“You most likely had a fourth-great-grandparent, fifth-great-grandparent, sixth-great-grandparent, or seventh-great- (or greater) grandparent who was 100% West African. This person was likely born between 1700 and 1790.”
ajh
Tag Archives: Human Genetics
I appear to have more Viking blood than I ever imagined.
My Y chromosome is Viking, with origins in Scandinavia. It is known as I1 (eye-one). My maternal grandfather’s group is R1a, also Viking. And now I have learned via 23 and Me that my mother’s mitochondrial DNA, part of group T1, may have come to England with the Vikings.
| Although T1 is relatively rare in Europe today, it appears to have been much more common at some times in the past. Though it is present in only 2% of the modern English population, T1 was found at levels of 23% in DNA extracted from skeletons buried in Norwich, England during the 10th century AD.
But the complete absence of T1 even earlier, in DNA extracted from the skeletal remains of Anglo-Saxon Britons dating to the 5th and 6th centuries, suggests that the haplogroup did not arrive in England with the original agricultural expansion. It may have come with the Viking invaders who began menacing the coastal settlements of Britain and Ireland in AD 793. |
ajh
Making Those Unknown Known
“I think that when you die, you should be able to hold on to your history and who you are and for others to know that here is this person and not just be put into an unmarked grave and no one knows your name. We all deserve our life history and for people to know who we are and where we are.”
— Dr. Jennifer Love, a forensic anthropologist who works to identify people who have died
ajh
Gonna have to freshen up on my Czech. I love reading about Mendel.
The Case of the Missing Mendel Manuscript
Ever since learning about my own DNA, I have become fascinated with genetics, particularly the human kind. That fascination extends to Gregor Mendel, an Austrian monk who lived in the 19th century. He discovered the basic principles of heredity through experiments in his garden using plants such as peas.
ajh
FOOTNOTE
I first posted this on my experimental blog at webs.com. Why? Because the wifi at the local Whole Foods would not let me publish it at WordPress for some reason.
AARON HILL’S NOTEBOOK 