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// On :Jumat, 28 November 2014
The Iceland family tree
So, it’s
official. Everyone in Iceland is related. Every member of the 300,000
population derives from the same family tree, according to genealogy website islendingabok.is.
“I am not related to my boyfriend,”
I stubbornly insisted the other day, having carefully made sure we weren't
before we started dating. I was having a debate with my brother about his
theory that all Icelanders were related to each other. He offered to prove it
to me.
The next day there was an email from
him waiting in my inbox. I opened it and discovered a list of names and dates
of birth – a family tree. I recognized some of the names and soon realized that
this was a list of my ancestors and my boyfriend’s ancestors, all the way back
to the 18th century.
Apparently we share a
great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandmother, whose name was Gudrún
Einarsdóttir. She was born in 1742 and died in 1784. I derive from her son,
Einar (born 1762), and my boyfriend from her daughter, Hallfrídur (born 1770).
My brother found this information on
the website islendingabok.is, which hosts the online registry Íslendingabók
(“The Book of Icelanders”). In it one can find information about the families
of about 720,000 individuals who were born in Iceland at some point in time.
Anyone who is registered in the database has free access to it. I had heard
about this phenomenon, but never actually browsed through it.
Íslendingabók is the product of a cooperation between Icelandic company
deCODE Genetics and Fridrik Skúlason, who first began registering genealogy
information in 1988 into a program called Espólín. In 1997 Skúlason and deCODE began cooperating on registrations for genealogy
research and Íslendigabók was born.
Íslendingabók claims to be the only genealogy database in the world that
covers a whole nation. More than 95 percent of all Icelanders born since 1703,
when the first national census was taken, are registered into the database and
half of all Icelanders who have lived on the island from the settlement in 874
and until 1703.
The registrations in Íslendingabók
are based on a whole range of sources, such as censuses, church books, the
national registry, ancient scripts, annals, obituaries etc. These kinds of
documents were more accurate and better preserved than comparable documents in
other countries, according to islendingabok.is, probably because
Icelanders have always been interested in genealogy.
Genealogy can in fact be considered
a national sport in Iceland. When people introduce their partners to the
elderly members of their family for the first time, they usually ask: “Hverra
manna er hann (eða hún)?” which translates to: “Who are his (or her) people?”
In the Icelandic sagas each character is introduced by a long listing of his or
her ancestors.
A lot of people are hobby
genealogists in Iceland, including my father. He has discovered that his
great-great-great grandfather was a French seaman who sailed to Iceland from
Belgium, named Louis Henry Joseph Vanerouis, and was washed ashore an Icelandic
beach in the early 19th century. He was rescued by Valgerdur Jónsdóttir, my
father’s great-great-great grandmother.
They have many descendants,
including the most famous captain of the Westmann Islands, Binni í Gröf,
who was featured in an article on icelandreview.com last week. “Why
didn’t you explain to your readers that he was your relative?” My father asked
after reading my article. Well… “I didn’t consider it appropriate to include
that information in a news item,” I said, but, now you know.
I typed the name of Binni í Gröf
into Íslendingabók to confirm my relations to him. I quickly became
fascinated by this online genealogy database and decided to try and disprove my
brother’s theory. I typed in the names of all my friends, their mates, my
colleagues and just random people I could think of, only to discover that we
all had common ancestors somewhere along the line.
I am related to Iceland’s most
famous singer, Björk;
we share ancestors who were born in the early 19th century. I and the
president, Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson, both derive from a couple born in the early 18th century.
I am also related to Icelandic painter Jóhannes Kjarval, handballer Gudjón Valur Sigurðsson and to the modern “witch” Adalbjörg Thorsteinsdóttir, who I interviewed last week.
I am also related the hero Grettir “the strong” Ásmundarson
from the Icelandic saga Grettissaga, who, funnily enough, may have been
a fictional character. Snorri Sturluson, who probably wrote most of the sagas
in the 12th and 13th century is my ancestor, as is the first settler in
Iceland, Ingólfur Arnarsson, who moved to the island from Norway in 874.
Now, one can obviously debate about
the accuracy of the database’s information, at least about people who were born
before 1703, before the names of Icelanders and their relatives were registered
in the first national census. But none the less, browsing through Íslendingabók
is a fascinating experience.
Genealogists in Iceland say all
Icelanders are descendants of the bishop Jón Arason and according to islendingabok.is,
I certainly am. Ararson (born 1484) was executed in 1550 for refusing to
progress Lutheranism in Iceland.
Arason and his partner, Helga
Sigurdardóttir, had at least nine children who were all quite fertile, while
many of the other members of the then 65,000 population weren’t. So experts
argue all Icelanders alive today probably derive from the good bishop. On the
website of the University in Iceland this argument is supported with a mathematical formula,
which is far too complicated for me to explain to you (numbers have never been
my strong suit).
In light of the fact that all
Icelanders share the same family tree, I imagine we could do with more people from
the outside to stir up the gene pool. So why are people so negative towards the
increasing immigration, I wonder.
