On checking my emails, I saw that at last my Genographic results were through, oh my, how exciting. And so I found out that I was 1.2% Neanderthal, and just to know that was a joy, and my mtDNA type now had a more sophisticated classification, rather than just being a non-Jewish N1b. It was now an N1b1A2A, a haplogroup which remains a mystery and which being so rare is unresearched - no nearer to it being pinned down to a specific location then. As for my autosomal admixture I am found to be, in total of all components of my DNA, 48% British and Irish, 38% Viking Scandinavian, much of which will be owing to my Shetland Island ancestry, and this also being particularly more than general people of Britain and even Scotland have, 11% Southern European (Mediterranean), and 3% Central Asian. What?! OK, well, aligning this to my genealogy then may be a little confusing. For as far as I can understand the 11% equates to a great grandparent, which means that one of mine then is almost full Italian, Spanish or Greek, and yet according to what I know of my family how can that be. And as far as the 3% Central Asian, that would equate to one of my great great great grandparents. Now if, for instance, this had been where Maria Harrison got her black hair, alabaster complexion and twinkling eyes, then that would be because her mother was fully central Asian. And this is where I begin to wish the location information was more specific and that some raw data had been supplied, which I could over time analyse, but it had not. All was quite pretty but vague, and the zonal areas are so vast. Now, if Maria's mother, Eleanor Caroline Barton, was from west of the Caspian Sea in the classification zone, that would make some sense, in aligning with the Caucasus mountains, or even if south of there, as far down as Armenia. But the zone I'd been appointed was east of the Caspian Sea and north of Tibet, the area of the various 'S'tans', Kazakhstan, Turkestan, etc, historically being of the old Silk Route. Although confusing, this is also exciting and suitably exotic to appeal to me. All was much on my mind throughout the night. It doesn't seem to make sense unless I stray from the map I've so far laid down genealogically. Because I do have Eleanor Caroline Barton's genealogy going further back and all remains English sounding. So one wonders, had a foreign child been brought into the family and adopted as if their own. And as for the maybe Italian or other Mediterranean type great grandparent, I end up thinking of one other possibility, on account of my nanny Eileen's parents only having married when her mother Florence Maxted was nine months pregnant, and with her husband Percy's family having been very lax to accept her: could a Mediterranean seaman, sojourning at the seaport pub where Florence worked as a barmaid, have got her pregnant and then sailed away, never to return. Looking at this DNA result it does now seem quite a possibility. Really, I am stuck when it comes to find out more or being sure of anything. I did dream in the night that my mother was me and I asked her to take the Genographic test too, for then I could make more sense of all, by knowing which half of my autosomal DNA is from her and which from my father. But she had no interest in such things and would not do it. AuthorSusie Harrison and her hobby of genealogy, always looking into her own and her friends family trees.
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![]() I worked online, brushing up on my Shetland island Inkster genealogy, those self sufficient crofter women from whom I am descended. It is Toussaint here in France and the whole point of this festival day, which we call Halloween, is to focus on one's dead ancestors. It is the time to contemplate all those from whom we came, whose lives have made our own histories. So, surely a good time to be brushing up on genealogy. AuthorSusie Harrison and her hobby of genealogy, always looking into her own and her friends family trees. Quite a genealogical day really - in the morning my long awaited certificates of family births and marriages turned up, and after I'd played around with my family tree folder for a while, I went to the Mormon church for a genealogy gathering. I was the only one who turned up, so I got all the attention of Jennifer, the middle aged Mormon lady who had done so much work on her own family tree, of which she showed me a lot. We watched a Mormon video about the building of their vaults in the granite hills around Salt Lake City, and all the work they were doing underground to collect data on people from all over the world, to make it safe and secure and available to those who wish to trace their ancestors, safe enough even to withstand a nuclear explosion.
To further my family tree research I wrote a couple of letters, one to my Aunt May in Cardiff, and one to a Mr Inkster in the Shetland Isles who's traced his own family tree and is probably somewhere back related to me. Last Saturday, my mother had gone to a holiday exhibition in London and had got talking to his friend who was working on the Shetland stand. There's two types of Inksters up there, one lots from Burra Isle and the others at Scalloway. We come from the Burra Isle stock. On travelling up to london, I got to spend a day in the Census house, researching more my family tree. That was an absorbing day. I discovered I had links far back with Norfolk through the Bane's who came from the North Walsham area. I spent one more day in the Census house while in London, from which I found out quite a bit more of interest, like that some of my Welsh relatives actually came to Wales from the Forest of Dean. A big envelope arrived from the Shetland Isles, from ALan Inkster, who had lots of information about our Inkster ancestors. He said he was obsessed with finding out all about the Inksters and he is hoping in the future to form a worldwide Inkster organisation. My friends Dale and Audrey had begun tracing their family trees, an idea seeded in them by occasional visits to their house of Mormon elders. Dale had sussed out he was from fishermen Topsoms in Devon. Looking in bookshops with them I got into reading a book myself about tracing the family tree. My lover, Andy, knew already that he was descended from George Washington and the Tolpuddle Martyrs. We all visited a Norwich graveyard so Dale could see his grandparents burial place. When my mum phoned she was telling me what she knew of the family history, of crofters from the Shetland island of Burra and of a London tailors son who ran off with the maid. Along with the Topsom's, I was off to London, arriving at St Catherine's house to delve into the past of our ancestors. This was not much help, as one only had access to the indexes and had to pay £5 for each of the certificates, along with correctly supplied information. Still I could suss out a bit, like that my nanny Eileen's parents had to get married, she having been born around the same time that they got married even!!! We looked through lots of books there till it was throwing out time. On visiting Harwich I visited my granny Isabelle and asker her lots of questions about herself and her parents for my family tree quest. At my parents some days later in Burnham Beeches my godparents Chris and Carol came to visit with Great Aunty Connie, my granny Isabelle's sister. Connie had a keen memory, so I questioned her all about her parents (my great grandparents) and their parents too, and got loads of useful information for my genealogy file. I spent the next morning writing up notes on the family history. Back in Dovercourt, I now grilled my nanny Eileen and pop George for information regarding their family trees. Somehow, through nan's partial reluctance, I got to feel her father was not really her father!!! But how to find out for sure!!! Back in London, Audrey and I spent another day in St Catherine's House, trying to suss out more about our family trees. Then we went to the Census House and I found the 1881 record of my great great grandparents house in Plumstead, Alma House as it was called, which told me that my ancestor Richard Bane had been born in Norfolk; how exciting, as it was in Norwich that I currently lived. Back in Norwich I visited the local studies department in the library to check out their genealogy stuff. They had the Mormon register from which I found out more about the Inksters in the Shetland Isles. Visiting my nanny again I got to look at old family photos and I took some to get copies of.
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