Adventures in DNA Analysis - Discovering Our Ancient Origins

This will be a departure from the usual food and garden posts but it does fit in very well with "good stuff for the soul". Lisa and I thought it would be interesting to get our DNA tested to explore our genealogical make up. Maybe you’ve seen the ads on TV for Ancestry and 23 and Me. Ancestry is a well known genealogy web site that has more recently gotten into the DNA analysis business. 23 and Me is a company set up to do DNA analysis. Lisa went with Ancestry. Among other things, they will give you a report on what percentage of your DNA makeup comes from what part of the world by geographic region. I used 23andMe because they will also test for your Maternal and Paternal DNA haplogroup. 

With both Ancestry and 23andMe you receive a kit that includes a test tube-like container that you fill with spit. Your spit contains cells from lining of your mouth. DNA from those cells is extracted and analyzed. We sent them off in early February and got them back last week.

If you enjoy history, are interested in learning more about your family's ancestral roots and you feel your ancestors are living within you and want to know more about them (like we do), read on. You might want to have DNA testing done too. Here is a comparison chart of labs that do DNA testing for genealogical research - 

DNA Testing Providers Comparison Chart

Without getting too much in the weeds, this is my understanding of how this all works - 

Most of us have some degree of understanding of what DNA is. We know it is something in our cells that can be used to identify characteristics about ourselves such as parenthood (You ARE the baby's daddy!) or physical traits that can be passed down from your parents/grandparents like blood type, male pattern baldness (not me though :)), eye color, toe arrangements... and a propensity to have certain health issues, DNA evidence left behind at the scene of a crime can be used to help convict or exonerate a suspect. BUT there is so much more. The DNA that we carry in our cells is a compilation of all of our ancestors going back many many years. Some believe that our ancestors memories are also passed along to future generations through DNA. So if you are interested in genealogy and learning about your family's roots, DNA contains a treasure trove of information for you. Genetic scientists have learned how to unlock and access this amazing window into who our ancestors were and where they came from. For all intents and purposes you ARE your ancestors! They lived and loved and struggled for millennia just for you to exist today. Don't disappoint them. Live a good life! 

We have hundreds of thousands of ancestors. The number of ancestors doubles each generation we go back: 2 parents, 4 grandparents, 8 great-grandparents, 16 great-great grandparents, 32 great-great-great grandparents and on and on. There is type of DNA - autosomal DNA - that determines most of the DNA traits we inherit. Because it is a mixture of all those thousands of ancestors from both our fathers and mothers sides, we can’t tell which specific ancestors we inherited what traits from. However, it can still show us our ethnic makeup and the geographic region our ancestors lived in. For example, what percent of our DNA makeup is Italian or Irish or German, or Mediterranean or Scandinavian, North African, Polynesian, etc.

But it gets even more interesting. Of those thousands of grandparents we have, only two of them - our direct male line - father’s father’s father’s line going way back thousands of years in time and our direct mother’s mother’s mother’s line also going way back in time - have left specific mutation markers in their DNA that is carried forward to future generations. They are y-DNA and mt-DNA.

Y-DNA tells the origin of a person’s genetic paternal line(father to son), representing your own original “Adam”, so to speak. This piece of DNA has a mutation - a genetic marker - inherited from father to son in a direct line going back, virtually unchanged, over thousands of years. So the y-DNA that a male carries in his cells today, correlates with his distant paternal grandfather’s y-DNA thousands of years ago—and it stores a history of the migration pattern and deep ethnic roots of this particular grandfather.

Likewise, mt-DNA tells the origin of a person’s genetic maternal line (mother to daughter) representing one’s own original “Eve”. This piece of DNA has a mutation that is inherited from mother to daughter in a direct line going back, virtually unchanged, over thousands of years. The mtDNA that you carry in your cells today, correlates with your distant maternal grandmother’s mt-DNA thousands of years ago—and like y-DNA, stores a history of the migration pattern and deep ethnic roots of this particular grandmother.

So how do they do this?  To analyze and organize all this y and mt DNA data, genetic scientists have created a HUMAN MALE FAMILY TREE and a HUMAN FEMALE FAMILY TREE. The branches of this tree are called haplogroups. Through research and testing different populations all over the world geneticists can trace and track concentrations of haplogroups along with the genetic mutations that give them their particular characteristics. We all belong to a particular branch. Through y-DNA and mt-DNA analysis each branch can be traced back to its origin, where it is attached to the genetic “tree trunk”.

OK, finally, the RESULTS!

Turns out Lisa’s genetic makeup is 100% European, broken down like this –

38% Western European (Germany, France, Belgium, Netherlands)

22% Great Britain (England, Scotland, Wales)

15% Ireland

14% Scandinavia (Norway, Sweden, Denmark)

8% Iberian (Spain, Portugal)

3% Finland, NW Russia

She pretty much figured she was some combination of English and Western European but the Scandinavian and Iberian was a big surprise. We can't find anyone in her family tree going back several centuries that is Scandinavian, Spanish or Portuguese.

Now, as for me, we found out I am 99% European, broken down like this - 

23% Southern European (Italy, Greece, Mediterranean Islands)
22% Great Britain (England, Scotland Wales)
44.5% Western European (Germany, France, Belgium, Netherlands)
5.6% Scandinavian  (Norway, Sweden, Denmark)

3.9% Eastern European (Poland, Russia, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary)

1 % African

My results make sense except for the 1% African, but I'll take it. Now, if your brother, sister had their DNA analyzed, they may be quite a bit different than your results because even though you are very closely related you inherit different parts and amounts of your ancestors genes. 

And oh, 23 and Me also tests for the amount of Neanderthal DNA you have... I have some.

Haplogroup results - 

The analysis I got from 23 and Me determined that the haplogroup of my paternal branch of the Human Male Family Tree is J2b2*. This haplogroup originated some 10,000 plus years ago in what was Mesopotamia. Over the centuries my grgrgrgr+ grandfathers migrated from Mesopotamia through Syria, across Turkey, Greece, the Balkans and over into southern Italy where they stopped for about 1000 or so years until my great grandfather Bruno Fusca’ decided to leave the little town of Vazzano, Italy in 1895 and bring the family to America settling in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania adding another migration arrow.

Link - Haplogroup J2b2* Research Study

Migration routes for haplogroup J2b2* over the last 10,000 years

Haplogroup J2 as a % of the population - current

The haplogroup of my maternal branch of the Human Female Family Tree is H11a. This haplogroup originated about 10,000 years ago in what is now western Russia. Over the centuries my grgrgrgr+ grandmothers migrated from the Steppes of Russia through eastern Europe, across Germany and France and up into England. Maybe some were carried off by invading armies or fled from invading armies. In 1839 my grgrgr grandmother, 13 year old Mattie Sinclair, left out of Liverpool, England with her widowed father and family to settle in Kittanning, Pennsylvania. 

Migration route for haplogroup H11a over the last 10,000 years

And so, as fate would have it, from my own original "Adam and Eve" some 10,000 plus years ago, through all those thousands of grgrgr+ grandfathers and grandmothers and all those countless miles of migration spanning the Mideast and Europe eventually crossing the Atlantic, Bruno Fusca's grandson Tom met and fell in love with Mattie Sinclair's great granddaughter Elizabeth next door neighbor childhood sweethearts and made me and my sister. It was all meant to be.