The Christians of Sigtuna

At the end of the Viking Age, King Erik the Victorious planted Sweden's first true town on a Mälaren shore: Sigtuna, a planned street of plots and churches where the old world learned to be Christian. It grew into the most rune-carved town in Sweden — and one of the most cosmopolitan places in the North: isotopes and genomes show that roughly half its people were incomers, the women even more often than the men, drawn from across the Baltic world and beyond. These three men were buried in the town's Christian ground, at the Nunnan block cemetery and by the church of St Lars; one of them carried a paternal lineage rare in Scandinavia and at home far to the east — a townsman of the new age in every sense.

The genome-wide data behind this entry was published in Genomic and Strontium Isotope Variation Reveal Immigration Patterns in a Viking Age Town.

Every Ancestrify Global25 report includes the free Notable Matches lens: your coordinates are compared to every sequenced member of every catalog entry, and the distance to the closest member is reported — a Euclidean distance in the same 25-dimensional space the Distance lens uses. Because these are a small group of real individuals, not a population average, distances naturally run larger than population distances — that is expected, not a poor result. And one thing is never claimed: a small distance means similar ancestry composition, not that the Christians of Sigtuna are your ancestor. See how it looks in the live demo or read about the full G25 analysis.

• 01

  Who were the Christians of Sigtuna?

  The Christians of Sigtuna (c. 900–1050 CE, Sigtuna, Sweden) are one of the Iconic discoveries entries in our Notable Matches catalog, represented by 3 sequenced ancient genomes published in the study "Genomic and Strontium Isotope Variation Reveal Immigration Patterns in a Viking Age Town".

• 02

  What does "matching" the Christians of Sigtuna mean?

  Your Global25 coordinates are compared to the entry's sequenced members and the distance to the closest one is reported — a Euclidean distance in the same 25-dimensional reference space the Distance lens uses. A notable entry is one person or one small burial group, not a population average, so distances naturally run larger than population distances.

• 03

  Are they my ancestor?

  No — and no DNA test can show that. A small distance means your genome sits near theirs in a shared reference space: similar ancestry composition, not descent. Ancestrify never claims a notable individual is your ancestor or relative.

• 04

  How do I see my own distance to the Christians of Sigtuna?

  Notable Matches is a free lens on every Ancestrify Global25 report — never sold separately. Order the G25 analysis (29.99 EUR), and your report ranks your coordinates against the full catalog, with a portrait, dossier and map for every entry. The public demo shows the lens with example data.

The catalog holds every published entry across three tiers — browse the full Notable Matches directory. Nearby entries:

• The Taíno Woman of Preacher's Cavec. 950 CE

• The Vikingsc. 750–1050 CE

• The Settlers of Icelandc. 870–1100 CE

• The Hungarian Conquerors10th century CE

• The Medieval Docleansc. 800–1100 CE

• The Gaels of Kilteasheenc. 700–1300 CE

• The Muslims of Segestac. 870–1170 CE

• The Komani-Kruja Culturec. 800–950 CE

• The Norse of Greenlandc. 950–1400 CE

• The Kulubnarti Nubiansc. 650–1000 CE

• The Skeleton Lake of Roopkundc. 800 CE and 1800 CE

• The Maya of Chichén Itzác. 600–1100 CE