dallashistory

I have to thank ernie for getting me started several years back on the right path regarding genetic testing for y-dna. It's been a very interesting, educational learning experience. Originally I wanted to know my own ethnic origins. I had been told and had additionally intuited that my older brother and I had different biological fathers. Initially I wasn't interested in testing for that. I just wanted to know my own ethnicity. It turned out that I was R1b1, later extended to R1b-u106, which is a very common y-chromosome for the British Isles and western coast of Europe. My particular brand seems to come more from Northern Germany, Netherlands, but the y-chromosome is spread across a wide swath of western europe. After a year or more playing around with that and trying to learn more about genetics in general, I did get interested in having my older brother test to see where his biological father came from. I suspected I knew, because his surname has a very distinctive genetic signature. I talked him into testing and sure enough, we did have different daddies, his from the line that bears his surname and mine from someone else. That was interesting. Not easy telling your older brother that his mother had been messing around when he was a toddler, still messing in his diapers. But, by then I was addicted to trying to find out more, this time about the ethnicity of my mother's father's line. There was only one known surviving male from that line, and I hadn't seen or spoken to him in 40 years. Would he allow his y-dna to be tested? It turns out he would. His line comes from Germany (Prussia, actually). Along with doing all this genetic testing I was reading the history about the migrations that were occurring when all these folks were coming to Texas to make me. Most of the good stuff happened during the wars of religion, that ranged approximately from 1492 to 1750 or so. Many people got uprooted, voluntarily or involuntarily. It was a time of turmoil. The genetic links help understand the connections.

In the line of my y-chromosome, we now have the stories of at least three separate surnames. This y-chromosome in approximately its current form was passed from fathers to sons. It appears that a significant mutation happened in what is now the northern british isles sometime after about 1300. The y-chromosome was probably in Perthshire, Scotland by 1500 and can still be found there today. Copies of that y-chromosome went with settlers to Tyrone, Ulster, Ireland, possibly in the mid-1600s. From there the y-chromosome came to America bearing two distinct surnames about 1750-90. One surname family lived in Virginia and another in Pennsylvania and Delaware, and their descendants still dwell there in both places today. Another copy of this same bearing a different surname went to Canada and another to New Zealand. Finally, a copy came to Kentucky, all with different family histories.

In the line of my brother's y-chromosome, almost all men bearing a copy of the chromosome can trace their ancestry to Virginia or North Carolina in the 1700s. It is thought that they stem from a specific location in Lincolnshire or Yorkshire, England, but so far they genetics has not been able to establish that.

In the line of my cousin's y-chromosome, the genetics traces back to Lake Constance between Germany and Switzerland. None of his closest genetic matches carry his exact surname.

So, thanks to ernie for posting about it and his kin for pioneering their own family's y-dna research. It's been very rewarding for me learning about this, and the results keep coming in. Every few months now, we learn something new about our particular y-chromosome. It has gotten around this world, seen the sights, and lived life to the fullest, I am sure.

My y-DNA experiences have been a gift that just keeps on giving. I'm lucky to have a lot of genetic cousins. My older brother and male cousin on my mother's side have not been so fortunate to have so many matches. Every month or so I get a new update on a new match, usually when I least expect it. Just this last week got another two new matches at the 67 marker level, one at genetic distance 4 and another one at genetic distance 7. I'm related to both of these individuals, but not recently.

I wish I could have some y-DNA experiences. Ain't fair