At market, one Texan enthusiast of our French mysteries hereabouts was saying to others that the local language of Occitan was from Aramaic, the 'pure language of Jesus'. Actually though, as I interjected, Occitan has Latin origins. I expanded into my late thoughts that there was an original language here before Occitan, far more ancient, because as I have seen it the local goddess of Bugarach, Noor, is not an Occitan word. It occurred to me that the most ancient language here would have aligned with cave dwelling and the standing stones and would more have resembled Basque, which in itself has always been mysterious. Yes, I know it, that Noor also means in Arabic 'light', as one of the men remarked on, but likely this was also an ancient local word. I did look more into this once back home. And yes, Occitan was a language introduced by the Romans, and therefore this had covered what was in existence before. And as for that old language having more resembled Basque, indeed, on my looking into this it was understood by linguists and historians that the language spoken by cave people, as I had myself deduced, would have been a proto-Basque, there being evidence dating this back to the Neolithic times and even beyond. Basque words alike to Noor, as I now saw, written as 'nur' translated to 'water' and also to 'hazelnuts'. A water goddess them, maybe, for the magical springs and rivers of this sacred landscape. Basque, also known as Euskara, was unique and always somewhat of a mystery. I had traces of Basque dna, as did my mother, which may well be in us from way back in Palaeolithic times, when the Welsh, Irish and Scots were of the same family groups as those of the Basque, and likewise with ancient Sardinians, also dna I carried. All was so very interesting.
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I've been considering my food sensitivities and how this is genetically inherited via my father and my nanny Eileen, both of whom, in sticking to commonly accepted foods ultimately deteriorated health wise. I've had to eliminate so much of traditional food, to the point of being a fussy eater no-one can entertain. But that seems to be working for me. And, yes, I've said it before, that I tend to think it's the Cheddar caveman's own genes, very primitive and ancient, , which I appear to share to quite some extent, restricting what I can eat and handle. On the other side of my dads family are Pop's long life genes, he being a centenarian, and my having discovered that his Wonastow ancestresses lived even beyond 100. Myself, arriving at the age of 61, I look some ten years younger, which I'm hoping is because I've inherited that same long life gene. Sussing out what foods and substances are as if poisons to me, I free up the path for the long life gene to dominate. I actually watched a documentary about centenarian 'blue spots' around the world, which focused on Okinawa in Japan, Ikaria a Greek island and the ancients of Sardinia. It's so that the ancient Balari of Sardinia shows up in my archeogenetic dna, so has this originated there? Or Greece? Or the Caucasus? But, yes, maybe the Balari. Or maybe Wonastow has its own blue magic going on. I have never yet been to that village, whereas I have experienced a whole month of exploring Sardinia. Looking up about Sardinia I see that the people genetically closest to them are the Basque, which I also have genetic links to.
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.
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.:
On these genealogy blogs I have my first ever comment, from a John Schulz, who like me has this curiously rare mtDNA, which his sequence being given as N1b1a2 (my own having an extra a on the end). His matriarchal line he knows to have come from Belarus. He is aware that several Armenian merchant families had been welcomed here and in surrounding Polish-Lithuanian lands. This is another clue then to there having been some connection to Armenian peoples. Hotspots for our rare dna, John says, are thus around Belarus, the eastern Mediterranean, occasional British/Irish, and then he points out something I'd not yet heard about, which is that it has also been found in the Basque people. As Basque has been quite highlighted as an autosomal derivation for my mother, this now becomes all the more interesting. Now only has Basque dna potentially reached us via some settlers into Ireland, but also Basque language has been seen to have some unique kind of link to the people to the north eastern Caucasus, which is where our matriarchal type of DNA is seen to have variegated the most, hence its presentation so far for being a motherland. So, there comes even more idea of what journey my ancestors took, out of Africa to Mount Carmel and there being part of the early Natufian culture, pushing up and onwards into what would become Armenian lands, that which is the vastness of Anatolia, having early tribal associations there, and continuing on into the high refuges of the Caucasus mountains, where one can remain free and undisturbed for a great length of time. Nomadic journeyings happened around the Black Sea, with still links down into the Armenian hills and mountains. From the Caucasus to the Pyrenees, and from there to Ireland. This anyway is my latest evolved understanding, with the simplest way to sum all up. From Ireland to the old streets of London. To me. AuthorAuthor Susie Harrison and her hobby of genealogy, always looking into her own and her friends family trees. I settled into trying to understand more these genetic tools on Gedmatch, specifically the Eurogenes K13 and the Dodecad 3, one of my aims being to discern what is from my mothers side and what is of my fathers. Not that I really work out so much, but there are some things I do see. One marker which I have, but my mum doesn't, and which therefore is from my father, is of the Red Sea. And there I had been previously, holidaying for a month right by the Red Sea in Egypt. Both the Eurogenes and the Dodecad reveal a lot of West Asian, which is considerably higher in me than in my mother. Thus it does look to be that my huge Caucasus heritage, and quite likely the Anatolian/Armenian too, is from my father, or at least a greater portion of the Caucasus is. And isn't that a surprise, considering that mine and my mothers matriarchal DNA is from there, and yet my more recent connections to that land come through my father. Naturally western-northern European is our highest genetics, after which comes a high Mediterranean, which includes some Greek from my father and East European shores of the Black Sea from my mother. South Asian is in my mother and father, and south west Asian is only through my dad. North East Asian is from both my parents, which does get me thinking of Mongol invasions. No paleo-Pygmy African presence shows up after all on the Dodecad. There is, though, north west African from my mum (Moroccan) and north east African (Egyptian) from my dad. Among the Gedmatch tools are oracles for predicting likely origins of the four grandparents, and looking firstly at my mums, her Shetland grandparents are no doubt responsible for the Orcadian, West Scottish, Danish, Norwegian and Swedish. All is not so straightforward for grandparents Mary Ann Seagrove and D'Auvergne Bane. There is a considerable amount of south west English, pinpointed to Cornwall, that I'm not sure how to account for. This could be tagged onto either of grandparent I suppose. Like I don't yet know the place Mary Ann's ancestors dwelt in as yet before they came to London. The Irish is accounted for by Mary Ann's 'Sugrue' fathers side from County Kerry, and the Spanish with considerable Basque may or may not have come through the Irish connection. The Dodecad reveals that there is French other than just the Basque, and with a name like D'Auvergne naturally I wonder if that grandfather did have some secret French connection. As far as his Norfolk Banes and Beans are concerned, this would be covered by both south east English and Dutch, the Norfolk cloth merchants (a trade to which my people were linked) being from there, and this could also account for traces of German and Austrian. Although not to forget that the Hanseatic merchants also traded with Shetland. The conclusion of my mothers oracle is a quite present Cornish, Scottish and Danish, and a French Basque which is potentially through the Irish. In my own oracle Irish is the strongest, enormously so. Although my mum's Irish would appear to have a strong Basque and Spanish influence, my dads (which is from Westmeath) would be very grass roots Irish. So for my own grandparents in this: Shetland grandfather Lyall Inkster accounts for West Scottish and Orcadian; Granny Isabelle accounts for Irish, Cornwall, French and Spanish. Then, for my other two grandparents, pop and nanny Eileen, would come so much Irish. For pop surely Welsh would show, but maybe Welsh hasn't been sampled as yet and so has been lumped in with the Irish. Unless, that is, my Welsh Harrisons and Forest of Dean Hawkins were of Irish traveller derivation. So much Irish, it being the closest of all ethnic types to me inclines me to think my nanny Eileen's mystery father to be Irish as well. Somewhere on my dads side also comes in some distant Hungarian, according to Eurogenes, so it may be that the Maxteds came from a gypsy heritage after all, but I have to drop gypsyness for now as a consideration due to a lack of proof. Interestingly, beyond the strong French Basque, the most potent influence of all the Spanish areas is Catalan. And where I live now in the south of France was once part of the Spanish Catalan territories, before being snatched away by France. My coming to this land suddenly holds a significance I'd not before been aware of. The Dodecad points not only to Cornwall and Hungary, but also to Slovenia. And Sardinia is there through my mother, as well as north Italian. As Les Batt had pointed out, this appears to point out a route taken to Spain, being via Sardinia, a route of old sea traders, such as the Phoenicians. Certainly the Phoenicians come to mind with such locations, from the Levant to the islands of the Mediterranean to Spain. The Dodecad embroiders yet again on my mothers strong Iberian secondary ancestry, along with Sardinian and Italian. Whereas my own, presumably enriched by my fathers DNA, is increasingly exotic. The Eurogenes has pointed out for me strong Caucasus and central Asian ancestry, along with Anatolian. The Dodecad finds me markers in a more European and Mediterranean context and these are richly ethnic in variety. Primarily there are Greek, Romanian and Hungarian. So would that then relate to my maybe gypsy Kent-London ancestors? But, oh, they are a right melting pot of cultures, just as one may imagine Londoners to be. And I never thought there was any Jewish ancestry in me at all, for nothing else had shown this, but the Dodecad has made of me links to them. Beyond the stronger Greek-Romanian-Hungarian there comes Slovenian, Ashkenazi Jew, Cyprus, Sephardic Jew, the Balkans, Sicily, Lebanon, Moroccan Jew, south Italy, Cornwall (lol, so exotic), and Egypt. What to say of this, well, ones ancestry is not linear, nor easily determined. In these hundreds of years so many families are joined by the marriages and affairs of the ancestors. The Dodecad grandparent predictor oracle for my mother still emphasises a French Basque probability, with Slovenian coming up too, and naturally Irish. Mine brings in, from my father then, an addition of Romanian and the Balkans. At which point I take a break. Because my friend Omani comes to visit. AuthorSusie Harrison and her hobby of genealogy, always looking into her own and her friends family trees. Having had some time now to digest the information that Romany genealogist Les Batt has given me, I can see at the very least this undertanding: That what is shown is a big connection with people along the old Silk Road, and especially a major presence in the Caucasus mountains and central Asia. The Spanish-Iberian element coming through my mother, the strongest connection being to the French Basque, as I seem from more reading, is indeed considered to have come to Britain from Ireland, accounting for the black hair still to be found there among the people. Some gypsy blood may be present via the connection to India, but as for now, understanding of gypsy patterns is still too primitive and unresearched to be able to firmly make conclusion about this. Another thing about all the Asian tribal groups I have had listed is that it is not that I would have had ancestors coming from every one of them. Although we share markers, this could have come from their own interbreeding with core groups which I am indeed connected to. I do think it would work this way. What would then be the authentic core origins of such markers is what becomes most relevant. Like with all those marked Iberians and Caucasus tribes, naturally they swapped markers between neighbours, therefore it doesn't mean my ancestors were necessarily within all those tribes. It is of interest that although the central Asian element didn't turn up in the analysis of either familytree or MyHeritage, it had indeed been presented to me by the Genographic Project, since which, until now, I had almost concluded this to be an anomaly. But it is indeed very much there. My American friend Satshanti (Peter Pynchon) now connected with me about these latest DNA revelations. And I had been waiting for his insight. He likes that I have a connection to Sicily, pointing out it is where the Greeks had farms for a while. As for my relatives in Iberia, this does hint at how my relatives moved into Britain, and I do think he is right about this, with Ireland being a midway link. Satshanti says he and I share roots in Tajikistan and that a Zoroastrian people from long back are revealing themselves here. Looking at our Gedmatch comparisons, Peter sussed that he and my mother share more than three chromosomes, and from further conversation we work out that this is from County Kerry in Ireland, as Peter has observed in looking at connections to other people with Gedmatches that my mother has some kind of relationship to an Irish Roche, and he himself well knows that his great great grandmother was an irish Roche from near Kerry, therefore this being totally the correct location to link us up. AuthorSusie Harrison and her hobby of genealogy, always looking into her own and her friends family trees. Absolutely, on this day, my mind was being blown by my supposed gypsy connections which more and more are revealed to be authentic, and not only that, the gypsies I am connecting with are helping me to understand more about my genetics. One fellow, Les Batt, was going out of his way to reveal the connections I have to his Romany compatriots. And not only that, for also he understands the tools which reveal specific populations and tribal groups which one is linked to. It is Les that is blowing my mind, and how lucky I am that he helps me to see what otherwise may have escaped me. Apart from the fact that I have tonnes of Viking Orcadian Scandinavian DNA and tonnes of Irish (I don't know where my Welsh pop fits into all this), I learnt that despite what MyHeritage had reported to the contrary I did have English DNA after all and it is of Cornwall (and how can I even understand how that fits in). And there is some Dutch and West German, which could be accounted for by my Norfolk ancestry, as Europeans were known to have brought the cloth trade there. This information was all so, so, and overall to be expected. What was mind blowing was other than that. Not only did Les give me lists of recent influences for the grandparents of both me and my mother, but he also presented totally exotic lists of secondary influences beyond that, and put his own time to preparing maps of the journeying of my ancestors out of India and into Central Asia - so the Genographic Project was correct about my central Asian link after all - and such a big influence he also showed me had come from the Caucasus mountains (I had been correct in focusing research here in the past too then); my ancestors had dwelt in Afghani-Pakistani border regions (no Pakistani separation back then mind you and this would have been known as part of India). One marker is to be found in Anatolia (where maybe the blending with Armenians had come in). One line travelled down through the Middle East into Egypt and across to Morocco, maybe that very gypsy journey into the south of Spain I'd recently been learning about. After Les showed to me that I had distant connections to him and other gypsies of the Romany group, he one by one presented to me more and more interesting details in relation to Gedmatch. A Utility K13 list, with its Oracle 4, shows the major imput from all four grandparents, which appears overwhelmingly Irish, with of course Orcadian, West Scottish, and the southern English (I wonder if this would tally with my Forest of Dean ancestry), as well as southern Dutch and west and north German. This was the first level of genetics I got and is of recent genetics. Totally I see that Irish is the strongest element. The next revelation Les came up with was the Oracle 4 in relation to my mothers own grandparents. This revealed, amongst all the expected Scandinavian Viking influence, which would account for Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, Orcadian and nothern Dutch (although that last may still be to do with a Norfolk connection), an addition of Irish (which we've definitely known), and south-eastern English (Norfolk and London), but the real surprise in all this then came out, and it is Basque French. The French Basque is no minor element but is strongly present and is the second biggest influence beyond the Viking imput. Oh, could it be then that her grandmother Mary Ann's Greenwich mother Maria's appearance was really French Basque. Les pointed out that the Basques had not only remained in their Pyrenees enclave, but they had also made a home for themselves in Ireland, hence the black hair sometimes seen there. This presents then that Maria's Basque look, if that indeed is what it is, could have come to England via Ireland, rather than directly from France. Interestingly I read that the language of the Basques has similarity to tribal languages in the Caucasus, where my very mtDna has its origins. And Les Batt was revealing so much more to me. The Basque French is recent ancestry, beyond which there is so much more ethnic variety. I had asked Les if there was any way to know if one truly has Romany ancestry, pointing out that 11% of my DNA has been detected to be Mediterranean. Really for this one would have to detect a link to India itself, with the subsequent journeying towards Europe of these peoples. And Les found this for me, using the K13 Oracle, which specifically looks at markers shared with Asian peoples, along with usually looked at influences. For my mother, behind the primary source of Orcadian, British, Norwegian and Dutch, comes the secondary source, where are ones further back ancestors, and what shows up is not only French Basque in high proportions, but also a large amount of Iberian Spanish/Portuguese. As Les says, this even being what he had expected, this shows my mum's ancestors travelled widely in Spain. Not only have the old Irish been seen to have a link to both Spain and the Basque Pyrenees , but the gypsies had for so long dwelt in Spain, for which gypsies tend to have a big presence of Spanish DNA. There is so much of this Spanish influence in my mothers DNA, along with French, and interestingly, considering that I was drawn to spend a month exploring this island, some Sardinian. The Basque is not something in isolation then, but part of vaster exploration of the whole Iberian peninsular and beyond. And for sure this fits in with the autosomal results I was already told of by the general DNA testing companies. There's no defining, as such, as to whether this Iberian DNA is due to either Irish or gypsy influences, or both, although its pretty much accepted that genetic mixing has gone on between Irish travellers and European-Asian ones, and I think I can assume the same in my own case too. Now this is all fascinating enough, but my own K13 oracle is even more so. For beyond all my great influence of Irishness, which is of primary source, is the secondary aforementioned mass of Caucasus mountain tribes, central Afghani and Indian. This is as aspect of me, the ethnic colour of my being, whether it is through my mother or father, that not being clear as yet. It does look as if my more ethnic components aren't even through my mother, or at least they don't show up on her own oracle. And so has manifested a massive list of tribal peoples, by which an entire map of journeying across Asia can be plotted, with tribal names such as Ossetian, Balkar, Brahmi, Balochi, Kabardin, Georgian, Abhkasian, Makrani, Adygei, Afghan Tadjik, Kalash, Nogay, Chechen, Burusho, Afghan Pashtun, Kumyk, Sindhi and Tabassaran. Wow, in wishing to find ones exotic self how much more exotic can it get! Like we know Europeans came out of Africa via the Middle East. But this something totally different! An attraction I have had in my life to India, and the lands thereabout, reflects exactly where my ancestors have been. Les came up with three maps, one for the Asian journeying, one for the Iberian, and another of the total picture which includes every single discovered influence (which includes Greek, south east European, Cyprus as it looks to be (another place I'd like to go), Sicily, Egypt, the Levant and Morocco, all this being revealed by the Dodecad V3 test analysis. I am thrilled to bits with these maps. And of course by all the obscure tribes that have been listed. I looked up information on those tribal groups: Ossetia is of the Caucasus, the highest point in the landscape being Mount Kazbek and being part of the old Sillk Road. Other Caucasus groups are revealed, the Balkars, many of whom fled into Europe when the Mongols invaded, the Kabardin with their interesting belief that the soul of the ancestors watches over us, a soul which one is to perfect by honour and compassion, the Georgians, who had maintained their Christian identity even in the face of great pressure from neighbouring Moslem empires, Abkhasian whose land of the soul is on the shores of the Black Sea with its ideal mildly subtropical climate, a part of the ancient kingdom of Colchis, where is the worlds deepest cave (the Crows Cave), the Adygei Circassians, the Nogay who have been linked to the Golden Horde, who on settling in the Crimea became Crimean Tartars, still proud of their nomadic traditions which they consider to be superior to settled life, the Chechen who are fiercely independent and egalitarian, who had migrated to the mountains from the fertile crescent and are tall with all eye and hair colours, including red hair, and who are considered to be more European than Asian, with a strong connection to nature and love of freedom (their greeting 'marsha oylla' means 'enter in freedom', they are a happy and witty people, and it is they who, who with their diverse genetics, have this connection to the Basques, far more than they have to neighbouring east Europeans, the Kamyk of northern Dagestan, and the Tabassaran, also of Dagestan. And: On the edges of Afghanistan are the Brahuis, a relict people of Indian type, and the Balochi, a desert and mountain people living with the Pashtuns on the Persian plateau, though originally from the shores of the Caspian Sea (they are known to have plundered travellers in the desert and their singing and dancing women folk are known for their lullabies), the Makrani former mercenaries who to this day are found in the Gujarati princely states of Kathiawar, the Tadjik who are Persians who emigrated to central Asia, being former Zoroastrians with their fire temples, Aryans and Buddhists, the Kalash who are a unique aboriginal tribe practising animism, and whose women embroider their dresses with cowrie shells (elopements are part of the culture, even if with already married women), crows representing the ancestors (sadly this tribe has been targeted by local Muslims and militants), the Barusha who are the Hunza people, famed for living more than a hundred years, and being from north of the Himmalayas, their stunning scenic land associated in legend with the lost kingdom of Shangri La, the Afghani Pashtuns who are Pathans of unclear origin, originally being Buddhists, Hindu and Zoroastrian, worshippers of the sun and of Nana, and the Sindhi of what was West India, originally tribes of the Indus Valley Civilisation, with Mohenjo Daro being one of their larger settlements. Having looked at all that I don't see such a bold connection to southern India, as mapped by Les, although having said that, the Brahui were speakers of a Dravidian language and are thought to have come from Karnataka. I think, also, that with such nomadic travelling ancestors, one must consider that they not only would have travelled westwards but eastwards too, as along the Silk Road, forming colonies and cultural links to other groups, and in such explorations being isolated from their origins, absorbing at least partially into surrounding populations. Therefore myriad peoples are seemingly linked to, whereas the connections may rather have been later, and no one has ended up of one pure type of anything. Whatever was our African origin, this has diversified into so many exploratory tribes, chiselling such unique, differing identities, all who will re-emerge ultimately back into one vast people, like the expanding and then contracting universe. Along this multi dimensional journeying we experience such a blossoming of all that can be, while gathering a trillion personal stories, and I can't not but be fascinated. One thought that does come to me is that this mapping is not so much a road journey that one group of ancestors made. It is more like a river, into which flow not only springs, but also other complexities of rivers. It is not that every tribe was visited and a blending of peoples then enacted, all as part of the journeying of an edge of India people; but rather fewer people were met with, who already had long experiences of connecting to the various groups in their lands. As I can see, there is one big group of Afghan, old India, mountain tribal, and central Asian. And the other big group displays the huge variety of all the tribes of the Caucasus mountains. With emphasis being on the very edges of old India, it does not seem that any exodus came from what is modern India itself. Rather, since the exodus, tribes who remained have journeyed in quite the other direction, into India. Those met on travels westwards already had complex mixtures in their genealogies, again back to the symbolism of the river. Whatever may have been her complex Caucasus origins, a girl may have met others of my lineage nowhere near there, but in Anatolia or Greece, Italy or Spain, or Ireland. Also, though I do seek proof for gypsyness in my family, it has to be admitted that there still is nothing concrete. There could be other reasons why my people travelled across Asia, the Silk Road appearing to have quite some relevance; so that they may rather have been traders, missionaries, or explorers who set up distant colonies. My head has been so full on absorbed in all this, so that I have kind of reached overload with it and need to have a break and return with freshness later. AuthorSusie Harrison and her hobby of genealogy, always looking into her own and her friends family trees. |
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