Shetlanders with "dark hair and swarthy skin"?!

[Skoosh]

The Scots have been settling in Shetland long before it became part of Scotland & about half the surnames are Scots, the Norse population used a patronymic until these became fixed in the late 18th century as Nicolson, Anderson etc' & what became of the Pictish inhabitants after the Norse settlement nobody knows. More Norse words are apparently used in Lewis Gaelic today than in Shetland Scots so no displacement of population there where Gaelic came to dominate, just as Scots replaced Norse in the Northern Isles. There is also the effect on Shetland of the Dutch fishing fleet & Hansa merchants who dominated the islands trade & economy for generations.

An interesting subject, I had a Shetland gt grannie, a Tulloch & Nicolson combo so Scots/Norse!

Skoosh.

[Viktoria]

@ Viktoria, anent Tobermory to Shetland distance, I wouldn't like to run it for the toilet! 

Skoosh.
f

They had got so far North though Skoosh ,albeit blown off course from presumably wherever The Armada and Drake`s fleet engaged.
They could have sailed to Shetland  and the sea is one big toilet!
I don`t know when the rumour of a Spanish galleon laden with treasure started, but   I like to think if it was after Glencoe it was a super practical joke played  on the Duke of Argyll- a hated Campbell. 
                           Viktoria.

[Skoosh]

@ Viktoria, the Mull galleon was blown up by the MacLean's I believe. James VI sent shipwrecked sailors back to Spain, in Ireland they were murdered. There is a Spanish bronze cannon salvaged from the wreck at the entrance to Inveraray Castle.

Bests, as ever!
Skoosh.

[Chris Anderson]

Interesting stuff but I'm not sure I believe it, let me explain why

A spaniard breeding with a native scot and hundreds of years later his features are still around? Even when a black african mixes with a white, in just a few generations the "blackness" is almost completely gone. They might have a little puffy hair but in general the later generations just look white. Now, in my case, my family has had the swarthy look for hundreds of years. I think this implies that BOTH sets parents carry the DNA. I think it's that good old fashioned Britannia DNA (my theory) Before the celts, before the saxons etc and for this reason the swarthy look has never been "bred out".

[Erato]

Some distribution maps for hair and eye color in Europe.  [I myself have dark hair and dark eyes].

https://unsafeharbour.wordpress.com/2012/02/19/distribution-of-light-hair-and-eyes-in-europe/

[Malcolm33]

The Scott line of my ancestors hailed from Shetland and I have traced them back as far as into the seventeenth century. According to family legend, some of them had "dark hair and swarthy skin." I don't suppose anyone has ever heard of this occurrence in Shetland? Some of the family were not Scottish, but came from somewhere else, after their ship, which was emigrating to America, was wrecked - supposedly at Vaila Sound. This would seem to indicate the Bachelor of Leith, but according to all the records, everyone in our family tree was born in Shetland and certainly all have Shetland names (this ship was sailing from Caithnes and Sutherland in 1774). Also, I was wondering if the ancestors with dark hair and swarthy skin could have been descended from sailors of the Spanish Armada??

The member of the family who is said to have been shipwrecked has been potentially identified as Lilias Bain, born in 1760 and married to Peter Peterson, but again this has still to be independently verified...

     The Spanish didn't have much influence on the British Isles at all - it has been found.  Much more likely to be Egyptian.    Ancient Egyptians were coming to Britain from at least the Bronze age - we know from Egyptian ships in the Humber, 'Iberian' i.e. Mediterranean skeletal remains with dolichocephalous skulls, Egyptian jewellery, and mainly ydna.    The prominent ydna in all of Britain is R1b1a2 and this is the same ydna found in the 18th Dynasty mummies of David and Solomon.   There are two Irish legends which match Egyptian names - exact names of Kings as given in cartouches, but in Irish legend and the other is that Ireland was once conquered by a people known as Tuath (Egyptian Duat) Dedanaan (Egyptian Tatanen)  names which have exactly the same meaning.   There is also the legend of the Princess Scota and that would have to be the God Name Skhety - Goddess of the Marshes and common people.
      Now it looks like it was the Brits who planned the Pyramids - from what has been found in the Thornborough Henges which are like the Giza Pyramids very accurate positioning to represent Orion's Belt.    Thing is the Thornborough Henges are thousands of years older and one pit has been radio-carbon dated back 35,000 years.
      So you will I reckon be a product of Ancient Egypt.

[sallyyorks]

Another film star springs to mind is the late Gregory Peck who mentioned that his colourings came from the "Black Irish" side of his father's Irish ancestors.

All the way from 'dark and swarthy' East Anglia, apparently.

[Viktoria]

Chris, I read somewhere though that the genes which result in the classic features of various races can" lie dormant" for want of a better  description, and can appear in later generations.
If true , can you imagine the puzzlement of people in earlier times who would not understand
why a baby seemed to be of a different race. Especially if they had no knowledge of there being a different race in an earlier generation. Try explaining that,what stigma would attach to it when people were so prejudiced. How sad.
As usual I am willing to be corrected.Viktoria.

[heywood]

Another film star springs to mind is the late Gregory Peck who mentioned that his colourings came from the "Black Irish" side of his father's Irish ancestors.

All the way from 'dark and swarthy' East Anglia, apparently.

I think Adam is correct. He had Kerry roots