About the Author 
Bruce Henderson is a computer engineer living in Southern California. With the help of his cousins he is researching the history of the Henderson family of southern Caithness.
You can contact him at bruce@sigalarm.com |
The heather covered hills of Kildonan
Part of our research into family history has been to use DNA to look beyond where the stories stop and into the deeper ancestry of the Hendersons of Caithness. The human Y chromosome is passed unaltered from father to son, with a few mutations creeping in ever several generations or so. An emerging field of research has been to connect families based on similarities in their Y chromosomes – if the DNA matches closely, they are related.
For my Henderson family, this has presented a historical puzzle. The history of Caithness describes the sundering of the Gunn clan following the battle of St. Tears, and how Henry Gunn and his family decided to part ways with their kin and took the surname Henderson. If history is correct, my DNA should match the DNA of someone in the Gunn family. However, that has not been the case, even when we were able to test the DNA of a Gunn with confirmed Ramscraigs heritage.
Several weeks ago, as a result of this web site, a fellow in Canada by the name of Henderson contacted me via email. A very pleasant gentleman, we carried on an good conversation over email, and eventually it came to light that his family emigrated to Canada, living in Nova Scotia and Manitoba. To me, this was an immediate attention grabber. Many displaced families from Caithness and Sutherland had joined the Selkirk settlement in Manitoba and the Red River valley.
His roots to Scotland included an ancestor from Kildonan who lived in Helmsdale before shipping over to Canada. This is the same path that many Hendersons and Gunns had taken during the period of the clearances, and his family line would hold many possible points of history.
Fortunately, he had his DNA tested some time ago, though it was not even remotely close to mine. Instead, an interesting thing arose. The Gunn who helped us out so much by offering his DNA for testing was a very close match, close enough in fact that the most recent common ancestor was likely in the 500-700 year time frame.
At long last, here was DNA science proving the connection between the Gunns and the Hendersons. This man, whose family was forced from Kildonan (the last stronghold of the Gunn clan), carried with him the Gunn DNA fingerprint. He had realized this himself some time ago, but had met with rejection and confusion from the Gunn clan association. For many of Clan Henderson USA, his genetics are a breakthrough in history. Many members of their genetics project have lost their connection to Scotland through the decay of time. But with this new DNA sample, many of these are clearly Kildonan Gunn Hendersons who arrived in the colonies either seeking a better life, or after being cleared from the Strath of Kildonan.
For my genetic line, the work to solve the puzzle of a I1d-Norse ancestory goes on.
No discussion of Henderson pre-history would be complete without mention of DNA testing of Henderson Y chromosomes, and what it tells us about history. In 2009, a detailed genetic sequence of a Henderson Y chromosome was performed (67 markers) and it gave the first indications of a Norse, rather than Scottish deep ancestry. The DNA sequence showed that the Y chromosome has a very strong Norse origin, with likely origin in Norway, Sweeden or Iceland. It falls into the genetic designation of “I1d”, also known as I1 “Ultra Norse”. This norse heritage, and the unusual nature of the chromosome sequence (even within the I1d databases) means that finding a similar expression will strongly imply a shared heritage.
By the historical account of the genesis of the Hendersons of Caithness, this Y chromosome should be very close to the Gunn Y chromosome, and this is where the mysteries start.
The Gunns have been working on a catalog of their Y DNA for some time. In fact they have a robust variety of tests results. Nearly every Gunn man tested comes back with a DNA sequence that falls into two very similar groups. These DNA sequences show broad european origin, or the “R1b” designator (as opposed to Henderson I1). Across northern Europe as a whole, the “R” genes account for 80% of the population, and the “I” genes account for 18%. Of the 3 dozen or so Gunns tested, there is a very predictable pattern, none of which are even close to the Henderson I1d.
The Gunns that had been tested were mostly families that had been in the USA for several generations, and had cloudy concepts of their connection to Caithness. This called into doubt (in the researcher’s mind anyhow) how much stock to put in their DNAs relevance. As luck would have it, we found and befriended a fellow (David Gunn) who has not only a direct and recorded link to Caithness, his family lived in the Ramscraigs area. He kindly agreed to be tested, and after a few weeks of waiting, the results came in with a strong R1b type, aligned with the main European male line.
That means the results show no Y chromosome similarity between him and the Henderson DNA tested. In fact, he is a strong match for the main body of the Gunn male line, which is likely to re-construct the lines of a few of the Gunn families cleared from the Strath of Kildonan, which will be significant progress in the Gunn project.
What does that mean for Henderson history? There are several options, but suffice to say, none of us will likely ever see the answer to this, unless DNA testing for genealogical purposes becomes more common. Some theories are below:
1: Family Plan – History as cited may be correct but incomplete. When Henry Gunn left his family to form the Hendersons, he likely took his sons and daughters with him. This means that it is possible that his daughter’s families also took the name Henderson, thus giving us a surname that is not genetically connected to the Gunn line.
2: Friends Plan – When Henry formed his new family, some of the retainers of the Gunn family went with him, and took the Henderson name. This would mean there were multiple male blood lines at the formation of the Henderson of that area.
3: 6th House: There are 5 documented cases of the emergence of the surname “Henderson” across Scotland when last names came into fashion in the middle ages. It is possible that our ancestors came to use this name on their own because of some progenitor named Henry.
4: The Lost Line: This is the biggest wild card in the deck. As history would have it, the chief’s line in the Gunn family died out, to such an extent that the Gunns did not have a chief until one was appointed (for some reason) in the last 100 years. It is theoretically possible that the Hendersons of Berriedale and Dunbeath do carry Henry Gunn’s Y chromosome, which is the same as George the Crowner of Caithness. The Gunn progenitors were referred to in history as the “Ultimate Vikings” and were from the same region that our “I1d – Ultra Norse” is found.
As DNA Genealogy is still an emerging field, more test results will help us (eventually) unravel this mystery.
One of the tools the team has employed to look into the past is DNA profiling and typing through the folks at Family Tree DNA, starting with a 67 marker test of my Y chromosome. Unlike most DNA which is a mix of the mother’s and father’s genes, the Y chromosome happens to get passed pretty much verbatim with a mutation every few thousand years. As such it gives us a good idea of where the Henderson name came from as it was passed from father to son.
There is a notion of something they call a Haplogroup, which is a way of categorizing people’s ancestry by the DNA. Most of Europe falls into types called R and R1. In fact Somerled who was the progenitor of the MacDonald clan was type R1a, which was done by testing his direct male ancestors, as they have an exact copy of his Y chromosome.
When we run the Henderson Y chromosome through the same test we get the broad Haplogroup I1. This points to a fairly certain Scandinavian origin of the Henderson male chromosome, which is actually somewhat unexpected. It is true that Caithness was a thriving Nordic colony for many centuries, but even so, the I1 type is less than 20% (on average) of northern European men.
But then that broad classification only uses the first few markers or so of the 67 that I had tested on the Y chromosome, and going further is where the fun starts. Full 67 Chromosome results are linked here.
Seems that because of specific mutations, the Henderson male DNA can be further categorized into sub-group 5. As I metioned before this group was actually fairly limited, and were concentrated in Norway, Finland, Iceland and Sweden. Furthermore, adding a few more of the elements we narrow it down into a sub-sub group (called a Subclade) that spits out a cryptic name of “I-L22-uN1″. Now if you google that you will get nothing fun, but it seems if you use “UN1″ or “Ultra Norse” there is quite a bit more to be found.
So now we can classify ourselves on the Henderson ancient side as “Ultra Norse”, which is a much smaller group (but we are not done yet!). One citation from DNA researchers is that “I1-uN is very close to totally absent south of the Baltic and North Seas”. The Henderson Y chromosome shows distinct variations that are not common with Orkney, Shetland or most other “Ultra Norse” Y chromosomes. What that all means I am still looking into. Using some of the Y chromosome databases show almost no match with anyone once you get past 12 of the 67 or so factors.
Given that history states we are and offshoot of the Gunn clan, having Norse DNA makes a degree of sense, but interestingly enough, none of the Gunns that have done Y chromosome testing seem to match.
So what does this all mean? Henderson DNA is from an Ultra-Norse strain that can possibly be assigned to Henry Gunn or his band, son of George “Crowner of Caithness” Gunn who died at the Battle of St. Tears in 1478. After Henry claimed the Chiefship of the Gunns, he was talked out of it by his surviving brothers, and left to form his out outfit that became the Hendersons of Caithness and northern Sutherland. Right now I have not been able to find any Gunn Y chromosomes in the databases, but it should match if what I suspect is correct. The DNA patterns also rule out Danes, Normans, Saxons, indigenous Britons (Welsh), Picts, Romans and for the most part the Celts. In fact the Henderson Y chromosome is distinct from typical viking Y to some extent, with the genetic “pool” being from a fairly specific and limited part of Norway / Finland.
As DNA genealogy is still and emerging science, there is quite a bit left to be discovered. But as my Y chromosome has taught me, over 1,000 years ago, some norse family who were our ancestors traveled to Scotland. We have Vikings in the Woodshed.
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