Leif’s Genealogy

Leif Erikson came from a distinguished line of explorers. He was the grandson of Thorvald Ásvaldsson, who was banished from the Kingdom of Norway during King Haakon Haraldsson's reign and fled to Iceland, and the second son of the reputed Erik the Red, a Norse navigator who discovered Greenland in around 982 (although the Icelandic sagas may suggest Gunnbjörn Ulf-Krakuson as the genuine discoverer of the large Arctic island).

He was also closely related to Naddodd, a Faroese adventurer who accidentally discovered Iceland while traveling between early-medieval Norway and the Faroe Islands after getting blown off course. Thorvald, Erik's older brother, also conducted an expedition to North America, but he was assassinated there by the Native Americans known in the sagas as "Skraelings." His family history is so significant that it is easy to assume that exploration was a tradition in his family.