As a kid...I wanted to know where my grandparents were from....how did they get to America.....who settled where.
Unfortunately, both sets of grandparents ...who were born in the Eastern Europe....were stubbornly opposed to sharing information.
"Why you want to know this?" They'd ask...."It's past, it's no good."
Coming to America meant transformation....and my grandparents did not want to look back.
My father has told me a few things about his parents from Lithuania....but my mother actually destroyed letters and documents from her side of the family in Poland... who were from the Krakow/Warsaw area.
I have.... through the years....picked ...poked....and saved small bits of information which I hope to assemble some day and if I win the lottery I would love to hire one of those family researchers.
Recently....I came across an article about the National Geographic DNA project and participated in a mtdna testing to trace my clan origins. Mtdna testing is based on maternal mitochondria...and hence is from your ancient mothers.
Overall....I'm from a group of people....who migrated out of Africa (that's everybody...lol) and into the fertile crescent in the Middle East.....then came up into Europe between the Black and Caspian Sea.....then into Russia and Eastern Europe.
My particular markers showed that my Ancient Mothers were prominent in the section of the Middle East encompassing Mesopotamia and the Fertile Crescent.....so they could have been Babolynian....Assyrian...or Israelites or some combo....(in other words mutts of Mesopotamia)The National G testing is so general.....it doesn't provide mutations and subgroups ...so I really can't say much more than I have this Middle Eastern component.
But trust me......it took less than a minute to fantasize rich stories about my ancient mothers....(is that why I think Babylonian/Assyrian art is so cool?)......lol......AND you can go to web pages where lots of other people who had some genetic testing are fantasizing too.
One page stated that one dna "strand" I have....could be from the matriarchal line of Rachel in the Old Testament.....hot spit I thought....lol....a royal ancient line....but then I read on....and discovered ....nah........there were too many other variables to consider......and there was more wishful thinking than science involved involved in the page.
At some point....my Ancient mothers got restless (and probably bored with the men in Mesopotamia) and wandered north.
Without more specific testing....I don't know whether they came early into Europe about 10,000 years ago.....or late like a few thousand years ago. If they came early...they could be part of a bunch of tough chics.....who settled into Russia along the Ural Mountains then drifted east.....if they came late....oy...some of them could be part of the Jewish Diaspora.
My particular subgroup....doesn't form a big part of the European population...only 10%...so I don't know why there are so few of them...did something happen?? or where they just part of a very small group of people who migrated into Europe???.......and I'm not sure anybody has answers at this point because the literature is confusing and technical and much more testing needs to be done.
A fair amount of Russian nobility has my subgroup......which could mean....I have a few "royal" mothers ......of course....sex is sex.......and it also could mean I came from a frisky group of royal chambermaids or courtesans....who excelled at playing with noble lads.
I like knowing where I came from...where my ancient links might be......I'm thinking in a year or two....of doing a more specific test...and this summer when I visit my folks again....I'm going to get my Dad tested..it would be interesting to know if the lines are the same....or did some of me come from someplace else?
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