scandinavians
appearance: c. -100
dispersal: c. 500
ascendancy: north germans[1]
i will differentiate the scandinavians from the goths only once the goths leave, which is some time around the year -100. that being said, most of the scandinavian aristocracy, including the ynglingas, deserves a south german descent in my opinion based on the ancient literary records.
now, as noted, the ynglingas were probably south german. however, after olav the tree cutter, the danish skjoldings [also south germans] invaded sweden and cut the ynglinga line in half. the ynglinga descent known to history is from a norse saga entitled the heimskringla and only details the kings of norway after their split from those of sweden; norway was a swedish colony. indeed, the swedes were expanding out in all directions at this time, including russia, and it was these russian ynglingas that eventually reconquered sweden and drove the danes out, even conquering denmark in the process. from this point, there are three powerful ynglinga lines: the norse line, the radbardian swedish and danish line and the russian rurikovitch line, probably in descent from radbard. however, we need to back up here a minute.
sometime between the years 650 and 800 a major revolution hit all of scandinavia that briefly led to denmark and sweden being united under one throne. where did that dynasty, which i will call the "radbardian" as he is the earliest traditional ancestor, originate from? the legends say russia, which is not outside the periphery of german control but is outside the periphery of german ancestry, unless we assume that what happened was an early raiding party sent by either the king of denmark or the king of sweden came back and overthrew both dynasties. otherwise, the ynglingas could only be baltic or slavic. however, the people that lived here at this time were really estonian/finnish, and these people were clearly not estonian or finnish. so, the only (rational) possibility is that these were varangians of some sort. the end result was the creation of the kingdom of uppsala, which led to the modern swedish state. thus, it is an important event, despite the fact that it is shrouded in mystery. who were randver radbardsson, sigurd ring and ragnar lodbrok? the little bit of evidence we do have points to a swedish descent rather than a danish one.
first off, radbard is connected to the skjoldings by marriage and not descent, meaning he probably wasn't a skjolding. second off, it was the ynglingas that invaded estonia and not the skjoldings. third off, the danish invasion of sweden would create a pretext for a swedish retaliation, perhaps from the only outpost of the ynglinga line left, the descendants of some earl named radbard in russia. presumably it would have taken some time for the message to get to these people, for them to raise an army and for them to subdue what must have been a fairly formidable danish force. at the end of the day, however, it was the radbardians that were in control and it was their aristocracy that brought scandinavia into historical record.
the important thing here is that none of these people seem to be norse, or even scandinavian; they're all west german. the only possibility of an internal revolution comes from the radbardians but the legends that put him in russia tell me he must have been an outpost of the established order living very far away. it could be that he simply took over power by force when he got home and realized sweden was under danish rule but he probably wouldn't have been in control of the raiding party in the first place unless he was an ynglinga aristocrat!
thus, surprisingly, at the moment, the viking-norse lineage is almost a dead end. actually....it's certainly not. there are probably close to a dozen norse families that eventually marry into the ynglinga line. unfortunately, i kind of ignored them on the first reading as i didn't really realize that the genealogy was so intricate. i really don't want to reread the whole damn thing at this point. besides, i have a hunch that the patriarchs listed in the heimskringla have more interesting (concocted) lineages back to legendary ancestors, and i'd like to get these in properly before i go through the book a second time. most of the detail is after harald harfager's time, if i recall correctly. however, at least one of these families actually produces a king (magnus erlingson) as well. i can take this line back to an erling of gerd, at which point i'm stuck. there are certainly many erlings to attempt to sync to...but that's the problem.....which erling to choose....hopefully some peripheral saga will help me out....
however, there also appear to be some goths that survived in scandinavia. now, some people don't think you can really connect the two peoples......but, come on. the argument is that there are so many place names with the word 'got' in it that you couldn't possibly begin to identify them all as belonging to the same people. well, that's kind of backwards, i think. rather, there are really so many place names with the word 'got' in it that they must all belong to the same people. the major three are in western sweden, on an island in the baltic and in denmark. usually, the place in sweden is called 'west gotland' and it is from here that any important families that i know of come from. i will descend these people as 'geats', from the anglicized bastardization. they would be the goths that never left sweden.
descendancy: geats [5]
descendancy: norse [1]
[1]: the role of migration in the history of the eurasian steppe, andrew bell-fialkoff, 2000
[2]: heimskringla, snorri sturlson, c. 1200
[3]: the germanic invasions, lucien musset, 1965
page last updated june 1, 2005