My Y chromosome identifies me as a member of haplogroup G2, a lineage defined by a genetic marker called M201
for G and P15 putting me in the subclade 2. (Negative for M285 M286 M287
M342 M377 and P20). This haplogroup
is the final destination of a genetic journey that began some 60,000 years ago
with an ancient Y chromosome marker called M168.
The very widely dispersed M168 marker can be traced to a single
individual—"Eurasian Adam." This African man, who lived some 31,000 to 79,000
years ago, is the common ancestor of every non-African person living today. His
descendants migrated out of Africa and became the only lineage to survive away
from humanity's home continent.
Population growth during the Upper Paleolithic era may have spurred the M168
lineage to seek new hunting grounds for the plains animals crucial to their
survival. A period of moist and favorable climate had expanded the ranges of
such animals at this time, so these nomadic peoples may have simply followed
their food source.
Improved tools and rudimentary art appeared during this same epoch, suggesting
significant mental and behavioral changes. These shifts may have been spurred by
a genetic mutation that gave "Eurasian Adam's" descendants a cognitive advantage
over other contemporary, but now extinct, human lineages.
Some 90 to 95 percent of all non-Africans are descendants of the second great human migration out of Africa, which is defined by the marker M89. M89 first appeared 45,000 years ago in Northern Africa or the Middle East. It arose on the original lineage (M168) of "Eurasian Adam," and defines a large inland migration of hunters who followed expanding grasslands and plentiful game to the Middle East. Many people of this lineage remained in the Middle East, but others continued their movement and followed the grasslands through Iran to the vast steppes of Central Asia. Herds of buffalo, antelope, woolly mammoths, and other game probably enticed them to explore new grasslands. With much of Earth's water frozen in massive ice sheets, the era's vast steppes stretched from eastern France to Korea. The grassland hunters of the M89 lineage traveled both east and west along this steppe "superhighway" and eventually peopled much of the continent.
A group of M89 descendants moved north from the Middle East to Anatolia and the
Balkans, trading familiar grasslands for forests and high country. Though their
numbers were likely small, genetic traces of their journey are still found
today.
The M201 lineage that defines an uncommon haplogroup called G, which is rarely
present in population frequencies at greater than a few percent. Genealogists
believe that this line of descent first appeared in northern India's Indus
valley, on the M89 lineage, and subsequently dispersed during the past 10,000 to
20,000 years.
Currently, little else is known of haplogroup G's origin or history. Learning
more about such unusual lineages is a primary goal of the
Genographic Project
and the Y search which helps
researchers with results from
Family Tree DNA
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Paternal Line : My Y-Chromosome Haplogroup: G2 (M201) (P15) My STRs
Above are results from the laboratory analysis of my Y-chromosome. My DNA was analyzed for Short Tandem Repeats (STRs), which are repeating segments of my genome that are known to have a high mutation rate. The location on the Y chromosome of each of these markers is depicted in the image, with the number of repeats for each of my STRs presented in the table above. For example, DYS19 is a repeat of TAGA, so my DNA repeated that sequence 15 times at that location, so it appear: DYS19: -15. Studying the combination of these STR lengths in my Y Chromosome allows researchers to place me in haplogroup G2, which help reveal the complex migratory journeys of my ancestors. Y-SNP: In the event that the analysis of my STRs was inconclusive, my Y chromosome would also have been tested for the presence of an informative Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP). These are mutational changes in a single nucleotide base, and would allow researchers to definitively place me in a genetic haplogroup. |
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So it all began in Africa. As you know there were two migrations from Africa. The second about 80000 years ago is where my anscestors (and probably yours) left that continent and slowly colonised Eurasia. As an Anglo our ancestors line almost certainly came from one of the seven women (Ursula, Xenia, Helena, Velda, Tara, Ulrike, Jasmine, or Katrine that are the source of all mitochondrial DNA in European descendants (see www.oxfordancestors.com) or Bryan Sykes book the Seven Daughters of Eve (If you think biblical reference here - don't.) I will provide details about which one when I can afford the mtDNA test.
Maternal Line (mtDNA)
A person’s maternal ancestry is traced by mitochondrial DNA or mtDNA for short. Both men and women possess mtDNA, but only women pass it on to their children.
So we all inherit our mtDNAs from our mothers, but not from our fathers. Your mother inherited it from her mother, who inherited it from hers, and so on back through time. Therefore, mtDNA traces an unbroken maternal line back through time for generation upon generation far further back than any written record.
I have Mum's mitochondrial
DNA which only has one mutation in the Highly Variable Region 1
(HRV1) from the Cambridge Reference Set (CRS) I am in Haplogroup H
which means we are descended from Helena - one of the 'Seven
daughters of Eve". The clan of Helena (Greek for light) is by far
the largest and most successful of the seven native clans with 41%
of Europeans belonging to one of its many branches. It began 20,000
years ago with the birth of Helena somewhere in the valleys of the
Dordogne and the Vezere, in south-central France. The clan is
widespread throughout all parts of Europe, but reaches its highest
frequency among the Basque people of northern Spain and southern
France.
How it Works
Research at Oxford University and elsewhere over many years has shown that all of our maternal lines are connected at some time in the past and that these connections can be traced by reading mtDNA. One striking finding was that people tended to cluster into a small number of groups, which could be defined by the precise sequence of their mtDNA. In native Europeans, for example, there were seven such groups, among Native Americans there were four, among Japanese people there were nine, and so on. Each of these groups, by an astounding yet inescapable logic, traced back to just one woman, the common maternal ancestor of everyone in her group, or clan.
So they read a section of your mtDNA, about 400 base pairs long, and compare its precise sequence to the many thousands of others from all over the world that they have in their database. That way they can not only give you an exact readout of your DNA sequence, but also discover to which of the clans you belong, and from which ancestral mother you are descended. For many of the ancestral mothers, and there are about 36 world-wide, they know whereabouts they lived and how many ten of thousands of years ago. DNA changes very slowly over time and this is what they use to calculate how long ago the clan mothers lived. By studying features of the geographical distribution of their present-day descendants, they can work out where they lived as well. To emphasise that they were real individuals, they have given them all names and, using archaeological and other evidence, they have reconstructed their imagined lives.
Everyone in the same clan is a direct maternal descendant of one of these clan mothers and carries her DNA within every cell of their body. Your mtDNA actually helps cells use oxygen – so you are using your clan mother’s mtDNA every time you breathe. However, not everyone in the same clan has exactly the same mtDNA, because DNA changes gradually over the generations. From your precise DNA result, they are able to assign you a place within the genealogy of the clan, which will be shown on your “Seven Daughters of Eve” or “World Clans” certificate.
The clan mothers were not the only people alive at the time, of course, but they were the only ones to have direct maternal descendants living right through to the present day. The other women around, or their descendants, either had no children at all or had only sons, who could not pass on their mtDNA. And, of course, the clan mothers had ancestors themselves. Amazingly, their genealogies have also been discovered. They show how everyone alive on the planet today can trace their maternal ancestry back to just one woman. By all accounts, she lived in Africa about 150,000 – 200,000 years ago and is known as “Mitochondrial Eve”. On your “World Clans” certificate you will see how you and your clan mother relate to all the others in the human family and to “Mitochondrial Eve” herself. see www.oxfordancestors.com
Paternal Line (yDNA)
Y-Clan™ service analyses your Y-chromosome DNA (yDNA) to establish the link between you and your ancestral clan. There are currently 15 identified and named clans that cover the whole of humanity and these represent the human Y-chromosome haplogroups. Please note that Y-Clan™ signatures correlate (with a probability of up to 97%) with these haplogroups, they do not define them.
As the analysis is performed using ten genetic markers, your results come in the form of a ten-digit Y-Clan™ signature. Scientific research has shown that these Y-Clan™ signatures are inherited, in the majority of cases, with surname over time. This means that your Y-Clan™ signature can be compared with those of others, adding previously inaccessible genetic information to a genealogical research project. see www.oxfordancestors.com