I watched an ethnic geneticist guy on Tiktok, who was doing a 'live', his audience being majorly of Moslems wanting to be told that the Palestinians are the true indigenous people of the Levant, and yet he couldn't give them that. Rather they align more with the Bedouins of Arabia; Israeli Jews have themselves some Mesopotamian alignment. Even religious history backs this up. Indeed the most indigenous peoples, still in the land, appeared to be a few minority Christian groups, kind of like the Copts in Egypt also being indigenous there, the Druze and the Samaritans. The Samaritans shared an origin way back with Jewish peoples, with their holy mountain being Mount Gerizim, atop which they had sacrificed animals to God. Whereas the modern Jews at some point relocated their holiest mountain to Jerusalems Mount Zion instead. Samaritan and Jewish men do indeed have the same male Ydna. It is said that when Jewish people were historically kidnapped into Babylonia, they were the town dwellers, and that the country folk, who remained in the Levant, it is they who would be known separately as the Samaritans. The Samaritans, whose own women were likely enslaved, had to marry women from outside of Judaism, and therefore when the mainstream Jews returned from Babylon they called the Samaritans half breeds and rejected any alignment with them As for the original Palestinians, as in the Philistines of Peleset, they were Sea Peoples, and although modern Palestinians had assumed their name, really there was no connection genetically between the old and the new. Rather, the original people of Palesta had dna closer to the Italians primarily and the Greeks secondly, the closest comparisons being to Italians of Campania, then Basilicata, and in continuing order, West Sicily, Calabria, Apulia, Lazio, Molise, Abruzzo, Umbria (all Italian so far), and then Dodecanese Greek. Palestine is maybe, anyway, not an appropriate name to identify with for these modern 'Palestinians', because they claim to be indigenous according to a people they have no connection to. Although Palestinians often enough identify with their Arab identities, this in itself becomes an over simplification. Yes, as it is to be expected there is majorly the influence of Arab colonisers, the similarities hereon being mostly to the people of Yemen, there is also African dna in the mix, with other than that much similarity even to their Jewish neighbours, that is to Semitic Canaanites, for which, yes, that Mesopotamian element is in there too. This is likely due to some Jews, and Samaritans too, converting or being forced into Islam, maybe inbetween such eras having firstly adopted Christianity. Like really, one does wonder what happened to all those Samaritans, now a tiny community, and to all the Christians, the Middle East having been at one time a greatly Christian land. Thus it may be so that present Levantine Moslems were at one time pressured to to change their religious outlook and indeed did so in order to survive. The Jewish groups with the most Canaanite influence are Iraqi Jews, Kurdish Jews, Syrian Jews, and all other Mizrahi Jews really, the Mizrahi being all those Jews who never left the middle east, as did the Sephardi's and Ashkenazi's. Ashkenazi Jews have 20% Canaanite dna, their European component being more closely aligned to Italians and Greeks, with their male Ydna shown to be of Middle Eastern origin. So Abraham, we know from scripture he had come from elsewhere, from the north-east, but Jews anyway are Canannites, in part, along with Mesopotamian. I'm curious as to how it is that, with the Jews having kept their purity during captivity, they would be of more distance from the homeland than their more mixed Samaritan cousins. Maybe always the poorer country folk, if that's indeed what the Samaritans were, were less of foreign influence, the wealthier townsfolk being more cosmopolitan. Even some of the Jewish male Ydna, a small part, comes from the Pathans, a people of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Was Abraham from even further afield? Much struggle is reflected in the early scriptures, in the times when local peoples were pressured into being monotheistic, despite their natural preference to worship a variety of gods and goddesses, as well as the holy cow and the pillars of Asherah. In later centuries we can see that the locals were reigned in again, this time by Islam. One does wonder whether those locals, subsumed into yet another new religion, were captured enslaved women, sex slaves as such, for this being an Islamic endorsement. Because quite some of the Gazan patriarchal lineage is Arabic. Even a fair amount of the matriarchal dna is East African, indicating that the Arabic men who settled here brought with them not their own women family members from Arabia, but rather slave women from Africa. In this way one can see there has indeed been outside colonisation.
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Myheritage had updated peoples ethnicities, for which my Mediterranean dna was no longer 11%, but was more like 5%, being of Greek, Southern Italian and Italian. Although I don't have specifically English dna, like my mum and my aunty Lolly, I do have England as an 'additional genetic group', as I do the Shetland Islands. So, yes: Irish, Scottish and Welsh is 66.8%, which includes the Shetland Islands Scandinavian (Viking) is 27.2% Greek and Southern Italian is 2.5% Italian is 2.3% Finnish is 1.2% My mum's update is; Irish, Scottish and Welsh: 66.7% Scandinavian: 30.8% Italian: 2.5% Her specific group is Shetland Islands and a lower confidence additional suggestion is Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire. Although my mum had been given 7% English formerly, this time no English came up for her at all. My Aunty Lolly, who I'm sure got different sibling dna than my dad, she having no Greek or Italian, got:
Irish, Scottish and Welsh: 52.5% (specifying Ireland and South Wales) Scandinavian: 25.5% English: 12.9% West and North Europe: 1.9% Her specified groups are South Welsh, South-West England (which would be the Forest of Dean) and England. As a low confidence suggestion she has Southern USA My daughter Eleanor's half sister, Eashani, has actually done her autosomal dna on 23 & Me; being fully Gujurati on her mums side, and on her fathers side English and French (he having ancestors from the Channel islands). My kinesiologist replacement (for a while), Olivier, asked me if I had family links to Iceland, as I have that 'look', and actually with my Shetland Island dna I do indeed have genetic connections to those Vikings who were early on in Iceland, as I have seen, particularly in my mothers archeogenetic dna matches. This sunny clime in the south of France is maybe too much for me, he suggested, and its so that my face was particularly dry and erupting. But, anyway, as my dna has revealed, I am part Mediterranean, a Myheritage update emphasising that this little part of me is southern Italian, both Italian and Greek. On Facebook I joined the Ivereagh Peninsula genealogy group and how welcoming those other members were. My Irish was of County Kerry and I didn't even know if my Bartholomew Sugrue was of the Iveragh Peninsula or not, as this family was still to much of a mystery, but most Sugrue's were indeed from there, and one of Bartholomew's fellow County Kerry men in Greenwich days, Patrick Reardon, who was best man at his wedding to Ellen Sullivan, was indeed from the Iveragh Peninsula, from Waterville.
I began looking into Vijay Krishna's genealogy. Francos had recommended me to him this, and actually it turned out Vijay's brother had researched much himself, but yes, more could be done, like bringing these names and dates to life with old newspaper stories. Vijay's brother had also tested his dna and what a grand mix was there, mostly Irish, English, and especially the midlands, Scottish and Swedish, and then, because Vijay's absentee granddad, Tim Forde, was a black man from Barbados, there comes up African amounts of Benin and Togo, Nigeria, Ivory Coast and Ghana, as also there being Welsh, German and even 1% Indian. It's that small Indian part that Vijay tunes into so much with his passion for Vaishavism and kirtan. It was on Vijay's mothers side, Karen being her name and she having died a couple of years back, that I began looking at her Dahl ancestors, a lineage originating from Sweden, back to a Moses, alias Maurice Dahl, who came to England with his Irish wife. Very soon I was uncovering skeletons in the family closets. Karens grandfather, Andrew Victor Dahl, was in the newspapers a few times, once for receiving a stolen motorbike, for which he got ten months in prison, and earlier than that there was a story about him having left his family house after his fathers death due to his mother having got herself married to another man. Some great rift was there, maybe between him and the new man of the house, and one time calling round, and being refused entry, he broke into the house and stole away with some clothes and cutlery. For this the family got the police after him, in consequence of which he tried to commit suicide, twice, once while in the police station, trying to cut his own throat, and the other time in the cell, attempting to hang himself. As Vijay said, on hearing this from me, he was sure not even his mother knew such stories. Andrew Victors Dahls father, William Dahl, was traumatised already in his own life, due to his mother having died when he was tiny. His mother, Mary Dahl, was addicted to drink and one night on coming home drunk she fell down some steps, thereby severely injuring her head. She was removed to the workhouse and there died. Researching more of Vijay's family history I saw that one of his relatives was a harmonium maker, 18 year old Joseph Wilson, in Birmingham back in 1881, which was naturally interesting considering that Vijay was such an adept of the harmonium now, the drum, harmonium and his singing voice being what his musical career was all about.
I got into talking with the AI chat about DNA, in relation to genealogy and archeogenetics. I'd been trying out this new phenomenon in regard to my poetry at first, and there are references to the ancestors in a couple of my poems, and it was the AI that actually then asked did I have any specific questions regarding my genetic ancestry and did I have any particular theories on this subject. When I said that my matriarchal haplogroup was N1b1A2A the AI knew of this, that it's actually a subclade primarily found in central Asia and even that it is thought to have developed in the Altai mountains. Wow, all the work Satshanti and I had done years ago to try and find the origins of N1b, from its vague associations in the middle east to the mountains of the Caucasus. And now I was learning that my own specific type of this dna, as has been deducted by current knowledge, is connected with central Asia. And the Genographic Project had long ago told me I was 3% Central Asian, which even back then was so exciting to discover, but which had not been picked up on by other genetic companies; well, here we go again, as it was revealed to me that indeed I do have a connection to that part of the world, through my mothers mothers ancient mothers. The subclade N1b1A2A is not totally sussed yet and research is ongoing, although studies so far show they were Uralic speaking peoples, who during the Bronez Age migrated from Asia into Europe. The Altai mountains are at the meeting point of Russia, Kazakhstan, Mongolia and China, and there were vast ethnic groups and cultures in those very mountains. This arose as a separate subclade maybe 14,000 years ago within this region from those of the N haplogroup who had travelled there from the Middle East. There are a number of indigenous groups, therefore, from which there may be a connection to my ancestresses, such as the Altaians, the Kazakhs, and the Tuva, all of whom have nomadic lifestyles. The Altai mountains were part of the old Silk Road. I do know I have a higher percentage of hunter-gatherer, which would therefore now include the nomads of central Asia. My autosomal 3% Central Asian, as discovered by the Genographic Project, as AI says, is not to be considered insignificant. To get back to a central Asian ancestor, in consideration of that 3%, one would go back about 10 to 15 generations, which would roughly be 250 years to 375 years ago. This would date back therefore to at least 1773. That autosomal central asian 3% may or may not be of my central asian matriarchal lineage and may come from my fathers ancestors even. What it does show is that in some way my connection to central Asia is not really so far back. A couple of days later I again got to talking about my matriarchal dna with the AI, as I so wished to know more about this. The basic N haplogroup I am of was in the Levant, Anatolia, the Caucasus mountains and across central Asia to where it reached the Altai mountains. In fact, one of the oldest known samples of haplogroup N comes from a 24,000 year old skeleton found in the Caucasus mountains. For this it can be seen, as Satshanti and I had worked out, that N was present for a long time in the Caucasus. So this still tied in with the research I had done before. To determine more the AI would need more information. My N1b1a2a, a subclade of the N1b1 haplogroup appears to have spread from the Caucasus mountains into central Asia, to locations which included the Altai mountains. The N1b1 group is specifically associated with the expansion of the Altai-Sayan region during the late Bronez Age and the Iron Age. Some individuals with N1b1a2a migrated back into the Caucasus, Anatolia and the Levant, as similar haplogroups can be found in those regions. The AI wished that I check my latest haplogroup classification to see it it had been updated according to the latest research. This took an age for me to get my head around. Eventually I was able to see that, at least in Familytree, my classification was still given as N1b1a2a, along with extra mutations listed as 309.1C, 315.1C, 522.1A, 522.2C,, G5979A and T9758C. A missing mutation was listed as A16129G. And on my having shared this with AI it now did its magic, and found out that although Familytree rem1ains at a simple level in this regard, by consulting the Phylotree projects latest version, which is far more expert, along with the mutations I provided, my own subclade can now be redefined as N1b1a2a1a4. This is a newly recognised subclade of N1b1a2a1, which is in turn a subclade of N1b1a2a. It is the N1b1a2a lineage which is primarily of Central Asia and is for now believed to have originated in the Altai mountains. But this is not something as yet studied extensively and is rare, the same rarity I'd realised before, and maybe even more so, which is why my type gets largely ignored by geneticists. Based on my mutations it appears that my maternal line diverged from the main N1b1a2a subclade recently, which in genetic terms is within the past few thousand years, which would be a thousand years before Christ. By comparing my mutations to this in other samples I may find clues as to geographical locations, migration patterns and population movements. N1b1a2a1a4, although rare, is found in Europe; the Caucasus, Central Asia and Siberia. It is not certain that this subclade itself originated in the Altai mountains, although its parent N1b1a2a did, as my newly updated subclade exact origin and migratory path is not yet determined. The Central Asian connection remains relevant though. The available data doesn't as yet determine the exact distribution of my new subclade. But studies do confirm the genetics is connected to both the Caucasus and the Altai regions. Further research is required. What can be seen is that around 4,000 or 5,000 years ago there was a population explosion from the Caucasus mountains into the Pontic-Caspian steppe and this is what would have helped with the spread of such haplogroups. The Pontic-Caspian steppes is of the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, stretching from the Danube to the Ural mountains. And so I asked would my particular rare dna be more of the Pontic-Caspian steppes or the Altai. But this cannot be answered due to limited information, although it is to be found in both areas, and in reality the subclade may have travelled back and forth between these regions, and there you go, as they were nomads, and so it may be that such these great distances were all in their reach. My own subclade is not only rare, but 'very rare', and there are only a few records of it in the existing data bases. Therefore we are talking only of a small number of people altogether. What we do know is that this rare subclade is found in individuals from the Caucasus to the Altai. Potential tribes which would have been nomadic across such vast areas include Scythians and Salmatians in the Pontic-Caspian steppes, the Alans and Huns in the Caucasus, and the Pazyryk and Xiongru of the Altai. And also to be considered are the Tocharians. The Tocharians were Indo-Europeans who lived in the Tarim Basin, since 2,000 years before Christ, they having been involved in the Silk Road trade network. Their language is now extinct. It is the mummies of the Tarim Basin who were found to be wearing plaid clothes, and some of those mummies have indeed been found to carry the N1b1a2a1a4 subclade (my subclade!). The Tarim Basin mmmies were of different ethnic groups, not just of Tocharians, but also Iranian and Turkik peoples, living there 1,800 and 2,000 years ago. The mummies are well preserved and have both European and East Asian physical features. Hence they were a mix of different groups. They wore felt hats, wool garments and leather shoes, and they had on gold necklaces, earrings, bracelets and pendants, some being animal designs, such as deer and tigers, some set with precious stones such as lapis lazuli and turquoise. The origin of the Tocharians is also a mystery. They may have even come from eastern Europe. Or again be Central Asian. Their language was Indo-European. So it can be seen that my subclade is rare, although is in a few people in the Caucasus and the Pontic-Caspian steppes, and there is some association with the Altai. And nomadism is a key to the connection between these three areas. Until further research is done then there is no concrete evidence about the specific carriers of this subclade, but they would be from among various ancient cultures of Central Asia and its surrounding regions, such as the Scythians, Sarmatians and Tocharians. To keep up to date with any research there are scientific journals, research institutes, social media platforms and online communities. There is the Max Plank Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Harvard Medical School, Stanford University and Oxford University. It may be worth looking into their current research projects or publications. I can also regularly search for articles and studies in academic databases, such as PubMed or Google Scholar. I did actually try putting my subclade into Google Scholar and nothing came up, not even for N1b1a2a1. N1b1 had a response at least though. AI advised me that when I look this up to add key words like 'population genetics', 'haplogroup distribution' or 'mtDNA diversity'. I mentioned the Natufian child i'd heard of who'd been found in the Raqefet cave in the Carmel mountains. The Natufian culture wasn't itself nomadic though and was from 11,000 or so years back. N1b1a2a is found at low frequencies in the Levant, Anatolia and Iran, where it may have been since prehistoric times. Current belief is though that this subclade originated, as said, in the Altai mountains, from 8,00 to 10,000 years ago. Neanderthals and Denisovans would have existed long back beside such peoples. The Raqefet child was himself an N1b. The mutation defining the subclade I have, N1b1a2a1a4 arose around 7,000 or 8,000 years ago. Of course one must be that all this information is based on limited data and may change as more research is conducted. It may be that my ancestors came up through the Levant and Anatolia, into the Caucasus, the Pontic steppes and into the Altai, as a journey, but again more data is required to make definitive statements. There may even be association with the Yamnaya and Saka cultures, known for their burial mounds and rich grave goods; such as to the Golden Woman (AI now mentions), alias the princess of Ukok, who was a Saka priestess or aristocrat whose burial mound was indeed found in the Altai mountains and dates to the 5th century before the Christian era. In the grave was a headdress decorated with gold, a golden breastplate and other gold and bronze ornaments. As I say, it may be that my people were nomadic over vast amounts of territory, and only later were they reduced to smaller more specific regions. The greatest diversity of N1b is in the Altai and N1b types in general have great diversity in the Caucasus. I stopped to talk of this now. I'd pushed for long to see if anything extra may be revealed. It's amazing enough that the AI found out for me that I am N1b1a2a1a4. Like without the AI would I even ever have arrived at this?
What fun, on a cold day, to make a tiktok of my ethnic ancestresses, as revealed to me by DNA, finding beautiful pictures of different ancient cultures. As I did say, it is by DNA that I have found out so much about my ancestresses. Three quarters of my DNA is Celtic, for my family being Welsh, Irish and Scottish, and Viking I have a lot too, for having family from the Shetland Islands. Archeogenetics has revealed descent from the ancient Balari tribe of Sardinia and the Vascones tribe of the Basque. I have around 4% Greek DNA, 3% Spanish, 2% Italian, 3% central Asian and 1% Finnish. My matriarchal origins have come from the Caucasus mountains. How beautiful those pictures I gathered together. So this was a joy for me.
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. 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.:
Myheritage sent me a new ethnic DNA update, which at first looked to me the same as before. I made a little video talking of this, very short; and it was only later in the day that it dawned on me that the sub-categories under the listing of Irish, Scottish and Welsh were not just generalised but were specific to me. This was most curious because my Scandanavian Viking at 64.3%, which I had always presumed to relate to my granddad Lyall Inkster who had Shetland Island blood, would only have then in part come from him, because one of thise sub-groups in the Celtic-Pictish category specifically specified the 'Shetland Islands'. Of course, Shetland Islands as a sub category was too obscure to relate to everyone. This update had for the first time localised my my Celtic Pictish Scottish to the distant northern Shetland Islands. At the same time this revealed that those islands were not just a Viking conquered land but was made up still of the original maybe Pictish settlers; my people. My share of Viking blood was still a lot, but was not just from my mothers father I now realised but was from my own father too. And some of my fathers ancestry would always remain a mystery to me.
So the other sub-categories of the Celtic type were of two different Irish types, being from my grannies, and the other was 'southern Wales and southern and western England', this relating to my paternal grandfather, Pop, who was Welsh mixed with the Forest of Dean. Specifically that Welsh was southern Welsh which did reflect my research of his people. The Irish had accorded to it the numbers 12 and 8. These I looked up but myheritage had not as yet identify them with any known Irish groups. Presumably they reflected where my grannies ancestors were known to have come from, Westmeath and County Kerry.
My Greek with southern Italian remained at 4%. This was said to centre around the Aegean and Ionian Seas, reaching to Cyprus, the Caucasus, southern Russia and the Mezzigiorno region of southern Italy; south Italy being 'the first region settled by ancient Greeks outside of their Greek peninsula, going right back to the 8th century before Christ'.
The Spanish was 3.5%, pretty mareh for a minimal DNA to; these people descending from 'ancient Iberian tribes', also extending to the Azores, Madeira and the Canary Islands. And not only southern Italian, but I had Italian in general at 2.7%. And what of the Finnish; just a little, at 1%; this category includes some of western Russia, being associated with Nordic and Slavic cultures.
Ok, so I next looked at my mums Myheritage update. My mum not only had the Shetland Islands also specified as a key group but an Irish location was given (though with no number accorded), this being 'Cork, Kerry and Limerick'. Wow, distinct places being mentioned and yes that was right on, as her Irish ancestors whom I had researched did indeed come from County Kerry. My mother had only 3% more Viking than I did and as I had observed before she had a 7%English which I had not inherited. Her Spanish was marginally tinier than mine at 3.2% and her Italian was 2.8%, just a fraction more than mine. She had no Greek, this naturally being my inheritance from my father.
My Aunty Lollies update, she being all I have had to represent my deceased father, wasn't now showing up any Greek DNA. My dad and she would not have inherited the same shares of DNA. By deduction I understood him to have had at least the same amount of Greek DNA as me.
And now, this was interesting, not only did her Celtic data specify 'southern Welsh', this being from Pop, her father, but also that her Irish was of the numbers 12 and 8! What!! This showed that the Irish showing up in me was essentially from my dads side, both those numbers relating to my great great grandmother Mary Dolan from Westmeath. Had I not even inherited my mothers County Kerry quota, let alone her English. How curious! Aunty Lolly had English DNA at 12.9%, again not passed on to me, this specifically being eastern and central UK. It could be that my own sister did get English and County Kerry, but as she had passed away long long ago this I could not know. Aunty Lolly had a high Viking percentage at 25.5%, so indeed my own Viking came from both my parents. And there was another group Aunty Lolly had, but not me, which was 9.1% northern and western European, this being associated with Holland, France and Germany. I didn't have it! It was so curious that largish sections of DNA, although of lesser than 10%, may not be handed on to a descendant, and yet that something more ancient, such as presumably the Greek, had come down to me. And I so could have been 'English' but by fate was not. The strong Irish in me did then appear to be from my father. I'd guess that was what this data was saying.
Looking at my daughter Rosina's update, she had got so much of my Viking at 38% and less of my Celtic at 13.7%, with the special grouping of Shetland Islands in there. She'd not got my Greek or Spanish, but she'd got some Italian at 1.9%. The tiy amount of Finnish I had passed onto her too. Overall she was a Viking Indian. Her Indian DNA at 44.8% was of the Indo-Aryan ancient tribes.
And looking at my son George's update, he had inherited from his Italian father some exotic ethnicities, such as Middle Eastern and West Asian. And, oh, I then saw it, as an additional specific genetic type there was mentioned not only the Shetland Islands but also Bari in Italy. If I'd needed any more proof that Francesco was his father and not Dutch Allard then there it was. Francesco's people were from the village of Turi near to Bari.
George's general Italian was 33.6% and his Greek & Southern Italian was 19%. He had Spanish at 4%, Balkan at 7.4%, Middle Eastern at 1.8% and West Asian at 0.8%. Some of that Mediterranean in him was not just from his dad but from me too. Unlike Rosina, he got very little of my Viking at only 2.4%, compared to her huge 38.6%, but he got more of my Celtic and Pictish at 31%, compared to her 13.7%. Hence Rosina was more of a Viking and George was more of a Celt. It would be interesting to see my other childrens DNA one day, to know what percentages they themselves inherited. George's Middle Eastern was of the Levant, this being the 'cradle of civilisation' which had been inhabited for thousands of years. His West Asian aligned to Turkey and Iran, being of ancient Persians and the Turk nomadic tribes. I do know I have tiny amounts of these types of DNA too from the testing I've done with other companies. |
AuthorSusie Harrison and her hobby of genealogy, always looking into her own and her friends family trees. Categories
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