It’s in our genes

Has anyone in your family ‘done’ their DNA? I know of one Lawn family member who has completed an Ancestry test (family finder), and I have recently got the results of my mtDNA with FTDNA. On the female line (which traces back through the HART sisters, Dinah NATHAN and her mother Julia SOLOMON), I belong to Katrine’s clan.

I (and the other females in our family who are descended from the daughters, granddaughters, great-granddaughters etc of Dinah’s mother) belong to haplogroup K1a9. This originated with one woman (dubbed Katrine) who lived 15,000 years ago in Europe, or north-eastern Italy to be precise. Our DNA shows that we are descended in an unbroken line from a woman who lived as a hunter-gatherer in Europe around the time of the last ice-age.

Current matches have ancestors from Poland, Lithuania, Ukraine, Russia, and Moldova: in the Pale of Settlement, the part of east Europe that was formerly the Polish Commonwealth. This is not surprising given my Ashkenazi roots: Haplogroup K makes up about 32% of those with Ashkenazi ancestry. K1a9 is one of three subclades of K, about 100 generations ago (a generation is 25 years).

A distinguished descendant of the K clan is Oezti the iceman. Handsome devil! Many of my mtDNA ‘matches’ are from descendants of immigrants to the USA, some relatively recently. At some stage there must have been a woman of this line who moved away from her sisters and settled in western Europe or England, and her direct female descendant was Dinah’s mother.

There are some interesting groups on Facebook that can help decipher your results:

Tracing the Tribe and Using DNA for genealogy – Australia and NZ are two that have very helpful members.

I am still coming to grips with my results, and have been waiting for a ‘special’ so I can also do my Family Finder, or autosomal DNA. This test might shed some light on the family of Nathaniel HART, as well as some other elusive ancestors on my other trees.

For those of you who are interested there is an upcoming special with FTDNA which I have just heard about. The family finder equates to just under NZ$100 which is the cheapest I have seen for a while. I have pasted some of the notification email, although the prices have yet to go ‘live’:

“This summer the focus is on bundles that include Family Finder: Y37 + Family Finder, Y67 + Family Finder, FMS + Family Finder, and Comprehensive Genome (FF+Y67+FMS). The prices are in the chart below.

Not only has he set the Family Finder price ridiculously low, but he’s not giving us an end date for this sale. It could last a few days or a few weeks – we don’t know and he’s not telling!

So what we’re saying is, take advantage of these great prices while they’re hot!

Here’s the pricing:

Family Finder

$69

Y37 + Family Finder

was $268 now $218

Y67 + Family Finder

$367 now $317

Comprehensive Genome (FF+Y67+FMS)

$566 now $489

FMS + Family Finder

$298 now $258

**Please note – these bundles must remain bundles. If you buy at the sale price for future use, the entire bundle must be used on one tester. Canceling tests from the bundle will cause tests to revert to regular price.** “

For novices, Y-DNA follows the paternal line, and is a male only test while mtDNA follows the maternal line ONLY. This is the one I used to go back to the origns of my female line, but not to close relatives. Men can test for mtDNA to follow their mother’s line. Family Finder / autosomal gives you a bit of every ancestor and is more useful to help connect to within 5 generations, although it can take some detective work to find out which side of your family the match occurs – this is why it is important to recruit as many cousins as possible to test as well. Results from Ancestry, FTDNA and 23andMe can be uploaded to Gedmatch.com, a website that compares with others’ test results from other testing companies. Ancestry DNA has a wide database of trees to help you connect with others and is useful if you already have a tree on-line with them: their system notifies you of matches as well as giving a nifty diagram of your origins in percentages.

DNA research has come a long way since the first sequencing of the human genome. The haplogroups that form the basis for the mtDNA were divided into seven origins: seven women who became the founding mothers of humans alive today. This journey of DNA discovery can be read in the 2002 book The Seven Daughters of Eve by Brian Sykes. Since the book was written the Neanderthal DNA has been profiled, and added to the mixture: people today may have an estimated 1-9% Neanderthal DNA in their make-up.

The DNA journey is one I am just starting to roam, but one that leads back into our ancient history. I am looking forward to making connections to the greater family in the clan of Katrine.