On interpreting sagas as historical sources

There are several findings of recent both in archaeology and historical research that point to the sagas as being useful as a source. OF course not more valid than the Frankish annals or any other source from the time due to various reasons to write the stories down, but there are merid to it and some have in fact been confirmed by archaeology.

We do use them also in archaeology when we interpret the archaeological findings. This often makes it possible to understand what has been found. Some even partly confirm the stories written down.

Here an example
https://www.academia.edu/36773921/Viking_art_Snorri_Sturluson_and_s...

Margaret Cormack, college of Charleston, South Carolina, USA, is a New brush on the saga carpet.

Several has studied this topic for years.

Is it something New in this study ?

Arnfred, the article is from 2007, so it's guaranteed that nothing newer than 12 years old is in it. I found it a good read.

@Arnfred No there is nothing new in her findings. Even today over here in Iceland we are working through the sources and based on the "hints" or "remnants" in the Sagas through recent archaeological research, we are on the brink of establishing that Iceland was probably somewhat inhabited long before the actual Historical settlement was established here.

A good example of those "hints" in the Sagas is in Laxdaela Saga where Ketill Flatnose states in Chapter 2: "But Ketill said, "Into that fishing place I shall never come in my old age."". https://sagadb.org/laxdaela_saga.en

What is established is that Iceland was known to many long before it was formally settled.

One last example from Laxdaela is the reference to other sources is what is written at the end of Chapter 19 in Laxdaela Saga. Where the feud between the two families of Hrut and his former in-laws and other members of the community his former wife was from and is mentioned in the book "Brennu-Njáls-Saga". At the end of Chapter 19 in Laxdaela is written: ...."Unn left him, and thence sprang the quarrels between the men of Salmon-river-Dale and the men of Fleetlithe".

A niece of Hrutur, Hallgerdur, married over there and was never accepted in that community and her story is told in the story Brennu-Njal Saga
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nj%C3%A1ls_saga

My advice is to treat these ancient sources with an open mind, because there is always emerging new methods and reliable information to assess in a scientific and academic way the truthfulness of these sources.

That's a fantastic piece. Thank you.

I have been able to use ancient matches from MTA and GEDcom to prove several persons in my tree, including the Calverts of Maryland. Most recently, I found that I have DNA matches to Vikings in Denmark, Sweden and Iceland. This further supports my tree, which in many lines, goes back to Rollo the "Viking turned Norman". I follow the sagas as they definitely have aided me in my research by providing direction and a timeframe. The same is true regarding the Merovingian Kings in my tree, having a DNA match with an entire family of Merovingian nobles. This is an amazing adventure in history and self discovery.

Joni, which ancient burial DNA did you have matches with?
Most matches are with the descendants of Vikings, but it's been demonstrated that everyone in Europe is likely to be descended from every single person who lived in Viking times and had descendants - so we're all mixed up.

New sciences and methods used in archeology have proved that the mounds at Borre in Vestfold, Norway, are much older than what Snorre wrote and that those buried in them did not belong to Ynglingeætta. So Snorre is proven wrong about his statement about who were buried at the Borre mounds.

For those of you interested in this and are able to read norwegian: https://www.geni.com/document/Scandinavian-sagas/18?doc_id=60000000...

Harald and Anette, thanks for posting those great educational links above. Appreciate the info you share. this is a good discussion.

Harald Tveit Alvestrand,
Are you familiar with MyTrueAncestry? They have access to an enormous database of ancient genomes from archealogical specimens obtained from "recently" discovered inhumations. Many of these are from the Viking era finds in Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Iceland and colonial North America. The program compares one's genome to the ancient samples. Fortunately, I have many Deep Dive matches, meaning actual shared DNA in cMs and SNPs with the Viking, Neolithic Scotland, Orkney, Ireland, Wales, England and Merovingian samples.
These are my Viking Age samples by call # that you can use to check them out online

ORE-A1 Gaelic Viking Settler 935 AD
SSG-A2 Gaelic Viking Settler 935 AD
GRS-A1 Saxon Settler Viking Iceland 935 AD
KNS-A1 Viking Norse Iceland 935 AD
HSJ-A1B Norwegian Viking Iceland 950 AD
VDP-A7 Viking Gaelic Boat Burial 925 AD
Birka Shield Maiden (not a deep dive, but a match)
Sigtuna Sweden
643 Viking Denmark Revshale 1100 AD
6300 Post Viking Denmark 1200 AD
KOV-A2 Late Medieval Icelandic Murderer 1678 AD
I2097 St. Mary's Coffin and Phillip Calvert's Coffin 1683AD

Joni, I'm in My True Ancestry, and also match some of those on your list. It is an interesting site.

Just remember that the yDNA and mtDNA isn't usable to prove a relationship to a distant ancestor unless the genealogy also 100% correct. So Joni, to prove that you are a decendant of all those you're mentioning, you need to have an absolutely correct genealogical relationship, provable link by link. And so far back in time it is only yDNA and mtDNA that works. Autosomal DNA will not do, so you need a pure male or a pure female line back to each person. The cMs are uninteresting because they are only applicable in autosomal DNA, which only are interesting in the nearest 5-6 generations, and not applicable to yDNA and mtDNA at all.

Remi Trygve Pedersen,
Hello from Vermont!
Regarding your cautionary post:
My tree is connected to the Geni World tree. I have many gateway ancestors that I have connected to it. I have been researching for about 20 or so years now and feel confident that the curators, like yourself, will keep our trees on the up and up. I am very confident in it's accuracy, but am ever vigilant to errors.
Are you familiar with the MyTrueAncestry site?
It is based on autosomal matches. If you would like, I can send you the information so
you can read about how it works. yDNA and mtDNA are also given for each sample where it is available. Considering the shear number of Viking era individuals in Iceland that I share DNA with from around 935AD, I feel safe in saying that I descend from them. The Philip Calvert and his infant son specimens are especially interesting because they are actually in my family tree as my 9C6xR and I match them both on MTA. I can compare the samples with my daughters DNA and the results are what you would expect, approx. 1/2 the matches shared between us.
I think we are just learning about how to use our DNA to help us navigate our lineage. I am also on Gedmatch, where you can compare your DNA with ancient genomes as well. I have 10's of thousands of DNA cousins in a combination of different ancestry sites, Ancestry, 23 and Me, Geni, Gedmatch, FamilySearch, FamilyTree Wiki, and MyHeritage. I use the information regarding these matches by gathering and compiling information regarding matches and triangulating the matches to find the MRCA. I've been doing it for as long as the technology has been available to me. I really want to share the info. with others. The unfortunate thing is that MTA is really pricey.
I was skeptical at first as MTA is expensive and I couldn't figure out how they measured relationship in cMs and SNPs with such ancient ancestors. I highly encourage you to check it out.
Thanks for the info. Genetics is in its infancy. I can't imagine how useful it will become as we learn how to interpret the story it is telling us.