The Blood of the Isles by Bryan Sykes and OUR Family DNA

Discussion post about the DNA results from "The Blood of the Isles" aka "Saxons, Vikings, and Celts". From the best-selling author of The Seven Daughters of Eve, an illuminating guide to the genetic history of the British Isles. One of the world's leading geneticists, Bryan Sykes has helped thousands find their ancestry in the British Isles. Saxons, Vikings, and Celts, which resulted from a systematic ten-year DNA survey of more than 10,000 volunteers, traces the true genetic makeup of the British Isles and its descendants, taking readers from the Pontnewydd cave in North Wales to the resting place of "The Red Lady" of Paviland and the tomb of King Arthur.

Our family Y-DNA results matched 100% with some of these 10,000 volunteers, specifically from those who were residing at the time in the areas of Argyll, Strathclyde, Tayside, Fife, the Hebrides (islands off the coast), and the Border region.

Argyll, archaically Argyle (Earra-Ghàidheal in modern Gaelic), is a region of western Scotland corresponding with most of the part of ancient Dal Riata that was located on the island of Great Britain, and in a historical context can be used to mean the entire western seaboard between the Mull of Kintyre and Cape Wrath. In 1975, counties in Scotland were abolished (from Wikipedia).

The Hebrides contain the largest concentration of Scottish Gaelic speakers in Scotland. They comprise a widespread and diverse aarchipelago off the west coast of Scotland. There are two main groups, the Inner and Outer Hebrides. These islands have a long history of occupation dating back to the Mesolithic and the culture of the residents has been affected by the successive influences of Celtic, Norse and English speaking peoples, which is reflected in the names given to the islands (from Wikipedia).

Strathclyde is on the west coast of Scotland and stretches from the Highlands in the north to the Southern Uplands in the south. The regional administrative capital as well as the largest city was Glasgow.

All of these areas seem to correspond with the information collected via Family Tree DNA (FTDNA) matching Y-DNA results. It also appears to match with many of those that carried our surname recorded in early times (pre 1700's).

Within the Gowen Research Foundation, there is belief that the surname was associated with the JAMES BURNS family. The evidence above would certainly place our Y-DNA in a geographic region (although large) with that family, but it doesn't rule out the possibility.

However, all of this information should be taken lightly and only as a way of hopefully providing greater clarity within the context of a hypothesis.