WHAT IS THAT AND WHAT DOES IT MEAN?
Now that you or one of your male
cousins has had their DNA tested, you notice that you are assigned a
HAPLOTYPE. To most of that, Haplotype
and Haplogroup are new terms that mean very little to us. Many genealogists new
to Genetic Genealogy ignore their haplotype.
Here is a very simplified explanation.
Think of your Haplotype as a super huge
family or clan that all descend from one common ancestor. Think of “Adam,” the first male human back in
the Africa (where the origins of human-kind first appeared. Adam’s Y-Chromosome hypothetically look like
this:
12, 12, 12, 12, 12, 12, 12, 12, 12, 12,
12, 12. Adam procreates having 3
sons. Sons 1 and 2’s Y-chromosomes are
identical to Adam’s but son 3’s Y-chromosome mutates and looks like this: 11,
12, 12, 12, 12, 12, 12, 12, 12, 12, 12, 12.
After many more generations one descendant of son 3 has another mutation so that HIS
Y-Chromosome looks like this: 9, 12, 12, 10, 12, 12, 12, 12, 12, 12, 12,
12. Finally when some of Adam’s
descendants leave Africa, one group’s Y-Chromosome looks very different than
Adam’s and might look like this 9, 15, 17, 26, 13, 12, 12, 8, 0,
11, 12.
He and all of his descendants carry the same Y-markers that I have
highlighted as red. Now, after hundreds
of thousands of years and many mutations wave after wave of humans leave Africa. This particular group of men settle in what
is p resent day Albania, you have a new haplotype and over 10s of thousands of
more years some their descendants spread across Europe, intermingling with other
groups.
Scientists run genetic tests all over
the world on both living and long deceased individuals to set up base groups we
call Haplotypes. This particular
Haplotype this data and know mutation rates they can identify roughly when this
group left Africa and colonized in Europe.
Also, like following a funnel to it’s neck, they can tell where that
group settled. My fictitious haplogroup
is assigned an identifying letter, such as “P”
Jump ahead to today. Your male relative tests his DNA and the test
shows his haplotype is P and that his ancient ancestors came from Albania after
leaving Africa 25,000 years ago. (note
that all of the above has simplified and that the haplogroups cited are
hypothetical). As the main haplotypes
further mutate they are divided into sub sets called Haplogroups and even
further into clades – but that’s far more than the average genealogist needs
to, or cares to, know. A sub grouping
might me P1 which has it’s own sub group of P1b and so forth.
The most common haplotype in Western Europe
is R1b. One article tells us the
following about the R1b Haplotype:
R1b is the most common haplogroup in
Western Europe, reaching over 80% of the population in Ireland, the Scottish
Highlands, western Wales, the Atlantic fringe of France, the Basque country and
Catalonia. It is also common in Anatolia and around the Caucasus, in parts of
Russia and in Central and South Asia. Besides the Atlantic and North Sea coast
of Europe, hotspots include the Po valley in north-central Italy (over 70%), Armenia
(35%), the Bashkirs of the Urals region of Russia (50%), Turkmenistan (over
35%), the Hazara people of Afghanistan (35%), the Uyghurs of North-West China
(20%) and the Newars of Nepal (11%). R1b-V88, a subclade specific to
sub-Saharan Africa, is found in 60 to 95% of men in northern Cameroon.
This website on http://www.eupedia.com/europe/maps_Y-DNA_haplogroups.shtml
Europedia has articles that will tell
you waaaaayyyyyy more than you probably want to know about your haplotype, both
Y and mt.
Here is what one of the Europedia
articles says about the H1 and H3 mitochondrial haplotypes:
Haplogroup H1 is by far the most common
subclade in Europe, representing approximately than half of the H lineages in
Western Europe. Roostalu et al. (2006) estimate that H1 arose around 22,500
years ago. H1 is divided in 65 basal subclades. The largest, H1c, has over 20
more basal subclades of its own, most with deeper ramifications. H1 is found
throughout Europe, North Africa, the Levant, Anatolia, the Caucasus, and as far
as Central Asia and Siberia. The highest frequencies of H1 are observed in the
Iberian peninsula, south-west France and Sardinia. H3 has a very similar
distribution to H1, but more confined to Europe and the Maghreb, and is
generally two to three times less common than H1.
The following charts are taken from
Wikipedia.com at
So, why is it important to know about your haplotype? Here is a story about my Kirkpatrick line. A 3rd cousin submitted a DNA sample for us and his haplotype came back a E1b, This is a rare haplotype in the Scottish population. Most are R1b, as is most of Western Europe. In researching the E1b haplotype I learned that while only about 3,5% of the Scottish males are this haplotype, between 25 and 50% of Kirkpatricks and Colquhouns (out parent clan) are E1b. I also learned E1b started in the Balkans about 7,000 to 9,000 years ago. Now the question arises, "How did a Balkan Haplotype end up in Scotland?" A little more digging I learned about the Antonine Wall, a Roman earth-work wall that crossed central Scotland with one end at the place where the 2 clans are reported to have originate AND one of the brigades stationed along this wall in the early 2nd century was the 2nd Thracian Cohorts. Thrace was a country in ancient Rome located on the Balkan Peninsula. Now the puzzle pieces fell into place. A Thracian Soldier in the service to Rome was quartered on the Antonine Wall and he either took a local wife or inpregnated a local gir who gave birth to a son. That Pictish-Thracian man became the progenitor to the Kirkpatrick and Colquhoun Clans.
I intended to also discuss using Ancestry.com in this blg entry, but I've given you enough to think about, so I'll save that for a later date.
Tmorrow: Some states with outstanding state archives or state libraries.
No comments:
Post a Comment