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English people descend from Germanic peoples (including the Anglo-Saxons and the Norse) combined with Celtic Britons and Norman French (who themselves were partly Germanic). Their partial Scandinavian ancestry, most prominent in northeastern regions of England, is related to both Danes and Norwegians. Genetic evidence decisively shows that the English did in fact have many ancestors from the Angles, Saxons, Jutes, and Frisians, so that their influence was more than merely linguistic, contrary to Susan Oosthuizen's denial of these ancestors in her 2019 book The Emergence of the English.
| MitoTree haplogroup | Accession number | Geographic origin |
|---|---|---|
| H1de1 | PZ272645 | Scole, Norfolk, England |
| H2a2a1i2 | PZ319847 | Colchester, Essex, England |
| H3aq4 | PZ526798 | Burgh on Bain, Lincolnshire, England |
| H7 | PP838813 | Kessingland, Suffolk, England |
| H7a1b4 | PZ543490 | Lanercost, Cumbria, England |
| H11a4c | PZ532770 | Manchester, England |
| H13a2b2a4a | PZ343852 | Sedgley, Staffordshire, England |
| J1c3v | PV692096 | London, England |
| K1a1b1f1g | PZ234921 | England |
| K1a9j | PX070374 | Ickleford, Hertfordshire, England |
| T2aq2 | PZ459838 | North Tawton, Devon, England |
| U3a1a1a1 | PZ168321 | Winlaton, County Durham, England |
| U4b1b1a4 | PZ364722 | Alphington, Devon, England |
| W5a1a1b1 | PZ459839 | Hexham, Northumberland, England |
| W5a2a2 | PZ444038 | Wilbarston, Northamptonshire, England |
Joscha Gretzinger, Duncan Sayer, et al. "The Anglo-Saxon migration and the formation of the early English gene pool." Nature 610 (September 21, 2022): pages 112-119.
Modern-day English people are autosomally compared to pre-modern people from England and elsewhere. About 76 percent of English ancestry comes from continental Europe (mainly Friesland, northern Germany, Denmark, and southern Sweden). The largest ancestral component in the English is Anglo-Saxon but there are also Celtic Briton and Frankish components. Some ancestral differences were detected between English people from different regions (east versus west, north).
Michael E. Weale, Deborah A. Weiss, Rolf F. Jager, Neil Bradman, and Mark G. Thomas. "Y Chromosome Evidence for Anglo-Saxon Mass Migration." Molecular Biology and Evolution 19:7 (2002): pages 1008-1021.
English men were compared to Welsh, Norwegian, and Frisian men. The English were found to have some Germanic ancestry, as we would expect.
Stephan Schiffels, Wolfgang Haak, et al. "Iron Age and Anglo-Saxon genomes from East England reveal British migration history." Nature Communications 7 (January 19, 2016): article number 10408.
English people were autosomally compared with 10 ancient and early-medieval samples from three sites in eastern England. These scientists "estimate that the modern-day East English population derives on average 38% of its ancestry from Anglo-Saxon migrants."