The Viking Y-DNA Project is a multi-haplogroup project that was founded in Stockholm in December 2004. Since then the project has expanded its scope to include anyone who reasonably believes to have European Viking or Invader ancestry or wants to find the answer to that question.

Please feel free to contact the Project Administrators!

Haplogroups reasonably thought to have participated in the Viking and Invader migration are F, G, I1, I2, N, Q, R1a and R1b.



WHO IS A ”VIKING”?

There are at least half a dozen popular theories trying to explain the meaning of the word ”Viking”.

A Viking is a man that lures with his ship in bays and waterways. From Old Norse “vik” (=bay).

A Viking is a man that lives in a military camp. From Anglo-Saxon “wic” (=camp).

A Viking is a man that “fights”. From Old Norse “vig” (=fight).

A Viking is a man that hunt seals. From Old Norse “wikan” (=seal).

A Viking is a man that lives in a town. From Latin “vicus” (=city, fortified town).

The most likely explanation is however that “a Viking is man that leaves his homeland”. From Gothic “vikjan” (=to defect, to stray).

In the Viking Age, most landed men in Scandinavia had many wives. Only the eldest sons could however inherit the lands, and thus the younger sons had to wander off and go Viking to find some land and a wife. These groups of desperate men, joined together with escaped criminals and exiled persons, became the terror of Europe for three centuries. After the introduction of Christianity around 1000 AD, a monogamous and less warlike lifestyle prevailed in Scandinavia and North and Baltic Seas. Viking sites have been located in Scotland, England, Ireland, Iceland, Newfoundland, France, Germany, Denmark, Poland, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Russia and Ukraine.