Before Ireland – The Parisi Connection
One particularly useful feature of the FtDNA Big Y test is that there is also access to sequenced DNA from a wide range of ancient human remains that are often unearthed during archaeological digs. The closest ancient connection that the project has is to a skeleton identified as Thornholme 14327. He was unearthed at Thornholme East Yorkshire and was alive during the Britain’s Middle Iron Age about 347-47 BCE and would have likely been a member of the Parisi tribe. This tribe, mentioned by Ptolemy in his Geographica written in AD 150, seem to share similar burial practices to the Parisi tribe of Paris. The burial of high-status individuals is characterised with the inclusion of a chariot and is often accompanied by horses. These chariot burials are unique to the Parisi when compared to the other Iron Age tribes of Britain. There are also some more distant matches to other ancient Parisi burials namely Pocklington 12413, Nunburnholme 5502 and Pocklington 13759. So the North Humber area appears to be a likely origin point of the proto-Seery/Freemans prior to their move to Aberdeenshire.
The next question to try and answer is how did they move from East Yorkshire to North east Scotland? Although highly speculative, there is a plausible route. The Parisi tribe maintained its geographical location after the Roman invasion of AD 43 and the area was very much underdeveloped through the Roman times. Many resources were put into the legionary fortress of York (Eboracum) so the Parisi tribal area is not greatly impacted.
Following the withdrawal of the Roman Army in AD 410, Britan was exposed to a new wave of invaders/settlers, that of the Anglo-Saxons. The area that was formerly Parisi territory became the Angle Kingdom of Deira. To the north was the larger Kingdom of Bernicia which battled Deira constantly over the years each claiming supremacy over the other at various times. Eventually they were united in a single kingdom that was called Northumbria which eventually stretched up the East coast from the Humber estuary up to the Firth of Forth. To the North on the opposite banks of the Forth were lands controlled by the Picts.
The dominance of Northumbia over its neighbours was starting to wane in the latter half of the 7th Century and several of its client states that it exercised control over were in rebellion. This was also the case with the Picts to the North of Northumbria and so the Northumbrian King, Ecgfrith, against advice, headed into Pictish lands to reassert this dominance. The Picts feigned a retreat and drew the Northumbrian army into an ambush at Dun Nechtain near the lake of Linn Garan. The King and a lot of his army were killed and those that survived were enslaved. The Battle of Dun Nechtan was fought on 20 May 685AD which is close to the birth date, given tolerances, of the common Scottish ancestor of 593AD.
Although speculative this does give at least a historical reason for the movement from East Yorkshire to North East Scotland and then onto Ireland.
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