Jefferson & DNA

Moderator: MOD_nyhetsgrupper

Svar
Richard Bradley

Jefferson & DNA

Legg inn av Richard Bradley » 16 mai 2007 03:15:14

It was interesting to me (as someone with some Scottish border ancestry) to read some years ago that DNA testing was finding some families in the border area with unusual middle eastern DNA - quite a surprise.

The possible reason (and this sounds plausible to me) suggested was that the Roman Empire posted Hadrian's wall with legionnaires, not from the local area because they might not be loyal if local tribal or family sympathies conflicted with their allegiance to Rome, but rather from legionnaires from the other side of the Roman Empire, middle easterners. This included Sarmatians (theorized by some researchers to contributing some parts of the Arthurian legend) and others.

So rather than posing that Jefferson's ancestor came to America from somewhere other than Britain (which seems absurd), maybe a very distant male ancestor was a legionnaire from the opposite side of the Roman Empire.

John P. Ravilious

Re: Jefferson & DNA

Legg inn av John P. Ravilious » 16 mai 2007 04:23:48

Dear Richard,

You raise an excellent point (even if this, or the thread
itself, is a bit off-topic for the group).

There is plenty of evidence concerning non-British elements in
Roman Britain, of which I have seen a small amount to date. At
Housesteads in Northumberland (and also at Chesters if my memory is
correct) I noted the archaeological evidence of troops from Tongeren
(aka Tongres, in Limburg, Belgium) having been stationed at the fort
on Hadrian's Wall. This was particularly interesting, as I had
previously visited the remnants of the Roman wall and street in
Tongeren some years before. In addition, there was nearby the site of
a Mithraeum - evidence of an oriental religion and its followers,
although not proof of their ethnic origin.

Perhaps a bit more sleuthing might ferret out additional
evidence on the subject. There is likely a bit in print on the subject
already.

Cheers,

John


On May 15, 10:15 pm, "Richard Bradley" <rbraba...@msn.com> wrote:
It was interesting to me (as someone with some Scottish border ancestry) to read some years ago that DNA testing was finding some families in the border area with unusual middle eastern DNA - quite a surprise.

The possible reason (and this sounds plausible to me) suggested was that the Roman Empire posted Hadrian's wall with legionnaires, not from the local area because they might not be loyal if local tribal or family sympathies conflicted with their allegiance to Rome, but rather from legionnaires from the other side of the Roman Empire, middle easterners. This included Sarmatians (theorized by some researchers to contributing some parts of the Arthurian legend) and others.

So rather than posing that Jefferson's ancestor came to America from somewhere other than Britain (which seems absurd), maybe a very distant male ancestor was a legionnaire from the opposite side of the Roman Empire.

Gjest

Re: Jefferson & DNA

Legg inn av Gjest » 16 mai 2007 06:49:08

On May 15, 8:23 pm, "John P. Ravilious" <ther...@aol.com> wrote:
Dear Richard,

You raise an excellent point (even if this, or the thread
itself, is a bit off-topic for the group).

There is plenty of evidence concerning non-British elements in
Roman Britain, of which I have seen a small amount to date. At
Housesteads in Northumberland (and also at Chesters if my memory is
correct) I noted the archaeological evidence of troops from Tongeren
(aka Tongres, in Limburg, Belgium) having been stationed at the fort
on Hadrian's Wall. This was particularly interesting, as I had
previously visited the remnants of the Roman wall and street in
Tongeren some years before. In addition, there was nearby the site of
a Mithraeum - evidence of an oriental religion and its followers,
although not proof of their ethnic origin.

Perhaps a bit more sleuthing might ferret out additional
evidence on the subject. There is likely a bit in print on the subject
already.

Cheers,

John

On May 15, 10:15 pm, "Richard Bradley" <rbraba...@msn.com> wrote:



It was interesting to me (as someone with some Scottish border ancestry) to read some years ago that DNA testing was finding some families in the border area with unusual middle eastern DNA - quite a surprise.

The possible reason (and this sounds plausible to me) suggested was that the Roman Empire posted Hadrian's wall with legionnaires, not from the local area because they might not be loyal if local tribal or family sympathies conflicted with their allegiance to Rome, but rather from legionnaires from the other side of the Roman Empire, middle easterners. This included Sarmatians (theorized by some researchers to contributing some parts of the Arthurian legend) and others.

So rather than posing that Jefferson's ancestor came to America from somewhere other than Britain (which seems absurd), maybe a very distant male ancestor was a legionnaire from the opposite side of the Roman Empire.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

I wonder if Jefferson's male line goes to Scandinavia....during the
medieval period there was trading between Scandinavia and the
Byzantine Empire along the great river routes. Is there a way to tell
if the DNA markers have that sort of time depth (as I am one of the
people Sam Sloan calls "stupid" for not having technical expertise on
genetics). Bronwen Edwards

taf

Re: Jefferson & DNA

Legg inn av taf » 16 mai 2007 20:11:55

On May 15, 10:49 pm, lostcoo...@yahoo.com wrote:

I wonder if Jefferson's male line goes to Scandinavia....during the
medieval period there was trading between Scandinavia and the
Byzantine Empire along the great river routes. Is there a way to tell
if the DNA markers have that sort of time depth (as I am one of the
people Sam Sloan calls "stupid" for not having technical expertise on
genetics). Bronwen Edwards

You can't tell where a specific male line goes to, only where it's
distrbution (although there are statistical models that can predict
migration/spread patterns). In the case of the K2 haplotype of
Jefferson, it occurs at highest frequency in the middle east and north
Africa. That, basically, is all there is to say about it, all else
being speculation. (Now we will see what comes from Sloan when he
tries to say it in a stupid manner.)

taf

Dora Smith

Re: Jefferson & DNA

Legg inn av Dora Smith » 19 mai 2007 15:27:05

Jobling's articles certainly require a maximum of technical knowledge to
understand. When I began writing out the K2 haplotypes from Y-Search for
myself and trying to imagine how I would fruitfully make sense of this very
old and very diverse haplogroup, it became clear to me that Sam probably was
joking with that statement about clarifying for stupid people, and not
denigrating people. He meant to include himself among the people who are
finding it hard to follow the articles. He just forgot the quotation marks
around the word stupid.

For anyone researching the K2 haplogroup, look out for the fact that there
is far more informaiton about the mtDNA haplogroup K. Y haplogroup K is
alot older. ;) (mtDNA follows the maternal line, and Y-DNA, from the Y
chromosome, follows the paternal line.) Y Haplogroup K2 is indeed rare
outside of the Middle East and adjacent areas. More of it is found in
North Africa than in western Europe. Even though the haplogroup is so old
and rare that it is also very diverse, one can, however, get an idea
whether, for instance, the ancestors of someone in Britain who is haplogroup
K2 lived elsewhere in Europe before they got to England. In Jefferson's
case it is pretty clear that if they lived in Europe at all it was in Spain,
and they are as likely to have taken the express train from the Middle East.

Jobling et al applied a method of scoring by genetic distance to a
widespread sample of K2 (Jefferson's rare Middle Eastern haplogroup)
haplotypes (individual marker sets). He then used the scores to construct
a phylogenetic tree. Not necessary to do that just to learn where Thomas
Jefferson fits in the K2 haplogroup - simply eyeballing tells you that
Jefferson's haplotype is far closer to Egyptian, North African and Jewish
haplotypes than to any of the others, particularly any of the other K2
haplotypes from England. However, in a separate effort, he and his
colleagues found two geographically seperate men named Jefferson in central
and northern England with the same haplotype, proving that Thomas
Jefferson's ancestor was English (and not Welsh as I guess someone had
theorized). Probably a long ago Jewish ancestor went to England, though
also possible that it was a Moorish ancestor or someone transported to
England by the Romans, Jewish or not. Could conceivably even have joined
up with a Germanic tribe in North Africa.

Now, on the question as to why we do this, learning about distant ancestral
origins is one reason. There are some real surprises, particularly when it
comes to Indian, African and Jewish ancestry. Such surprises have
historical importance; certain groups of people who went to America tend to
have alot of them. The reason is complex and typically buried in history,
too subtle to simply spot by tracing the ancestors to their point of origin.
For instance, Jews and North Africans, otherwise known as Moors, often
converted to Christianity and got chased around Europe by the Inquisitions.
By the time they emigrated to North America that history was typically
forgotten, yet they were never fully integrated into medieval peasant
society and thus were more likely to emigrate than other people,
particularly in fully medieval cultures like France, and some groups of them
were disproportionately likely to join the Protestant sects.

Genetic analysis yields alot of simply interesting information, like
Scandinvian and Danish Viking ancestry, the difference often being clear.
The findings often shed light on 19th century speculations about ancestral
origins. For instance, if the male line ancestor was a Norse Viking, and
the line traces to East Anglia, then probably the line was not, for instance
.... Welsh. Not kidding. Imaginary Welsh ancestry is very common, for
some reason, and sometimes it is not possible to account for it. It often
goes with speculative royal ancestry, and I've an idea that is how Thomas
Jefferson's line grew alleged Welsh roots, though I can't even follow the
logic of that argument. To begin with, it traces his direct male line
through a succession of surnames, though that was a common way to pick up
royal ancestry.

Genetic analyisis can also match one to a suspected ancestral family, and in
fact is a very useful and productive tool for that purpose. Sometimes
genetic analysis can help match a line to unknown geographical or surname
origins, though that isn't often immediately fruitful. It's the sort of
information you put in the databases and hope it bears fruit in your
lifetime. It often, for instance, tells you that an ancestor with totally
unknown origins probably came from Scotland. The most common haplogroups
in the British Isles have regional variations.

--
Yours,
Dora Smith
Austin, TX
tiggernut24@yahoo.com
<lostcooper@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1179294548.885197.182830@y80g2000hsf.googlegroups.com...
On May 15, 8:23 pm, "John P. Ravilious" <ther...@aol.com> wrote:
Dear Richard,

You raise an excellent point (even if this, or the thread
itself, is a bit off-topic for the group).

There is plenty of evidence concerning non-British elements in
Roman Britain, of which I have seen a small amount to date. At
Housesteads in Northumberland (and also at Chesters if my memory is
correct) I noted the archaeological evidence of troops from Tongeren
(aka Tongres, in Limburg, Belgium) having been stationed at the fort
on Hadrian's Wall. This was particularly interesting, as I had
previously visited the remnants of the Roman wall and street in
Tongeren some years before. In addition, there was nearby the site of
a Mithraeum - evidence of an oriental religion and its followers,
although not proof of their ethnic origin.

Perhaps a bit more sleuthing might ferret out additional
evidence on the subject. There is likely a bit in print on the subject
already.

Cheers,

John

On May 15, 10:15 pm, "Richard Bradley" <rbraba...@msn.com> wrote:



It was interesting to me (as someone with some Scottish border
ancestry) to read some years ago that DNA testing was finding some
families in the border area with unusual middle eastern DNA - quite a
surprise.

The possible reason (and this sounds plausible to me) suggested was
that the Roman Empire posted Hadrian's wall with legionnaires, not from
the local area because they might not be loyal if local tribal or
family sympathies conflicted with their allegiance to Rome, but rather
from legionnaires from the other side of the Roman Empire, middle
easterners. This included Sarmatians (theorized by some researchers to
contributing some parts of the Arthurian legend) and others.

So rather than posing that Jefferson's ancestor came to America from
somewhere other than Britain (which seems absurd), maybe a very distant
male ancestor was a legionnaire from the opposite side of the Roman
Empire.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

I wonder if Jefferson's male line goes to Scandinavia....during the
medieval period there was trading between Scandinavia and the
Byzantine Empire along the great river routes. Is there a way to tell
if the DNA markers have that sort of time depth (as I am one of the
people Sam Sloan calls "stupid" for not having technical expertise on
genetics). Bronwen Edwards

Gjest

Re: Jefferson & DNA

Legg inn av Gjest » 20 mai 2007 19:31:01

Thank you for an informative post. Do you know if there is a
publication or website that simply lists the known haplogroups, both
mitochondrial and Y, with explanations of where they are found and
their time depth in given areas - in well-translated "lay"? I see bits
and pieces but not the total picture (as far as it is known). It would
be great to see an actual map. I did see the article in National
Geographic; it was good as far as it went, but it may have been too
simplified. As another poster noted, we know that we all started out
from Africa (acc. to current theory) but the more we can fill in the
historical periods, the more fun it will be. Best, Bronwen


On May 19, 7:27 am, "Dora Smith" <villan...@austin.rr.com> wrote:
Jobling's articles certainly require a maximum of technical knowledge to
understand. When I began writing out the K2 haplotypes from Y-Search for
myself and trying to imagine how I would fruitfully make sense of this very
old and very diverse haplogroup, it became clear to me that Sam probably was
joking with that statement about clarifying for stupid people, and not
denigrating people. He meant to include himself among the people who are
finding it hard to follow the articles. He just forgot the quotation marks
around the word stupid.

For anyone researching the K2 haplogroup, look out for the fact that there
is far more informaiton about the mtDNA haplogroup K. Y haplogroup K is
alot older. ;) (mtDNA follows the maternal line, and Y-DNA, from the Y
chromosome, follows the paternal line.) Y Haplogroup K2 is indeed rare
outside of the Middle East and adjacent areas. More of it is found in
North Africa than in western Europe. Even though the haplogroup is so old
and rare that it is also very diverse, one can, however, get an idea
whether, for instance, the ancestors of someone in Britain who is haplogroup
K2 lived elsewhere in Europe before they got to England. In Jefferson's
case it is pretty clear that if they lived in Europe at all it was in Spain,
and they are as likely to have taken the express train from the Middle East.

Jobling et al applied a method of scoring by genetic distance to a
widespread sample of K2 (Jefferson's rare Middle Eastern haplogroup)
haplotypes (individual marker sets). He then used the scores to construct
a phylogenetic tree. Not necessary to do that just to learn where Thomas
Jefferson fits in the K2 haplogroup - simply eyeballing tells you that
Jefferson's haplotype is far closer to Egyptian, North African and Jewish
haplotypes than to any of the others, particularly any of the other K2
haplotypes from England. However, in a separate effort, he and his
colleagues found two geographically seperate men named Jefferson in central
and northern England with the same haplotype, proving that Thomas
Jefferson's ancestor was English (and not Welsh as I guess someone had
theorized). Probably a long ago Jewish ancestor went to England, though
also possible that it was a Moorish ancestor or someone transported to
England by the Romans, Jewish or not. Could conceivably even have joined
up with a Germanic tribe in North Africa.

Now, on the question as to why we do this, learning about distant ancestral
origins is one reason. There are some real surprises, particularly when it
comes to Indian, African and Jewish ancestry. Such surprises have
historical importance; certain groups of people who went to America tend to
have alot of them. The reason is complex and typically buried in history,
too subtle to simply spot by tracing the ancestors to their point of origin.
For instance, Jews and North Africans, otherwise known as Moors, often
converted to Christianity and got chased around Europe by the Inquisitions.
By the time they emigrated to North America that history was typically
forgotten, yet they were never fully integrated into medieval peasant
society and thus were more likely to emigrate than other people,
particularly in fully medieval cultures like France, and some groups of them
were disproportionately likely to join the Protestant sects.

Genetic analysis yields alot of simply interesting information, like
Scandinvian and Danish Viking ancestry, the difference often being clear.
The findings often shed light on 19th century speculations about ancestral
origins. For instance, if the male line ancestor was a Norse Viking, and
the line traces to East Anglia, then probably the line was not, for instance
... Welsh. Not kidding. Imaginary Welsh ancestry is very common, for
some reason, and sometimes it is not possible to account for it. It often
goes with speculative royal ancestry, and I've an idea that is how Thomas
Jefferson's line grew alleged Welsh roots, though I can't even follow the
logic of that argument. To begin with, it traces his direct male line
through a succession of surnames, though that was a common way to pick up
royal ancestry.

Genetic analyisis can also match one to a suspected ancestral family, and in
fact is a very useful and productive tool for that purpose. Sometimes
genetic analysis can help match a line to unknown geographical or surname
origins, though that isn't often immediately fruitful. It's the sort of
information you put in the databases and hope it bears fruit in your
lifetime. It often, for instance, tells you that an ancestor with totally
unknown origins probably came from Scotland. The most common haplogroups
in the British Isles have regional variations.

--
Yours,
Dora Smith
Austin, TX
tiggernu...@yahoo.com<lostcoo...@yahoo.com> wrote in message

news:1179294548.885197.182830@y80g2000hsf.googlegroups.com...



On May 15, 8:23 pm, "John P. Ravilious" <ther...@aol.com> wrote:
Dear Richard,

You raise an excellent point (even if this, or the thread
itself, is a bit off-topic for the group).

There is plenty of evidence concerning non-British elements in
Roman Britain, of which I have seen a small amount to date. At
Housesteads in Northumberland (and also at Chesters if my memory is
correct) I noted the archaeological evidence of troops from Tongeren
(aka Tongres, in Limburg, Belgium) having been stationed at the fort
on Hadrian's Wall. This was particularly interesting, as I had
previously visited the remnants of the Roman wall and street in
Tongeren some years before. In addition, there was nearby the site of
a Mithraeum - evidence of an oriental religion and its followers,
although not proof of their ethnic origin.

Perhaps a bit more sleuthing might ferret out additional
evidence on the subject. There is likely a bit in print on the subject
already.

Cheers,

John

On May 15, 10:15 pm, "Richard Bradley" <rbraba...@msn.com> wrote:

It was interesting to me (as someone with some Scottish border
ancestry) to read some years ago that DNA testing was finding some
families in the border area with unusual middle eastern DNA - quite a
surprise.

The possible reason (and this sounds plausible to me) suggested was
that the Roman Empire posted Hadrian's wall with legionnaires, not from
the local area because they might not be loyal if local tribal or
family sympathies conflicted with their allegiance to Rome, but rather
from legionnaires from the other side of the Roman Empire, middle
easterners. This included Sarmatians (theorized by some researchers to
contributing some parts of the Arthurian legend) and others.

So rather than posing that Jefferson's ancestor came to America from
somewhere other than Britain (which seems absurd), maybe a very distant
male ancestor was a legionnaire from the opposite side of the Roman
Empire.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

I wonder if Jefferson's male line goes to Scandinavia....during the
medieval period there was trading between Scandinavia and the
Byzantine Empire along the great river routes. Is there a way to tell
if the DNA markers have that sort of time depth (as I am one of the
people Sam Sloan calls "stupid" for not having technical expertise on
genetics). Bronwen Edwards- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Dora Smith

Re: Jefferson & DNA

Legg inn av Dora Smith » 20 mai 2007 21:15:11

John:

You could easily have missed the relevance of this topic to the
soc.genealogy.medieval list.

Thomas Jefferson's descendants claim that he was descended from Welsh
royalty.

--
Yours,
Dora Smith
Austin, TX
tiggernut24@yahoo.com
<lostcooper@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1179294548.885197.182830@y80g2000hsf.googlegroups.com...
On May 15, 8:23 pm, "John P. Ravilious" <ther...@aol.com> wrote:
Dear Richard,

You raise an excellent point (even if this, or the thread
itself, is a bit off-topic for the group).

There is plenty of evidence concerning non-British elements in
Roman Britain, of which I have seen a small amount to date. At
Housesteads in Northumberland (and also at Chesters if my memory is
correct) I noted the archaeological evidence of troops from Tongeren
(aka Tongres, in Limburg, Belgium) having been stationed at the fort
on Hadrian's Wall. This was particularly interesting, as I had
previously visited the remnants of the Roman wall and street in
Tongeren some years before. In addition, there was nearby the site of
a Mithraeum - evidence of an oriental religion and its followers,
although not proof of their ethnic origin.

Perhaps a bit more sleuthing might ferret out additional
evidence on the subject. There is likely a bit in print on the subject
already.

Cheers,


Dora Smith

Re: Jefferson & DNA

Legg inn av Dora Smith » 20 mai 2007 21:16:13

Your question about a single place to go for haplotype data on haplogroups
is an obvious one. Unfortunately no single or few sources exist. I have
two three inch notebooks crammed full of that data, on European mtDNA and
YDNA haplogroups alone. I started compiling a page of links and realized
that the project would take days.

Is there any particular haplogroup or haplotype you have an interest in?

Are you aware of teh DNA-genealogy list, could be the other way around, at
Rootsweb? They love to answer questions.

By the way, I posted some information on one of the other two Jefferson
threads.

-
Yours,
Dora Smith
Austin, TX
tiggernut24@yahoo.com
<lostcooper@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1179685861.212201.288050@u36g2000prd.googlegroups.com...
Thank you for an informative post. Do you know if there is a
publication or website that simply lists the known haplogroups, both
mitochondrial and Y, with explanations of where they are found and
their time depth in given areas - in well-translated "lay"? I see bits
and pieces but not the total picture (as far as it is known). It would
be great to see an actual map. I did see the article in National
Geographic; it was good as far as it went, but it may have been too
simplified. As another poster noted, we know that we all started out
from Africa (acc. to current theory) but the more we can fill in the
historical periods, the more fun it will be. Best, Bronwen


Svar

Gå tilbake til «soc.genealogy.medieval»