I ordered the full mtDNA sequencing from Familytree, at much expense, and wrote to my mother suggesting that she also do the autosomal test. As this costs money she is likely to disregard my suggestion. The rest of my family is nowhere as interested in all of this as I am. I looked through a list of my SNP's, of my mtDNA, to see how they related to an Armenian sample, and to another one of anonymous origin, but both being N1b1a2a's. So far I just see masses of numbers which bewilder me. Though Familytree has listed that I am N1b1b1, the Genographic Project has taken more care in looking at the numbers, and now I see it too, that my 4904T puts me in the N1b1a2. With the two given samples I match many of their SNP's, but not all, and I have many numbers not shared with anyone. For now this is what I see. Which yet again reveals the total rarity of my DNA, or as I say it, the almost extinction. I still don't know if anyone in this world, other than my mother and daughters, has this same DNA. Or rather as Peter had pointed out, this same kind of mitochondria within our cells. I want to feel it, who are we, Georgian? Armenian? Who were these mysterious mothers? Can I not tune into something, somehow. AuthorSusie Harrison and her hobby of genealogy, always looking into her own and her friends family trees.
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The response to my autosomal family finder upgrade is instantaneous. Of course, they have my DNA samples; there is no need to dilly dally. Raw data is now there to access, though I don't have a programme to unzip it. What I do get to see is a list of distant cousins and I look through them, but not one do I understand how I link to. How would I fit even one of them into my family tree, I cannot see. Satshanti, of far away California, says he will work on helping me to make sense of it all. And, meanwhile, I look more into this possible ancient Armenian connection. There is an Armenian specialist group that has on its list my rare DNA, so I wrote to the people hosting this. One of these fellows, Peter Hrechdakian, confirmed that N1b1a2a is of the Caucasus and Near East. He recommended that I upgrade with Familytree's mtDNA full sequence, so it can be compared in depth with other N1b1a2a's. Not that I haven't spent out on this already with the Genographic Project. The more angles the merrier, I do presume. Only by immersing myself will more pieces of the puzzle come together. The Genographic Project wasn't so informative really as I would have liked. Transferral is there to Familytree, but only in the basest form. So apart from learning I am minutely Neanderthal, I don't see really what advantage the Genographic Project has over the Familytree. Mitochondrial DNA, Peter Hrechdakian makes mention of, from an angle I'd never really examined, pointing out that it comes from an organism living in symbiosis in our cells. That's something to get the head around. So, genealogy and DNA, always a subject I shall come back to. AuthorSusie Harrison and her hobby of genealogy, always looking into her own and her friends family trees. ![]() Reading about the early Middle East Christians, the Armenians and Syrians, along with the Georgians, I feel this so, and want to be there, to travel and explore, to find the special ancient places. I feel that these people, with their old nobility and good Christian morality, are beacons of light in a world of increasing darkness. Their intellectual capacity, their elite freedoms, with their beautiful gardens and lovely homes and grand architecture. And yet they have been ravaged, raped, murdered and sent into exile. Armenians are also of the Caucasus, once having vast lands stretching across to the Mediterranean. For the reading of this, I was inspired to look back at my DNA results. In transferring the Genographic results to Familytree, an upgrade is needed, to access raw results and be matched with near and distant cousins. This I paid to be done, luckily a very reduced rate for Genographic customers. What I am then faced with, again, is a more sophisticated mtDNA classification from modern updating of the systems. N1b1a2a according to the Genographic, and N1b1b1b as given on the transferral to Familytree. As ever, it is totally rare and mysterious. I find that this is, though, a recognised Armenian type of DNA. This blows my mind all of a sudden. For long I've known this DNA is rooted in the Caucasus mountains, but had always looked to the more northern Georgia, and not the southerly Armenian. Actually, all is close. This type of DNA is of Georgia, but not only. Somehow it is also found in Italy and Ireland, but the strength of origin is not in Europe, but in the Middle East. Specifically, the A2a part has been recognisably linked to an Armenian. Armenian does have more of an exotic appeal than Georgian, even though that in itself is fascinating. I have immersed myself already in the connection with ancient Georgia, the very source of N1's, but there is a step on from there, and it appears to be Armenian, or at least of some tribal group which would have come to take on that designation. Such borders were not always there. Does a line need to be drawn between one part of the Caucasus and another? Is my origin Armenian? This now becomes my question. I have been reading of it and now wonder if I am that. Indian friend, Deepak, had long ago suggested Armenian when I talked of my mother line, with this curiosity in there of black hair and alabaster skin. In photos I see that most of the Armenians, though, look quite dark and dusky. Georgians are fairer. Somewhere in their midst, middle to all, maybe there lies my people. Sucked into one great cultural definition or another, but previous to that a tribe, probably invisible now and lost. I have seen all these historical skirmishes, one people reigning, then another, massacres, enslavings, deportations - always this has been the way. Islam carries on this primal genetic battle of superiority, and this was the way of others before them. It totally fascinates me, who is such a Britisher, to have a deep connection to this vast medley. My nearer DNA is overwhelmingly British and Viking, but over time such things are transient, over vast time that is, when cousins no longer take habit to marry cousins. A high Viking percentage for me becomes maybe minor for my great great great grandchildren, depending on where they are and who has been chosen for partners. For six or seven generations all is intact, but beyond that all is increasingly watered down to minute proportions. Our nearer ancestors in this regard are always more relevant. My own discovery of royal ancestry is so distant as to become but a fractional influence. The only constant over the eons, at least for a female, as I am, is that which does not water down and evaporate, and that is an unbroken lineage I find to these exotic and mysterious lands. How can I not be fascinated. What I do still have of the temporal, which will become lost to my descendants, is this 3% input from what I have been told is Central Asia. This, also, both fascinates and confuses me. I wonder if somewhere along the way one of my ancestral ladies was adopted into an English family. Was it Eleanor Caroline Barton, she who was raised in an orphanage and died so young of tuberculosis? Or was it Maria Harrison, clearly described as having jet black hair, alabaster skin and twinkling eyes? I never stop being fascinated by such mysteries. I have to consider, also, that this un-English appearance may derive from Italy, or maybe this Central Asian land, and be quite distinct from the root Caucasian mountain more ancient ancestry. Although a link may be there, all may be totally separate and distinct. That old Silk Route 3%, it's not that it couldn't have been an Armenian or other settlement, a trading colony, a religious centre, an exiled people, an enslaved group, removed from their origins. But this I can't yet know. The Central Asian designation kind of radiates out from Afghanistan, tumbling into the surrounding lands. Again, how fascinating. At least pre-Islam, a culture which still hoovers its way through the ancient places, covering over and disguising all that was. That destruction of Afghanistans great Buddhist mountain deities, what a heartfelt tragedy that was. I don't know all these people and places in the same way that I have come to know India. They are not so accessible, not open to travellers and explorers, they are risky and dangerous. Until, and if ever they become free from Islam, then they may recover some of their old glory and repute. In effect these lands have been taken hostage by Arab imperialism. I do wonder if because my ancient people have suffered this religious oppression, that I now feel it so. What the Armenians went through was like the holocaust against the Jews, who I also sympathise with, rather than joining in with the never ending scape-goating against them. Does the clue to my origins lie with the Armenians? Does it? Does it? AuthorSusie Harrison and her hobby of genealogy, always looking into her own and her friends family trees. |
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