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.
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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. I got into trying to understand just a little something about one-to-one DNA comparisons. One of my cousins, Dee, who was the daughter of Linda, who was herself the daughter of my nanny Eileen's sister, Molly, also had her DNA online on the useful Gedmatch site. For which I could compare shared segments of chromosomes between me and her and also with my Aunty Lolly (my fathers sister). In this way I worked out what on my own chromosomes was of our shared Maxted-Dolan ancestry, this being the DNA passed onto us by my great grandmother, Florence Maxted (and of her husband Percy, he was not included, because I had pretty much observed by now that there had been no cousin links between me and his ancestors other descendants, by which I could conclude he was not really my nanny Eileen's father, supporting a hypothesis I'd had anyway). So I worked out all the chromosomal chunks shared between us three, which I could then label as of Maxted-Dolan derivation, these segments being found on chromosomes 2, 5, 7, 11, 12, 16, 17 and 20. I had it confirmed that I was on the right track with this by looking at a distant cousin match suggested to me on Gedmatch, for the person of Kevin James Young, seeing that the DNA we had common to one another was on chromosome 12 at one of those aforementioned segments. It was for this, excitedly I knew it, that he had to be of this same lineage, from either somewhere back in William Maxted's ancestry or Irish Mary Dolan's, both these great great grandparents of mine being the parents of Florence Maxted. And sure enough he was! I had to suss out the links between us myself, there having been no online tree showing our connection. But he had listed online one of his family surnames as Swinden, and it so happened that I knew well of the Swindens, from where further back they connected to my own ancestors. Even I knew of this in my head without looking it up, that William Maxted's mother, who was Sarah Green, had two sisters who married Swinden brothers. Therefore I connected up our families, by which not only did I authenticate my own family tree researches in this regard, but I saw exactly where came from that DNA chunk found on my 12th chromosome (the range being between 88,000,000 and 129,000,000 on the said chromosome), this then being what I had inherited from the Lambeth residing parents of Sarah Green, either from her father Henry Green or her mother Elizabeth Harding. My research into this rather foreboding subject of DNA comparisons had paid off. This was my breakthrough of the day. What I found most strange was that my mother and my Aunty Lolly shared a segment of DNA; like what, how come?! I knew of no connections between their two families, and yet something was there, or so the DNA was suggesting. Maybe this came through their Irish ancestresses.
My youngest childrens ethnic Myheritage DNA percentages arrived: Rosina: 44.8% South Asian; 38.6% Viking (Shetland); 13.7% Celtic (Irish, Scots and Welsh); 1.9% Italian; 1% Finnish George: 33.6% Italian; 31% Celtic (Irish, Scots and Wesh); 19% Greek and South Italian; 7.4% Balkan; 4% Spanish Iberian; 2.4% Viking Shetland; 1.8% Middle East; 0.8% West Asia And so comparing theirs to mine: 64.3% Celtic (Irish, Scots and Welsh); 24% Viking Shetland; 4% Greek and South Italian; 3.5% Spanish Iberian; 2.7% Italian; 1% Finnish
That ever mystery of George's dad is by this ethnic result once and for all sorted. He is my Georgio De Bello. Even there had come up a De Bello cousin match for him, this being to Leonora De Bella who was in her 70's and living in America, she being possibly a second or third cousin once or twice removed. I reacquaint with the results of my mothers own test results, through her there coming my Spainish and Italian, whereas through my father would come the Greek. 59.6% Celtic Irish and Scots - (the Welsh being from my father); 27.3% Viking Sheland; 7.1% English (I never inherited any of this, so neither did my children); 3.2% Iberian Spanish; 2.8% Italian And my Aunty Lolly, to represent my deceased father, who is her brother - although they would have had differing blends of their parents DNA:: 52.5% Celtic (Irish and Welsh); 25.5 Viking (not connected to my Shetland genes); 12% English; 9.1% North and West European, for example French, Dutch and German Really I have no way to know my fathers correct percentages as he died so long ago and I suspect his alotted amount was rather different to Lolly's, he being red haired and she so blonde.
I have cousins a little more distant who have done the Myheritage ethnic tests too, although their DNA will have the imput of people I have no connection at all too, but still its interesting to observe. They are both connected to me through my nanny Eileen, the mother of Lolly and my father. Firstly, Dee, descended from nanny Eileen's sister Molly. Dee's grandfather is Scottish and her father is a Londoner with the Welsh surname of Jones: 75.6% Celtic (Irish, Scots and Welsh); 9.8% Baltic; 9.7 Viking Scandanavian; 2.7% West Asia; 1.4% Finnish; 0.8% Ashkenazi Jew Secondly, Dominic. He descends from a sister of my nanny Eileen's mother Florence who was half Irish. 39.2% Celtic (Irish, Scots and Welsh); 35.6% English; 18.6 North West European; 4.9% Viking Scandanavian; 1.7% Ashkenazi Jew In cousin matches, there is a second or third cousin who I quickly see must be related to me through pop, my Welsh grandfather, this being because my aunt Lolly and I share her as a common relative, but not Dee nor Dominic. Jane Keep, and indeed she does appear to have Welsh, ancestry. 77.9% Celtic; 19.1% English; 3% Spanish Iberian So, Welsh for sure. Well, I got to looking at some of these proposed cousins to see how we may connect to one another, not just this Jane Keep, but two other matches. And though none had any obvious links, I got to researching their lineages and found them myself. Such is my zeal for researching. Jane Keep had only put that her grandparents were a Powell and a Bebb, and not even any other information at all, but regardless, I sussed her ancestry right back to Mary Thomas, who happened to be the daughter of two of my Welsh ancestors, Morgan Thomas and his wife Ann née Rosser. It was by checking all this out that I found a census I'd not seen before, for Ann when she was old and widowed living in Llanelli in 1891 with this aforementioned daughter Mary. And what was so amazing about this discovery was that languages spoken were listed and my Ann, despite everyone else in the household being English speakers, was herself a Welsh speaker. She didn't even speak English at all, only Welsh. Those who did speak both languages were clearly marked as doing so. And I worked out another Welsh cousin link, again which I had to research more to make sense of, this being to a Lionel Herbert Watkins. Thus I found that my connection to Lionel reached right back to the original George Harrison of Llanthony, Lionel descending from his daughter Sophia and me from his son William. The link to George Harrison was not a research even worked out at all by this distant cousin, but I'd sussed it. And I shall get to working out more and more of these proposed cousin connections I do suppose.
My hoped for link to the gypsies falters yet more when I seen that even on the DNA oracles others in my online Romany group have had specific mention of there being Romany ethnicity and I have not. They have all been raised in the travelling lifestyle though, and if I do have links myself they are further back. So who knows. The thing with autosomal DNA its that it really looks at recent generations. Which does make my central Asian, Caucasus, Middle Eastern, and Mediterranean results all the more curious. What to speak of the African traces to ancient jungle dwelling pygmies, probably the most fascinating African type of DNA one can have. 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. I watched some documentaries about gypsy peoples, always fascinating, of Bulgarians, Russians, and Romanians, their child marriages, barefoot dancing, and of girls staying home. When I see such old style traditionalism something there has an appeal. Its that bohemian kind of freedom, of no school and nomadism, of ethnic long skirts, and yes, bare feet. Its a kind of hippy style I myself have had. It is interesting that my mother has this 2% eastern European and myself 1%. I have already considered that the Mediterranean DNA I have may be gypsy. And now, on looking at an Irish gypsy documentary, I see a picture of old world traditional gypsies with the features of my County Kerry Irish. This is the first time I consider that my Sugrue/Sheehans may also have been gypsy. The gypsy theme in my families past is really but a fanciable one with no solid facts, but I do have some fascination about this. Modern gypsies don't have a good reputation for their feuding and crimes and for the dominance of their men over the women. But I do see that there were certain qualities further back, in regard to their closeness to nature, their love of music, the closeness of families that help one another in life's journeying, and their living separate from societies overbearing demands and rules and regulations, posings and limitations. I watched more gypsy documentaries, one being a tragic perspective, and one a so interesting historical account. On a visit round to Jeremy's I talked with him about gypsies, this being topical now, and on account of realisations I'm now having that a real reason why I find myself unacceptable in the eyes of some people, how I get judged and have even had social services bloody turned onto me, basically being disregarded, is because I have 'the gypsy' in me. So does Jeremy and he also is easily dismissed. I have at least, potentially that is, 11% of me being gypsy and that is just of the Mediterranean type, as whatever else in me is of gypsy derivation would up that number to an unknown amount. Those Irish travellers I may be linked to, it may be that they are descended from the original nomads of Ireland, before all other invaders came and took over their lands. Either way, eastern or western, these gypsies have kept themselves freer from societies neurotic imposed standards and hoity-toity impositions. I am free too in this regard. My kids may get dirty in their play, so what. I know how to rough it and don't mind clutter and chaos in my life. I don't poof up in general my appearance. I don't insist my kids go to school or do homework. I prefer them to be free, to just be natural. I accept handouts if need is there without getting hung up or guilty. I stole as a child. I can't be done with small talk. And I don't know how to deal with authorities and even avoid all that. And right now I feel that all this is because of the gypsy in me, that 11% plus. I get this from both my parents. And then there's Jeremy, with plenty of money and yet he chooses to scavenge food in bins. Its not that we are 'low class' as lower classes don't accept us either. And middle classes exceptionally judge. Higher classes, rather curiously, can actually accept because they have no need to prove themselves and appreciate individuality, that old British eccentricity. Both Jeremy and I have gypsy in us, as far as I can work out, and not from modern times, but further back. And I have so been attracted to India where the gypsies originated. My Irish Sugrues were dysfunctional, this I have discovered, and this has kind of helped me to understand more my own dysfunctionalism. And to comprehend all now within the greater context of gypsyness makes more sense and has more impact. Because this is as if a whole family clan which was lost is now refound. And for this I have attained some identification along with group pride, and this sense that all the hoity-toity judges do just that because they sift through those around them marking out who is of worth and who is of them, their type, their people, and all this even though their people have enslaved, attacked and persecuted others. This is why I refer to their ill placed hoity-toity superiority complex. So I would sum up one trouble stirring critic from my village with her 'oh you come to the pub and lay your sleeping child on a bench while partying' (horror of horrors) - not worthy of being a mother then, this being what is in her head. Yes, well, I breastfed my children, I carried them around, and slept with them. I stayed with them, rather than going off chasing money and a career, rather than leaving them with a child minder. I took them along with me on all my travel adventures. I have a nomadic soul. I am free and you are not. But its your society, your rules, and you can just phone anonymously child protection services and get my darlings taken away from me. Because the way you and others think life should be lived is so limiting and all not in your box is condemned. So long I thought others picked on me because I am gentle and not assertive. How could I have any satisfaction in this matter, that being pleasant makes me inadequate. With new understanding, that it is my gypsyness attracting hostility, then its not so personal and against my own lack. It is rather a war on my tribe. And now I have a people to align with and I would rather feel I am with them than your uptight communities in which I never belonged. I have always been an outcaste, an outsider. My standards are different to yours, more relaxed. You are the lines on the pavement and I am the spaces between and beyond. My mother has 7% English in her, unlike me, and its that Anglo-Saxon in her that despises all that is not of civilisation and posturing. I don't have that same brake on me, of what has been more free flowing in our ancient peoples and their ways of relating to the world. This is how I can attune more to more natural elements in my being. So it is, that of such things I talked to Jeremy, though not in such detail. And people nowadays call the travellers Romanys, not gypsies, or at least some people assert this. But either way such names reflect places long lived in since leaving India, whether Romania or Egypt. The gypsy word gets labelled as fake and erroneous along with the statement that never really had travellers come from there. And yet the brilliant documentary I'd watched revealed that the gypsies did go to Egypt and still are there, and even by that north African route had travelled to the south of Spain. Around Granada they lived in cave houses and spoke of coming from Africa, and this is even though others of their people crossed Europe and came down into Spain from other directions. Even in Egypt, some family stories talk of having been in Hungary before going down to Africa. Although associated with musicians historically gifted to Persia, gypsies also have plenty of military words in their vocabulary hinting that they had also been employed as warriors, maybe against the Islamic colonisations of the near East. In Egypt, although it has put them in danger, there are still gypsies who have kept apart from Islam. Either way, in Egypt they have lived on the peripheries, surviving through their music, by their dancing girls, even prostitution, whatever must be done to survive. The Egyptian gypsies admit that crime has also been a part of their overland journey. Although long in Persia, Islam drove them out from there into Turkey which was then safely still part of the Byzantine Empire. With ottoman conquerings they had to travel on yet again, into eastern Europe. There they were legally forced by the civilisation around them into slavery. This brutal history of imposed slavery could go a long way to explaining the modern degradation still affecting these people, their impoverishment, drug and alcohol addictions, family neglect, and unsafe settlements. For they had been broken. Hitler had rounded up so many of them for his death camps. But some escaped all that, having instead gone down to Egypt and all the way round to southern Spain. Their music and songs are also their healing, from all past inflicted sufferings, emotional turmoils channeled into creative sustenance. That passionate music has anciently the quality of depth still found in Indian bhajans. And they never lost their goddess Kali, transforming her at the very least into the Christian Sara Kali in the Carmargue of France. Those gypsies that crossed Europe, I am both of them and the southern Spanish. And it appears that the gypsies soon enough both encountered and interbred with the nomadic Irish. When I see in my DNA that I am Anatolian, middle eastern, eastern European, Greek, Italian, Spanish, and have some French too, well, this is all the journey they took. More and more, then, I make sense of this Mediterranean Europeanness I have as being, at least in part, of gypsy derivation. Anciently gypsies had a sense of their own nobility as a people and when they first came to Britain were even seen as such. But attitudes changed and they had to adapt or disguise who they were or else soldier on regardless. I can't even express just how much happiness I have knowing my roots all the more and how much that means to me. And others will say that the past is irrelevant, but such words are of no consequence to me, because for me our family roots are part of our divinity even. And by this we find our vital historical place amongst the teeming masses of faceless people who have no stories. Not at all is the past an irrelevance and I have long known this. I have travailed so hard over the years to uncover such forgotten history, that which was reduced to but mysteries and disregarded shadows, while yet being essentially part of who we are, unknown and yet vital. I know that new age spiritually motivated people, of whom I have often situated myself, want to escape the body and the material, into a void, and I had originally accepted something of this dismissiveness, but not anymore. Because it is the totality that is relevant, being part of the miracle of evolving life, being precious, divine, and deserving to be honoured. All my research now leads somewhere and it feels so good. I am gypsy; it is the only way to make sense of the diverse patch-work of association with so many countries, places they travelled through and dwelt in. I'm happy to know. I'm gypsy and viking and Irish and Welsh. My dad disliked his Welshness and my mum her Irishness, but I love it all. And my squatters of the Forest of Dean, who were people outside of any parish, they were travellers too! Red haired, natural, rebelling against any imposed authority, they had no home but the forest, where they made their huts and repeatedly saw them destroyed, and then built more. Evicting them was a nonsense as they were homeless and belonged nowhere. There was nowhere else for them to go. They were extraneous to the system. All lands beyond the forest had been enclosed, partitioned and claimed, everywhere divided into parishes where people belonged, but not them. And what kind of travellers they themselves were, who knows. But I am so happy. I have made sense of a past that otherwise would not have been known. And I knew of Shetland Vikings and Welsh and Irish and Forest of dean, but I never knew of gypsies. If some of the elders of our family knew of this they preferred it forgotten. But I have discovered it anyway. It wakens a whole part of me, reinvigorates what was lost and yet was always there. And that feels so good. AuthorSusie Harrison and her hobby of genealogy, always looking into her own and her friends family trees. I've been considering the x's, the passing on of the feminine, into both men and women, having been talking rather interestingly of this with my friend Liz at a ladies luncheon, interestingly on World Ladies Day. The subject relates to a realisation I've just had, on contemplating the strong connection I feel to my deceased nanny Eileen, even though she is not of my matriarchal line, like my granny Isabelle, rather being my fathers mother. So why do I feel her so present? My realisation is that it is down to the X. I have two x's, as science has shown us ladies, men having one X and one Y. One of my x's logically comes from my father, naturally having been passed to him by his mother, my nanny Eileen, as from his father had come only the Y. So my x from my father makes sense suddenly of how it is that I feel the strong presence of my nanny Eileen. And as for the X she had passed to my father, thereafter coming to me, this could have had one of three origins, so I ponder. She'd had two X's to select from, one being from the mystery unknown (as is my theory) father, which in turn comes his own mother, a mystery grandmother. The other X would be from Eileen's half Irish mother Florence Maxted, and that in itself would either have come from her own Irish mother Mary Dolan of Westmeath, or from her father William Maxted's mother, the maybe gypsy Sarah Green. Wow, what new world of contemplation does this now open up, the journeying of the X's. Like, what then are the sources of my own two X's? My own four children wouldn't necessarily get passed down the same one, they getting either the one passed from my nanny Eileen or the X from my own mother. This is suddenly fascinating, not something I'd considered before. Distant cousin DNA matches sometimes have an X marked by them, and what the hell was that about, my poor unmathematical brain so far dismissing even trying to understand that. But now I start to see. Matching to those distant cousin x's, theoretically, one can come to know the source of one's own. Like the X I've got from my mother, which may or may not be the same as my sister got, has to be again of one of three routes, either of my mothers paternal grandmother, Shetlander Helen Inkster, or of a direct matriarchal line from half Irish Mary Ann Seagrove, or from her patriarchal grandfather D'Auvergne's mother Hannah Bean (the latter also being a questionable potentially illegitimate lineage). A new angle for me then, and most interesting. AuthorSusie Harrison and her hobby of genealogy, always looking into her own and her friends family trees. |
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