Foreign Founders: Genetic Genealogy of the Medieval Piast Dynasty and Its Links to Other European Royal Houses Jamie L April 09, 2026 – 7 min read Share this post Papers Ancient DNA and Dynastic Rule among Iron Age Scythian Elites The Steppe World of the Scythian Age Across Eurasia's vast grasslands in the first millennium BC, a remarkable world stretched from the Altai Mountains to the Black Sea. Horse-riding communities moved with herds across this immense belt of steppe, yet it was no empty wilderness. It was crowded By Sara V • 5 min read Papers 6,000 Years of Genomic History in the Middle Yellow River The first farmers of the middle Yellow River and the people of Xiaowu More than six thousand years ago, in the heartland of the Yangshao world along the middle Yellow River, some of the earliest farming communities in northern China took root. One key site was Xiaowu in western Henan, By Jamie L • 3 min read Papers Sakhtysh: Forest Hunter-Gatherers and Europe’s Deep Genetic Past The Forest World of Sakhtysh In the deep woodland and wetland country near the Upper Volga, Sakhtysh opens a window onto a prehistoric landscape that was anything but empty. Rivers wound through the land like roads. Lakes and bogs offered fish, birds, and reeds. Forest tracks linked camps, hearths, and By Sven • 4 min read Haplogroups and Noble Lines Clan Mac Murchada Clan Mac Murchada Background Clan Mac Murchada was a Gaelic Irish dynastic family of Leinster, rooted in the old kingship traditions of eastern Ireland and strongly associated with the political world of medieval Gaelic lordship. Their remembered lineage belongs to that recognisable Irish pattern in which power was carried not By Jamie L • 3 min read Haplogroups and Noble Lines Clan Weir Clan Weir Lowland roots, heraldic memory, and haplogroup links Clan Weir belongs to that very Scottish, and very Lowland, pattern in which a family becomes important not because it ruled a vast Highland territory, but because it endured. The Weirs were a surname family rooted especially in the Lowlands, with By Caterina • 3 min read Haplogroups and Noble Lines Clan Riddell Clan Riddell Clan Riddell was one of the old landed families of the Scottish Borders, rooted above all in Roxburghshire and in the lands that gave the family its name. This is very much a Border story: not a Highland-style clan gathered around a chief in glens and mountain country, By Sara V • 3 min read Haplogroups and Noble Lines Clan Pringle Clan Pringle Background Clan Pringle was a Scottish Border family rooted in the Tweed valley of southern Scotland, remembered not as a great Highland clan with vast mountain territories, but as a Lowland and Border kindred shaped by land, service, heraldry, and long local memory. Their primary family haplogroup is By Jamie L • 3 min read Haplogroups and Noble Lines Clan Preston Clan Preston Clan Preston was a Scottish and English family tradition rooted in land, locality, and service, with a name that is unmistakably place-based in character. In Britain, Preston families emerged from the world of estates, settlement, and county standing, where a surname was often a map reference as much By Sara V • 2 min read Haplogroups and Noble Lines Clan Paden Clan Paden Background Clan Paden belongs to that broad and deeply familiar Scottish and Irish world in which a family name is less about princes and palaces and more about continuity, locality, and memory. The name sits within the old surname traditions of the British Isles, where identity was carried By Sven • 3 min read
Papers Ancient DNA and Dynastic Rule among Iron Age Scythian Elites The Steppe World of the Scythian Age Across Eurasia's vast grasslands in the first millennium BC, a remarkable world stretched from the Altai Mountains to the Black Sea. Horse-riding communities moved with herds across this immense belt of steppe, yet it was no empty wilderness. It was crowded By Sara V • 5 min read
Papers 6,000 Years of Genomic History in the Middle Yellow River The first farmers of the middle Yellow River and the people of Xiaowu More than six thousand years ago, in the heartland of the Yangshao world along the middle Yellow River, some of the earliest farming communities in northern China took root. One key site was Xiaowu in western Henan, By Jamie L • 3 min read
Papers Sakhtysh: Forest Hunter-Gatherers and Europe’s Deep Genetic Past The Forest World of Sakhtysh In the deep woodland and wetland country near the Upper Volga, Sakhtysh opens a window onto a prehistoric landscape that was anything but empty. Rivers wound through the land like roads. Lakes and bogs offered fish, birds, and reeds. Forest tracks linked camps, hearths, and By Sven • 4 min read
Haplogroups and Noble Lines Clan Mac Murchada Clan Mac Murchada Background Clan Mac Murchada was a Gaelic Irish dynastic family of Leinster, rooted in the old kingship traditions of eastern Ireland and strongly associated with the political world of medieval Gaelic lordship. Their remembered lineage belongs to that recognisable Irish pattern in which power was carried not By Jamie L • 3 min read
Haplogroups and Noble Lines Clan Weir Clan Weir Lowland roots, heraldic memory, and haplogroup links Clan Weir belongs to that very Scottish, and very Lowland, pattern in which a family becomes important not because it ruled a vast Highland territory, but because it endured. The Weirs were a surname family rooted especially in the Lowlands, with By Caterina • 3 min read
Haplogroups and Noble Lines Clan Riddell Clan Riddell Clan Riddell was one of the old landed families of the Scottish Borders, rooted above all in Roxburghshire and in the lands that gave the family its name. This is very much a Border story: not a Highland-style clan gathered around a chief in glens and mountain country, By Sara V • 3 min read
Haplogroups and Noble Lines Clan Pringle Clan Pringle Background Clan Pringle was a Scottish Border family rooted in the Tweed valley of southern Scotland, remembered not as a great Highland clan with vast mountain territories, but as a Lowland and Border kindred shaped by land, service, heraldry, and long local memory. Their primary family haplogroup is By Jamie L • 3 min read
Haplogroups and Noble Lines Clan Preston Clan Preston Clan Preston was a Scottish and English family tradition rooted in land, locality, and service, with a name that is unmistakably place-based in character. In Britain, Preston families emerged from the world of estates, settlement, and county standing, where a surname was often a map reference as much By Sara V • 2 min read
Haplogroups and Noble Lines Clan Paden Clan Paden Background Clan Paden belongs to that broad and deeply familiar Scottish and Irish world in which a family name is less about princes and palaces and more about continuity, locality, and memory. The name sits within the old surname traditions of the British Isles, where identity was carried By Sven • 3 min read
