This is my personal “Out of Africa story”, my ancestral migration 200.000 thousand years ago from North East Africa to Western Europe and finally sending my name to Mars on the NASA Perseverance Rover, 18-02-2021.
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“Our own genomes carry the story of evolution, written in DNA, the language of molecular genetics and the narrative is unmistakable.
– Kenneth R. Miller –
Homo sapiens
A diorama at the Nairobi National Museum portrays early hominids processing game with tools.
The species that you and all other living human beings on this planet belong to is Homo sapiens. During a time of dramatic climate change 300,000 years ago, Homo sapiens evolved in Africa. Like other early humans that were living at this time, they gathered and hunted food, and evolved behaviors that helped them respond to the challenges of survival in unstable environments.
Humans (Homo sapiens) are the most abundant and widespread species of primates, characterized by bipedality and large complex brains enabling the development of advanced tools, culture and language. Humans evolved from other hominins in Africa several million years ago.
In his book The history of the human brain, Bret Stetka writes: “By human, I don’t just mean Homo Sapiens, the species we belong to, but any other member of the genus Homo. We have gotten used to being the only human species on Earth, but in our not-so-distant past – probably a few hundred thousand years ago – there were at least nine of us running around. There was Homo habilis, or “the handy man” and Homo erectus, the first “pitcher”.
The Denisovans roamed Asia, while the more well-known Neanderthalers spread through Europe. But with the exception of Homo sapiens, they are all gone.”
Homo sapiens emerged around 300,000 years ago, evolving from Homo erectus and migrating out of Africa, gradually replacing local populations of archaic humans.
Early humans were hunter-gatherers, before settling in the Fertile Crescent and other parts of the Old World. Access to food surpluses led to the formation of permanent human settlements and the domestication of animals.
From Homo Sapiens to me (haplogroup A-PR2921 –> I-FGC15105)
Out of Africa
The spreading of Homo sapiens Out of Africa
In paleoanthropology, the recent African origin of modern humans, also called the “Out of Africa” theory (OOA), recent single-origin hypothesis (RSOH), replacement hypothesis, or recent African origin model (RAO), is the dominant model of the geographic origin and early migration of anatomically modern humans (Homo sapiens). It follows the early expansions of hominins out of Africa, accomplished by Homo erectus and then Homo neanderthalensis.
The model proposes a “single origin” of Homo sapiens in the taxonomic sense, precluding parallel evolution of traits considered anatomically modern in other regions, but not precluding multiple admixture between H. sapiens and archaic humans in Europe and Asia. H. sapiens most likely developed in the Horn of Africa between 300,000 and 200,000 years ago. The “recent African origin” model proposes that all modern non-African populations are substantially descended from populations of H. sapiens that left Africa after that time.
There were at least several “out-of-Africa” dispersals of modern humans, possibly beginning as early as 270,000 years ago, including 215,000 years ago to at least Greece,and certainly via northern Africa and the Arabian Peninsula about 130,000 to 115,000 years ago. These early waves appear to have mostly died out or retreated by 80,000 years ago.
The most significant “recent” wave out of Africa took place about 70,000–50,000 years ago, via the so-called “Southern Route”, spreading rapidly along the coast of Asia and reaching Australia by around 65,000–50,000 years ago, while Europe was populated by an early offshoot which settled the Near East and Europe less than 55,000 years ago.
In the 2010s, studies in population genetics uncovered evidence of interbreeding that occurred between H. sapiens and archaic humans in Eurasia, Oceania and Africa indicating that modern population groups, while mostly derived from early H. sapiens, are to a lesser extent also descended from regional variants of archaic humans.
Artist view of early man with Mammuth and Mesolithic monument
Lascaux caves, 15.000 – 17.000 years old.
There are three types of DNA
- Y-DNA
Because Y-chromosomes are passed from father to son virtually unchanged, males can trace their patrilineal (male-line) ancestry by testing their Y-chromosome.
Since women don’t have Y-chromosomes, they can’t take Y-DNA tests (though their brother, father, paternal uncle, or paternal grandfather could). Y-chromosome testing uncovers a male’s Y-chromosome haplogroup, the ancient group of people from whom one’s patrilineage descends. Because only one’s male-line direct ancestors are traced by Y-DNA testing, no females (nor their male ancestors) from whom a male descends are encapsulated in the result.
- Autosomal DNA
Autosomal DNA tests trace a person’s autosomal chromosomes, which contain the segments of DNA the person shares with everyone to whom they’re related (maternally and paternally, both directly and indirectly.
The autosomal chromosomes gives you information that is most useful in looking back a couple of centuries.
Because everyone has autosomal chromosomes, people of all genders can take autosomal DNA tests, and the test is equally effective for people of any gender. With an autosomal test, your results won’t include information about haplogroups
- mtDNA
Mitochondrial DNA tests trace people’s matrilineal (mother-line) ancestry through their mitochondria, which are passed from mothers to their children.
Mitochondrial DNA testing uncovers a one’s mtDNA haplogroup, the ancient group of people from whom one’s matrilineage descends.
Because mitochondria are passed on only by women, no men (nor their ancestors) from whom one descends are encapsulated in the results.
Since everyone has mitochondria, people of all genders can take mtDNA tests.
What and where did I test and an explanation of some important used DNA concepts
My confirmed Y-DNA and mtDNA Haplogroups
I chose FamilyTreeDNA from Houston, Texas, USA, because they are considered the best option for dedicated mtDNA and Y-DNA testing. They’re the only company to offer dedicated mtDNA and Y-DNA testing. Established in 2000, they have a longer history of offering the service than most, and are highly regarded among the genealogy community. FamilyTreeDNA takes your privacy very seriously and will never share your test results with any other company. In fact, one of the reasons they are so popular is because they have a great track record of keeping your information safe, and of never sharing it
But remember, they are not cheap if you decide to go for the full package, as I did, but I think well worth the money.
Their Y-DNA testing has four levels based on how many markers you want to analyze: 37, 67, 111, and the BIG-Y with 700. You can easily upgrade without taking a new test. I started with the 37 marker test, but upgraded to the BIG-Y 700 text. FamilyTreeDNA has 2 different mtDNA tests; plus and full sequence. I decided to take the full sequence test.
So these are my tests:
* Family Ancestry – Autosomal DNA
* Paternal Ancestry – Y-DNA and
* Extended Paternal Ancestry – BIG Y-DNA
* Maternal Ancestry – full sequence mtDNA
The result for the customer who takes the Big Y test is that the haplogroup predicted through STR testing is confirmed and generally several more branches and leaves are added to your own personal haplogroup tree.
Family Tree DNA very accurately predicts your branch haplogroup when you take an STR test, but it’s a major branch, near the tree, not a small branch and certainly not a leaf. Smaller branches can’t be accurately predicted nor larger branches confirmed without SNP testing. The most effective way to SNP test for already discovered haplogroups – plus new ones never before found – perhaps unique to your line – is to take the Big Y.
The Big Y:
- Confirms estimated haplogroups.
- Provides you with your haplogroup closest in time – meaning puts twigs and leaves on your branches.
- Helps to build the Y DNA tree, meaning you can contribute to science while learning about your own ancestors.
- Confirms that men who do match on the same STR markers really ARE in the same haplogroup.
- Shows matches further back in time than STRs can show.
- Maps the migration of the person’s Y line ancestors.
Attachment of HIV to a CD4+ T-helper cell: 1) the gp120 viral protein attaches to CD4. 2) gp120 variable loop attaches to a coreceptor, either CCR5 or CXCR4. 3) HIV enters the cell.
My CCR5 test results
- My FamilyTreeDNA CCR5 test showed that my delta 32 value was NORMAL, so there was no 32 base deletion.
CCR5 is a gene on chromosome 3, the CCR5 test is for a 32 base deletion (delta 32) that has been speculatively linked to survival during the Black Death and the Small Pox Plagues that decimated the population of Europe during the Middle Ages.
The mutation in CCR5 known as Delta 32 causes a change in the protein that makes it non-functional. Carrying two copies of the mutation protects most carriers from HIV. The delta 32 mutation is found in between 5% and 14% of Europeans and is rare in Asians and Africans. Because the CCR5-delta32 variant is found in such a clear geographical pattern, researchers believe that its prevalence has been shaped by the survival advantage it provided at one time. This mutation has not been found in people from African, East Asians descent thus far.
When confronted with a deadly disease, for example, a particular gene variant might give a survival advantage to those in the population that happen to have it. If most of those who do not have the variant die, a higher proportion of individuals in the next generation will have the gene variant.
- But since the CCR5-delta32 variant doesn’t adversely affect one’s health, why are researchers studying it?
Because the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) uses the CCR5 protein to infect immune cells. To put in in simple terms, it is a portal of entry for HIV virus to enter into the immune cells of the human body. Think of CCR5 as a door. The HIV virus uses it to enter into immune cells in the human body. Because of the mutation, it causes the “door” to be “locked” thus preventing HIV virus from entering the immune cell.
Generally, if you have a double mutation of the gene for CCR5, you have high resistance to HIV infection but it may not be absolute as there have been cases of persons with both mutated genes and yet became HIV infection.
The Black Death
Spread of the Black Death in Europe and the Near East (1346–1353)
Map made by O.J. Benedictow
Recent research has suggested plague first infected humans in Europe and Asia in the Late Neolithic-Early Bronze Age.Research in 2018 found evidence of Yersinia pestis in an ancient Swedish tomb, which may have been associated with the “Neolithic decline” around 3000 BCE, in which European populations fell significantly. This Y. pestis may have been different from more modern types, with bubonic plague transmissible by fleas first known from Bronze Age remains near Samara.
The Black Death (also known as the Pestilence, the Great Mortality or the Plague) was a bubonic plague pandemic occurring in Afro-Eurasia from 1346 to 1353. It is the most fatal pandemic recorded in human history, causing the death of 75–200 million people in Eurasia and North Africa, peaking in Europe from 1347 to 1351. Bubonic plague is caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis, but it may also cause septicaemic or pneumonic plagues.
The Black Death was the beginning of the second plague pandemic. The plague created religious, social and economic upheavals, with profound effects on the course of European history.
The origin of the Black Death is disputed. The pandemic originated either in Central Asia or East Asia but its first definitive appearance was in Crimea in 1347.[6] From Crimea, it was most likely carried by fleas living on the black rats that travelled on Genoese slave ships, spreading through the Mediterranean Basin and reaching Africa, Western Asia and the rest of Europe via Constantinople, Sicily and the Italian Peninsula. There is evidence that once it came ashore, the Black Death was in large part spread by fleas – which cause pneumonic plague – and the person-to-person contact via aerosols which pneumonic plague enables, thus explaining the very fast inland spread of the epidemic, which was faster than would be expected if the primary vector was rat fleas causing bubonic plague.
The Black Death was the second great natural disaster to strike Europe during the Late Middle Ages (the first one being the Great Famine of 1315–1317) and is estimated to have killed 30 percent to 60 percent of the European population. The plague might have reduced the world population from c. 475 million to 350–375 million in the 14th century. There were further outbreaks throughout the Late Middle Ages and, with other contributing factors (the Crisis of the Late Middle Ages), the European population did not regain its level in 1300 until 1500. Outbreaks of the plague recurred around the world until the early 19th century.
This map shows the approximate location of the ice-free corridor and specific Paleoindian sites. Credit: Roblespepe, CC BY-SA 3.0 Wikipidea Commons
FamilyTree DNA also offers the D9S919 test, it is a test that gives you an indication if you have Native American ancestry. Of course in my case that is highly improbable, but just out of curiosity I decided to test it also.
D9S919 is a STR marker located on chromosome 9. It was previously known as D9S1120 and under this name it was reported that an allele value of 9 was only found in the Americas and far eastern Asia.
Three independent lines of genetic evidence support the claim (Shields et al. 1993) of an ancient gene pool that included the ancestors of the modern inhabitants of Western Beringia and the Americas. The presence of an allele value of 9 is therefore a strong indication of native American ancestry somewhere within a person’s pedigree.
- My allele value with the D9S919 test came out as 16-17, so what does that mean?
Well D9S919 is present in only around 30% of the Native Americans. So about 70% do not have it. However, since only about 30% of Native Americans have that count, the fact that you don’t have 9 for that marker means it’s inconclusive from that result whether you have Native American ancestry. You either don’t have Native American ancestry or you are part of the 70% of people with Native American ancestry who don’t have 9 for D9S919.
- Or as in my case, because I am 100 % European, I have no Native American ancestry
Y-DNA haplotype
A Y-DNA haplotype is a persons Y-STR profile. This includes the number of repeats at specific Y-STR markers. Y-DNA haplotypes are useful for tracing recent paternal lineages and connections. Haplotype is actually short for “haploid genotype” and refers to the combination of genetic markers in multiple locations in a single chromosome. If two people match exactly on all of the markers they have had tested, they share the same haplotype and are related.
World Map of Y-Chromosome Haplogroups – Dominant Haplogroups in Pre-Colonial Populations with Possible Migrations Route. Credit: Chakazul, Wikimedia Commons
What are Haplogroups
Y-DNA haplogroups are determined by testing Y-SNPs. Your Y-DNA haplogroup represents “deep ancestry” or ancient family group. A haplogroup is a series of mutations present in a chromosome. It is therefore detectable in an individual’s DNA and may vary from one population to another, or even from one person to another.
Every person belongs to a certain haplotype and therefore to a certain haplogroup, so it can be traced back to where a person’s origin lies on the basis of genography.
There is a male and a female haplogroup classification. The Y chromosome (Y DNA) is used to distinguish the male haplogroups (Y chromosome haplogroup) and the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) to distinguish the female haplogroups (mitochondrial haplogroup). The X chromosome is not usable because the X chromosome is not recombining, but it is difficult to trace over several generations.
SNP’s
SNP’s (pronounced “snips”) is an abbreviation of single nucleotide polymorphisms, they are the most common type of genetic variation among people. Each SNP represents a difference in a single DNA building block, called a nucleotide. SNP’s occur normally throughout a person’s DNA. They occur almost once in every 1,000 nucleotides on average, which means there are roughly 4 to 5 million SNPs in a person’s genome. These variations may be unique or occur in many individuals; scientists have found more than 100 million SNP’s in populations around the world.
Once a SNP mutation occurs, it will typically be passed through subsequent generations and is unlikely to revert back to the default value. As such, SNP testing can be used to understand a genetic family tree (called a haplotree.) SNP tests, such as the BIG Y-700 test from FamilyTreeDNA (my yDNA test), provide details on haplotree branching, as well as much better estimates of time to most recent common ancestor (TMRCA) than STR tests do.
- SNPs are mutations that occur along the Y – Chromosome
- SNPs are the basis for Branches on the Haplotree
- Each Male Line has its own Unique set of SNPs
- SNPs occur on Average of once every 144 years
- Until a SNP is “named”, it is referred to as an “Unnamed Variant”
- After a BIG Y-700 is completed, Unnamed Variants are your most recent SNP
- Mutations – and will form new Branches below your “Terminal” SNP once theyare named
BIG Y – 700 is identifying more SNPs/Variants than previous BIG-Y Tests. All of these SNPs/Variants are not among your most recent mutations, but may be inserted anywhere along the Haplotree. Some SNPs/Variants may come from portions of the Y – Chromosome that are not used for Dating, and some (few) may be bad reads.
TMRCA
TMRCA (the most recent common ancestor) is the amount of time or number of generations since individuals have shared a common ancestor. Since mutations occur at random, the estimate of the TMRCA is not an exact number (i.e., seven generations) but rather a probability distribution. As more information is compared, the TMRCA estimate becomes more refined.
Terminal SNP
Y-DNA haplogroups are defined by the presence of a series of SNP markers on the Y chromosome. Subclades a term used to describe a subgroup of a subgenus or haplogroup) defined by a terminal SNP, the SNP furthest down in the Y chromosome phylogenetic tree.
Your “Terminal” SNP does not always represent your MRCA
- The term “Terminal” SNP is used to represent the most current SNP placed on your portion of the Haplotree.
- If you have Unnamed Variants, or a Block of Equivalents associated with your Bottom Step, your portion of the Haplotree is incomplete, and it does not represent your actual “Terminal SNP”.
- The Convergence Date of your Bottom Step is NOT always the Time to Most Recent Common Ancestor.
My Autosomal DNA
The most up-to-date research into ancient migrations on the European Continent suggests that there were three major groups of people that have had a lasting effect on present day peoples of European descent: Metal Age Invader 13% – Farmer 39% – Hunter-Gatherer 48% – non-European 0%.
If you look at the map, my Autosomal results indicate that my very early ancestors lived in geographic lands later occupied by Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Frisians, Danes, Vikings, Scandinavians and Normans. If you read on you will see that my Y-DNA and mtDNA haplogroups probably reconfirm these findings. My paternal cousins (people you can trace to with only this male line) were probably among the first (re)settlers of Britain, Ireland, and Scandinavia as the ice sheets receded.
Anglo-Saxons
This is the collective name for the various Germanic tribes that settled in England after the departure of the Romans in 407, in the course of the 5th century and later. The later invading tribes came from northwestern Germany and the Netherlands (the Angles and the Saxons and also the Frisians) and from Denmark (the Jutes).
The Saxons settled in the south of the country, the Jutes in the southeast (Kent), the Angles occupied the largest area: the center and north. Around 840 the invasions of the Danes (also called Vikings or Normans) started and at the time of King Alfred the Great they controlled a large part of the country.
The attacks of the Normans ceased and the populations intermingled. At the end of the 10th century, the Danes resumed their attacks. Later Norman influence increased, culminating in the Norman conquest of England by William the Conqueror in 1066.Low Countries and Vikings
The most important haplogroup that may be a strong predictor of Viking genetic background is I1. It is critical to understand that not all Vikings were I1 and not all I1 were Vikings. I1 was a modification of I that emerged about 27,000 years ago. Vikings weren’t just Scandinavians in their genetic ancestry. Many Vikings have a high degree of non-Scandinavian ancestry, both within and outside Scandinavia, indicating an ongoing gene flow across Europe.
The Netherlands has the closest DNA profile to Germanic groups. Notably, a significant admixture event with a major Danish source was inferred between 759 and 1290 CE in the Dutch northern seaboard provinces. This period spans a historical period of recorded Danish Viking contact and rule in northern Dutch territories. The demographic legacy of more than a century of Danish Viking raids and settlement in the Netherlands has been the subject of some debate, but it appears that the modern Dutch genome has indeed been partially shaped by historical Viking admixture. This Danish Viking contact is contemporaneous with a critical period in the establishment of the modern Dutch genome from other outside sources (1004–1111 CE).
Areas subject to settlement and raids by Vikings and Normans (Max Naylor, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)
Before the Netherlands was the Netherlands or even Holland, it was known as Frisia. According to historians, Vikings came to Friesland in the 9th century. They established control over all of Friesland.
During the last years of Charlemagne’s reign (768-814) the emperor took measures against the danger of Viking raids. He stationed fleets in the major rivers and organized coastal defenses. After 820, the defense system in the northern part of the Carolingian state collapsed. Between 834 and 837 the city of Dorestad (near present-day Wijk bij Duurstede, about 70 km from where I live, Dordrecht) was destroyed four times. Without much opposition, Walcheren in Zeeland (where the Kloosterman Family originated) was taken in 837.
Already before 840 the Danish Vikings Harald and Rorik became vassals of Lothar (grandson of Charlemagne) and received Walcheren and Dorestad as fiefs. This tactical move did not bring peace.
Map of Magna Frisia in Latin with the capital Dorestate (Dorestad)
Until 873 there are regular reports of Viking attacks and in 863 Dorestad was again destroyed. This time the city was not rebuilt, also because the river became sandy. Bishop Hunger of Utrecht fled in 858 to Roermond and later to Deventer. In 873, the Normans in Oostergoo, Friesland (Friesland) were defeated by an army led by an immigrant Viking.
In Flanders, the Vikings regularly sailed up the Scheldt from 851 to 864 and attacked the cities of Ghent and the districts of Mempiscus and Terwaan. countries from Denmark) turned their attention to England.
The impact of the raids on everyday life must have been great, but perhaps not as great as ecclesiastical sources suggest. Churches and monasteries were almost always visited, for the simple reason that they had valuable property. Of course, the clergy described the Vikings as fierce pagans who turned the coastal areas into ruins. Politically, the Vikings stimulated the further disintegration of the Carolingian Empire. Because they encountered little resistance, they preferred robbers to traders. As vassals they played a role in the conflicts between Lotharius and Charles the Bald (ca. 840) and later (ca. 870) between Charles the Bold and Louis the German.
After the victory of Alfred the Great of Wessex (878) the Vikings returned to the lowlands. This time they also fought as land soldiers and were equipped with horses. Flanders was particularly hard hit (Ghent, Terwaan, Atrecht, Kamerijk). Louis III defeated the Vikings in 881 at Saucourt on the River Somme.
This battle was described in Ludwig’s Lied (Ludwigslied). According to the Fulda Annals, Louis’ army killed 9,000 Danes. As a result, the Vikings returned to Flanders and Dutch Limburg. From Asselt (north of Roermond) they attacked cities in Germany (Cologne, Bonn) and Limburg (Liège, Tongeren). In their attack on Trier they were opposed by the bishops Wala and Bertulf of Trier and by Count Adelhard of Metz. Following the example of Trier, other cities began to defend themselves effectively.
The new emperor Charles the Fat sent an army to Asselt. The two Viking leaders, Godfried and Siegfried, were forced to negotiate. Godfrey chose to stay. He became a vassal of the emperor and, after being baptized, married Gisela, daughter of Lothair II, the first king of Lorraine. Siegfried was paid off with 2,000 pounds of silver and gold and set out for the north with 200 ships. Emperor Charles felt threatened by Godfried and his (Godfried’s) brother-in-law Hugo (Gisela’s brother).
In June 885 Godfried was invited for talks in Spijk, near Lobith. This turned out to be a conspiracy and Godfrey was murdered. Hugo was blinded and transferred to the monastery of Prüm for the rest of his life. Here the monk Regino wrote the story of his downfall. In September 891 the Vikings lost a battle at the river Dyle, near Leuven against King Arnulf of Carinthia.
The Fulda Annals tell us that the bodies of dead Vikings blocked the flow of the river. The poor harvest of 892 and the threat of famine caused the Vikings to move north again. After 892 their role in the low countries was limited to occasional raids (particularly in Nijmegen, Groningen, Stavoren, Tiel and Utrecht). After 1010 the raids came to an end.
Vikings disease (hand)
Dupuytren’s contracture (also called Dupuytren’s disease, Morbus Dupuytren, Viking hand and Celtic hand) is a condition in which one or more fingers become permanently bent in a flexed position. Dupuytren’s disease is currently called a Viking disease on the assumption that the disease was spread to Europe and the British Isles during the Viking Age of the 9th to the 13th centuries. From a literature search, it is proposed that Dupuytren’s disease existed in Europe earlier than the Viking Age and originated much earlier in prehistory.
There is a strong genetic component, certain HLA haplotypes also appear to be associated with the disease. It is strongly associated with northern European ancestry, and could have arisen from a genetic mutation in the Viking population originally.
- Well I have Dupuytren’s contracture and my father and grandfather, so this genetic mutation certainly runs in my family.
So were some of my early ancestors Pre-Viking?
The ubiquity of the term “Viking” masks a wide variety of constructions of Vikingism: the old northmen are merchant adventurers, mercenary soldiers, pioneering colonists, pitiless raiders, self-sufficient farmers, cutting-edge naval technologists, primitive democrats, psychopathic berserks, ardent lovers and complicated poets.
- Wow … that sounds just like me, so do I have some Viking in my DNA?
Well, considering that 56 % of my Autosomal DNA origins are from England, Wales and Scotland, 23 % from Scandinavia and that my main Y-DNA I-FGC151505 haplogroup is most commonly found in England and Denmark makes it an interesting idea and certainly not a far-fetched possibility. But there’s plenty of reason to take those results with a grain of salt, myancestors’ actual history is probably more complicated — and more diverse — than it looks on paper.
Doggerland during the Anglian glaciation
Until the middle Pleistocene Great Britain was a peninsula of Europe, connected by the massive chalk Weald–Artois Anticline across the Straits of Dover. During the Anglian glaciation, about 450,000 years ago, an ice sheet filled much of the North Sea, with a large proglacial lake in the southern part fed by the Rhine, the Scheldt and the Thames.
Doggerland was an area of land, now submerged beneath the southern North Sea, that connected Great Britain to continental Europe. It was flooded by rising sea levels around 6500–6200 BCE. Geological surveys have suggested that it stretched from what is now the east coast of Great Britain to what are now the Netherlands, the western coast of Germany and the peninsula of Jutland. It was probably a rich habitat with human habitation in the Mesolithic period.
Around 7000 BC the Ice Age had ended and Mesolithic European hunter-gatherers had migrated from their refuges to recolonize the continent, including Doggerland which later submerged beneath the rising North Sea.
When scientists from Imperial College released a simulation of a tsunami, triggered by a vast undersea landslide at Storrega off the coast of Norway around 6000 BC, it probably came as a surprise to many in north-west Europe that their reassuringly safe part of the world had been subject to such a cataclysmic event.
The researchers suggest that this succession of destructive waves up to 14 metres high may have depopulated an area that is now in the middle of the North Sea, known as Doggerland. However, melting ice at the end of the last ice age around 18,000 years ago led to rising sea levels that inundated vast areas of continental shelves around the world. These landscapes, which had been home to populations of hunter gatherers for thousands of years were gradually overwhelmed by millions of tonnes of meltwater swelling the ocean. Doggerland, essentially an entire prehistoric European country, disappeared beneath the North Sea, its physical remains preserved beneath the marine silts but lost to memory.
The majority of western European males belonged to Y-haplogroup I and northeast Europeans to haplogroup R1a. Other minor male lineages such as R1b, G, J, T and E would also have been present in Europe, having migrated from the Asian Steppe, the Middle East and North Africa.
My Autosomal origin shows that my very early ancestors lived in geographical areas that were later occupied by Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Frisians, Danes, Vikings, Scandinavians and Normans.
Anglosaxon migration, map based on the Jones and Mattingly’s Atlas of Roman Britain, credit: Wikipedia Commons
My Viking? hand
Viking longboats were fast ships that had the strength to survive ocean crossings while having a draft of as little as 50cm (20 inches), allowing navigation in very shallow water.
Land bridge between the mainland and Britain – Doggerland and Dogger Bank. Comparison of the geographical situation in 2000 to the late years of the Vistula-Würm Glaciation. Map made by: Francis Lima“
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Historical and geographic information about my Autosomal DNA
My Autosomal DNA origins
From about 44,000 years ago, humans intermittently lived in the northwestern region of Europe between periods of glaciation due to the Ice Age. Around 13,000 BCE, they returned to the northwestern region of Europe including the British Isles via a land bridge connecting them.
Towards the end of the 4th millennium BCE, Hunter-Gatherers cultivated crops, domesticated animals, and made tools such as hand axes and pottery. The construction of large stone monuments, such as those found at Stonehenge, began by 3000 BCE. It is speculated that Celtic languages arrived in Britain with the influx of the Bell Beaker culture from Central Europe, which was defined by bell-shaped vessels.
Within the last 2,000 years, Britain has been subject to many migrations. In the 1st century CE, the Romans invaded and established settlements across what is now modern-day England and Wales. The Romans were besieged by attacks from local tribes, such as the Scots, Picts, and Iceni.
Other invading groups such as the Anglo-Saxons, who arrived on the east coast of Britain around the time of the fall of the Roman Empire, were also met with resistance from the many local tribes. However, over the next 200 years, Anglo-Saxon warrior lords divided the region into large Germanic kingdoms, assimilating or displacing Briton and Pictish inhabitants, and eradicated Roman culture.
By the 7th century CE, Christian monasteries were established, and a unified English language was formed. In the 8th and 9th centuries, Vikings from Scandinavia raided parts of the British coast and established colonies throughout modern-day Scotland and England.
In 843 CE, Kenneth MacAlpin united the Picts and Scots to form the nation of Alba, which is the Gaelic name for Scotland, although many Scottish islands remained under Scandinavian control until the 1400s. Welsh leaders in the 9th century united the kingdoms of Gwynedd, Morgannwg, and Powys and fought off Irish occupation of the region, although further attempts to unite the region were unsuccessful.
The first English kingdom was formed at the end of the 9th century when Alfred the Great defeated the Vikings in modern-day England. Within 200 years, the newly established English kingdom was lost to the invading French-Normans led by William the Conqueror. William’s soldiers were rewarded with land, titles, and power, and French-Norman rule and culture were imposed across England and Wales.
Since the French-Norman Conquest, the English peoples fought for several centuries to regain their lost rights. Despite numerous rebellions against French-Norman rulers and their descendants, all of Wales fell under the control of the English monarchy by the 13th century CE and remains part of Great Britain today. Scottish kings waged war with the French-Normans in England and continued to fight off English occupation for many years until Stewart King James VI of Scotland inherited the English throne and united the two nations in the 16th century CE. While the foundation for conquests in the Americas was laid with his predecessor Queen Elizabeth I, King James I established the first successful British colonies in the Americas during the 17th century CE. The British Empire continued their conquest and expanded their rule and culture around the globe, colonizing large regions of North and South America, Africa, Asia, and Oceania.
My Autosomal DNA origins
Around 40,000 years ago, much of Central Europe was occupied by Hunter-Gatherers of the Aurignacian culture who produced distinct stone blades, projectile points, and other tools made of bone. Beginning around 7,000 years ago, groups from the Middle East introduced farming and the practice of large-scale collective burials along with stonework architecture, such as the Carnac stones in Brittany, France.
In the late 4th millennium BCE, settlers from the Pontic steppe arrived in Central Europe. They brought a new social and economic order centered around horsemanship. This interaction influenced the formation of the Corded Ware culture throughout Europe, whose presence is marked by pottery with rope-like designs. The arrival of these Indo-European speakers from the Pontic steppe introduced language families like Germanic and Celtic to areas of modern-day Germany and France.
Beginning in 58 BCE, the Celtic and Germanic tribes of Gaul, which is now modern-day France, engaged in warfare with an invading Roman Empire. By 50 BCE, Rome was triumphant and integrated Gaul into their empire. As Roman power declined, the Germanic Goth and Vandal tribes from the unconquered Magna Germania, now modern-day Germany, invaded the lands Romans abandoned. When Roman power was effectively gone in the region, Gaul disbursed into many small states from which emerged the single powerful state of the Franks.
The Franks were a Germanic peoples who, as they spread across Gaul, integrated Gallo-Roman peoples into their young empire. The Franks embraced aspects of Gallo-Roman culture such as their Latin-based language and Christianity. The Holy Roman Emperor Charlemagne became a pivotal figure in the history of Western and Central Europe. His ever-growing empire which annexed territories throughout Europe led him to be named Holy Roman Emperor. As Holy Roman Emperor, he strove to revive the grandeur of the western Roman Empire in the 8th century. However, after the death of Charlemagne’s son Louis I a generation later, the Holy Roman Empire was divided into three kingdoms: the West Frankish, East Frankish, and Middle Kingdom. The East Frankish and Middle kingdoms eventually formed part of a reborn Holy Roman Empire centered in what is modern-day Germany.
By the 18th century CE, the Germanic states of Austria and Prussia emerged as dominant forces after the second Holy Roman Empire’s dissolution. By the 19th century, the Germanic states had formed a confederation that attempted economic and cultural integration, a precursor to the modern German state. In its western divisions, the fall of the Holy Roman Empire led to the formation of West Francia, the precursor to the kingdom of France.
Centralization of a French state was the main trend, but by the 1500s, a period of expansion began. In the 16th century, the kingdom of France conquered large portions of North and South America. Post-revolutionary France expanded further once again into Central Europe under Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte in the first part of the 19th century. After his defeat, France turned its attention to conquering regions of West Africa and Southeast Asia. While Germany, after national unification in the 1870s, embraced imperialism, and within a few short years, conquered enough territory in Africa to become the third-largest empire of the day. Today, France is a multi-ethnic nation with many of its residents having come from former colonies. In Germany, the national psyche and economy have rebuilt themselves since World War II and the Cold War. Today, Germany plays a key role in the European Union. The history of colonialism and the many divisions and unifications in Central Europe sparks the everlasting question of what it means to be French and German.
My Autosomal DNA origins
As the ice sheets retreated toward the end of the last Ice Age in Europe, Hunter-Gatherers entered the southern region of Scandinavia around 11,7000 years ago. Scandinavia was one of the last places to be re-settled in Europe. Hunter-Gatherer groups arriving from continental Europe formed a culture known for their pitted earthenware.
About 6,000 years ago, Neolithic Farmers from Southern Europe established settlements throughout Scandinavia. Neolithic Farmers co-existed with Hunter-Gatherers for many hundreds of years; however, Farming groups eventually dominated the region. From 3000 BCE, Central Europe’s Corded Ware culture spread to southern Scandinavia, bringing their Indo-European languages with them. The Indo-European language branched into many languages, such as Proto-Germanic, which spread throughout this area.
Roman historians make few references to the peoples of Scandinavia as the Roman Empire, at its height in 117 CE, reached just south of Scandinavia. However, archaeological sites show that the Scandinavian region was composed of organized state-like groups with extensive trade networks into Central Europe.
The earliest preserved proto-Norse writings in the form of runestones appear around the 4th century. The most notable expansion of Scandinavian peoples occurred between the 9th and 11th centuries CE, which took place during the Viking era when ancient Norse peoples came to settle or raid parts of northern Western Europe and Eastern Europe. Notably, islands in the North Atlantic, like Iceland, Greenland, and the Faroe Islands, were discovered by ancient Norse settlers. Icelandic explorer Leif Erikson also found and established a short-lived settlement in Newfoundland.
Various kingdoms have established unions with one another throughout Scandinavia. The three Scandinavian kingdoms of Norway, Denmark, and Sweden were joined in 1387 as a result of the Kalmar Union under Queen Margaret I of Denmark. After the secession of Sweden from the Kalmar Union in 1397, the Scandinavian countries waged multiple wars against each other throughout the centuries. Control over the various nations changed hands many times and Sweden rose and fell as a Northern European power. Sweden had ruled Finland since the Second Swedish Crusade in the 13th century, and in 1809, they were forced to surrender the area to Russia after the Finnish War. After the Napoleonic Wars, Denmark and Norway’s union split, and Norway and Sweden formed a union until 1905. After World War II, Scandinavian countries along with Finland developed the Nordic model, which aims to combine an emphasis on public welfare with free-market capitalism.
Percentages of autosomal DNA that I still carry with me
Hunter-Gatherers, Early Farmers, and Metal Age Invaders.
The climate during the Pleistocene Epoch (2.6 mill – 11,700 YA) fluctuated between episodes of glaciation (or ice ages) and episodes of warming, during which glaciers would retreat. It is within this epoch that modern humans migrated into the European continent at around 45,000 years ago.
These Anatomically Modern Humans (AMH) were organized into bands whose subsistence strategy relied on gathering local resources as well as hunting large herd animals as they travelled along their migration routes. Thus these ancient peoples are referred to as Hunter-Gatherers. The timing of the AMH migration into Europe happens to correspond with a warming trend on the European continent, a time when glaciers retreated and large herd animals expanded into newly available grasslands.
Evidence of hunter-gatherer habitation has been found throughout the European continent from Spain at the La Brana cave to Loschbour, Luxembourg and Motala, Sweden. The individuals found at the Loschbour and Motala sites have mitochondrial U5 or U2 haplogroups, which is typical of Hunter-Gatherers in Europe and Y-chromosome haplogroup I. These findings suggest that these maternally and paternally inherited haplogroups, respectively, were present in the population before farming populations gained dominance in the area.
Based on the DNA evidence gathered from these three sites, scientists are able to identify surviving genetic similarities between current day Northern European populations and the first AMH Hunter-Gatherers in Europe. The signal of genetic sharing between present-day populations and early Hunter-Gatherers, however, begins to become fainter as one moves further south in Europe. The hunter-gatherer subsistence strategy dominated the landscape of the European continent for thousands of years until populations that relied on farming and animal husbandry migrated into the area during the middle to late Neolithic Era around 8,000–7,000 years ago.
Hunter-Gatherers, Early Farmers, and Metal Age Invaders.
Roughly 8,000–7,000 years ago, after the last glaciation period (Ice Age), modern human farming populations began migrating into the European continent from the Near East. This migration marked the beginning of the Neolithic Era in Europe. The Neolithic Era, or New Stone Age, is aptly named as it followed the Paleolithic Era, or Old Stone Age.
Tool makers during the Neolithic Era had improved on the rudimentary “standard” of tools found during the Paleolithic Era and were now creating specialized stone tools that even show evidence of having been polished and reworked. The Neolithic Era is unique in that it is the first era in which modern humans practiced a more sedentary lifestyle as their subsistence strategies relied more on stationary farming and pastoralism, further allowing for the emergence of artisan practices such as pottery making.
Farming communities are believed to have migrated into the European continent via routes along Anatolia, thereby following the temperate weather patterns of the Mediterranean. These farming groups are known to have populated areas that span from modern day Hungary, Germany, and west into Spain.
Remains of the unique pottery styles and burial practices from these farming communities are found within these regions and can be attributed, in part, to artisans from the Funnel Beaker and Linear Pottery cultures. Ötzi (the Tyrolean Iceman), the well-preserved natural mummy that was found in the Alps on the Italian/Austrian border and who lived around 3,300 BCE, is even thought to have belonged to a farming culture similar to these. However, there was not enough evidence found with him to accurately suggest to which culture he may have belonged.
Although farming populations were dispersed across the European continent, they all show clear evidence of close genetic relatedness. Evidence suggests that these farming peoples did not yet carry a tolerance for lactose in high frequencies (as the Yamnaya peoples of the later Bronze Age did); however, they did carry a salivary amylase gene, which may have allowed them to break down starches more efficiently than their hunter-gatherer forebears.
Further DNA analysis has found that the Y-chromosome haplogroup G2a and mitochondrial haplogroup N1a were frequently found within the European continent during the early Neolithic Era.
Hunter-Gatherers, Early Farmers, and Metal Age Invaders.
Following the Neolithic Era (New Stone Age), the Bronze Age (3,000–1,000 BCE) is defined by a further iteration in tool making technology. Improving on the stone tools from the Paleolithic and Neolithic Eras, tool makers of the early Bronze Age relied heavily on the use of copper tools, incorporating other metals such as bronze and tin later in the era. The third major wave of migration into the European continent is comprised of peoples from this Bronze Age; specifically, Nomadic herding cultures from the Eurasian steppes found north of the Black Sea. These migrants were closely related to the people of the Black Sea region known as the Yamnaya.
This migration of Bronze Age nomads into the temperate regions further west changed culture and life on the European continent in a multitude of ways. Not only did the people of the Yamnaya culture bring their domesticated horses, wheeled vehicles, and metal tools; they are also credited for delivering changes to the social and genetic makeup of the region. By 2,800 BCE, evidence of new Bronze Age cultures, such as the Bell Beaker and Corded Ware, were emerging throughout much of Western and Central Europe. In the East around the Urals, a group referred to as the Sintashta emerged, expanding east of the Caspian Sea bringing with them chariots and trained horses around 4,000 years ago.
These new cultures formed through admixture between the local European farming cultures and the newly arrived Yamnaya peoples. Research into the influence the Yamnaya culture had on the European continent has also challenged previously held linguistic theories of the origins of Indo-European language. Previous paradigms argued that the Indo-European languages originated from populations from Anatolia; however, present research into the Yamnaya cultures has caused a paradigm shift and linguists now claim the Indo-European languages are rooted with the Yamnaya peoples.
By the Bronze Age, the Y-chromosome haplogroup R1b was quickly gaining dominance in Western Europe (as we see today) with high frequencies of individuals belonging to the M269 subclade. Ancient DNA evidence supports the hypothesis that the R1b was introduced into mainland Europe by the Bronze Age invaders coming from the Black Sea region. Further DNA evidence suggests that a lactose tolerance originated from the Yamnaya or another closely tied steppe group. Current day populations in Northern Europe typically show a higher frequency of relatedness to Yamnaya populations, as well as earlier populations of Western European Hunter-Gatherer societies.
My Y-DNA
Out of Africa migration of my Haplogroup I-FGC15105
Y-DNA – Haplogroup Origins
The Y-DNA chromosome is passed on from father to son, remaining mostly unaltered from generation to generation, except for small trackable changes from time to time. By comparing these small differences in high-coverage test results, we can reconstruct a large Family Tree of Mankind where all Y chromosomes go back to a single common ancestor who lived hundreds of thousands of years ago.
- My Y-DNA Terminal SNP is I-FGC15105, subgroup of I-FGC15109, which is a subgroup of haplogroup I-M223, which in itself is a subgroup of I-M170.
- Age of I-FGC15105: ± 1800 years BCE.
Region: Sardinia and Balkans; one of the first haplogroups in Europe along with haplogroup G.
Haplogroup I-FGC15105 paternal line was formed when it branched off from the ancestor I-FGC15109 and the rest of mankind around 1800 BCE.
The man who is the most recent common ancestor of this line is estimated to have been born around 1750 BCE. He is the ancestor of at least 4 descendant lineages known as I-BY18, I-BY3802 and 2 yet unnamed lineages.
There are 125 DNA tested descendants, and they specified that their earliest known origins are from England, United States, Ireland, and 11 other countries. But the story does not end here! As more people test, the history of this genetic lineage will be further refined.
Notable Y-DNA connections
- The notable Y-DNA haplogroup connections are based on direct DNA testing or deduced from testing of relatives and should be considered as fun facts.
Yes, Yes fun …, but remember DNA does not lie, DNA never lies, so they are real facts!
Mayflower in Plymouth Harbor by William Halsall (1882). This painting is in the Pilgrim Hall Museum, Plymouth, Massachusetts.
Francis Cooke (I-FGC57464) and I (I-FGC15105) share a common paternal line ancestor (I-FGC15105) who lived around 750 BCE (2.800 years ago).
Francis Cooke was born about 1583. His origins have not been discovered, but it is probable he was born in England, perhaps from the Canterbury or Norwich areas.
He married Hester le Mahieu on 20 July 1603 in Leiden, Holland; she was a French Walloon whose parents had initially fled to Canterbury, England; she left for Leiden sometime before 1603. Francis Cooke and Hester le Mahieu’s marriage occurred in Leiden, Holland six years before the Pilgrim church made its move there, so he was living there long before their arrival and must have met up with and joined them afterwards.
What brought Francis to Holland in the first place is unknown: religious persecution of Protestants in England did not really begin until after King James took power in 1604. In 1606, the Cookes left Leiden and went to Norwich, co. Norfolk, for a time (for what reason is not known), but returned to have their first son, John, baptized at the French church in Leiden, sometime between January and March, 1607. In Holland, Cooke took up the profession of wool-comber.
Francis, and his oldest son John, came on the Mayflower to Plymouth in 1620. He left behind his wife Hester and his other children Jane, Jacob, Elizabeth and Hester. After the Colony was founded and better established, he sent for his wife and children, and they came to Plymouth in 1623 onboard the ship Anne.
Francis lived out his life in Plymouth. Although he kept a fairly low profile, he was on a number of minor committees such as the committee to lay out the highways, and received some minor appointments by the Court to survey land. He was a juror on a number of occasions, and was on the coroner’s jury that examined the body of Martha Bishop, the 4-year old daughter who was murdered by her mother Alice. He received some modest land grants at various times throughout his life.
According to Bradford, who wrote in 1651, “Francis Cooke is still living, a very old man, and hath seen his children’s children have children; after his wife came over, (with other of his children,) he hath 3 still living by her, all married, and have 5 children; so their increase is 8. And his son John, which came over with him, is married, and hath 4 children living.”
Cook died in 1663 and is buried on Burial Hill in Plymouth. His estate inventory contained sheep, sheep shears, and wool. His wife Hester survived him by at least three years and perhaps longer.
- Information sourced from the Mayflower Project, WikiTree, and Wikipedia.
Bill Gates during the Munich Security Conference 2017.
Bill Gates (I-BY189611) and I (I-FGC15105) share a common paternal line ancestor (I-FGC15071) who lived around 7700 BCE (9.700 years ago).
William Henry Gates III (born October 28, 1955) is an American business magnate, software developer, investor, author, and philanthropist. He is a co-founder of Microsoft, along with his late childhood friend Paul Allen.[ During his career at Microsoft, Gates held the positions of chairman, chief executive officer (CEO), president and chief software architect, while also being the largest individual shareholder until May 2014. He was a major entrepreneur of the microcomputer revolution of the 1970s and 1980s.
Gates was born and raised in Seattle, Washington. In 1975, he and Allen founded Microsoft in Albuquerque, New Mexico. It became the world’s largest personal computer software company.Gates led the company as chairman and CEO until stepping down as CEO in January 2000, succeeded by Steve Ballmer, but he remained chairman of the board of directors and became chief software architect. During the late 1990s, he was criticized for his business tactics, which have been considered anti-competitive. This opinion has been upheld by numerous court rulings.
In June 2008, Gates transitioned to a part-time role at Microsoft and full-time work at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the private charitable foundation he and his then-wife, Melinda Gates, established in 2000. He stepped down as chairman of the board of Microsoft in February 2014 and assumed a new post as technology adviser to support the newly appointed CEO Satya Nadella. In March 2020, Gates left his board positions at Microsoft and Berkshire Hathaway to focus on his philanthropic efforts on climate change, global health and development, and education.
His detailed haplogroup was determined by Big Y testing of relatives in the Gates Surname Project.
- Biographical information sourced from Wikipedia and genealogical information from WikiTree.
- Photo of Bil gates: Wikipedia , Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Germany
Luther as a friar, with tonsure
Maarten (Martin) Luther (I-FT80992) and I (I-FGC15105) share a common paternal line ancestor (I-L460) who lived around 19.000 BCE (21.000 years ago).
Reverend Martin Luther was born in Eisleben, Country of Mansfeld in the Holy Roman Empire. As a notable German theologian, priest, author, and hymn writer, Martin Luther was one of the most influential and important religious figures of his time.His contributions as a writer and teacher drove the separation of Western Christianity into Protestants and Catholics. One of his most famous works, The Ninety-five Theses (1517), argues against the “selling of indulgences” or the practice of paying the church in exchange for forgiveness of sins from God. This radical document lit the initial spark that lead to the Protestant Reformation.
With the invention of the printing press, Luther’s work become widely available and reached distant audiences. Luther was a major proponent of translating the Bible into the common vernacular of the time, as typically only priests could read the Latin written Bible. He worked on translating the Bible from Latin to German and published the New Testament translation in 1522 and the complete Luther Bible in 1534.
The founding of the Lutheran Church came to fruition with Luther’s break from Rome, which was produced under his sanction by Philipp Melanchthon in 1530.Luther continued as a teacher, preacher, and author as well as disputing religious and political authorities until his death in 1546.
- Sourced from Wikipedia, Encyclopedia Britannica, WikiTree, Geni, and the Luther DNA Project.
Mayflower in Plymouth Harbor by William Halsall (1882). This painting is in the Pilgrim Hall Museum, Plymouth, Massachusetts.
Henry Samson (I-FTB708) and I (I-FGC15105) share a common paternal line ancestor (I-CTS616) who lived around 8200 BCE (10.000 years ago).
Henry Samson (1603-1685) was baptized in Henlow, Bedford, England in January 1604. Henry was probably a Separatist. He was found living in Leiden, Holland with his uncle, Edward Tilley, a weaver. Henry may have been an apprentice. He wasn’t an orphan, given that he was mentioned in his father’s 1638 will in England.
I
n Leiden in 1620, Henry boarded the Speedwell. Today, a statue marks the exact location on a canal.
The Speedwell was to meet the Mayflower in Southampton, England where both ships were supposed to continue on across the Atlantic. However, the Speedwell developed leaks, and all of the Pilgrims sailed on the cramped Mayflower.
Henry traveled as a member of the Edward Tilley family, but both Tilley and his wife died during the first winter. Samson, still in his teens, lived at one time in the households of both Edward Winslow and William Brewster, respectively.
As an adult, Henry became a surveyor and served as constable in Duxbury where he died in December of 1684.
- Information sourced from WikiTree, Wikipedia, and the Mayflower DNA Project. Leiden photo courtesy of Roberta Estes.
Oliver Winchester c. 1847
Oliver Winchester (I-BY186305) and I (I-FGC15105) share a common paternal line ancestor (I-L460) who lived around 19.000 BCE (21.000 years ago).
Oliver Winchester was the Lieutenant Governor of Connecticut and the founder of the Winchester Repeating Arms Company.
Winchester and a brilliant engineer were able to re-engineer the troubled firearm so that it could be used for his freshly re-designed cartridges. This improvement to the rifle plus new cartridges allowed Winchester’s company to come into prominence. The first Winchester rifle was dubbed the “Yellow Boy’ and was the Model 1866 rifle. Increasing popularity lead the rifle to gain the reputation as “the gun that won the West.”
Oliver Winchester also pursued politics and served as Lieutenant Governor of Connecticut from 1866 to 1867. After gus death in 1880, his son William Wirt Winchester inherited the rifle company and died shortly thereafter.
William’s widow was Sarah Winchester of the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose, California.
In 1855, Winchester acquired a financially failing division of Smith & Wesson.
- Sourced from WikiTree, Wikipedia, and the Winchester DNA Project.
Ralph Waldo Emerson by Josiah Johnson Hawes, 1857.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (I-BY27818) and I (I-FGC15105) share a common paternal line ancestor (I-CTS616) who lived around 8200 BCE (10.000 years ago).
Ralph Waldo Emerson, poet, lecturer, philosopher, abolitionist, and prolific essayist, was born in Boston, Massachusetts.
He was the son of Ruth Haskins and Rev. William Emerson, a Unitarian minister. Emerson, a Harvard Divinity School graduate, was an avid philosopher and immersed himself in topics surrounding individualism, nature, divinity, and culture.
He held strong opinions on many concerns of the 19th century including the evils of slavery and widely shared his views in lectures and journals.
Emerson led the transcendentalist movement in the mid-19th century, considered radical at the time, whose core tenet was the goodness of people and nature. He believed that all things are connected to God, and therefore, all things are divine. Ralph’s ideas around self-reliance, stream of thought, and transparency are still very much in the spotlight today. Emerson is credited with the phrase, “Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door.”
Emerson died in 1882 and is buried in Concord, Massachusetts. The Legacy of Ralph Waldo Emerson lives on today. He is widely considered the most influential contributor of the 19th century, and a professorship is named in his honor at Harvard Divinity School, along with a building. Additionally, the Ralph Waldo Emerson Prize is awarded annually to high school students for essays on historical topics.
- Information sourced from WikiTree and Wikipedia
This portrait was first published in 1885 and alleged to be a 1625 likeness of Standish, although its authenticity has never been proven.
Myles Standish (I-FT276480) and I (I-FGC15105) share a common paternal line ancestor (I-P214) who lived around 15.000 BCE (17.000 years ago).
Myles Standish (c. 1584-1656) was an English military officer who was hired by the Separatists as a military adviser for the Plymouth Colony.
The Standish family lived in Chorley, Lancashire where the Standish Pew still stands in the St. Laurence Church. However, Myles was living with his wife in Leiden in 1620 where he may have been associated with the English dissenters who would become the Pilgrims.
Myles sailed on the Mayflower with the Pilgrims and took the first party ashore to find a suitable settlement location. He was installed as the Plymouth Colony militia commander shortly after arrival, a position he retained for life. Standish, with a fiery temper, was known for his preemptive military strikes, leading at least two brutal attacks against the Native Americans.
However, in 1621, Standish saved the colony from massacre with Native ally, Hobbamock who warned the colonists of an impending raid. Standish and Hobbamock instead led a strike against the Nemasket. In 1635, following a military blunder, he remained in an advisory capacity but was no longer an active commander.
In later years, Standish lived on a farm in Duxbury where he died in 1656. He was buried in the Duxbury Old Burying Ground, now known as the Myles Standish Cemetery.
- Information sourced from WikiTree, Wikipedia, and the Mayflower DNA Project. Standish pew photo courtesy of Roberta Estes.
Roosevelt signed the life-altering Social Security Act into law in 1935.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (I-BY213758) and I (I-FGC15105) share a common paternal line ancestor (I-M170) who lived around 25.000 BCE (27.000 years ago).
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (referred to as ‘FDR’) was born in Hyde Park, New York to James Roosevelt I and Sara Ann Delano who were 6th cousins. After attending Harvard University and Columbia Law School, Franklin worked at the law firm of Carter Ledyard & Milburn in their maritime legal division.
In 1921, Franklin became ill and was diagnosed with what was believed to be polio, which left him paralyzed from the waist down. His condition did little to halt his drive and ambition. Roosevelt served as a New York State Senator and as Assistant Secretary of the Navy, was a vice-presidential candidate, and was the Governor of the state of New York. He served as the United States President beginning in 1933 for 3 consecutive terms, making him the only President in the United States ever to do so.
His first presidential term was during the Great Depression, and his sweeping programs often referenced as “New Deals” helped to provide relief to Americans who had been affected by the market crash.
FDR frequently used radio “Fireside Chats” to communicate with the nation and was the first American President to be televised.
Roosevelt won reelection to a fourth term in 1944 but passed away less than 3 months into this Presidency.
Information sourced from WikiTree and Wikipedia.
The Fall of the Alamo by Robert Jenkins Onderdonk depicts Davy Crockett swinging his rifle at Mexican troops who have breached the south gate of the mission.
Davy Crockett (I-Y32632) and I (I-FGC15105) share a common paternal line ancestor (I-CTS616) who lived around 8200 BCE (10.000 years ago).
David “Davy” Crockett was an American folk hero, frontiersman, soldier, and politician. He is commonly called the “King of the Wild Frontier.” He represented Tennessee in the U.S. House of Representatives and served in the Texas Revolution.
After narrowly losing an election in 1835, he departed to Texas. In early 1836, he signed an oath to the Provisional Government of Texas for six months and volunteered to join the Texas Revolution. His first and last battle was the Battle of the Alamo.
He is quoted as having said, “I told the people of my district that I would serve them as faithfully as I had done; but if not, they might go to hell, and I would go to Texas.”
His haplogroup was discovered through Big Y testing of relatives in the Crockett Group Project.
- Biographical information sourced from Wikipedia.
Custer, at far right, was with President Lincoln at the Battle of Antietam in 1862.
George Armstrong Custer (I-FTA17261) and I (I-FGC15105) share a common paternal line ancestor (I-CTS616) who lived around 8200 BCE (10.000 years ago).
George Armstrong Custer (December 5, 1839 – June 25, 1876) was a United States Army officer and cavalry commander in the American Civil War and the American Indian Wars.
Custer graduated from West Point in 1861 at the bottom of his class, but as the Civil War was just starting, trained officers were in immediate demand. He worked closely with General George B. McClellan and the future General Alfred Pleasonton, both of whom recognized his qualities as a cavalry leader, and he was promoted to brigadier general of volunteers at age 23. Only a few days after his promotion, he fought at the Battle of Gettysburg, where he commanded the Michigan Cavalry Brigade and despite being outnumbered, defeated J. E. B. Stuart’s attack at what is now known as the East Cavalry Field.
In 1864, he served in the Overland Campaign and in Philip Sheridan’s army in the Shenandoah Valley, defeating Jubal Early at Cedar Creek. His division blocked the Army of Northern Virginia’s final retreat and received the first flag of truce from the Confederates. He was present at Robert E. Lee’s surrender to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House, Virginia.
After the war, he was commissioned as a lieutenant colonel in the Regular Army and was sent west to fight in the Indian Wars. On June 25, 1876, while leading the 7th Cavalry Regiment at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in Montana Territory against a coalition of Native American tribes, he was killed along with every soldier of the five companies he led after splitting the regiment into three battalions. This action became romanticized as “Custer’s Last Stand”.
His dramatic end was as controversial as the rest of his career, and reaction to his life and career remains deeply divided. His legend was partly of his own fabrication through his extensive journalism, and perhaps more through the energetic lobbying of his wife Elizabeth Bacon “Libbie” Custer throughout her long widowhood. Thomas Jefferson of dying on the anniversary of U.S independence. Historians have generally ranked him as an above-average president.
- Information sourced from Wikipedia, HistoryNet, Smithsonian Magazine, and Wikitree.
The Capture of the Hessians at Trenton, December 26, 1776, by John Trumbull, showing Captain William Washington, with a wounded hand, on the right and Lt. Monroe, severely wounded and helped by Dr. John Riker, left of center, behind the mortally wounded Hessian Colonel Johann Gottlieb Rall. Rall is being helped by American Major William Stephens SmithT.
James Monroe (I-FT339764) and I (I-FGC15105) share a common paternal line ancestor (I-L460) who lived around 19.000 BCE (21.000 years ago).
James Monroe (April 28, 1758 – July 4, 1831) was an American statesman, lawyer, diplomat and Founding Father who served as the fifth president of the United States from 1817 to 1825. A member of the Democratic-Republican Party, Monroe was the last president of the Virginia dynasty and the Republican Generation; his presidency coincided with the Era of Good Feelings, concluding the First Party System era of American politics.
He is perhaps best known for issuing the Monroe Doctrine, a policy of opposing European colonialism in the Americas while effectively asserting U.S. dominance, empire, and hegemony in the hemisphere. He also served as governor of Virginia, a member of the United States Senate, U.S. ambassador to France and Britain, the seventh Secretary of State, and the eighth Secretary of War.
Born into a slave-owning planter family in Westmoreland County, Virginia, Monroe served in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War. After studying law under Thomas Jefferson from 1780 to 1783, he served as a delegate in the Continental Congress. As a delegate to the Virginia Ratifying Convention, Monroe opposed the ratification of the United States Constitution. In 1790, he won election to the Senate, where he became a leader of the Democratic-Republican Party. He left the Senate in 1794 to serve as President George Washington’s ambassador to France but was recalled by Washington in 1796. Monroe won the election as Governor of Virginia in 1799 and strongly supported Jefferson’s candidacy in the 1800 presidential election.
James Monroe went on to hold several positions including Governor of Virginia, Senator from Virginia, Secretary of State, Secretary of War, and US ambassador to the UK and France. In 1817, Monroe became the 5th US President.
- Biographical information sourced from WikiTree and Wikipedia..
Clan Munro (I-Y12073) and I (I-FGC15105) share a common paternal line ancestor (I-L460) who lived around 19.000 BCE (21.000 years ago).
Clan Munro oral tradition says that clan founder Donald Munro came from the northern part of Ireland to the Highlands of Scotland. The first recorded Munro was Robert who died in 1369. This line was seated at Foulis Castle which was built in the 1100s.
The Munro DNA Project confirms various Munro lineages including that of Foulis Castle, seat of the Munro Clan, and also James Monroe, the 5th US President.
- Information sourced from the Clan Munro Association and Wikipedia.
Print of Munro clansman by Robert Ronald McIan (1803-1856). – The Clans of the Scottish Highlands., Public Domain
Clan Lindsay (I-FT11343) and I (I-FGC15105) share a common paternal line ancestor (I-L460) who lived around 19.000 BCE (21.000 years ago).
The Clan Lindsay, a Lowland Scottish clan, descends from Walter Lindsay of Lincoln who accompanied David of Huntingdon from England to Scotland before 1116 according to the Lindsay One-Name Study.
The Lindsays were found in both England and Scotland with Sir Baldric de Lindsay of Hemingby recorded as holding estates in Lindsey in the Domesday Book in 1086.
Clan Lindsay descendants are scattered around the world today and can be viewed in the Lindsay DNA Project.
- Information sourced from the Lindsay One-Name Study coordinated by Lindsay International and Wikipedia.
James Butler Hickock in the early 1860s before the McCanles incident.
James Butler Hickok (I-A1843) and I (I-FGC15105) share a common paternal line ancestor (I-M170) who lived around 25.000 BCE (27.000 years ago).
James Butler Hickok, better known as Wild Bill Hickok, was the quintessential western folk hero—except he really lived.
Wild Bill was born in Homer, Illinois to parents who were Abolitionists and joined the Quakers to serve as a station on the Underground Railroad, hiding formerly enslaved people seeking freedom in their cellar—a dangerous proposition.
Hickok headed west in 1855 after throwing his employer into the canal for mistreating his horse team, establishing a lifelong habit of inserting himself between the oppressed and their oppressor. After arriving in Kansas Territory, Hickok began farming, was elected constable, and worked in a railway freight station. In 1860, while driving a freight team on the Sante Fe Trail, he encountered a bear with two cubs. He made the mistake of shooting the mother, the bullet ricocheting off of her head and infuriating her. She grabbed Hickok and began biting and crushing him, but he was able to grab his knife and kill the bear. At least, that was his story. Regardless, he was badly injured and was bedridden for four months in Nebraska.
Soon thereafter, Hickock began his legacy of gambling and gunfights. At one point, he adopted the alias, William Haycock.
James Butler Hickock in the early 1860s before the McCanles incident.
In 1861, Hickok, then mocked derisively as “Duck Bill” due to his protruding upper lip, was involved in a shootout with the McCanles Gang, reportedly due to the allegation that Hickok “stole” David McCanles’s mistress. At least two of the McCanles brothers were killed, and Hickok, in a trial that lasted all of about 15 minutes, was acquitted when the judge ruled he had acted in self-defense. The remaining McCanles family altered their surname and moved to Colorado.
Hickok also changed his name becoming “Wild Bill,” hoping to replace “Duck Bill,” after he grew a mustache covering his upper lip. Hickok himself, with help from Harpers Monthly, sensationalized the McCanles incident, claiming that he “single-handedly killed nine desperadoes, horse thieves, murderers and regular cutthroats” known as the McCanles Gang “in the greatest one-man gunfight in history.”
Hickok had unwittingly launched his career as a showman.
Kansas was in many ways the “wild west” of the time, and Hickok served in the Civil War before his discharge for unknown reasons. He then served as a scout and spy and took up gambling, which resulted in a duel in which Hickok killed the other gambler in 1867. Hickok capitalized on that incident to enhance his reputation as well.
Hickok served as Marshall of several early towns, resulting in additional shootouts that occurred when Hickok attempted to arrest outlaws, although Hickok had his own share of personal disputes that escalated into deadly conflicts.
Not a hardened killer, Hickok’s days as a gunslinger were over when he accidentally killed his own Deputy Marshall who was attempting to come to his aid during one of the famous shootouts.
Wild Bill Hickok in 1869.
Hickok then joined Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show, officially becoming a showman and continuing his gambling career although his health began to fail in his 30s.
In 1876, only four months after marrying widow Agnes Thatcher Lake, a circus proprietor, he left his wife behind, penning a letter stating that although he would probably never see her again, he would breathe her name with his dying breath.
By the time Agnes read the letter, Hickok had joined a wagon train to the Dakota Territory gold fields. Did he sense that his days were numbered?
The wagon train arrived in Deadwood, now South Dakota, in July. On August 1st, Hickock was playing poker with Jack McCall, a drunk gambler who was losing badly. Hickok encouraged him to quit until he could cover his losses, giving him money for breakfast, which reportedly insulted McCall.
Hickok always played poker with his back facing the back corner or wall so no one could enter behind him. The following day, while Hickok was playing with his back to the door because no other seat was available, McCall walked up behind him and shot him point blank in the back of the head. McCall was executed by hanging for his deed in 1877
The poker hand reportedly held by Hickok at the time of his death became known as “dead man’s hand.”
However, Wild Bill Hickok and Jack McCall both live on today in Deadwood where daily reenactments recreate the days of the wild west.
Sourced from Wikipedia, WikiTree, Old West Kansas at Kansasheritage.org, Hitchcock DNA Project.
There are no pictures of Hans Jonatan, and the wherabouts of his remains are unknown. His grandson is pictured. Photo credit: Helga Tomasdottir
Hans Jonatan (I-CTS616) and I (I-FGC15105) share a common ancestor who lived around 9900 BCE (11900 years ago).
Hans Jonatan was born enslaved in 1784 on a plantation on the Caribbean island of Saint Croix, which was then known as the Danish West Indies and is now part of the U.S. Virgin Islands.
His story rose to international fame after the publication of the biography, The Man Who Stole Himself.
The Schimmelmann family who enslaved Jonatan moved to Denmark where Hans escaped, joined the Danish Navy, and fought in the 1801 Battle of Copenhagen.
- No portrait of Hans Jonatan exists, but his grandson Ludvik Ludviksson is pictured here
(Photo credit: Helga Tomasdot).
While there are some uncertainties about his father, it’s thought he was a white Dane named Hans Gram, who was a secretary on one of the island’s plantations. His mother was a house slave named Emilia Regina.
Eventually, the Schimmelmann family who enslaved Jonatan moved to Denmark and took the two with him – but, slavery was illegal in the country. Hans escaped, joined the Danish Navy, and fought in the 1801 Battle of Copenhagen.
Frau Schimmelmann sued in court for the right to keep Hans as property and sell him back to Saint Croix. The court ruled in her favor. Once again, Hans escaped, and in 1802, he arrived in Iceland, which was then also a dependency of Denmark.
Settling in Iceland, he became the first black resident. He married Katrín Antoníusdóttir, and they had two children. Today, hundreds of Icelanders descend from them.Unfortunately, Hans died at age 43 following a stroke.
A study by Jagadeesan et al. 2018 calculated that Hans had 788 descendants and DNA tested 182 of them. They concluded that Hans had a European father and an African mother with ancestry from the West African region spanned by Benin, Nigeria, and Cameroon.
- Historical information sourced from Jagadeesan et al. 2018 and Wikipedia.
Shown here is a photo of Albert’s son, Clyde Perry, born in 1867, grandfather of the first A00 tester.
Albert Perry (A-L1100) and I (I-FGC15105) share a common paternal line ancestor (A-PR2921) who lived around 232.000 BCE (234.000 years ago).
Albert Perry was born into slavery in South Carolina sometime around 1820. In 2012, one of his great-grandsons took a Y-DNA test, which led to the discovery of the most divergent Y-DNA lineage known today, haplogroup A00. This lineage would later be traced to Cameroon.On the “Paternal Ancestor” you can see a photo of Albert’s son, Clyde Perry, born in 1867, grandfather of the first A00 test.
The Perry family in the USA and the distant cousins in Cameroon all descend from a single ancestor who lived just over 1,000 years ago, but they are the most distant paternal line relatives of almost everyone in the world today.
Reference: Mendez FL, Krahn T, Schrack B, Krahn A-M, Veeramah KR, Woerner AE, Fomine FLM, Bradman N, Thomas MG, Karafet TM, Hammer MF. (2013). An African American paternal lineage adds an extremely ancient root to the human Y chromosome phylogenetic tree. Am J Hum Genet, 92(3): 454–459.
Ancient Y-DNA connections
Here are some very ancient connections who share a common paternal ancestor with me. They were found in the regions now known as:
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Anyone who has even a passing familiarity with Y-DNA haplogroup notation knows how cumbersome the longhand version is.
In 2014 (FTDNA) changed their naming system for the Y-DNA haplogroups. The new naming convention replaces the well-known group names like R1b1a2 with the SNP shorthand version of the same haplogroup name, R-M269.
For example, R1b1a1b1a1a2c1a1d is the ISOGG Y-DNA haplogroup longhand version, the FTDNA shorthand version is R1b-DF41, much easier.
From this time forward, the haplogroups will be known by their SNP names and the longhand version is obsolete, although you will always see it in older documents, articles and papers.
- In the picture below of the Weltzin Tollense Warriors with whom I share a common paternal ancestor you can see more examples of this naming.
ISOGG longhand versus the new FTDNA shorthand naming.
Tollense valley in Western Pommerania, Germany
Discovery and excavation of the battlefield of the Tollense valley
In 1996, a voluntary archaeologist found a bone of a man’s upper arm with a flint arrowhead embedded in it in the Tollense valley.
During succeeding years, bones of over one hundred individuals have been found in this location. On many of these bones, old and new traces of trauma were visible: healed and recent wounds, caved in skulls, etcetera.
Furthermore, swords, spearheads and arrowheads were found. The site summons up an image of a violent fight between men, some older, most of them in the prime of their life. The battle at the Tollense valley took place in 1300 BC, the Bronze age. Back then, this valley was a vast swamp with a small river in the middle. As it still is today.
The site, discovered in 1996 and systematically excavated since 2007, extends along the valley of the small Tollense river, to the east of Weltzin village, on the municipal territories of Burow and Werder.
As of late 2017, the remains of some 140 people had been identified. Most of these were young men between the ages of 20 and 40, but there were also at least two women identified among 14 skeletons that were genetically tested. Before March 2016, about 10,000 human and 1,000 animal bones had been found; by March 2018, that number had risen to a total of about 13,000 fragments.
The total number of dead is estimated between 750, to more than 1,000. The total number of fighters might have ranged between 3,000 and more than 5,000, assuming a casualty rate of 20-25%. In one spot, 1,478 bones were found within just 12 m2 (130 sq ft), potentially the remnants of a pile of corpses or a final pocket of resistance.
Why the men gathered in this spot to fight and die is another mystery that archaeological evidence is helping unravel. The Tollense Valley here is narrow, just 50 meters wide in some spots. Parts are swampy, whereas others offer firm ground and solid footing. The spot may have been a sort of choke point for travelers journeying across the northern European plain.
Battle kits of the Tollense warriors. Image by R. Johnson for Science Magazine.
In 2013, geomagnetic surveys revealed evidence of a 120-meter-long bridge or causeway stretching across the valley. Excavated over two dig seasons, the submerged structure turned out to be made of wooden posts and stone. Radiocarbon dating showed that although much of the structure predated the battle by more than 500 years, parts of it may have been built or restored around the time of the battle, suggesting the causeway might have been in continuous use for centuries—a well-known landmark.
- “The crossing played an important role in the conflict. Maybe one group tried to cross and the other pushed them back,” Terberger says. “The conflict started there and turned into fighting along the river.”
As the population density was approximately 5 people per square kilometer (13 per square mile), this would have been the most significant battle in Bronze Age Central Europe known so far and makes the Tollense valley currently the largest excavated and archaeologically verifiable battle site of this age in the world.
The valley of the Tollense during winter floods, close to Kessin and Weltzin. License/Creative Commons, Wikipedia.
Why is the Tollense battlefield important to me?
My Y-DNA haplogroup I-FGC15105 is related to 7 Y-DNA haplogroups found in the DNA of 7 men on the Tollense battlefield in the Tollense valley, West Pomerania, Germany. All 7 of these men were connected to the Tollense “Warriors” cultural group.
They were Weltzin 15, 51, 71, 39 64, 24 and Welztin 83, these are 7 men who lived between 1350 and 1150 BCE during the European Bronze Age and with whom I share a common paternal ancestor.
Remarkably, Weltzin 15, 51, 71, 39 64, 24 and Welztin 83 have a higher than average Western Hunter Gatherer % (WHG) than most Europeans. That is interesting since I am at 48% WHG ,which I’ve been told is a pretty high percentage in any population.
- I put “Warriors” in quotes because it is unclear whether these were warriors or victims of an ambush. One thing is certain, they died on the battlefield. Winners or losers, nobody knows.
Interesting observations:
* Weltzin 71, 39 and 64 come from the Tollense valley in Western Pomerania, Germany and share a common paternal ancestor (I-I-L1229) around 3200 BCE with Erd 479, Zličín 16549 , Mokrin 28A, Padina 5243, Polaky 15071 and I (I-FGC15105).
That is about 2ooo years before the battlefield in the Tollense valley took place.
However Erd 479, Zličín 16549, Mokrin 28A, Padina 5243 and Polaky 15071 originate from Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Serbia and not from the Tollense valley in Germany.
* Weltzin 24 and Weltzin 83 come from the Tollense valley in West Pomerania, Germany and share a common paternal ancestor (I-BY1003) around 7400 BCE with Břvany 14481, Su Crocefissu 26, Urziceni 14163, Su Crocefissu 27 and I (I-FGC15105). That is about 6ooo years before the battlefield in the Tollense valley took place.
However Břvany 14481, Su Crocefissu 26, Urziceni 14163 and Su Crocefissu 27 originate from Czech Republic, Italy, Romania and Sassari, Italy and not from the Tollense valley in Germany.
* Weltzin 51 comes from the Tollense valley in Western Pomerania, Germany and has the same joint paternal ancestor (I-Z2068) around 1350 – 1150 BCE BCE as Konobrže 16099 and I (I-FGC15105).
However, Konobrže 16099 comes from Czech Republic and not from the Tollense valley in Germany.
With Weltzin 51 I share not only a common paternal ancestor but also a common ancestor through his maternal side, because Weltzin 51’s mtDNA is H1c and my mtDNA is H1c1.
* Weltzin 15 comes from the Tollense valley in Western Pomerania and has a common paternal ancestor (I-Z2054) around 1350 – 1150 BCE with me (I-FGC15105).
Table with Weltzin Tollense Warriors with whom I share a common paternal ancestor.
* Szólád 43 (I-BY138) and I (I-FGC15105) share a common paternal line ancestor (I-FGC151109) who lived around 1800 BCE. Szólád 43 was a man who lived between 438 and 605 CE during the Medieval Age and was found in the region now known as Szólád, Cserénfa, Hungary. He was associated with the Longobard Barbarian cultural group. Interesting is that the Longobard homeland is just a little bit southwest of the Tollense valley.
- The Lombards or Langobards (Latin: Langobardi) were a Germanic people who ruled most of the Italian Peninsula from 568 to 774. The Lombards settled in modern-day Hungary in Pannonia. Archaeologists have unearthed burial sites in the area of Szólád of Lombard men and women buried together as families, a practice that was uncommon for Germanic peoples at the time. Traces have also been discovered of Mediterranean Greeks and of a woman whose skull suggests French ancestry, possibly indicating that migrations into the Lombard territory occurred from Greece and France.
I (I-FGC151505) therefore share the same common paternal ancestor with all these people, but in a different timescale. So not only do we have a common Y-DNA paternal ancestor (I-L1229, I-BY1003, I-Z2054 and I-Z2068), but it raises also a geographically question in my mind;
“Did some of my old pre-Celtic ancient family members, with a common paternal ancestor I-BY1003 and I-L1229 left the Central European region between 74000 – 3200 BCE and moved to the north of Germany, via present-day Italy / Hungary / Serbia / Czech Republic and eventually died on the battlefield of the Tollense valley, just like Wiltzin 71, 39, 64, 24, 83, 15 and Weltzin 51 in 1300 BCE?“
The common paternal ancestors that I (I-FGC15105) share with men who fell in the battle in the Tollense valley.
Battlefield or ambush? (Partial text from Dutch article: Ancient battle, ambush? )
The victims seem to come from afar, it seems that the battle was not a local conflict between neighboring tribes. In 2017, for example, strontium analyzes of some of the bones found showed that most of the dead were not from the surrounding area. The examination of the bones at the Tollense shows that most of the men did not live in northern Germany, but probably came from southern Germany and central Europe – almost 1000 kilometers away.
For an alternative explanation, Jantzen points to a discovery made during the excavations, namely a road that was hundreds of years old at the time of the battle.
- There is stronger evidence that the warriors were ambushed.
The mysterious road
When the archaeologists examined the eastern bank of the Tollense to see if there had been any fighting there, they made a surprising discovery. At the spot from where the find layer of human bones spread on the west bank, they found – instead of bones – an approximately 2.5 meter wide strip with crisscrossed trunks.
The strip ran inland from the river. Under and next to the trunks were huge stones, which clearly came from the surrounding fields. A layer of sand and earth lay on top of the stones and trunks. They were the remains of a thousands of years old road. Excavations revealed that the area around the road was impassable marshland at that time. The construction of the road made it possible to cross the marshy swamp safely. The road led to the bank of the Tollense, where there was probably a bridge.
The river in the Tollense valley
Ambush on the river bank
The road through the swamp area was undoubtedly well known. For those who wanted to cross the river, this was the place to be. As a result, it was also the best place to prevent someone from reaching the other side. And according to Detlef Jantzen, in the eyes of the researchers, this is one of the most likely scenarios at the moment.
- “A group of people trying to cross the valley of the Tollense was somehow stopped by another group and a fight broke out,” he explains.
The theory is supported by the fact that many weapons and bones have been found right on the spot where a possible bridge may have stood. It seems that the warring groups then moved north along the west bank, where remnants of the battle have also been found. According to Detlef Jantzen, both groups may have been armed and aware of each other’s existence.
Thus, according to this theory, two armies actively sought confrontation. Another possibility, however, is that one group lay in ambush near the river and waited for the unsuspecting counterpart to arrive at the best place to cross the river and swamp. Because this was the ideal place for an ambush.
- “We know from the finds that a large group of young men were attacked with all kinds of weapons and many of them were killed. But we know almost nothing about the winning party. And we don’t even know if the losers were armed,” says Jantzen.
That the losing group may not even have consisted of armed warriors is supported by the fact that none of the skeletal parts found bear scars from previous battles. You would expect that if they were warriors who had fought many times before. Eight skulls, admittedly, showed evidence of previous club blows—which they had survived. But there were no scars from sharp weapons.
That’s why the scientists think the dead could also belong to another group known to have moved in the Bronze Age: itinerant traders.
Significance of the archeological find
The overseeing State Archaeologist Detlef Jantzen claims this to be the oldest archaeologically verifiable battlefield in Europe and one of the 50 most important find sites worldwide.
- He also said: “The Tollense site has a dimension that nobody would have deemed possible for our region.”
- Helle Vandkilde, archeologist at Aarhus University commented “Most people thought ancient society was peaceful, and that Bronze Age males were concerned with trading and so on […] Very few talked about warfare.”
A group of 5,000 combatants implies that they had been gathered, organised, fed, briefed, and led into battle. According to the researchers at the site, this would have been an astounding feat for the time, probably enabled by a central government. This would mean that socio-political development in Central Europe was more advanced and more bellicose than previously assumed, roughly at a time when Egypt and the Hittites concluded their famous peace treaty. “The well-preserved bones and artifacts add detail to this picture of Bronze Age sophistication, pointing to the existence of a trained warrior class and suggesting that people from across Europe joined the bloody fray.”
According to archaeologist Kristian Kristiansen, the battle would have taken place during an era of significant upheaval from the Mediterranean to the Baltic. At around this time, the Mycenean civilization of ancient Greece collapsed, while the Sea Peoples who had devastated the Hittites were defeated in ancient Egypt. Not long after the battle at Tollense valley, the individual scattered farmsteads of northern Europe were replaced by concentrated and heavily fortified settlements.
Video of the Battlefield of the Tollense valley, around 1250-1300 BCE
- Read more (in Dutch) about the battlefield at the Tollense: Door Niels-Peter Granzow Busch
D. Jantzen, J. Orschiedt, J. Piek, T. Terberger: Tod im Tollensetal, Landesamt für Kultur und Denkmalpflege Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, 2014
Living reconstruction in the Neanderthal Museum (Erkrath, Mettmann) of a Homo sapiens neanderthalensis.
Neanderthal Man and I share (I-FGC15105) a common paternal line ancestor (A000-T) who lived around 368,000 BCE.
Common Connection
Every modern human shares a connection with Neanderthaler Man.
- Try to imagine the modern human, Homo Sapiens, as just one of three species of humans coexisting on the planet Earth. That’s a difficult picture to paint by any stretch of the imagination. Yet this was the reality 60,000 years ago, when the first anatomically modern humans left Africa. It was a time when Europe and the Middle East were already populated by the Neanderthals, while the Denisovans spread across large parts of Asia.
GEDmatch Archaic Matches with my Autosomal DNA
My Autosomal DNA was uploaded to GEDmatch and they found two archaic Neanderthal matches with my Autosomal DNA in Vindija Cave, northern Croatia and in Sidrón Cave in the Piloña municipality of Asturias, northwestern Spain.
- Vindija Cave is an archaeological site associated with Neanderthals and modern humans, located in the municipality of Donja Voća, Northern Croatia.
The cave has yielded Neanderthal and animal bones, many of them too fragmentary to determine from their morphology from what species they derive. Importantly, DNA preservation in Vindija Cave is relatively good and allowed the determination of Pleistocene nuclear DNA from a cave bear a Neanderthal genome, exome and chromosome 21 sequences.
In 2017, researchers from the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit dated several samples from Vindija Cave. Their direct AMS dating results show that the Neanderthal finds at Vindija are older than 44,000 BP. - Sidrón Cave is a non-carboniferous limestone karst cave system located in the Piloña municipality of Asturias, northwestern Spain, where Paleolithic rock art and the fossils of more than a dozen Neanderthals were found.
Researchers recovered more than 2500 hominin fossil elements from the site. The minimum number of individuals from Sidrón Cave is 13.
The age of these remains of three men, three adolescent boys, four women, and three infants has been estimated to about 49,000 years BP.
The fact that the bones are excellently preserved with very limited erosion and no large carnivore tooth marks and the unusual deposition of the bones, mixed into a jumble of gravel and mud, suggests that these Neanderthals did not die in this spot but an exterior location. A number of scenarios of how these “members of an extended family” might have ended up in a 6 m2 (65 sq ft) room-sized space, dubbed the Tunnel of Bones included flooding, cave collapse, and disposal by cannibals. Evidence for cannibalism includes “the presence of cut marks, flakes, percussion pitting, conchoidal scars, and adhering flakes”. Projection exists that they were dropped into the cave in a single event via a collapse of nearby fissures above the site or, by influx of storm water.
GEDmatch Archaic Neanderthal Matches with my Autosomal DNA in Vindija Cave, northern Croatia and in Sidrón Cave, Asturia Spain.
Neanderthals were first named and unearthed in 1856 in the Neander Valley of Germany, three full years before Darwin published his book On the Origin of Species. In his writings, Darwin only briefly wrote about human evolution and did not mention anything about the newly named Neanderthals. Coincidentally, by 1848, a Neanderthal skeleton had already been discovered in Gibraltar. That specimen, however, had remained uncharacterized in science. So, as fate would have it, the German team is credited with discovering the new species, and the name Neanderthal still remains. Neanderthal Man (seen pictured as a reconstruction) from Feldhofer cave in Neander Valley lived approximately 40,000 years ago.
Coincidentally, by 1848, a Neanderthal skeleton had already been discovered in Gibraltar. That specimen, however, had remained uncharacterized in science. So, as fate would have it, the German team is credited with discovering the new species, and the name Neanderthal still remains.
- Neanderthal Man (seen pictured here as a reconstruction) from Feldhofer cave in Neander Valley lived approximately 40,000 years ago.
At the same time that Neanderthals evolved from H. Heidelbergensis in Europe, early modern humans arose in North and East Africa. There is as yet no indication of these early humans crossing open water: the first contacts across the Strait of Gibraltar seem to have only taken place during the Neolithic. The only early contacts can only have been through the Isthmus of Suez. Of particular interest are therefore the finds in the Levant. According to current understanding, these are essentially considered Neandertals, albeit with a small influence from African early modern humans.
The most recent Neanderthal finds in the Levant date from about 50,000 BC, which is remarkable because early modern humans, via a different route across the Bab el Mandeb and Strait of Hormuz, had reached South Asia and even Australia tens of thousands of years earlier. Genetic research also shows that the first modern humans in the Middle East were related to these Asian settlers, rather than coming through Sinai.
About 46,000 years ago, early modern humans first set foot on European soil. These European early modern humans brought with them the culture of the Aurignacian. In Europe and Western Asia, it is often referred to as Cro-Magnon humans, although strictly speaking this was only a sub-group.
Modern humans and Neanderthals then lived simultaneously for several thousand years in the same areas, gradually displacing Neanderthals to the fringe, such as south of the Ebro (Spain). The most recent Neanderthal finds are about 28,000 years old and were found in Gibraltar. Another late site is Byzovaja in Northern Russia.
In Western Europe, Neanderthals disappeared about 40,000 years ago. On the southern edges of the Iberian Peninsula, including Gibraltar, Neanderthals may have survived for several thousand more years. The last Neanderthals in Europe, as far as we know, lived in Gibraltar at least 39,000 years ago. However, that Gibraltar was the last place in Europe where Neanderthals could survive is doubted by other archaeologists. They suspect that the finds are rather the result of the very intensive archaeological research that the English are carrying out on such a small area
Neanderthals are our closest extinct human relative. Some defining features of their skulls include the large middle part of the face, angled cheek bones, and a huge nose for humidifying and warming cold, dry air. Their bodies were shorter and stockier than ours, another adaptation to living in cold environments. But their brains were just as large as ours and often larger – proportional to their brawnier bodies.
Neanderthals made and used a diverse set of sophisticated tools, controlled fire, lived in shelters, made and wore clothing, were skilled hunters of large animals and also ate plant foods, and occasionally made symbolic or ornamental objects. There is evidence that Neanderthals deliberately buried their dead and occasionally even marked their graves with offerings, such as flowers. No other primates, and no earlier human species, had ever practiced this sophisticated and symbolic behavior.
- DNA has been recovered from more than a dozen Neanderthal fossils, all from Europe; the Neanderthal Genome Project is one of the exciting new areas of human origins research.
Timeline and location of Neanderthaler find in Europe and the Levant. Neanderthal Man and I (I-FGC15105) share a common paternal line ancestor (A000-T) who lived around 368.000 BCE
- Neanderthaler map: Licenced Wikimedia Commons.
View of the entrance to the Denisova cave from the Anui river valley, Soloneshensky rajon, Altai Krai, Russia
Denisova 8 and I (I-FGC15105) share a common paternal ancestor (A-0000) who lived around 705,000 BCE.
Common Connection
Every modern human shares a connection with Denisova 8.
Denisova 8 was an adult Denisova male who lived between 134,400 and 103,600 BCE in the Altai Mountains of southern Siberia, Russia.
This region of Central Asia was quite temperate, so Denisova 8 and its relatives would have been well adapted to cold life. Only his molar (photo) has ever been found. It was excavated in the Denisova Cave, from which the species Homo denisova got its name.
Not much is known about Denisovans except that we have learned that some people today still carry small remnants of autosomal Denisovan DNA. Denisovan DNA is most common (~5%) in people of Papuan and Aboriginal Australian descent. This suggests that humans encountered Denisovans in South or Central Asia as they left Africa and mated with them before first migrating across Indonesia to Australia and Papua New Guinea about 50,000 years ago.
There was also a group of Neanderthals who lived in the foothills of the Altai about 54,000 years ago, consisting of perhaps 10 to 20 individuals. Many of them were closely related, including a father and his young daughter. The fossils come from archaeological excavations of Okladnikov Cave in the mid-1980s and Chagyrskaya Cave since 2007.
These caves were used by Neanderthals as hunting camps. The teeth and bones came from 13 individuals: 11 from Chagyrskaya Cave and two from Okladnikov Cave. Seven of the Neanderthals were male and six were female. Eight were adults and five were children or adolescents.
Although the nearby site of Denisova Cave was inhabited by Neanderthals as early as 200,000 years ago, the Chagyrskaya and Okladnikov Neanderthals are more closely related to European Neanderthals than to the earlier ones in Denisova Cave. Denisovans are a sister group of Neanderthals and they have interbred at least once. This happened about 100,000 years ago and produced a daughter from a Neanderthal mother and a Denisovan father and a few second-degree relatives – a young boy and an adult woman, perhaps his cousin, aunt or grandmother.
Deniosova 8 lived more than 100,000 years ago, making it the oldest Y-chromosome DNA ever extracted and sequenced from a hominin species. Given its distinctiveness from human and Neanderthal genomes, ISOGG (International Society of Genetic Genealogy) assigned it the haplogroup name A0000 in 2019. A0000 diverged from Neanderthal and human Y chromosomes about 700,000 years ago.
Deniosova 8 lived more than 100,000 years ago, making it the oldest Y-chromosome DNA ever extracted and sequenced from a hominin species. Given its distinctiveness from human and Neanderthal genomes, ISOGG (International Society of Genetic Genealogy) assigned it the haplogroup name A0000 in 2019. A0000 diverged from Neanderthal and human Y chromosomes about 700,000 years ago.
Timeline, Denisova 8 and I (I-FGC15105) share a common paternal ancestor (A-0000) who lived around 705,000 BCE.
This map shows the known Neanderthal range in Europe (blue), southwest Asia (orange), Uzbekistan (green), and the Altai Mountains (violet), as inferred from their skeletal remains (not stone tools). Nilenbert, Nicholas Perrault III
- Denisova 8 molar after restoration. Zubova et al. 2017, CC BY 4.0
Reference: denisova8 by Petr et al. 2020 Phylogenetic Y-DNA Analysis by FamilyTreeDNA. Ancient DNA samples are usually degraded and lack coverage, sometimes resulting in less specific haplogroup placements. Wikipedia Commons - Denisova Cave Photo: By Демин Алексей Барнаул: Wikipedia Commons
- Neanderthal distribution map: Nilenbert, Nicolas Perrault III: Wikimedia Commons
Analysis of my ancient relatives with whom I share a common paternal ancestor.
My (I-FGC15071) so far oldest Y-DNA common line of paternal ancestors are:
- Viste Boy (Norwegian: Vistegutten) a 15-year-old boy from the Mesolithic (Middle Stone Age) who was found at an archaeological excavation of the Viste Cave in Vistehola, Rogaland, Norway in 1907 and lived around 6300 – 6000 BCE. Viste Boy and I share a common paternal ancestor (I-CTS2257) who lived around 20,000 BCE.
- Motala 2 (I-L596) a man who lived about 5715 – 5569 BCE and lived in what is now known as Motala, near the Lake Vättern in Sweden. Motala 2 and I (I-FGC15105) share a common paternal ancestor (I-CTS2257) who lived around 21000 BCE.
My (I-FGC15071) next most common ancient Y-DNA common line of paternal ancestors (I-FGC15071) are 9 males who lived around 9550 BCE. They lived in what is now known as Macarthur Cave, Argyll and Bute, Scotland – Distillery Cave, Argyll and Bute, Scotland – Portal Tomb, Poulnabrone, Clare, Ireland and Primrose Grange, Ireland.
I share a common paternal ancestor with them around 9550 BCE.
- But in 9550 BCE this was Doggerland, a piece of land, now submerged under the southern North Sea, connecting Britain to continental Europe. Geological surveys have suggested that it stretched from what is now the east coast of Great Britain to what is now the Netherlands, the west coast of Germany and the Jutland peninsula. It was flooded by rising sea levels around 6500–6200 BC
In terms of timeline, the continuation of my ancient Y-DNA common line of paternal ancestors (I-By1003) are 9 men who lived from 7400 – 7450 BCE. They lived in what is now known as Bodrogkeresztur, Urziceni, Romania – Břvany, Louny , Czech Republic – Sassari Italy – the Tollense battlefield in Western Pomerania, Germany -Les Bréguières, Alpes-Maritimes, France – Cueva de las Lechuzas, Villena, Alicante, Spain – all in Eastern and Central Europe, Spain and Sardinia.
- So I think it is reasonable to assume that my ancient ancestors from England, Ireland and Scotland migrated back before 6500 – 6200 BCE from Doggerland, before it disappeared due to rising sea levels, to Eastern and Central Europe, Spain and Sardinia.
Although my FTDNA Haplogroup Report matches me to remains found in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Serbia, Slovenia and Italy I also match a dozen Tollense Valley remains found in Mecklenburg Germany as well as Longobard graves in Hungary down through to France, Italy and Northern Spain.
The next group of ancient paternal connections are Weltzin 15, 51, 71, 39 64, 24 and Welztin 83. they were 7 men who lived between 1350 and 1150 BCE during the European Bronze Age and their DNA was found on the battlefield of Tollense valley in Western Pomerania, Germany and 6 men who lived in what is now known as Erd Hungary – Földvár, Százhalombatta, Hungary – Poláky, Chomutov, Czech Republic – Zličín, Praha, Czech Republic and Mokrin necropolis, Mokrin, Serbia.
And then there is Szólád 43, a man with who I share a common paternal line ancestor (I-FGC151109) who lived around 1800 BCE.
Szólád 43 lived between 438 and 605 CE during the Medieval Age and was found in the region now known as Szólád, Cserénfa, Hungary. He was associated with the Longobard Barbarian cultural group.
Interestingly, the Lombard homeland is just a little southwest of the Tollense Valley.
The Lombards, also known as the Longobards, were a Germanic tribe whose fabled origins lay in the barbarian realm of Scandinavia. After centuries of obscurity during the long period of Roman domination in Europe, the Lombards began a concerted migration south-eastwards, coming to prominence immediately after the fall of Rome. They ruled most of the Italian peninsula from 568 to 774.The Lombards settled in what is now Hungary in Pannonia.
Archaeologists have excavated cemeteries in the Szólád area of Lombard men and women who were buried together as a family, a practice unusual for Germanic peoples at the time. Traces of Mediterranean Greeks and of a woman whose skull suggests French ancestry have also been discovered, possibly indicating that migrations to the Lombardy area occurred from Greece and France.
- I think the most accurate determination I can make is that my paternal lineage (I-FGC15105) on the I-M223 family tree is Very Old (like All of Us) and my particular line is associated through hunter-gatherers and megalith peoples, Bell Beakers to Pré / Proto Celtic and Germanic origin.
I think there might be a real genetic basis to the origin and lore of the Longobards and their migration south to Italy from the regions of Baltic/Jutland and Lower Denmark, which may explain my ancient genetic Scandinavian heritage.
Further downstream, it all seems to be confined to a particular group of Germanic people known as the Saxons in England, Scotland and Ireland.
These connections are based on DNA research of archaeological remains from all over the world.
My upstream I-M223 SNP (subgroup of I-M170)
- Age: 17.400 BCE
Region: Western Asia to Western Europe; very low frequency in the Middle East. Along with G one of the first haplogroups in Europe.
- Note: On the 29th June 2018, the International Society of Genetic Genealogy (ISOGG) updated the Haplogroup I Tree to accommodate new branches and I-M223 has been given a new longhand classification of I2a1b1. Previous names were I2a2a, I2b1 and I1c, so please be careful as earlier reference material may refer to I-M223 or sub-clades under one of these previous longhand classifications. I-P222 is a sub-branch of I-M223 and is the parent branch of all sub-branches and clades in this Project. The I-P222 branch node has a further 55 SNPs. Sequencing ancient Y-DNA found at least two ancient male remains that were I-M223 but of a different sub-branch named I-FT355000. This is why I-M223 branch was split into the two sub-branches.
I-M223 is the shorthand form of the Y-DNA Haplogroup I branch and can also be shown as I2-M223. The M223 refers to the SNP at Hg38 location 19555421 on the Y-Chromosome with mutation G to A.
This mutation occurred in a man, approximately 17,400 years ago and M223 is one of 23 SNPs found derived (+) at the I-M223 node. We do not know which of the 23 SNPs mutated first and which was last. All men that are derived for M223 share a common ancestor that lived at least 13,200 to 10,800 years ago. It has now been confirmed by ancient DNA test that the first Homo sapiens to colonize Europe during the Aurignacian period (45,000 to 28,000 years ago), belonged to haplogroups CT, C1a, C1b, F and haplogroup I (to which my M223 belongs).
Haplogroup Y-M223 (formerly I2a2a) has a peak in Germany and another in the northeast of Sweden, but also appears in Romania/Moldova, Russia, Greece, Italy and around the Black Sea. Haplogroup I-M223 has been found in over 4% of the population only in Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Scotland, and England (excluding Cornwall) – also the southern tips of Sweden and Norway in Northwest Europe; the provinces of Normandy, Maine, Anjou, and Perche in northwestern France; the province of Provence in southeastern France; the regions of Tuscany, Umbria, and Latium in Italy; Moldavia and the area around Russia’s Ryazan Oblast and Mordovia in Eastern Europe. Of historical note, both haplogroups I-M253 and I-M223 appear at a low frequency in the historical regions of Bithynia and Galatia in Turkey. Haplogroup I-M223 also occurs among approximately 1% of Sardinians.
Haplogroup I-M223 variants:
M223, CTS10093, CTS10125, CTS10262, CTS11545, CTS12861, CTS2312, CTS5015, CTS7032, CTS7172, CTS7865, CTS9266, FGC3540, GC3554,FGC3563, L34, L36, P219, P223, S2363, S2472, Z26370, Z77.
There was a first man to be M223.
He lived in Europe—probably. He lived 14,000 to 18,000 years ago—probably. We will never really know, because the only people we can test are his sons’ sons’ sons’ … sons’ sons who are alive today, including you. His father was not I-M223. Neither were his brothers. They were I-M170. One of his father’s sperm had a Y-chromosome that had mutated, creating a slightly different order of base pairs. That sperm fertilized his mother’s egg at his conception and the I-M223 “family” was created in that moment.
The only reason this “type” (I-M223) shows up among the noise of history is because his male line survived. The first I-M223 had sons. If they had been named Rubble and kept his surname, they all would have been Rubbles. All of their sons were I-M223, and would have been Rubbles. My paternal cousins (people you can trace to with only this male line) were probably among the first (re)settlers of Britain, Ireland, and Scandinavia as the ice sheets receded. The “surname” stayed with them. Sometimes it grew in population in a particular area when a man had a lot of sons; sometimes it died out in a particular area when all the men with the “surname” had no sons.
