Friday, May 16, 2014

H11 haplogroup - half yearly discussion

Last post on H11: http://kippeeb.blogspot.ca/2013/11/h11-haplogroup.html

The H11 project continues to grow from the 82 members in this earlier post. There are now 88 members who have done the Full Genetic Scan of the mitochondrial DNA and a total membership of 101 individuals. I have, on occasion, inserted people into their likely subclade but without a full genetic scan it is impossible to say that such placement is correct.

When I did the Gen 2.0 test (Genographic Project) on our mitochondrial DNA, the "heat map" or "resting spot" for H11a2a1 was located in Middle to Eastern Europe extending from Slovakia through Poland and into the Ukraine/Russia/Georgia/Ossettia. I have mentioned earlier that my line has good matches in Ossettia although these matches lack 16092 and 16140 (ours have these mutations). I am left to wonder if 16092 and 16140 provided our ancestors with some sort of protection in their new environment which tends to be in the northern areas of the British Isles but also located along a migration path which extends from Ossettia into Europe and thence into the British Isles and also across the Scandinavian archipelago and possibly into the northern areas of the British Isles since the frequency of my matches are in this area.

It would be interesting if others who belong to H11 would comment on this post giving their earliest known resting spot for their furtherest back ancestress. H11 is a small grouping and I think there is a potential that as a group we could add to the knowledge of our haplogroup simply by recording our known history in a systematic fashion. It is a thought that I will mention to any readers.

I have now verified my own line by doing my brother's full genetic scan. The Gen 2.0 test and the BritainsDNA had verified it but did not provide all the mutations so I did take that one step further to complete that testing. Although doing the Full Genetic Scan was thought to be a path to greater discovery for people with regard to their female ancestress the mutation rate is very very slow thus rendering a lot of our close matches but not exact matches to a thousand years in the past and making linkages difficult. So doing the full genetic scan and having perfect matches may bring us closer to paper records time frame in that it is estimated (by FT DNA) that a perfect match can show a relationship in the past six hundred years or 16 generations in 90% of people. Few people can trace their female line that far back but matches could be closer and it is necessary to take the match and trace backwards as far as one can and then bring that ancestress' children down. A long and meticulous effort but could bear fruit paticularly for anyone who is stuck in the 1700s or 1800s or 1900s!

The best matches for my brother and I but always 1 mutation less are in Ireland and Scotland and particularly in those areas where population exchange occurred across the Irish Sea between Ulster in Ireland and Ayrshire/Argyllshire in Scotland. When the ice sheets still existed north of the British Isles these two would have been joined and hence the population characteristics would be quite similar for anyone with ancient lines in these areas. Unknown to us is how our furtherest back ancestress arrived in the Midlands of England by the middle of the 1700s - a direct route down through Cumberland or a crossing from Ireland? It is anyones guess actually and I await that day when someone tests, not in our family line, that is an exact match!

An interesting very early paper on H11 : http://mbe.oxfordjournals.org/content/21/11/2012.full.pdf+html

More information to follow.


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