Thorfinn Karlsefni
Overview
 
Thorfinn Karlsefni was an Iceland
Iceland
Iceland , described as the Republic of Iceland, is a Nordic and European island country in the North Atlantic Ocean, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Iceland also refers to the main island of the country, which contains almost all the population and almost all the land area. The country has a population...

ic explorer who circa 1010 AD
Anno Domini
and Before Christ are designations used to label or number years used with the Julian and Gregorian calendars....

 led an attempt to settle Vínland
Vinland
Vinland was the name given to an area of North America by the Norsemen, about the year 1000 CE.There is a consensus among scholars that the Vikings reached North America approximately five centuries prior to the voyages of Christopher Columbus...

 with three ships and 160 settlers. Among the settlers was Freydís Eiríksdóttir
Freydís Eiríksdóttir
Freydís Eiríksdóttir was a daughter of Erik the Red who was associated with the Norse exploration of North America. The only medieval sources which mention Freydís are the two Vinland sagas, believed to be composed in the 13th century but purporting to describe events around 1000...

, according to Grœnlendinga saga
Grœnlendinga saga
The Grœnlendinga saga is an Icelandic saga. Along with Eiríks saga rauða it is one of the two main literary sources of information for the Norse exploration of North America. It relates the colonization of Greenland by Erik the Red and his followers...

and Eiríks saga rauða, sister or half-sister of Leif Eriksson. Thorfinn's wife Guðríðr Þorbjarnardóttir gave birth to a boy in Vínland, known as Snorri Guðríðarson
Snorri Þorfinnsson
Snorri Thorfinnsson was the son of the explorer Þorfinnr Karlsefni and Guðríðr Eiríksdóttir...

, the first child of European descent known to have been born in the New World
New World
The New World is one of the names used for the Western Hemisphere, specifically America and sometimes Oceania . The term originated in the late 15th century, when America had been recently discovered by European explorers, expanding the geographical horizon of the people of the European middle...

 and to whom many Icelanders can trace their roots.
 
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