Diving into my son George's archeo-genetics I saw he was of the European tribes, markedly of the Visigoths, but also the Illyrians, Gauls, Franks and Thuringii. His actual closest modern connections were to France and Spain, before even his Italian. It was interesting how his Italian father, Francesco, had been so drawn to this area in which we now lived, especially to the Visigoths, who had sacked Rome, and with him having been so anti-Rome, and of his pro-piracy, which was the past-time of the Illyrians. And, then again, how apt that George had French nationality. George's closest archeo-genetic match was to a Gaul in Lombardy. His second was to a Scythian Moldovan (ah, like his sister Rosina), this being a woman who again had Gaul dna, so being a woman who had married into the Scythians. Thirdly there was a match to a woman of the Thuringii tribe found in Bavaria, her head having been fashioned during her youth into an unnatural state, according to a noble's ideas of beauty at the time, and who was buried with her jewellery. Fourthly there was another Lombard burial, this time the dna being of the Franks. Then there was a bronze age Gaul, then a mixed Gaul Illlyrian found in Germany, then a bronze age mixed Frank Illyrian found in Prague, then a mixed Frank Ostrogoth found in Hungary; and lastly a bronze age burial in Serbia of a mixed Gaul Etruscan. Interestingly, Serbia was listed as one of George's modern populations. And like me he had a genetic connection to King Louis XVI of France. The dna of King Louis XVI was mainly Illyrian mixed with Roman, Gallo-Roman, Thracian and Roman-Hispanian. So George was, through his father, very much of the tribes of Europe. From me he had Roman gladiators, massacred Vikings and Merovingian nobles. And amazingly he had a Greek connection to one of the people who had perished in the Himalayas at Roopkind lake, this being another match to Rosina's own ancestors. Really interesting to see was that George had a match to crusader from Tuscany who had gone to the Holy Land, found there in Lebanon where he had been slain by either the Moslems or the Mongols. A connection to plague victims was made mention of as well. I now turned to looking at my Aunty Lolly's archeo-genetic dna, she being my fathers sister. Her ancient dna was pretty much like mine really, of Celts, Saxons, Franks, Danish Vikings and Vandals. And of modern populations she was mostly Irish and Welsh. Her closest archaic match was to the Bell Beaker peoples. Many individuals of Britain and Europe had good matches to Lolly. Lastly I was looking at my mothers archeo-genetics, aha, so very Viking. Her largest influence was of Icelandic Vikings, after which were Saxons, Celts, Vandals and Danish Vikings. Iceland appeared to be part of the wider domain of her Shetland seafarers, her father being of a Shetland family. One Viking, a victim of the Saint Brice massacre at Oxford, was close in genetics to my mother. Even this connection was classed as very unique, for which all research categories were freely opened up for this individual, which others would have to pay for. Although this young man was a Viking his dna was very mixed, there being primarily Celt and secondly Icelandic viking. This would be attributed to the Viking pioneers having taken native celtic girls for their wives. Other less dominant dna types in this individual were Saxon, Vandal and Pict. Likely then this Viking individual was linked to our Shetlanders and maybe even was a direct ancestor. I'd already come to understand by now that our Shetland ancestors were not exclusively Viking, as had been previously presumed. As it could be seen by the example of early settlers of Iceland, regardless that those pioneers were Viking men, they took along with them many Irish slaves, the most alluring women of which they made wives of. These women were Celts and Picts, and though their men folk had the fate of being enslaved and massacred, as was generally the way of the more attractive women throughout ancient history, their beauty saved them. Another match to my mother was of a Celt in bronze age Scotland, discovered during landscaping work in the garden of Evergreen House on the East Lothian coast. Those remans formed part of a larger bronze age burial ground. Other matches to Icelandic Vikings came up, one being a Gaelic Viking mix and this person being one of the last Vikings to still practise the Norse religion before all would embrace Christianity. All I was discovering was so interesting to me, and yet it was late and sleep was overwhelming me, for which I had to suspend all for now.
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I got to looking up my daughter Rosina's archeo-genetics, and what I then saw, as it had been for mine too, was again blowing my mind. As to her Indian side, which was through her father, I pretty much guessed there would be some Indo-Aryan influence, deriving from the Russian Steppes. And for sure there was, very much so, and in fact her very Indianness was less influential in her dna than were more distant empires. This variety of influence inluded Persia, the vast aforementioned steppes, and the Greco-Bactrians, who were Greek colonists and based their kingdom in Afghanistan.
The great influence in her of the people of the Steppes reflected nomadic horsemen, often hired as mercenaries, who roamed the vast Caspian steppes, north of the Black Sea, covering the Ukraine, Kazakhstan and parts of Russia. There roamed the bulk of Rosina's ancestors, expressing as nomadic Scythians and Sarmatians, all throught classical antiquity. It was in these steppes, also known as the Pontic Steppes, that horses were first domesticated and our Indo-European languages were born. The Persian kingdom, also to be found in Rosina's dna essentially corresponded to present day Iran but also covered Tajikistan, Afghanistan and into old India as far as the Indus river and beyond. The Greco-Bactrians which expanded into the Indo-Greek kingdom were of Greek Hellenistic origin. Those Greeks who settled in north west India became some of the early Buddhists. They brought to India the richness of their Greek culture, being a people of high sophistication and wealth and staying connected with both cultures, that of the Mediterranean and that of india. So Rosina had of the steppes two large imputs, the Scythians and the Sarmatians, who were anyway related groups. The Sarmatians are known to have been Caucasoid in appearance, tall with long reddish hair, wearing long flowing robes and throwing their javelins as they rode on horseback. As it also was with the Scythians, they roamed the vast plains and the shores of the Black Sea and Caspian Sea. Rosina's closest archaic match was from a Scythian found in Kazakhstan, and her second closest match was to an adept of a Buddhist monastery. There was an iron age Sarmatian. And the very oldest matches were to two ancients of the Andronovo culture, they being back in the bronze age, more than 3,000 years ago. The Scythian found in Kazakhstan was close to 3,000 years back as well and the other matches were around 400BC. The most ancient of her revealed ancients, the Andronovo tribes, were of the aforementioned steppe lands, the speakers of the original Indo-European language and the inspiration behind the Indian Vedas in which so much written off reflected aspects of their culture. As was written of in the Indian scriptures they were the very chariot riding Aryans who migrated into India, bringing along with them their language and their religion. They so revered their horses and their wheeled chariots that examples of both are to be found in ancient burials. On their arrival into India, this light skinned, light haired people mixed with darker aboriginal peoples, thereby contributing to the modern populations of India. They always held in great esteem their original homeland, known in the Vedas as Airyanem Vaejah, a land sacred to Zoroastrianism and known as one of Ahura Mazda's 'sixteen perfect lands'. This was therefore the 'cradle of the Aryan tribe'. In Rosina's more modern populations there is listed the Tadjik of the steppes, and the Tatar Crimea, again of the steppes, the Nogai of the Caucasus, Romanians, Afghan Pashtuns, and interestingly the Roma and gypsies, which surely relates not to modern day gypsies but to the tribes on the edge of India from which they originated. It is rather lower down on the list that authentic India gets a mention, in regard to the Punjabi's and Jat pastoralists who had become warriors in the quest to keep out Islamic invasions, and in which they were reknowned for their gallantry and bravery, while yet still being regarded as an essentially pastoral people, noteably separate from brahamnism and distinct enough to, unlike much of India, allow their widows to remarry. Of great interest was Rosina being genetically matched to bodies located in the Roopkund Lake in the Himalayas, this lake also being called 'Skeleton Lake' for there having been found 800 skeletons within its waters, some of them still so well preserved that flesh is still attached to them. Legend attributes these pilgrims to having been victims to a massive hailstorm in which they were bombarded by huge ice stones from the skies. The lake was a pilgrimage place, anciently sacred to the Goddess Nanda, and appears to have been a choice location for travelling Greek colonists as well. Three of those Hellenic bodies, their dna found to be cloest to the inhabitants of Crete, had genetic matches to Rosina. Another match she had was to an Afghani Pathan. One was of the Caucasus mountains. All the others were indian, considered to have been religious pilgrims. Her associations with one of these Indian pilgrims in particular connects her genetically to both the Mauryan Empire and the Brahmin Dynasy of Sindh. It was these Mauryans who had successfully battled the Greek Alexander the Great on his attempts to encroach deeper into India. The Mauryans created the Grand Trunk Road, Asia's oldest and most extensive trading network. As for the brahmins of Sindh, they were a powerful dynasty of Hindu's in what is present day Pakistan. Rosina had good genetic matches to six remains of Scythians, from 600BC, which was a time when yet again Hellenic peoples settling far from their own lands, in this case in Scythia in those aforementioned Pontic steppes. They were known being roaming nomads, for revering wild deer and for being bi-lingual in both Greek and the Scythian languages. The Persians tried but failed to conquer the Scythians, whose retort at them was 'we are free as the wind and what you can catch in our land is only the wind'. Of Rosina's Scythian matches, one was to a noble, two were of the Ukraine, one was Moldovan, and the other two were of the Black Sea. Rosina shared my own acheo-genetic matches to Vikings and Merovingians. Surprisingly, she also had a match to the Guanche people of the Canary Islands. The Guanche's had lived in caves, they had wooden javelins, obsidian knives and shields made from the dragon tree, and they were both sun and goddess worshippers. Ultimately the Spaniards conquered them and sold them into slavery. Rosina's last mentioned genetic match was to the Avar's of the Pannonian Plain. Such people had such an accumultion of wealth that their armour and weaponry was gold plated. To conclude, Rosina's ancestry was mainly of Scythians, Central Asians, Persians and Greeks, whom made their homes ultimately in the north-west of India and there mixed with the locals, so that in time they lost their distinct appearance and all knowledge of the origins may also have been lost if not for being preserved to some degree in ancient Indian religious texts in which they were regarded to be Ayran peoples.
Ancient dna comparison was blowing my mind and I was both totally focused on and excited about this. I'd been on my terrace looking at some genealogy tiktoks, when I came across one which was so very interesting. An English girl, Bobbie, was showing how to upload ethnic dna to an archeo-genetic site 'myancestry.com' which compared ones dna to dna extracted from ancient bodies.
Oh wow; of course I had to get into this. And I messaged about it to Ella May, who did likewise. She was more speedy about getting her transfer done than I was. And some patience was requuired till all was processed. What emerged was so exciting for me. And as the information was only freely available for a couple of days I had to totally immerse myself in discovering all that was of relevance. By this I arrived at who were my closest ancient peoples, dominant of whom were the Celts; the other close groups being Saxons, Franks, Danish Vikings and Vandals. Vandals - Ho! They were barbarian Central European peoples.
And apart from those there was a link to the Balari tribe of Sardinia.
And to the Vascones of the Basque lands.
Of ancient remains which I specifically genetically matched, they were varied, and one particularly excellent match was to the Cheddar Man of Cheddar Gorge, Britians oldest discovered skeleton, dna having been extracted from one of his teeth. He had lived about 10,000 years ago, had dark skin, black hair and green eyes, wavy hair, was lactose intolerant and was of a hunter gatherer type (acccording to the analysis of his dna).
And I was matched to ancient bodies found at Stonehenge, it now being understood, from looking at the conditions of these remains and from how far some came, that Stonehenge was an ancient pilgrimage place where pilgrims would come for healing, much like Lourdes is today.
And I had matched to Roman Gladiators, to Vikings wounded in battle, to the Beaker culture, to Bronze Age peoples in Britain and France, to Merovingian nobles, to someone around at the time of the French revolution, to Viking men and their Irish women who had settled Iceland, and to the royals of Europe, there even being a genetic connection to Louis XVI.
As far as my nearest modern genetics were concerned, this was mostly Irish, although on one map of links I could see Welsh was closely there too.
I just had to make a tiktok of this fascinating new subject.:
It was on clearing in the house that I found some family tree certificates and in looking at them once more, and reading of my great great grandparents, William and Mary Maxted's daughters death, of young Sarah, aged 13, from heart failure, that I saw something I'd not taken note of before, which was that the address had been given as Nazareth House in Isleworth, not their home at all. On looking up this place, I saw that it was and industrial school for Roman Catholic girls. Two considerations now came to me, one naturally being why was Sarah even there, as such schools were in general for children who had fallen into trouble and who had been sent there by the courts, and maybe to her detriment considering that she had died there. And secondly, I had seen from baptisms already, that although William Maxted was and English fellow and not at all Roman Catholic, he had nevertheless honoured his Irish wifes wishes by allowing her the grace to raise their children in her own religion, and maybe Sarah's death at an institution run by nuns ended all that. 'No more' I could imagine him saying. On looking up about Nazareth House it appeared to be a fine estate in London, with gardens and an educational curriculum teaching all the skills a girl back then was thought to be good for them, such as cooking, laundry, needlework and housmaid service, as well as musical drills to keep them fit, and access to a toy cupboard and library. And yet Sarah's health had deteriorated there. Hammersmith in London, where my family lived, was where the original Poor Sisters Of Nazareth first set up, their mission being to take care of both young and old. From there the houses had spread out into the rest of Britain. I saw an address I could write to, by snail mail, to ask for any relevant information to this situation, from the nuns archives; so I promptly wrote a letter, hoping for something, anything, in response. And it was then that I saw negative looking links about these very Sisters of Nazareth, in which abuses were insinuated. Nazareth Houses were dotted around England, to be found in various cities, and specific writings about them had disturbing titles, such as 'Suffer The Little Children - The True Story Of An Abused Covent Upbringing', Guradian articles such as 'Nuns Abused Hundreds Of Children', 'Sisters Of No Mercy' and 'SIsters Of Nazareth Become Second Catholic Order To Admit Child Abuse'. I guess the first would be the Magdalene nuns who had been outed for abusing pregnant girls. I was shocked. Like, Hello, are you the representatives of God and of Jesus? Devoting your lives to a holy path and yet abusing and traumatising those given unto your care. I now sensed my own ancestors pains and trials tied up in this story. To trust in the church and yet be let down by them. One Guardian article was even titled 'Children At Derry Care Homes Were Made To Eat Vomit, Inquiry Told'. I did hope the actual Isleworth home had decent friendly nuns in it. Anyway, from Amazon I ordered one of the books, the 'Suffer The Little Children' one by Frances Reilly, who a a girl had been abandoned by her mother, along with her sisters, outside a Nazareth House convent in Belfast. She had suffered there from brutal beatings, was abused, molested and worked as a slave. In later life Frances prosecuted the nuns and in this she was successful. In another account about an abusive Nazareth House, by a man, Fred Atkins, who had regularly been beaten up by the nuns from the age of six, he even in old age was still haunted by the noise of children banging their heads against the walls of the dormitories. Night time sleeping would be interrupted by the nuns checking for bed wetting, for which beatings would follow, one bed wetter being held out of the window by her ankles as a punishment. Nuns had leather straps dangling from their waists next to their rosary beads. Another lad had named this institution the 'House Of Hell'. When I at last heard back from the nuns of Nazareth House. Their achivist, Christine H, had not found anything in regard to my Sarah, but she did invite me to provide more information by email, which I promptly did.
This extra information resulted in a reply of a little more substance than previously. Sarah Kathleen Maxted had indeed been a child in the care of the nuns, number 49 on the Isleworth Children's Register. She had been sent to the convent by a magistrate, Mr Rose, for which one had to conclude really that she had been sent there for some mischief, not that any note had been made of why. Christine noted that even prior to Sarah being sent to Nazareth House she'd had an ongoing religious connection with the place, having had certain Christian moments there, of confirmation, first confession and holy communion. Christine had not found any such moments for Sarah's siblings or her Irish mother.* It had certainly been a contemplation of mine that Sarah may have had downs syndrome, hence why she would have spent so much time with the nuns and would then explain why she had a weak heart and had died at only 13 years of age. I had often wondered what it would have been like for such children in olden days, in times before this was even recognised as a specific condition.
I experimented again with 'deep nostalgia', animating more old photos, only some working well, and which I then got to trying on my royal ancestors.
The animating of my closest royal, James V of Scotland, worked really well, he being a handsome red haired fellow. He had died at only the age of 30, having become king when he was one year old. And I loved of him that he often went about in disguise as the Guideman of Ballengeich, as also his lute playing and his singing with a husky voice. And I got good animations of James's mother, my ancestress, Margaret Tudor, who was the sister of England's Henry VIII and who had died at the age of 51. And Elizabeth Woodville, Margaret Tudors granny, who was Queen of England and reknowned for her great beauty. She was described as 'the most beautiful woman in the island of Britain' with dragon eyes. She had written a poem celebrating Venus, the goddess of Love. And she had died at about the age of 55. Margaret Beaufort was the other ancestress I animated. She had given birth to Henry Tudor when she was only 13 and had died at the age of 66.
Ella May contacted me, wanting help with some of her family tree mysteries. Like who was the family member on an old family daguerrotype. Maybe, working together, we got somewhere with that, to an Elizabeth Roberts, but one could not be certain.
As for her other query, that I totally sussed, like who was another woman in relation to Ella from whom the family had many letters and even they knew her name, Betsy Yates, and that she had become a Mrs Dodson and had lived in Slaithwaite. Although a married woman, Betsy had frequently travellled alone down to London to be with her lover and maybe had a child by him. In her last letter she swore she would never return to Slaithwaite. She had a relative in the military in Australia, on Cockatoo Island, who had written to her of the convicts and the savages. The letter about this, the family had sold to a museum in Australia, on account of it being worth a lot of money. Well I found Betsy, working out that she was Ella's great great great great great grandmother and I saw that she had indeed returned to Slaithwaite and there had died. Betsy came from the heart of London and whatever more to discover of her I would leave till another time.
My daughter Eleanor presented to me a goddess card on this day of Mother Mary, saying to expect miracles, and one came to me indeed, this being the accessing of deep notalgia animation of ones ancestors, via their old photos. The 'miracle' in this, although really but science, was that one's still photos of the ancestors were as if brought to life, moving their eyes and faces and looking around, rather reminding one of Harry Potter's moving paintings. I actually discovered this on tiktok, and saw that it was a new app exclusive to MyHeritage.
I began experimenting with these animations for myself, seeing my ancestors as if coming to life before my very eyes, which was utterly magical for me. I wept an ocean of tears again and again, for these were my dearly beloved ancestors, whom I'd spent so much of my adult life researching, right there looking at me and all around, as if reborn. Not all the photos worked so well with this, but many did, even an indistinct very old one of my Irish great grandmother Mary Dolan, her eyes coming alive, strong eyes, shared with her daughter Florence. Mary Dolan's photo had always looked so severe and unrelateable, up until now. I reanimated all my grandparents and I animated my Shetland island great grandparents. All was incredible. And from those anmations I made a tiktok, set to the music of Edgar's 'Salut D'Amour'. This was so incredible to me that I watched it again and again. Ah, my beautiful grandma's; how I loved them. |
AuthorSusie Harrison and her hobby of genealogy, always looking into her own and her friends family trees. Categories
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