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.
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My American friend, Satshanti, was messaging me what was for us an amazing discovery. A cave being excavated in Israel on Mount Carmel has been found to harbour our matriarchal DNA N1b and is between 11,000 and 13,000 years old, found there in the remains of a 2 or 3 year old boy. N1b, so rare, and yet found. This boy, as Satshanti said, is one of our relatives and this is 'our cave'. Raqefet cave. The boy would be a brother, son, cousin. From this we can deduce that our people were part of the Neolithic Natufian Culture and Israel was their homeland, how wonderful. A few thousand years later my ancestors had moved northwards to Anatolia, as said Satshanti, as an N1b has there been found at that time. I don't even know how the Caucasus fits into this now. Satshanti says the journey up into those mountains would have come later. The mountains would have been a refuge from the tribal annihilations in the lowlands, as usual. I was so very excited as this was news long awaited, to have a sure ancestral connection to a specific place, and even a name given to that culture, and even more amazingly, some detail of lifestyle. The people back then lived in semi-subterranean round houses, wow, that in itself stirred my emotion. They laid on beddings of mint, sage and sedge grasses (this had been discovered in the caves where the bodies had been laid). They hunted gazelles and gathered almonds and pistachios. They made adornments from bone and little sacred statuettes out of limestone, of both human and animal forms. They were the first nomads to settle into established homes, and this was before farming. Mount Carmel is known to have anciently had a high altar and holy groves. It was such a sacred mountain that not everyone was allowed to step upon it. Pythagorus, the hero of my friend Trebha, said it was the most sacred mountain in the world and went there on pilgrimage. Satshanti sent me some pictures of the cave, one with its wide entrance and views, and of the archaeologists who are still present there. Oh, gosh, I want to go and tune into my ancient people. This is 'our cave' Satshanti and I are saying. AuthorSusie Harrison and her hobby of genealogy, always looking into her own and her friends family trees. My American friend, Satshanti - Peter Pynchon, wrote on my mtDNA page, which is inactive really, but for this now, that which are his latest understandings. In taking to a geneticist he has gleaned that the origins of our shared rare mtDNA, non Jewish N1b, appear to be in the North East Caucasus, many of this type being found in Dagestan, and a lesser amount in Ossetia, a bit to the west. I suppose this is, for now, the best we can know of it, and it's pretty cool really. From being told at first we are total Middle Eastern but rare, to our working out the source is really the Caucasus mountains, to hearing now it is to the very north east of those mountains in the regions of Dagestan and Ossetia. Satshanti has looked at his autosomal results, and regardless, understanding so much more on this subject that I can make of it, he has deduced that from the high Caucasus his people migrated down to Lebanon, being drawn to the mountains there, the stronghold of the Christian Maronites, underneath Mount Lebanon. One of the strongest cousin connections he had found is to Hadchit in Lebanon, which is on the edge of the Qadisha Sacred Valley. From there his people had emigrated to America, possibly through Montreal. Well, this is amazing, what he has researched. I wish I could likewise suss all this out for my own people so neatly. It is really a delight. Maybe I need to do whatever autosomal test he did, rather than the so vague Genographic. The only clue I have so far deduced, maybe, is that my Caucasian line may have come via the Silk Route. From Dagestan/Ossettia to the Silk Route to London. And all is too vague. I mean I have no certainty even if that silk route descent is through my actual matriarchal line, though it would make sense. And this vast classification of Central Asia, could it be stretched to include the Caucasus, but one side of the Caspian to the other. I have far more questions than answers as regards this. AuthorSusie Harrison and her hobby of genealogy, always looking into her own and her friends family trees. Satshanti Peter messaged me, interestingly, about another DNA test, called 'autosomal', which I'm not sure I understand so well, but he explains it like this: the mtDNA type he and I share through our long time back mothers is carried lineally only and is from very distant times, it being to the Caucasus mountains that we have traced this shared connection; but autosomal analysis looks at DNA mixing from a broader range of our ancestry, not just of our female long-unchanging type, but having a shorter range of some 400 years. By this Satshanti has discovered for himself a connection to Lebanon, to Portugal, and Ireland. I think I need him to make more sense of this for me. It sounds like quite a genealogical bonus. Maybe I will at last discover from where comes the black hair, ivory skin and glistening eyes of my London bunch. AuthorSusie Harrison and her hobby of genealogy, always looking into her own and her friends family trees. |
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