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?
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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.
.I have been watching on netflix a mystical Turkish series The Gift, which is such good viewing. It is set around the ancient Gobekli Tepe (Potbelly Hill), where my own matriarchal ancestors likely were when they were in ancient Anatolia, on their having travelled beween the Carmel mountains of Israel and the mountains of the Caucasus.
Gobekle Tepe was built around 11,000 years ago or more, at the end of the last Ice Age. T-shaped pillars were created here as I had seen of ancient standing stones in Menorca. Large parts of Goekli Tepe still remain unexcavated. The ancient people of this hill, sometimes nomadic, but who based themselves here, using grinding stones and mortar & pestle to make cereals palatable. The trees offered them pistachios and almonds. When on the move they hunted gazelle. They appear to have been of the Natufian culture, which I already knew my matriarchal ancestors were from, on having looked at dna present at the Raqefet cave on Mount Carmel in Israel. Natufians are known to have used grains to make not only breads but beer too. The oldest known beer was actually found at the Raqefet cave and has been dated to be 13,000 years old. Jonathan Schulz, a partial match to my mtDNA, has written for the second time, he being of Belarussian descent. He has a theory, which I shall make note of, on having seen that our mtDNA is found among the Iberians, as well as the Irish. As he says, 'There is a long word of mouth, legendary connection between the Iberians of the Caucasus and the Iberia of south-west Europe. Georgia in the Caucasus is a fusion of two ancient kingdoms, Colchis and Iberia. And, as he adds, migrating people repeatedly name new lands they discover with their own identifying names from back home. Jonathan is deeply interested in archaeogenetics, which is the study of ancient DNA as can be found in old body tissues, bones and faeces, and he constantly reads papers and literature on the topic. Jonathan proposes that the land of Iberia derives from a potential founder, and suggests for this the Biblical Eber. I wonder myself if an original feminine form for Eber was Eve, both being among the first peoples of the Bible. Or, maybe the originator is Vera, as in the divine Veritas, therefore being the land of truth and righteousness. AuthorAuthor Susie Harrison and her hobby of genealogy, always looking into her own and her friends family trees. 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'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. Just as with our own spirit of nomadism, by which I would travel so much more if opportunity was there, far back enough our ancestors would have done just that. Like, I've always been trying to pinpoint a matriarchal homeland, but its more likely that until political pressure limited free living, the peoples would have relocated according to the seasons and food abundance. When all is so hot it is better to be in the high Caucasus, when cold there, down one goes to the Armenian grasslands, or on and around the Black Sea, as is not to be forgotten that my mtDNA has also been found in the Ukraine, and when all is cold even in these parts, even further south one goes deeply into the Levant, to Syria and Palestine, the slopes of Mount Carmel and the Mediterranean. Mountains are places of refuge and safety, but it takes a lot to remain in them when when conditions turn brutal and food becomes sparse. Only when kingdoms arise and assert permanent territories does one have to find a long term place to wedge in oneself. By trading, travels even then can carry on, and in honouring the former sacred places by pilgrimages. But, like the vast confounded pathways the elephants habituated in the Indian jungles I have stayed in, so too the people would have got blocked, fenced in, driven out and attacked. Despite all this, we do know a group that has always travelled, the gypsies, refusing to be stuck forever in one place only. AuthorSusie Harrison and her hobby of genealogy, always looking into her own and her friends family trees. ![]() I really wonder now about my rare mtDNA and it potentially being of the Armenians. After all, we're not just talking about ancient annihilation of peoples here, but a very recent genocide of between a million and three million of their people in Anatolia in the early 1900's. The Armenian intellectuals first were slaughtered, properties confiscated, and then came the massacres, outright murders or being dumped in desert lands to die with no food or water. As much as the second world war was used to eliminate the European Jews, so was the first world war an excuse to turn on the Armenian Christians. For why might be mtDNA be so rare as to be only of my family, other than because others of that DNA had all been wiped out. As much as there are holocaust deniers, there are those who refuse to acknowledge the genocide of the Armenians, and not the least the perpetrators themselves, ie. the Ottoman Turks, but even the British and the Americans. France does recognise what happened, good on them. When I hear of such things I feel the energy of what could end up a rage inside, and not only for then, but for the ever vulnerability of minority communities in these middle eastern lands at the mercy of the great all encompassing Islam, groups such as Syrian Christians and Yezidi's. And at the same time as the Armenians were being genocided, so were the ancient Assyrians and Byzantines, all the original peoples in effect. Western nations prefer to turn somewhat of a blind eye to such episodes, avoiding controversy, leaving such threatened peoples without support and hardly even recording their predicaments. My former dreams of escaping Nazi's; I see now that I used the most blatant stereotypes in the dream imagery, because the Armenian story is not widely known, is kept invisible, is not taught in schools as is the Jewish holocaust, and is something even I myself have only lately begun to hear of. And yet it may be, that at least in my dreams, I heard the soul of this ancient people crying out. The closest mtDNA to mine, so far recorded, is an Armenian sample. And, its time I looked at this more, to understand who these people were, to learn what I can about them. Anatolia had been the Armenian homeland for thousands of years, as ancient remains have shown. What I can know as yet: Mount Carmel has yielded my mtDNA, and then the plateau of Anatolia, with its hills and mountains, and the DNA has reached high up into the Caucasus, reflections of a past great kingdom. And now it can be seen, that with great brutality, they were ripped out of their very heart land. And all is so hush-hush, like really? Are you sure? Never heard of that one. Hitler himself, in 1939, said 'Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?' Quite an encouragement for his own campaigns. Orders were put out, that all Armenians of five years and older be taken into the desert and slaughtered, that all Armenian soldiers be taken to a solitary place and shot. Prices were put on Armenian heads, so that many were found after in wells and cisterns to have been decapitated. Bodies lined the roads of every Turkish province, vultures and wild dogs feasted upon them. Corpses floated down the river Euphrates. Babies were thrown into lakes. Murdered women were first beaten and raped, their bodies ripped open. Men had their genitals mutilated. As one Turk leader, Dr Nazil, had early on proposed 'We must not leave a single Armenian alive in our country; we must kill the Armenian name'. And this was eagerly carried out, such is the bloodlust of man. AuthorSusie Harrison and her hobby of genealogy, always looking into her own and her friends family trees. ![]() I I am related to Petrarch, the father of humanism and of the Renaissance. This I am told on an update of the Genographic Project. He and I are of the same mother lines. We share mothers way back somewhere. As I very much approve of humanism I rather like to hear that we are connected. He is of the tribe of my mothers, and though likely so very distant, he is family. AuthorSusie Harrison and her hobby of genealogy, always looking into her own and her friends family trees. There is a new communication from Satshanti Peter Pynchon, who has found me another ancestor 700 years before Christ, a woman in the company of Scythians in the south of the Ukraine. Her numbers match mine, but for not having my 129, which he suggests may have evolved in the North Caucasus since then. This was the second communiqué on this news. I had previously had a dream, seeing the face of a beautiful Asian looking young lady. There was a row of portrait pictures of such ladies, looking identical, among which was she, who I understood to be one of my people, and I was fascinated by this. This lady Satshanti had now presented to me, the Scythians whose company she was in were of a different DNA, so it looks like although she was among them, she was not of their tribe. Good old Satshanti, keeping an eye on all such developments and sharing them with me. AuthorSusie Harrison and her hobby of genealogy, always looking into her own and her friends family trees. |
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