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Ancestry and DNA–Part Three

/ Juliana Lightle / 3 Comments

The DNA results came back two days ago; I was surprised, not exactly what I had expected.  Considering that my last name traces back to Ireland and a number of relatives on Dad’s side also go back to Ireland or England, I expected I would have a considerable amount of both.  Wrong!!  Very little:  7 percent Irish and 9 percent English.  I have almost as much Caucasus (Iran, Iraq, Syria, Georgia, etc) as I do Irish–4 percent.  Once I actually considered that and thought about my haploid group (see previous DNA posting), it made sense. There is a trace of Iberian Peninsula (two per cent) and one of Scandinavian.

I am 77 per cent western European which in ancestry.com terms encompasses, Switzerland, Belgium, France, Germany, Austria, Netherlands, northern Italy (I did find one ancestor from Italy) and some of Denmark.  Looking at these results, I went back and looked at what I had learned on Mom’s side since my last DNA post. After hitting repeated dead ends for my great grandfather on her paternal side, I concentrated on the other.  My grandmother’s father came from Switzerland in 1844.  That makes two great grandfathers from Bern which would give me a certain 25 per cent Swiss even if no one else was from there.  I traced more to Alsace and the part of Germany next to Belgium.  And then there were the Dutch traced back to New York where they married in the Dutch Reformed Church, Isaac VanDeventer and Saartje Couwenhoven in the early 1700s.  I keep coming back, however, to the Swiss and nearby. Once I kept counting all of them, they numbered far more than anything else–names like Kaiser and Werth (the two great grandfathers), Zimmerman, Spainhauer, Fiscus, Rufener, Meyer, Binckele.

Today, a fourth cousin found me through the ancestry site, sent me a message, and the site sent me information on two third cousins.  They can actually “match” using family trees.

Although I have discovered the majority of what I wanted to know, I will continue to attempt a search regarding the one great grandfather.  While searching, I remembered a story my aunt told me, how she never knew him because the story she was told is this:  He went to town one day and never came back, simply disappeared.  Eventually, he was declared dead–the ancestry info has a birth date in Tennessee but no recorded date of death.  My great grandmother eventually remarried and this husband raised her children by my great grandfather.  My aunt even took me to the cemetery where the second husband was buried.  I thought I would remember the gravestone, but I could not find it when I returned years later.  If I had only written down all my aunt told me.

Water Messages

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In the process of conducting research for another poetry book, I came across this information.  Dr. Masaru Emoto authored “The Hidden Messages in Water”.  This is a quote of his from a book by Doreen Virtue:  “Both love and gratitude together are very powerful, and the union of both vibrations creates the best and most beautiful crystals.  I believe that H2O stands for two parts gratitude and one part love.  This is the most powerful formula of all.”

When water was shown a photo of a dolphin, the crystals changed.  In the middle of the crystals was a shape.  It looks like a photo of the pineal gland.  For some this is the shape behind the third eye.

Ancestry and DNA-Part One

/ Juliana Lightle / 4 Comments

A couple of years ago my grandson decided he wanted to know more about his ancestry.  He joined the National Geographic Genotype Project.  Through that I learned my haploid group.  The Project separates paternal and maternal information.  His maternal haploid–which would be mine–is J1c3b.   The J haploid was named for Jasmine, one of the seven daughters of eve from the book by the famous Oxford geneticist, Bryan Sykes. Jasmine lived in the area which presently encompasses parts of Syria, Iraq, and Iran.  This group was the last to migrate to Europe. In fact some theorize that they brought agriculture to Europe. Currently Haploid J is found in most of Europe and the Middle East except for the people who live in Lapland.  However, the more specific J1c3b is not found in the Middle East any more but mostly in northwestern Europe.  www.eupedia.com/europe/Haploidgroup

Since I teach high school and am not teaching summer school, one of my summer projects is to investigate my ancestry more thoroughly.  My cousin has extensively investigated my father’s side.  Through his investigations, I discovered my last name did not come from where I had thought.  Those ancestors are from northern Ireland and left there in the late 1600’s.  For some reason after living in the United States, their descendants changed the spelling of their name from Lytle to Lightle, my last name.

Yesterday, I ordered a DNA kit.  Given all the information I already have and my haploid group, I am very curious as to what these results will indicate.  It will provide no information about my father’s side because women can only trace back generations of mothers.  However, since it is my mother’s side about which I know nearly nothing, it will be new information.  As I progress on this quest, I will share what I learn here on my blog.  Here’s to happy ancestry hunting.

Solar Powered Capsule

/ Juliana Lightle / 1 Comment

These capsules fascinate me.

AnotherKindOfGrass's avatarAnother Kind Of Grass

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The egg-shaped ecocapsule portable house allows the traveller to camp in extreme corners of the world, with the luxury of a hotel room.

This compact home measures 4.5meters (length) 2.4 meters (width) and 2.5 meters (height). It weighs about 1500 kg, and includes a bed, toilet, shower, plus a kitchenett to prepare your hot meals.

The eco capsule doesn’t require an external power source, but relies entirely on a built-in wind turbine and solar panels for energy, with a high capacity battery ensuring sufficient stored energy for times of decreased sunlight and minimal wind activity. It also collects and filters rainwater and dew for drinking and showering. 

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Thursday’s Thoughts on Moths and Teaching Teenagers

/ Juliana Lightle / Leave a comment

It started around 4.  I was awakened by the sound of soft, rather indescribable thuds against my bedrooms windows.  Half asleep, at first I thought it was rain, opened my eyes, saw stars staring at me.  Floating in and out of sleep, my mind puzzled as the thuds increased making it impossible to return to comfortable sleep.  Finally, awake, I swung my feet around from under the covers, pushed sandals on, walked to the French doors, and turned on the outside light.  Horrified, I watched thousands of dark brown, one inch moths flying around, hitting the windows, dropping to the patio floor, rising again, over and over.  I shut off the light, went back to bed, drifted into a troubled slumber, and experienced one of those ludicrous dreams only half remembered–people I know and do not know all mixed together in impossible situations.  At 5:19, I gave up on any hopes of sleep, climbed out of bed again, and began the early morning ritual of preparing to go to work.

When I arrived at work, a note lay on my desk from yesterday’s substitute teacher.  It indicated that all classes but one, the last one, behaved ok and completed the assigned work.  However, it specifically stated that a number of the males in the last class took papers from previous classes and copied them, never even opening the book to attempt pretending to read the assigned story. Did they think he would not notice?  Did they think at all? Were they like the moths, flying mindlessly, not caring about the outcome?

When that class arrived, I read them the note.  Some denied it, some said nothing.  The females, absent on a field trip, were blamed for “ratting us out”.  It seemed they did not realize this was a sort of confession.  How any of them think I will not know about their transgressions mystifies me.  Repeatedly this year, I caught them plagiarizing, lying, and various other forms of cheating, not everyone of course but sometimes half.  I find it increasingly disturbing how many students find this sort of behavior acceptable.  What do their parents teach them?  Where do they get that “wrong” behavior is fine as long as you do not get caught?  Do they even think it is wrong?  Most admit it is thankfully, but why keep engaging in wrong behavior?  Somehow I keep hoping they will learn from these experiences, but other times I really wonder.  What can I do to help them realize just how wrong cheating is, how it is a form of stealing?  In the end, perhaps, I can only hope that the life lesson mentioned in the words of one student solves the problem:  “Karma’s a bitch.”