Scandanavia

Well this is an interesting development. I’ve been notified of a rather close genetic match with Scandinavian heritage. This is exciting news and I need to do a bit of research to check it out.

Vanilla M198

It’s official, I’m negative for all the various subclades of R1a1. I’m a plain old vanilla Indo-European M198. I’d hoped to eke out some additional information about my paternal ancestors, and still no direct matches, just one step mutations. Back to the archives.

R Modal Haplotypes from The DNA Ancestry Project

I’m closest to the Scottish Isles and English Modal Haplotypes on this chart.

R subclades

OK so here are the different R1a haplogroup subclades differentiated by deep clade SNP testing. My testing so far has ruled out subclades a,b,d and e for me. Testing for R1a1c is still pending for a few more weeks. These deep clade SNP tests are supposed to provide you with your "Deep Ancestry" so if I am positive for "c" it will be consistent with Scots ancestry in my case. Looking at the various "modal groups" I am closest to the English modal haplogroup that was spread to the British Isles by the Norse Vikings and Normans. The closest one step matches I have found are from Sweden, Yorkshire and Kazakhstan so Central Asian M198 also works. Interesting stuff, to me anyway…

R1a (SRY1532)

• R1a1 (M17, M198) Typical of Eastern Europeans, Central Asians, and South Asians
  • R1a1a (M56) Found in a significant minority of people of Eastern Europe
  • R1a1b (M157) Found at low frequency in Scotland, Ireland and France
  • R1a1c (M64.2, M87, M204) Found at low frequency in Scotland and Ireland
  • R1a1*
• R1a*

Wait State

Family Tree DNA continues to slog through my Y DNA Deep Clade test. So far it is confirmed that I am R1a1. The final results have been delayed to the end of November.

Near matches

Yet another delay in my deep clade results, now they’ve been delayed until October 31st. If you scroll down to the bottom of that link to R1a1 that’s where I am now. I’ve been doing more research on Ysearch and found three near matches with one step mutations.  The first is from Yorkshire, England, a former Viking stronghold, the second is from Sweden. Considering that my paternal family has Scots and English blood this makes sense. The interesting thing about this Sweden match is that the only difference is on DYS390, one of the fastest mutating positions. The third near match is the Norse MacDonald cluster from the Northern Isles Of Scotland and the forth is from Kazakhstan. One of the most interesting findings was that the DNA results of the near matches from Yorkshire, England and Kazakhstan are exactly the same! Us Kurgans really get around. According to calculations of time to most recent ancestor using 20 years as a generation, we have a greater than 90% likelihood of sharing a common ancestor in the past 1000 years. At that time throughout Europe the Vikings were on the march.

more delays

I’ve heard back from Family Tree DNA and my Deep Clade results have been pushed back two more weeks, gadzooks…going to have to wait a little longer to find out which branch of the tree I fell from.

Last weekend my mom told me I should find my bio-mom. Her and my dad think it would be a good idea for health reasons but I think it goes a little deeper. They are both elderly and my dad’s health is failing. In the past they told me they were afraid I’d find my birth parents, bond with them and neglect the family that raised me. Mom told me she was scared I wouldn’t want her anymore and I told her nothing could be further from the truth. Now I think they are feeling their mortality and they want me to have family for as long as possible. My bio-mom is only 61 years old.

On another note I was pretty frosted when the press made such a stink about Sarah Palin’s 17 year old unmarried daughter being pregnant. It was cruel.

Kurgans

I received an interesting email earlier this week from a group in Russia who is compiling a genetic tree of R1a1 haplotypes. Participant would have to upgrade their genetic testing to the maximum 67 marker type. I’ve only done the 12 marker with Deep Clade thus far but I am intrigued. They have set up a forum in Russian and English with illustrations of Scythian warriors. I’m going to have to think about this one.

Poland revisited

I can’t believe the attitude of the Museum, even the suggestion that these works don’t belong to her and are the property of monsters is outrageous.

Thank you Neal Adams, Stan Lee and Joe Kubert.

The comic.

My photos of the gates of Auschwitz I 2006:

tests

I succumbed to having more tests done at Family Tree DNA with a “deep ancestry” test. It’s supposed to narrow down my exact Haplogroup to one of the R1a1 groups “a through e.” That will be ready in September and will further weed out the one step genetic matches that aren’t as closely related to me. I joined the Family Tree “Adoptee” group and was told this allowed me to get discounted services. I’ll post those results when they come in.

My adoption papers said my bio-dad was Episcopal with Scots-English-German-French ancestry. Based on that and the R1a1 result I’m guessing my paternal family was originally Scandinavian.

Digging around

I was web surfing this morning trying to find information on Haplogroup X and did the obligatory Wikipedia search. Interestingly besides Native American’s, X has it’s highest frequency in the Levant at 26%. That is the modern region of Syria, Lebanon and Israel among the Druze population. It’s second highest concentration is in the Eastern European country of Georgia at 8%. When I looked up Georgia I found that is has a Jewish community that traces it’s origin back to the Babylonia Captivity of the 6th century B.C, one of the oldest in the world.

My paternal testing was done at Family Tree DNA. The Haplogroup is R1a1 and my nearest matches are from Iran, India, England, Denmark, Sweden, Germany and Estonia. Indo-Iranian marker indeed! So my paternal ancestors were horse domesticating, chariot riding, longboat sailing mound builders. Cool.

Last year I bought the audiobook version of “The Mistress’s Daughter” by A.M. Holmes. A brutally honest memoir I highly recommend. In it she describes all the late night contortions she performs surfing the web doing geneaology research. She also describes receiving her mtDNA results and being one of several million members of her Haplogroup. Duh. As a fellow adoptee I can relate to her cynicism. I know it’s not a family per se but it’s something. It provides a starting point, a cultural foothold to glance back at and say “that’s my tribe.”