The scrapblog editor recently participated in a National Geographic research project that uses DNA samples (cheek cells) to track a person's deep ancestry -- that is, the migratory route one's remote ancestors took as the human family spread out from Africa. With female participants, the study tracks mitochondrial DNA, that is, maternal ancestry, from mother to mother to mother. What's true of me is true for any of you biologically descended from Grandma Maria Augustin Sprick. More below for those who are interested.
The National Geographic study traced one line of our maternal ancestry (just
one line, so it's but a single thread out of many) that would track backward through Grandma Sprick, her mother and so on down the maternal line. It found that line belongs to what's called Haplogroup J. The map above (click on it to make it easy to read) shows the directions this J line of ancestors wandered before settling to give rise to present-day populations.
Haplogroup J is present as far east as the Indus Valley bordering India and Pakistan, and as far south as the Arabian Peninsula. It is also common in eastern and northern Europe. Our ancestors in J were the first farmers. About 10,000 years ago (the Neolithic era), J began to domesticate the seeds and nuts they'd gathered while hunting and to spread that agricultural savvy east and north, into Asia and Europe. The J line that wound back west to Europe eventually settled in the northeastern European nations from which our more recent biological ancestors came.
As the map shows, we also have J cousins in modern-day populations in the Middle East (specifically, the Bedouin and Yemeni populations), Turkey, India, Pakistan, Russia and all along those J lines.
Like I always say, in the end, we're all cousins. If you'd like to read more results of our family DNA study, go to
www.nationalgeographic.com/genographic and type in Pam's code, FW5RTXY9H9.
The National Geographic study traced one line of our maternal ancestry (just one line, so it's but a single thread out of many) that would track backward through Grandma Sprick, her mother and so on down the maternal line. It found that line belongs to what's called Haplogroup J. The map above (click on it to make it easy to read) shows the directions this J line of ancestors wandered before settling to give rise to present-day populations.
Haplogroup J is present as far east as the Indus Valley bordering India and Pakistan, and as far south as the Arabian Peninsula. It is also common in eastern and northern Europe. Our ancestors in J were the first farmers. About 10,000 years ago (the Neolithic era), J began to domesticate the seeds and nuts they'd gathered while hunting and to spread that agricultural savvy east and north, into Asia and Europe. The J line that wound back west to Europe eventually settled in the northeastern European nations from which our more recent biological ancestors came.
As the map shows, we also have J cousins in modern-day populations in the Middle East (specifically, the Bedouin and Yemeni populations), Turkey, India, Pakistan, Russia and all along those J lines.
Like I always say, in the end, we're all cousins. If you'd like to read more results of our family DNA study, go to www.nationalgeographic.com/genographic and type in Pam's code, FW5RTXY9H9.
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