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other, we are genetically rooted in a Celtic past. The Irish, the Welsh and the Scots know this, but
the English sometimes think otherwise. But, just a little way beneath the surface, the strands of
ancestry weave us all together as the children of a common past.
This genetic history has been read mainly from the surviving genes passed on by generations of
ancestors who lived through the events described in Blood of the Isles and whose descendants
carry them today. It is a new history, reconstructed from thousands of fragments from the past. The
general conclusions in this and other chapters have been distilled from the DNA of hundreds of
people from each region of the Isles. But to the people concerned, and to everyone else in the Isles,
it is our own genetic ancestry that is the most important. It is the thread that goes back to our own
deep roots that means the most. The proportions of one clan or another are vital and the detailed
genetic comparisons are essential for arriving at any sort of general conclusion, but it is our own
ancestry that understandably, and quite rightly, holds the most interest. Now that we know what the
overall patterns mean and now that we can identify with confidence surviving DNA with the
different ancestral signatures, it is open to anyone to find their place in this amazing story. For this
is not the history told by fading manuscripts in dimly lit libraries, or by rusting weapons in glass
cases. It is a living history, told by the real survivors of the times: the DNA that still lives within
our bodies. This really is the history of the people, by the people.