Khadijah is a fellow board member of the Story Circle Network, a group of women writers who encourage women to write their stories including through classes and publication. Take a look.
Ancestry and DNA–Part Four
Since I hit several dead ends in my previous endeavors, this afternoon I went back to all the ancestry.com hints and started more research. My last ancestry post indicated my surprise at the DNA results. In that post I failed to mention that the reports indicate a possible range as well as exact numbers. Today’s endeavor made me reconsider once again because everything I was able to trace went back to England over and over again. Although the DNA results specified Europe West as 77 per cent, it did show a possible range with a low end of 50 per cent. Great Britain’s number is 9 per cent with a range up to 27 per cent. My guess is that the reality is more like 20 per cent Great Britain and 60 to 65 per cent Europe West which I can trace to specific places, e.g. Switzerland mostly. An acquaintance had her DNA done by two different sources with somewhat differing results. I also realize that over many centuries people have migrated to Great Britain from continental Europe. In the south the Romans were there for centuries. However, no Italian showed up in my DNA even though I know the name of one ancestor who migrated from Italy. Perhaps she was from northern Italy–all I can find is simply Italy so have no idea from where. Northern Italy, unlike southern Italy, is included in Europe West by ancestry.com.
After quitting ancestry.com for the day, I went back to the matrilineal part of my grandson’s National Geographic Genotype data. It provides a totally different type of analysis that goes back even further into history with illustrations of the movement of your ancestors over thousands of years and provides your exact Haploid Group. I am J named after Jasmine in the book, “The Seven Daughters of Eve” by Bryan Sykes, a British geneticist. This book traces the mitochondrial DNA of modern Europeans back to seven women located in different parts of the world. Jasmine was the result of a mutation that occurred approximately 45 thousand years ago in the Near East/Caucasus from which I probably get that small percentage of Caucasus DNA. Today not only are J Haploid people found in Europe but also in the UAE, Yemen, Iran, etc. More specifically I am J1C3B which is found most commonly today in Switzerland and Austria. Only .2 per cent of the Genotype project participants have that DNA. Furthermore, unless you were born in Africa below the Sahara or are a descendant of Africans, you will have some Neanderthal or Denisovan DNA, usually between one and four per cent. My grandson has 1.2 Neanderthal. Scientists now believe that for non-Africans, a great deal of our immunity comes from those genes. The Genotype project provides links to a different family tree source than ancestry.com if you wish to go that route.
The book also indicates that working out your family trees with who married who and all their children may not be accurate because what is official may or may not be what really occurred. The author tells the story of a friend who insisted his DNA get analyzed and eagerly awaited the results which provided the author with a dilemma once he realized his friend could not possibly be who he though he was.
The Unelected and Unaccountable Men Who Decide Our Fate by Laura Shannon
Most people in the USA where I live have no clue what is occurring in Greece or realize it will one way or another affect us all. Nowhere in the world today are economies isolated from each other. Another example of how our current world is ruled almost, if not, totally my money.
Bas relief of Atropos, shears in hand, cutting the thread of life
In Greek myth, the Fates, the Moirai, are three sisters – Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos – who spin, measure and cut the thread of life for every person born. Their rule is law; even the gods, so the legend has it, have no power to bargain with the one who cuts the thread and ends the life. Her name, Atropos, means ‘she who cannot be turned’.
In Greece today, others are making the life-or-death decisions. It is not the three sisters of ancient folklore, but a bunch of men in suits now wielding the power to uplift or cast down an entire nation and its millions of citizens. I would like to shine a little light on just two of these groups of (mainly) men who have had the most impact on the recent decisions to bring Greece to the brink of bankruptcy…
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Sunday Haiku
heat shimmers across the endless plains
black clouds rumble rain
coyote howls float in the electrified air
Ancestry and DNA–Part Three
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.
My Ethiopian Adventure–On the Road to Lalibela, Part Two
My Ethiopian Adventure–On the Road to Lalibela, Part Two.
To continue my revisiting the Ethiopian trip from last July, I am reblogging this section, day two on the road to Lalibela. This photo shows the interior of a small farmhouse we visited. Click the green title to see the rest of the photos.
My Ethiopian Adventure–on the Road to Lalibela, Part One
My Ethiopian Adventure–on the Road to Lalibela, Part One. A year ago my friends and I started on this adventure. It still remains a trip of a lifetime in my mind. To read Day One of this road trip adventure and see more photos, simply click on the title. 
Sunday Haiku
pushing mower round and round
exhaustion
flower petals brush my face
Water Messages
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 Two
My cousin on my father’s side sent me 75 pages of ancestry information. Much of it goes back to the 1600s except for some ancestors from Switzerland. My great grandfather, Gottlieb Werth, was born in Bern on 1832. He married my great grandmother, Elizabeth Townsend, in Andrew County, Missouri, in 1867. Her Townsend ancestry goes back to Rayham, England, in the early 1700s and further back to 2nd Viscount Charles Townsend who was born in Rayham in 1675. Charles married Elizabeth Pelham from Sussex in 1698. Their descendants went to North and South Carolina in the 1700s, but eventually moved to Indiana in the early 1800s. Elizabeth Townsend was my grandmother’s mother. My grandmother was born in Andrew County, Missouri, in 1872. Her name was Lillie Belle Werth. Because my dad was born late in her life and was the youngest child by many years, I never knew her. She is my only grandparent who did not live to at least 80.
Looking at the other side of Elizabeth Townsend’s ancestry, her father married Catherine Zimmerman in Andrew County, Missouri, in 1867. The Zimmerman side of the family goes back to North Carolina in the late 1700s and early 1800s. However, Catherine’s grandfather, Johann Christian Zimmerman, was born in Hof, Nassau-Dillenberg, Germany. From Germany he went to Pennsylvania and died in North Carolina. The record even goes back further, mostly to Bern, Switzerland, and the Meyer name in Germany with no specific place mentioned.
Elizabeth’s grandmother was Catharina Fiscus who was born in Surry County, South Carolina in 1782. Both her parents were from Pennsylvania–York and Lancaster Counties. The Fiscus line goes back to Pfalz, Germany. Catharina’s mother was Anna Elisabeth Spainhour who was born in Pennsylvania in 1762. Her father was born in Basel, Switzerland in 1719, and died in Surry County, North Carolina.
On the Townsend side, Elizabeth’s grandmother was Mary Voyles. She, too, was born in North Carolina. However, her ancestry goes back to Westmeath, Ireland; Ballybrunhill, Carlow, Ireland; two ancestors from Danbighshire, Wales; and one great grandmother born in Italy in 1747. A number of these people finally resided in Cabarrus County, North Carolina, and then in Indiana.
I can never thank my cousin enough for all this. After attempting to start the same task on my mother’s side of the family and spending hours, often hitting dead ends, I cannot even begin to imagine how many hours he spent compiling so much information.
Monday, I mailed in my DNA to ancestry.com. I also provided what little I was able to find to date on Mother’s side of the family. Since I am a woman, all I will be able to get is the results for my mitochondrial DNA. As mentioned in the first ancestry post, my guess is that I will have a lot of Ireland and England as places of DNA origin. However, I have learned from friends and my grandson’s experience that surprises frequently arise.
writingontherim 