DNA genealogical research: the first results are in!

As I mentioned last month, I have shipped some of my cheek scrapings to the USA to find out where I come from. Well, the first results are in (ahead of schedule! 🙂 )

Of course I do descend from ‘Adam‘, but so does any other living male on this planet…
More precisely, I have been told I belong to Haplogroup G2a (FamilyTreeDNA gave me G, and thanks to the test provided by Whit Athey I can narrow it down to G2A.)

Some interesting facts on group G:

  • Haplogroup G has an overall low frequency in most populations but is widely distributed within many ethnic groups of the Old World in Europe, Western Asia, northern Africa, Central Asia, the Middle East, India and Southeast Asia (including parts of China and the Malay Archipelago).
  • <li>The <a href="http://www.nationalgeographic.com/">National Geographic Society</a> <a href="https://genographic.nationalgeographic.com/genographic/lan/en/atlas.html">places its origins in the Middle East 10-20,000 years ago</a> and presumes that people carrying the haplogroup took part in the spread of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neolithic">Neolithic</a>. Two scholarly papers have also suggested an origin in the Middle East, while differing on the date. <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11073453">Semino et al</a> suggested 17,000 years ago. <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14586639">Cinnioglu et al</a> reduced that to 9,500 years ago.</li>
    <li>The haplogroup is the most frequent in the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caucasus">Caucasus</a> (found at over 60% in ethnic North <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ossetians">Ossetian</a> males and around 30% in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgian_people">Georgian</a> males). The <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kabardinian">Kabardinian</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balkars">Balkarian</a> peoples of the northwestern Caucasus <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19107149">are known</a> to be 29% G. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenians">Armenians</a> are known to have around 11% of their males in HgG.</li>
    

    I also seem to have distant relatives in both Switzerland and Portugal. And with distant I mean… distant! There is a 90% chance I am related to these 2 gentlemen… 24 generations back!
    So far I haven’t been able to trace my ancestors back any further than 7 generations, to Jakop Meulie. That leaves… 17 missing generations, and even then it’s only 90% sure…
    Well, I am still waiting on the remainder of the results. There is a chance they will increase the % of this match. If they do not, it’s just a matter of waiting until more people take the test and get their results published publicly.

    If YOU want to get your ancestry checked based on your DNA, please do so!
    (keep in mind that tests like these are not reliable to determine whether or not you’re the father of the child of your partner/wife.)

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