.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.
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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 was inspired to work on the genealogy of Boris Johnson, which I had begun at an earlier date and which it seemed now apt to elaborate on. In patriarchal descent Boris is a Turkish Kemal and not really a Johnson as such. Looking further back, his male line had sprung from the union of a Turkish villager and a Circassian slave. It was their son, Ali Kemal, who married a Swiss English girl, Winifred Brun. Ali's end was met when he was lynched and hung by a rowdy Turkish mob, some element to this being revenge for his outspokenness against the crime of the Armenian massacres, such perpetrators having now aligned to the revolutionary Kemalists. Ali had accused the Ittihadist chieftains for being authors of the massacre and had relentlessly demanded their prosecution and punishment. He called the Armenian massacre 'a crime before which the world shudders'. He was marked for plenty more than his stance on what had happened to the Armenians, being also a liberal pro-Britisher, outspoken journalist against nationalism, and friend of the last sultan. For a while he had been the countries interior minister. All was changing for Turkey at this time, departing an Ottoman multi ethnic past, which was a home to so many Greeks, Jews and Armenians, to becoming a land simply of Turks and Islam. A newspaper article in the Sphere at that time writes; 'Arrests have been made by the Kemalists of moderate Turks. The Kemalists have their black lists. On one Saturday evening, six men, civilians, entered the Circle D'Orient, the Diplomatic club in Constantinople, and asked for Ali Kemal, a former Turkish minister of the interior, who was later editor of the Peyam Sabah, the Morning News, and a well known Turkish journalist, who has consistently denounced the policy of the Kemalists in his articles and in his speech. He was not in the club at the time, but the six men waited for him in an alcove outside. At last he drove up, paid off his driver, and was about to enter the building when the men approached him. Pluckily he withdrew his revolver, only to find that each of the six had already drawn their arms on him. He was taken off in a motor car at once, and put into a boat on the Bosphorous. He was taken to Ismidt, half lynched by a crowd of fanatics, then hanged'. Elsewhere it is reported in more detail that Ali was lynched by a mob with sticks, stones and knives and then hung from a tree. An epitaph put across his chest read 'Artin Kemal', Artin being an Armenian name and a deliberate mocking of his standing up for these people. It was Ali's son, Osman Wilfred Kemal, born in England and there raised by his English granny, his mother having succumbed to puerperal fever after his birth, who adopted his grandmother Brun's maiden name Johnson, more appropriate for life in England: from Osman Wilfred Kemal to Wilfred Johnson; he being the grandfather of Boris, alias Alexander Boris De Pfeffle Johnson. Rather than Boris Kemal. 1911 Census for Wimbledon showing Osman Wilfred Kemal as a little boy living with his big sister Selma and Granny Brun: 18 Bernard Gardens Wilfred Kemal, age 1 and a half, born Bournemouth (English) Selma Kemal, sister, age 5, born Cairo, Egypt (English) Margaret Brun Johnson, grandmother, age 54, married for 30 years and had 4 children, 3 of whom have died, born East Witton, Yorkshire Florence Tanner, child nurse, age 30, born Ockham, Surrey Amy Tunny, domestic servant, age 30, born Southwark The De Pfeffle part to Boris's name reveals aristocratic ancestry, and further beyond that even royal ancestry, Osman Wilfred Kemal-Johnson having married Irene Williams, granddaughter of Baron and Baroness De Pfeffle who had lived in Versailles at the Pavilion du Barry. Irene's mother, Marie Louise de Pfeffle, would often compete as a teenager in lawn tennis and ping pong and here is one of many old newspaper references to the latter: 1902 Pall Mall Gazette "Ping pong, which broke out recently in Paris now claims many victims. The first tournament has been held by the tennis club and resulted in the lady championships falling to Mlles Yvonne and Marie Louise du Pfeffel. The ladies paper, Femina, which publishes their portraits, also gives an enthusiastic account fo the game for the benefit of those people who do not play it." Marie Louise married her English amour Stanley Fred Williams in Versailles: 1906 The Queen, The Ladies Newspaper "Fashionable Marriages" "A pretty wedding which took place at Versailles on January 21st (1906) was that of Mr Stanley Fred Williams, eldest son of Mr frederick G Williams, of Upper Norwood, to Mlle Marie Louise, daughter of Baron and Baroness de Pfeffel, Pavilion du Barry, Versailles. The Rev J W Browne, English chaplain of St Marks church, Versailles, performed the ceremony. The bride looked very charming in her gown of white crepe de chine with Irish point lace and a wreath of orange blossom. The reception was held at the Pavillion du Barry, and later the bride and bridgrom left for Beaulieu for their honeymoon, after which they will return to make their home in Shortlands, Kent." It was Baron de Pfeffle's mother Carolina who had royal blood, she being the illegitimate daughter of an actress Frederika Port and Prince Paul Von Wurttemburg. Boris's ethnic variety continues in his children, by his wife Marina, who are part Indian, their mother being half Punjabi Sikh.
Boris and Marina are separated, though married still, and he has taken up with a woman younger than him, having moved her into his prime ministerial residence. Boris's ancestry, as I interestingly now have seen, despite first appearances, is most colourful and not all traditionally British. |
AuthorSusie Harrison and her hobby of genealogy, always looking into her own and her friends family trees. Categories
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