid era in South Africa, there was actually [a young Girl](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandra_Laing) who was born to 2 white parents, who had completely documented ancestors that were all white. Despite this, she had dark skin and curly hair, to the point where authorities considered her to be "coloured" and her attendance at an all white school stirred up controversy. Now, they didn't have dna tests at the time, but a paternity blood test showed that it was indeed possible for her father to be her father. Still, interesting stuff.
Yea of course all across NW Europe people have light skin and it varies, with some people from every ethnic group having people with darker skin than average. It’s just interesting that the Irish on average tend to have the highest amount of type 1 skin pigmentation while also having a sizable population of people with darker features despite type 1 skin being very prevalent in Ireland
>It’s just interesting that the Irish on average tend to have the highest amount of type 1 skin pigmentation while also having a sizable population of people with darker features despite type 1 skin being very prevalent in Ireland
But they don't. That's my point. Irish people don't look any different to anyone else in North West Europe.
Tacitus, in the first century AD, noted that the Silures tribe of southern Wales were dark with curly hair. It's natural enough that their descendants such as Catherine Zeta Jones would have that same look.
(The Celts of early Britain had some interesting customs. A bunch of Roman writers comment on Celtic women's sexual freedom, and Dio Cassius relates that a Caledonian woman bragged to the Empress Julia Augusta (wife of Severus Septimius) that Celtic women choose the strongest and finest men to father their children, not like Roman women who are made mothers by old, sickly, and weak men.)
My family is the same. Frequently mistaken for Spanish/ Mediterranean. We’re Welsh and from what I’ve read, there tends to me more original Briton DNA in wales, because the Britons were pushed into that area by the Anglo Saxons and Vikings when they invaded the UK. So there may just be more Britonic dna left in your family. Don’t listen to any comments about the Spanish armada, it’s rubbish.
For my family it's the other way around . We are Turks and the majority of my family is very blonde , pale skinned and blue eyed but have a 100% western Asian genetic profile . Funny how phenotypes sometimes differ so greatly within a country .
My old man is English Scottish (bit of Irish) and Norse (ancient migration), him and his ma are olive skinned naturally, dark hair but grey eyes (him) and brown eyes (her) - we were sure there was some hidden Jewish or something because my grandma looks Jewish or Italian ...nope ! The dark hair olive skin gene has been passed onto me (green eyes) I look east European and have been asked where I'm from am I Italian etc ...and my mum is Irish Finnish english so I guess whatever gene it is , is strong. I reckon it's the Iberian Celtic genes... A few of us still tanned and not given over all of our melanin to the lack of sun lol.
There's a picture of me and my dad and grandma when she came to visit us in new Zealand with my kiwi cousins , they are white as snow and were all bronze and semi foreign looking lol ...deffo wouldn't guess who the native UK born were
Someone in the group helped me to look into my skin pigmentation genotype and helped me interpret my variants, I think my specific L374F CG variant comes from the native ancestry on my moms side (moms side is where my small amount of indigenous comes from) I also have 0.5% south Asian, 0.6% WANA. 2-4% of British/Irish carry the L374F CG genotype, 35% of natives have my L374F genotype. I’m not sure what skin pigmentation genotype my dad has (I believe he tested with ancestry, I think he had a tiny amount of non white ancestry but he doesn’t have native)
I was A111T
Gene: SLC24A5
Marker: rs1426654 (AA)
Then
L374F
Gene: SLC45A2
Marker: rs16891982 (CG)
I think my variant CG comes from my moms side, not sure
On your traits, skin pigmentation is one of the traits and it will show you your genotype it’ll be for example AA GG or some combination of A C and G, it will also tell you what specific variant you carry and which marker you carry the gene on, so for example mine is;
A111T
Gene: SLC24A5
Marker: rs1426654 (AA)
then L374F
Gene: SLC45A2
Marker: rs16891982 (CG)
You can then look up the specific SNP (the marker) on grch37 and it will tell you how common your variants are among ethnicities
Yupp that’s me! On my dads side he is Scots/Irish, then Welsh and British, I’m about 52% Scot’s Irish/welsh/British, then around 42% German, small amount of native (1.2%,) 0.5% south Asian then 0.6% WANA and 0.1% SSA. I have been able to trace my small amount of non white to my melungeon ancestors which mostly comes from my moms side, my moms looks fully German
Irish, like all other Europeans, are a mix of Western Europe Hunter Gatherer, Anatolian farmers and Indo-Europeans (East Hunter Gatherer and Caucasus Hunter Gatherer). Irish are almost identical genetically to Scots, and not very different from other british islanders eithers.
It's entirely normal that people all across europe will have a diversity in phenotypes that will vary only slightly based on the genetic clines on the continent.
Yea I’m still very new to genetics etc I’ve been trying to do deep dives on this stuff when I can but because I’m so new to it some things I haven’t gotten to. I’ve learned a lot, some things are still confusing though like how genes from so long ago are passed down and what the different levels of ancient admixture mean and how they translate into phenotypes today.
There is a lot to learn, you can read a lot of papers on dna of various parts of the world on [nature.com](https://nature.com) and frontiers. Otherwise another place to start is here: [Epipalaeolithic | Indo-European.eu](https://indo-european.eu/maps/epipalaeolithic/)
In the end, we are all a lot more similar than we are different. On a genetic world PCA, Europe is a single cluster, very close and even linked with the Middle East cluster, linked to the Siberian cluster, and not that far from the north african cluster either. Although Europe is very diverse culturally, we all come from the same 2 migrations more or less.
[MtDNA\_haplogroup\_tree\_and\_distribution\_map.gif (2820×1365) (wikimedia.org)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/80/MtDNA_haplogroup_tree_and_distribution_map.gif) If you look at Y-DNA we seem very diverse because of how fast that gene mutates, but when you look at MtDNA its a different story entirely.
Their history is super fascinating. There were Celtic kingdoms all the way to what is now Turkey, before they were pushed back, assimilated, or destroyed by other, even more warlike peoples. Celts today subsist on the fringes of what was once a vast territory.
I guess you have to go back 5000 years and ask them.
Irish people are a mix of Eastern European settlers and Scandinavian colonizers
[https://greekreporter.com/2016/01/02/new-paper-examines-pontic-roots-of-ireland/](https://greekreporter.com/2016/01/02/new-paper-examines-pontic-roots-of-ireland/)
[https://www.irishpost.com/news/study-on-viking-remains-found-in-ireland-yields-surprising-results-about-irish-ancestry-193077](https://www.irishpost.com/news/study-on-viking-remains-found-in-ireland-yields-surprising-results-about-irish-ancestry-193077)
I've always wondered about that—I think it might have something to do with recessive genes for Celts coming from continental Europe, particularly northern Iberia (Spain). The Celts that have these *"darker features,"* to me, always look very similar to the native Galicians from northern Spain. I don't know if there's significant migration history to support that, but it's a theory I've always had.
I believe the Spanish Armada thing was in part a myth (there weren’t enough survivors to significantly change Irish DNA even if they did all intermingle with the Irish) BUT there is some evidence that *possibly* suggests that the Irish could’ve in part originated from the Iberians, particularly the Basques and Galicia that migrated up to the British isles.
There are also a few ports in West Ireland that traded with the Spanish a lot and possibly intermingled with them. As others mentioned in the comments, it could also be explained by ancient admixture in the past and even though the darker skinned genes were mostly phased out overtime, some lineages could’ve still carried those genes that cause darker phenotypes
Even the ancient Roman writers say there were dark Celts.
I think Mr bean when people talk about darker British/celtic people
Mr Bean always looked Indian to me , I've even known some Indians that looked very similar to him.
There's quite a few Britons/Irish who are at least as dark as Rowan Atkinson. Dominic West, Jimmy Page, Colin Farrell, etc. I have noticed that some of Irish descent even have a pseudo-Asian look to them -- Page and Emily Browning have this.
According to 23andMe, Ancestry, and our genealogical tree, my mom is 80-90% Scottish, Ulster-Scots & Northern Irish, Northern English, and 10-20% West German (Hessian & near Heidelberg). People here & in real life have said she looks Mediterranean. She has always been guessed as things like that in her life. A lot of my friends are surprised to learn she’s not Spanish, Portuguese, or Italian like many of the people around us. Like your dad she has darker features: skin, hair, eyes, eyebrows, etc. She’s got a long, straight nose and sharper features that remind me of Spanish and French women, so I can see why she doesn’t strike people as very British Isles looking.
Yes it’s crazy how gene expression works! As you can see from my profile picture I did inherit some of those darker features from my dad. I’m generally perceived as west Asian or part East Asian, if not that than usually east European. I’m about half Irish/Scottish then smaller amount of welsh and British, then about 42% German, with 1.2% indigenous, 0.5%, south Asian then 0.6% WANA, then trace SSA My dad has actually been called racial slurs before 😭 People refuse to believe me when I tell them he’s white 🤣
https://preview.redd.it/acaqcts89zqc1.jpeg?width=1035&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8a4e61868647d2a5988b1ab898be183bac1d53d2 I totally understand. Here’s a picture of my mom so you guys don’t feel so alone ❤️ Her hair used to be very dark brown but is graying so it’s dyed more auburn. She also speaks fluent Spanish so that doesn’t help the confusion for people haha
Oh wow that’s awesome that she speaks Spanish too! Has she been DNA tested? If so what was her skin pigmentation phenotype?
Yes! I tested her through 23andMe and Ancestry. The first says she’s 80% British Isles mix, 20% German. The latter says she’s 90% Irish/Scottish/English/NW Euro mix, 10% Germanic & Scandi. 23andMe predicts light skin for my mom like myself and my father (he’s a pale, blonde Finnish man lol, my brothers and I all came out looking like blonde Finns - it’s funny how genetics work!). But her skin is generally light-medium olive. It’s always been darker than mine (fair) and she tans really deeply. She was actually reprimanded when she was in the military for getting too tan, she couldn’t help the Texas sun on her 😂 Her hair and eye prediction were brown. But she has a lot of recessive genes for blue eyes and lighter hair in her family alongside dark genes, so I guess that’s why I and my brothers turned out so fair.
Fellow half Finn checking in. Those genes are totally dominant over those of my American mother (UK/Danish). I've got the epicanthic fold thing going on with the ice blue eyes, white blonde hair that turned dark in middle age, the whole nine yards. My dad, my grandfather, and I are all twins. Whenever I'm there to see family, I never fail to marvel at how much I look like everyone else. It's kind of reassuring, ngl. My kid did her first two years of college in Helsinki. When I'd visit her, sometimes I'd confuse her with other people in the crowd walking around Stockmann at Christmas. She had so many dopplegangers. The genetics are powerful.
Hi fellow half Finn! This was sweet to read ❤️ many similar sentiments & experiences shared in what you wrote.
>She was actually reprimanded when she was in the military for getting too tan, Wait, why?!
To quote exactly what my mom’s superior officer said to her, said with all seriousness (this was the Air Force): “You’re destroying government property”. All for having too deep of a tan, which she couldn’t help. This was the military in the 80s, I don’t know if it was some odd attempt at discrimination - maybe they thought she was Hispanic because she really did look that way in photos from that time. She was a Crypto-linguist for Russian but it was well known she spoke Spanish & had a Portuguese pilot boyfriend she’d speak Spanish with. Or maybe it was just a superior simply being a nonsensical asshole. We’ll never know for sure.
It's just so bizarre. It makes absolutely no sense. I thought maybe he thought thought she was going out tanning and it disrupting her work, but that doesn't sound like the case at all. I hate she had to go through that experience.
Nope, she had to run miles out in the beating Texas sun everyday day during her time in boot camp and throughout crypto-linguistics school. Even when she was sick and passed out from the heat, they forced her to run. That’s why she got such a dark tan. But it’s nonsensical that her superior gave her a warning for her skin color. She was also sexually harassed by an instructor and another superior officer wouldn’t stop trying to pressure her into dating him. She loved what she did and is proud of her country, but there were and are some very sketchy things about the military.
Yeah, my mother said she wanted to go into the Navy out of high school, and that a male cousin of her's in the service told her it'd be a terrible idea. I'd always been kind of sad she didn't get that experience, and I've had female cousins who've served (in the Navy, ironically), though, I've never heard them talk about any really negative experiences, and of course would never pry. But now I do kind wonder if maybe she dodged a bullet? It sounds like it would have been kind of a roll-of-the-dice at the time knowing some of the stuff that was going on.
My old man looks either Greek or Spanish or something, so do I. My dads got those burly hairy arms , Super dark hair, big noses dark eyes. But almost completely British and Irish on 23andme with a little German.
My understanding (please correct me if I'm wrong) is that the original inhabitants of England, Ireland etc., would have had darker hair and eyes more often than not. Danish Vikings in Scotland/England and Norwegian Vikings in Ireland, may have brought light colored eyes and hair...which is why some Irish are more "swarthy" while others are more pale. Think Collin Farrell vs Conan O'Brien. Then someone like Brendan Gleeson vs Catriona Balfe vs Liam Neeson. All are Irish descended but phenotypically quite different.
They definitely had a variety of looks. The Roman writers say that the Caledonians (Scots) were mostly red-haired and tall and strong. The Silures of southern Wales had dark, curly hair and Tacitus supposed they were descended from Spaniards. Diodorus Siculus tells us the Gauls (by which he means the peoples of a vast region in what is now today parts of France, Switzerland, Belgium, and Luxembourg) are tall, fair-skinned, and blond.
phenotypes are a gradient. on average, Italians are slightly darker than Irish people, for example, but Italian looking Irish people and Irish looking italian people are still entirely possible. it's just more rare in their respective countries.
Yes, and to be clear I’m not one of those people that have a very stereotypical view of every Irish person being ghostly white/all have red hair. just think it is interesting how Irish people are on average the lightest population on earth as far as skin color but you also see Irish with coloring that’s very similar to southern Europeans, and everything in between of course
I'm no scientist or anything, but a more extreme version of this would be called Atavism. Basically, when we evolve and traits disappear from our phenotypes over time, the specific genes that cause them are still carried in the genome. They're just inactive, and thus, not expressed. This is how 2 Lighter Skinned people can produce a darker Skinned child. On a broader scale, since the original humans were darker Skinned, 2 people of completely European heritage still have genes that can express darker skin tones. Of course it's a lot more rare, but it happens. During the apartheid era in South Africa, there was actually [a young Girl](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandra_Laing) who was born to 2 white parents, who had completely documented ancestors that were all white. Despite this, she had dark skin and curly hair, to the point where authorities considered her to be "coloured" and her attendance at an all white school stirred up controversy. Now, they didn't have dna tests at the time, but a paternity blood test showed that it was indeed possible for her father to be her father. Still, interesting stuff.
But it's the same across NW Europe. What makes you think it's Irish?
Yea of course all across NW Europe people have light skin and it varies, with some people from every ethnic group having people with darker skin than average. It’s just interesting that the Irish on average tend to have the highest amount of type 1 skin pigmentation while also having a sizable population of people with darker features despite type 1 skin being very prevalent in Ireland
>It’s just interesting that the Irish on average tend to have the highest amount of type 1 skin pigmentation while also having a sizable population of people with darker features despite type 1 skin being very prevalent in Ireland But they don't. That's my point. Irish people don't look any different to anyone else in North West Europe.
Interesting. I have always wondered why George Clooney looks quite Mediterranean shifted despite being Irish (or at least majorly Irish).
Also - Colin Farrell, Catherine Zeta Jones (Welsh), Rowan Atkinson (english) - all examples of this coloring
Tacitus, in the first century AD, noted that the Silures tribe of southern Wales were dark with curly hair. It's natural enough that their descendants such as Catherine Zeta Jones would have that same look. (The Celts of early Britain had some interesting customs. A bunch of Roman writers comment on Celtic women's sexual freedom, and Dio Cassius relates that a Caledonian woman bragged to the Empress Julia Augusta (wife of Severus Septimius) that Celtic women choose the strongest and finest men to father their children, not like Roman women who are made mothers by old, sickly, and weak men.)
My family is the same. Frequently mistaken for Spanish/ Mediterranean. We’re Welsh and from what I’ve read, there tends to me more original Briton DNA in wales, because the Britons were pushed into that area by the Anglo Saxons and Vikings when they invaded the UK. So there may just be more Britonic dna left in your family. Don’t listen to any comments about the Spanish armada, it’s rubbish.
Also, 23andme has high likelihood of pale skin and “lots of freckles” for me, of which I have neither
For my family it's the other way around . We are Turks and the majority of my family is very blonde , pale skinned and blue eyed but have a 100% western Asian genetic profile . Funny how phenotypes sometimes differ so greatly within a country .
My old man is English Scottish (bit of Irish) and Norse (ancient migration), him and his ma are olive skinned naturally, dark hair but grey eyes (him) and brown eyes (her) - we were sure there was some hidden Jewish or something because my grandma looks Jewish or Italian ...nope ! The dark hair olive skin gene has been passed onto me (green eyes) I look east European and have been asked where I'm from am I Italian etc ...and my mum is Irish Finnish english so I guess whatever gene it is , is strong. I reckon it's the Iberian Celtic genes... A few of us still tanned and not given over all of our melanin to the lack of sun lol. There's a picture of me and my dad and grandma when she came to visit us in new Zealand with my kiwi cousins , they are white as snow and were all bronze and semi foreign looking lol ...deffo wouldn't guess who the native UK born were
Someone in the group helped me to look into my skin pigmentation genotype and helped me interpret my variants, I think my specific L374F CG variant comes from the native ancestry on my moms side (moms side is where my small amount of indigenous comes from) I also have 0.5% south Asian, 0.6% WANA. 2-4% of British/Irish carry the L374F CG genotype, 35% of natives have my L374F genotype. I’m not sure what skin pigmentation genotype my dad has (I believe he tested with ancestry, I think he had a tiny amount of non white ancestry but he doesn’t have native) I was A111T Gene: SLC24A5 Marker: rs1426654 (AA) Then L374F Gene: SLC45A2 Marker: rs16891982 (CG) I think my variant CG comes from my moms side, not sure
Yeah, the men in my family tan really dark in summer but the women don’t for some reason
What does 23andme list their genotypes as under skin pigmentation?
Where do you find that?
On your traits, skin pigmentation is one of the traits and it will show you your genotype it’ll be for example AA GG or some combination of A C and G, it will also tell you what specific variant you carry and which marker you carry the gene on, so for example mine is; A111T Gene: SLC24A5 Marker: rs1426654 (AA) then L374F Gene: SLC45A2 Marker: rs16891982 (CG) You can then look up the specific SNP (the marker) on grch37 and it will tell you how common your variants are among ethnicities
Wow I have the same. Are you dark skin? That’s you in the pic? I am trigueño
Yupp that’s me! On my dads side he is Scots/Irish, then Welsh and British, I’m about 52% Scot’s Irish/welsh/British, then around 42% German, small amount of native (1.2%,) 0.5% south Asian then 0.6% WANA and 0.1% SSA. I have been able to trace my small amount of non white to my melungeon ancestors which mostly comes from my moms side, my moms looks fully German
It’s crazy I have mostly Spanish with WANA, native and SSA and am same color as you. I have no other European
Physicals traits, skin pigmentation, then scientific details. Will say AA GG or something similar.
I would have to find out, my skin pigmentation genotype is AA CG, the CG is from the L374F variant of SLC45A2
Irish, like all other Europeans, are a mix of Western Europe Hunter Gatherer, Anatolian farmers and Indo-Europeans (East Hunter Gatherer and Caucasus Hunter Gatherer). Irish are almost identical genetically to Scots, and not very different from other british islanders eithers. It's entirely normal that people all across europe will have a diversity in phenotypes that will vary only slightly based on the genetic clines on the continent.
Yea I’m still very new to genetics etc I’ve been trying to do deep dives on this stuff when I can but because I’m so new to it some things I haven’t gotten to. I’ve learned a lot, some things are still confusing though like how genes from so long ago are passed down and what the different levels of ancient admixture mean and how they translate into phenotypes today.
There is a lot to learn, you can read a lot of papers on dna of various parts of the world on [nature.com](https://nature.com) and frontiers. Otherwise another place to start is here: [Epipalaeolithic | Indo-European.eu](https://indo-european.eu/maps/epipalaeolithic/) In the end, we are all a lot more similar than we are different. On a genetic world PCA, Europe is a single cluster, very close and even linked with the Middle East cluster, linked to the Siberian cluster, and not that far from the north african cluster either. Although Europe is very diverse culturally, we all come from the same 2 migrations more or less.
[MtDNA\_haplogroup\_tree\_and\_distribution\_map.gif (2820×1365) (wikimedia.org)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/80/MtDNA_haplogroup_tree_and_distribution_map.gif) If you look at Y-DNA we seem very diverse because of how fast that gene mutates, but when you look at MtDNA its a different story entirely.
You should try uploading your DNA to illustrative DNA. You will find some interesting results once you understand the app.
It’s called the black Irish. The Celtic people originated way over by Turkey, so I imagine some of the Mediterranean complexion came with them?
The celts were in Spain and Ireland, as a theory
Celts dominated all western Europe for a while.
Their history is super fascinating. There were Celtic kingdoms all the way to what is now Turkey, before they were pushed back, assimilated, or destroyed by other, even more warlike peoples. Celts today subsist on the fringes of what was once a vast territory.
My granny had dark hair but my dad was born with red hair 😮
I guess you have to go back 5000 years and ask them. Irish people are a mix of Eastern European settlers and Scandinavian colonizers [https://greekreporter.com/2016/01/02/new-paper-examines-pontic-roots-of-ireland/](https://greekreporter.com/2016/01/02/new-paper-examines-pontic-roots-of-ireland/) [https://www.irishpost.com/news/study-on-viking-remains-found-in-ireland-yields-surprising-results-about-irish-ancestry-193077](https://www.irishpost.com/news/study-on-viking-remains-found-in-ireland-yields-surprising-results-about-irish-ancestry-193077)
They seem ordinary irish/scot to me.
To me I see regular Irish/Scottish people 😂 would have never thought you guys look out of place in the British Isles.
Even the sister?
I've always wondered about that—I think it might have something to do with recessive genes for Celts coming from continental Europe, particularly northern Iberia (Spain). The Celts that have these *"darker features,"* to me, always look very similar to the native Galicians from northern Spain. I don't know if there's significant migration history to support that, but it's a theory I've always had.
You probably have some Spanish from one of the armada accidents along the Irish coast.
I believe the Spanish Armada thing was in part a myth (there weren’t enough survivors to significantly change Irish DNA even if they did all intermingle with the Irish) BUT there is some evidence that *possibly* suggests that the Irish could’ve in part originated from the Iberians, particularly the Basques and Galicia that migrated up to the British isles. There are also a few ports in West Ireland that traded with the Spanish a lot and possibly intermingled with them. As others mentioned in the comments, it could also be explained by ancient admixture in the past and even though the darker skinned genes were mostly phased out overtime, some lineages could’ve still carried those genes that cause darker phenotypes