OK, honestly I knew nothing about haplogroups until I got my results. It's quite fascinating though. A haplogroup is a genetic population group of people who share a common ancestor on the patrilineal or matrilineal line. The global distribution of haplogroups sheds light on the origins of some of our ancient ancestors and on their migrations over tens of thousands of years. Obviously this isn't an exact science, but still "sheds some light" on the earlier picture of ancestry.
You can read this is the first picture, but the way this works is that the maternal line passes down DNA in the mitochondria of your cells and the paternal line passes down a specific family of Y chromosomes. Since these two never mix, you can trace these back in history for information on your Mom's, Mom's, Mom's, etc. side and Dad's, Dad's, Dad's, etc. side.
Maternal Haplogroup J1c2
If you're interested in reading more on this line, click this link. Generally speaking, the overall J Group is widely distributed across Europe. Europe is thought to have been colonized by peoples that originated in the East and Middle East and over the millennia slowly moved west until they reached what is western Europe today. Here are the relevant pieces of information from the above link:
- Although no trace of mtDNA J has been found in Mesolithic or Palaeolithic Europe yet, it is likely that some J lineages recolonised Europe at the end of the glacial period from the Near Eastern.
- J1c being so rare in the Middle East today, it can be envisaged that it was a lineage of hunter-gatherers who inhabited the Eastern Mediterranean and southern Balkans during the Epipaleolithic (10,000 to 20,000 years ago).
- This suggests that J1c lineages were probably not found among the very first farmers of the Fertile Crescent (the origins of the J Grouping), but was rather assimilated in neighbouring populations further north, notably in Anatolia (present day Turkey) and Iran, but probably also in the Balkans, which were connected to Anatolia by a land bridge during the glacial and immediate post-glacial periods.
- Samples have been identified from various Neolithic sites, including Linear Pottery culture (LBK) in Central Europe, the Cardium Pottery culture in southern France, Megalithic cultures in northern Spain, and the Funnelbeaker culture in Germany and Sweden. All Neolithic (about 10,000 - 4,500 B.C.) samples tested to date belonged to J1*, J1c or J2b1a. J1c is by far the most common form of mtDNA J in Europe today, making up over three quarters of all J lineages.
So to sum up, the J grouping is believed to have its origins in the Fertile Crescent (interesting coincidence). J1C shows up later on in time farther north (origins thought to be Turkey and/or the Balkans), and is now by far the most common form in Europe today. There isn't really that much information on J1C2, but there is enough about its parent grouping J1C.
Paternal Haplogroup R-M529 (aka R1b-L21 aka S145)
This is where it starts to get interesting. More information related to this grouping can be found at this link.
- R1b is the most common haplogroup in Western Europe, reaching over 80% of the population in Ireland, the Scottish Highlands, western Wales, the Atlantic fringe of France, the Basque country and Catalonia.
- Haplogroup R* originated in North Asia just before the Last Glacial Maximum (26,500-19,000 years ago). This haplogroup has been identified in the remains of a 24,000 year-old boy from the Altai region, in south-central Siberia (Raghavan et al. 2013). This individual belonged to a tribe of mammoth hunters that may have roamed across Siberia and parts of Europe during the Paleolithic.
There is a lot of really interesting information at the above link about how the original grouping, R1b migrated from present day Iran and the area around the Caspian Sea to eventually all of Europe. However, the colorful map is a good summary of the route and the timeline that they followed to their eventual ending point and my grouping, R1b-L21. I will quickly sum up. Their route begin just south of the Caspian Sea, through present day Georgia and north around the top of the Black Sea through present day Ukraine. Somewhere around 4,200 and 2,500 B.C. they descended into present day Romania and Bulgaria, then the Balkans and into present day borders of Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic. In about 2,200 B.C. they made their way to the area near the German, French and Belgian borders, and eventually by 2,100 B.C. a large branch now classified as R1b-L21 crossed over to the British Isles and by 2,000 B.C., Ireland. See the third picture above. The density of R1b- L21 is unmistakable.
- L21 is referred to as the Atlantic Celtic branch.
- Some L21 lineages from the Netherlands and northern Germany later entered Scandinavia (from 1700 BCE). The stronger presence of L21 in Norway and Iceland can be attributed to the Norwegian Vikings, who had colonised parts of Scotland and Ireland and taken slaves among the native Celtic populations, whom they brought to their new colony of Iceland and back to Norway. Nowadays about 20% of all Icelandic male lineages are R1b-L21 of Scottish or Irish origin.
- In France, R1b-L21 is mainly present in historical Brittany (including Mayenne and Vendée) and in Lower Normandy. This region was repopulated by massive immigration of insular Britons in the 5th century due to pressure from the invading Anglo-Saxons.
If you've made it this far, you must be my Mom and/or my Dad. Although a lot of people will probably find this extremely boring, I find it pretty interesting that we are able to put some of the pieces of history together through the studying of these two types of DNA.