The blood groups and other hereditary blood factors of the Icelanders

Bjarnason, Bjarnason, Edwards, Fridriksson, Magnusson, Mourant and Tills (1973) published preliminary data on a study of Iceland. The present paper gives the complete data of the study and extends the sample size for most of the genetic systems to over 1500 individuals, approximately 1/130 of the population. The sample was divided into seven subpopulations and these were compared using a genetic distance matrix. Considerable internal variation was revealed with two groups appearing very different. The seven regions were then compared with possible founding populations and no close relationships were found. The possible mechanism for the internal variation and the differences between Icelandic gene frequencies and those from other N.W. European populations are discussed.