My DNA reports show that my maternal ancient ancestry haplogroup or deep DNA genealogy is U and the subgroup is U2e. Haplogroup U are known as The Travelers who probably lived and migrated throughout western Europe, Mongolia, India and north and northwest Africa. In the subgroup U2e the "e" means European but has been found as far as Mongolia, China and India.
My brother's paternal DNA report show our haplogroup is I-M170 with no subgroup listed. Haplogroup I accounts for approximately 20% of Europe's overall population with higher incidence found in the Scandinavian and Baltic regions (GeneTree).
Check - that makes sense from all available genealogical data kept or found by the family. How deep, though, is deep? Where did they come from prior to Europe?
Autosomal testing predicts that my deep ethnicity in the following percentages:
53% Central European
34% British Isles
9% Scandinavian
4% Uncertain
For some reason I was surprised by the high percentage of Central European. I guess that was because my more recent ancestors have been proven to have been Native American or from New England and England. Upon further digging into my Hyde-Simmons and Foy-Bingham lines, I realized that those from New England mostly came from Old England and those from Old England ultimately came mostly from France, Belgium, German, Scotland, Wales and Ireland. The old sort came from Spain, Switzerland, Austria, Sweden, Netherlands, Denmark, Italy, Turkey, Prussia, Ukraine, Serbia and Hungary. While it took centuries for them to move that distance, and, well, maybe even some of them aren't really proven - a story for another day, an overview of the pedigree charts shows that my deep ethnicity is just what the DNA predicts. That doesn't include, however, the genes that were not passed on, that dropped off the list during the mixing.
There are more secrets to come as science and family history make more information available. We may have to wait for the Millennium for some records especially for that Uncertain portion. Algonquin Indian accounts for a fraction of that 4% but not all.
DNA Testing
A dozen years ago a DNA genealogy project was announced from the church pulpit. Intrigued, I rounded up a brother and son-in-law to have a sample taken and included in the database. I like to think we were at the forefront of a project known as SMGF which later grew into a massive collection that even later merged with and became the foundation for what is now Ancestry DNA. The Sorenson Database contained more than 100,000 DNA samples and familial pedigrees from more than 170 countries, encompassing 2.8 million genealogical records and 2.4 million genotypes before being acquired by Ancestry.com about a year ago.
We showed up at the church house with pedigree charts in hand early one evening to participate in the project which began with BYU students directed by Professor Scott Woodward and then quickly moved outside Utah to remote areas of the world. Several years went by before I heard about the online availability of DNA reports through SMGF. My data was now available. An SMGF's subsidiary, GeneTree, was developed and began producing reports and allowing participants to place their family trees online. My brother, John, and I activated our accounts and posted partial pedigree charts for a price, I recall. We found some connections but no new information. So many people like us had either partial charts posted or none at all. The only DNA connections I could see were those on my mother's Howard line. John's DNA data was only for the YDNA and mine only for the mtDNA. It was cool but I couldn't see any real research benefits as of then.
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| Musical Genes on Display: Johnny Kent and Fawnie about 1957 |
Midway through 2012 Ancestry began promoting its new DNA product but because GeneTree was still online I didn't rise to the bait. GeneTree eventually announced its closure so I was forced to download my reports and data. I still didn't purchased a new testing kit because although the data was transferred, I wouldn't be able to access it without paying. That was a bit annoying because we had been told initially that our participation was free. Unfortunately the acquisition didn't come with free benefits. Remember when the Internet was touted as free access to information? As a school librarian, I know that the good stuff is often only found in subscription databases. The good news, however, was that Ancestry now had an Autosomal DNA test so that only one test would be needed to receive the data for both YDNA and mtDNA. No more tests - or so I thought!
While a member of Ancestry for several years, and a participant in the Ancestry DNA project for over a year, I still don't have more than a handful of generations on my tree. I have found three close cousins and dozens of possible more distant connections. Without the tree online, however, I won't be able to make good use of the information. Move this up the to-do list! With sufficient information on the tree such as locations and dates, helpful tips can be added to evidence in searching for more genealogical clues.
I did find this really helpful Ancestry tutorial online with a visual explanation of how our ancestors' DNA drops off my own collection. SMGF still has an explanation of autosomal DNA available online as well.
So why do I need to get my mom and dad both to get their DNA tested as well? The tutorial explains that each sibling only gets a random mixture of each parent's DNA, but each sibling can, and will, get a different mixture. I had never really processed that before apparently. By testing the parents, all available DNA is recorded. If grandparents are alive that would be even better, but I am too old to have them still alive. Move that item up the to-do list as well!! Notice the double exclamation marks. With those clues we may be able to flesh out the Uncertain portion of my ethnicity report.
Note: Graphic found at Myriad Genetics
