Big Y at FT DNA

My brother's Big Y results at FT DNA arrived and I actually predicted the end value a couple of years ago. But the interesting part is that with all the reported values the age of our paternal line is back another 2000 years to 6900 years. My Blake line was at Upper Clatford, Hampshire, England from the mid 1700s to the present (I still have cousins who live in this area, descendants of our 2x great grandparents John Blake and Ann Farmer and also descendant of our 3x great grandparents Thomas Blake and Sarah Coleman). However, to date none have tested at FT DNA.

Prior to that this Blake line was at Andover from the late 1500s on. Then the line can be traced back to the Blake family at Knights Enham back into the 1400s. BigY is predicting that this is an ancient line in the British Isles. BritainsDNA called this particular group the "Deer Hunters." Fascinating to think that my male line was in the British Isles thousands of years ago.  Living DNA names this group as Hunter Gatherer.

Find My Past

I have been a user/subscriber of Find My Past since 2009 and continue to really like this site. I subscribe because it is just easier to always have it at my fingertips whenever I am doing a standard search for anything (in my case all my ancestry is from England thus far on paper). Now that all the big search companies have taken on DNA projects I wonder if Find My Past will make that leap as well. It would be interesting to see Living DNA work with Find My Past I must admit and just wanted to throw that thought into the wind.

I have two sets of results at Living DNA - one for myself and one for one of my brothers (he kindly volunteered to do that as he has with all the other testing that I have done - AncestryDNA, FT DNA, My Heritage, 23 and Me, Britains DNA (no longer operating and they bought Ethnoancestry which I had also tested my brother at years ago; I also did a complete workup at BritainsDNA for him),   National Genographic Project and Sorenson. He and I have done a lot of testing through the years since we first got into DNA testing in 2005. I await one set of results I have waited for for a long time - Big Y. I always meant to just buy it but then something else would come up for testing and I just didn't do it but now I await those results. We already know from all of these testing companies that our yDNA is quite ancient to the British Isles. This will simply give me more detail in that regard than I have from National Genographic Project and Britains DNA.

The results at Ancestry from autosomal DNA testing have been really useful (especially in my husband's case but gradually as more and more English people test I am getting close matches). I have subscribed to Ancestry since 2004 and find it to be a very valuable service as well although generally more so in my husband's research but they do have some databases not on Find My Past.

My Heritage is also a very interesting service and the addition of DNA testing there may prove to be very handy as well. I think the option of just having it along with matching is a great service. I have been a subscriber to My Heritage since 2013 when we went to Who Do You Think You Are 2013 Live in London, UK. My husband has found a number of useful searches there with his European ancestry - namely Germany, France, The Netherlands and Denmark.

I used to buy fiche from the various Record Offices in England and then read them in a microfiche reader but I must admit it is a lot nicer to have these services create their large databases of all this material with a link to the original page. At 72 it saves me a lot of time and saves my eyes for other close detail work. 

Newsletter to come

Commencing on the Blake Newsletter today and should publish by the end of March or early April. I will talk about the Blake family in Cornwall and my progress there with charting the families. I will also talk about the new England's Immigrant Database 1330-1550 - a fascinating new tool to work on the Blake Family. A third topic will be the family of Theophilus Blake with the work submitted by Susan Osbourne and thank you very much to her for that material. A fourth topic will be the extraction of information from Martin Blake's books on the Blake family of Galway.  Likely I will also mention the Blake yDNA study which continues, in my mind and that of the other administrators, another fascinating way to look at the Blake families of the British Isles. The Blake family is an ancient family in the British Isles and their surname can be found in early records dating back into the 1200s. It was an illusion to think that all of the Blakes were descended from one Blake and the records are proving that this thought was quite incorrect and that Blake has a number of origins both within the British Isles and from Continental Europe. The more people who test their yDNA the greater the opportunity to take these lines back to these early founder lines.

Since my my paternal line (Blake) belongs to an ancient haplogroup of the British Isles named Deer Hunters by BritainsDNA and I2a-IslesB4 by Ken Nordvedt, the surname Blake is likely an acquired one at some point distant in the past thus far prior to the mid 1400s. This haplogroup to which my paternal line belongs is designated as I-L161/L1498 at the  FT DNA I2a project. Other members of this small subset do not have the surname Blake but do trace back to ancient lines in southern England (Devon and Cornwall) with  my line being in the Andover, Hampshire area back to the mid 1400s thus far in my tracing. BritainsDNA has provided further information naming this particular haplogroup subclade as being commonest in the South to Southwest of Ireland at around 2-3% of their database and around 2% in Southwest England (including Hampshire). This particular haplogroup is also found in the Balkans giving one the thought that my ancient ancestor left the Ice Refuge in the Balkans after the last Ice Age and headed for the extremes of the land area as the ice fields retreated north and hence found themselves in Ireland and a path back towards England (although none in Wales) and Doggerland where they possibly made their way into the now British Isles. For myself, the ancient history of my peoples most fascinates me as both my maternal and paternal DNA lines are ancient to the British Isles. My autosomal results also predict a large British Isles ancestry but also some Northern European and Scandinavian (those two being the smaller components of the ethnic heritage that is shown at AncestryDNA, BritainsDNA, FT DNA and the Genographic Project). I am considering doing the entire genome of one of my brothers and will save up my pennies but now nickles for that endeavour as our penny has now gone extinct!

The Blake family of Galway

I did begin my extraction of the Blake family material in Martin Blake's excellent set of records on the Blake family of Galway. I am entering the information into Legacy and have added 197 individuals which includes 98 families. This is an extensive work on his part and will also include the Blake family that came to the London, Ontario area in the 1800s. As children people would ask if we were related to this family as I grew up in London, Ontario. The recent release of the Immigrants Database to England with a Richard Blake coming from Ireland to the Salisbury area is rather interesting. Richard Caddell alias Blake who is the head of the Galway Blake family had two sons that are not traced down thus far - Nicholas and Valentine. My ancestor who left his will in 1547 was named Nicholas with his father being Richard and his father Robert and they lived in the Andover area but I have not yet had a look at the Manor Books to see if they can be traced back further on paper.

Our yDNA says that our haplogroup occurs around 2% in Connacht Ireland and 3% in Munster (just to the south of Connacht). Connacht is the larger area in which Galway is a unit. Could our Blake line be Irish after all? That would be a surprise. I must admit that I am becoming very very interested in the Irish Blake family at Galway. Why did Richard Blake come to Salisbury in 1440? Who is this Richard Blake? Of note though our haplogroup also can be found at the rate of 2% in South West England which includes the area from Hampshire to Cornwall. 2% in East Anglia and 2% in Leinster, and 1% in Ulster. These figures coming from our testing at BritainsDNA.   But this is for I-S185 known as the Deer Hunters so we are talking about a group of hunter-gatherers who probably arrived in the British Isles when it was still attached to the Continent via Doggerland and the British Isles was one landmass.The time period as much as 8000 years ago.

In my entering I have now come across an unlinked Blake line in the Galway family (perhaps it will be linked in later or it could be a separate Blake line). In 1745 Margaret Blake daughter of John Blake and Eveline Lynch married Mark Blake of Knockmore, Co Mayo in 1745. When I extracted the Blake records from the Calendar of Patent Rolls I found a number of references to Blake members going to Ireland. Would a descendant of one of these Blake members then become an Immigrant when he returned to England? All very interesting and I feel compelled to begin this work at this time along with my Cornwall extraction of information.

I must get back to doing a few wills a week as well though! And gardening will soon be part of my life again! At least one hopes so but yesterday's snow certainly put that timetable somewhat in the future.

England's Immigrants Database 1330-1550

A rather tantalizing new set of documents (England's Immigrants Database 1330-1550) is available for searching:

http://www.englandsimmigrants.com/search/results?keyword=blake&startDate=1300&endDate=1600&col1=name&col2=nationality&col3=date&col4=origin&col5=residence&page=1

I, of course, searched on Blake and Pincombe. Pincombe does not appear as that spelling or as Pencomb/Pencombe/Pincomb.

This is the citation for this particular set of documents.  England’s Immigrants 1330 – 1550 (www.englandsimmigrants.com, version 1.0, 15 February 2015), http://www.englandsimmigrants.com/contact

The project is a collaboration between the University of York, The National Archives and the Humanities Research Institute, University of Sheffield.

Finding Richard le Blake coming from Normandy in 1274 had started my thinking outside of the box with respect to Blake in the British Isles. This set of documents further intensifies this thinking process as I found  54 entries in the database. In all likehood a number of the entries are for the same person but it does appear that there are 31 distinctive individuals (I excluded the four wives as I could not tell if they were actually English or immigrants with their husbands plus there are four female names mentioned so could be duplicating) coming to England from The Netherlands (6 one noted as Fleming), Normandy, France, Breton (2), Scotland (2) and Ireland (1). Only 13 have their place of origin noted. The male forenames include: Adam, Hayn, Henry, Herman, Hugh, John, Lodewicus, Patrick, Peter, Philip, Richard, Robert, Stephen, Thomas, Walter, and William. There are four female names: Agnes, Alice, Gunna (wife of Herbert) and Katherine. Four females are listed but only as the wife of and in this case wife of Henry Blake (2 entries), of Peter Blake and of John Blake.

It is possible to download all of the results into a spreadsheet so I have put only basic details into this blog:

Surname    Forename    Nationality    Day    Month    Year    Residence
Blake    Adam        8    Aug    1456    London
Blake    Agnes        aft 29    Sep    1441    London
Blake    Alice        21    Apr    1440    Gloucestershire, St Nicholas
Blake    Gunna    Dutch    12    Jul    1440    Huntingdonshire, Huntingdon
Blake    Hayn        27    Sep    1456    Kent, Ospringe
Blake    Henry            Oct    1441    London, Castle Baynard ward
Blake    Henry        18    Jan    1443    London, Castle Baynard ward
Blake    Henry        aft 29    Sep    1441    London
Blake    Henry        5    Sep    1449    London, Farringdon without ward
Blake    Henry        aft 3     Dec    1450    Kent
Blake    Herman    Dutch    12    Jul    1440    Huntingdonshire, Huntingdon
Blake    Hugh        5    Sep    1449    London
Blake    John        9    Oct    1441    London, Cripplegate ward
Blake    John        11    Oct    1441    London, Queenhithe ward
Blake    John        18    Jan    1443    London, Cripplegate ward
Blake    John        aft 29    Sep    1441    London
Blake    John        18    Jan    1443    London, Queenhithe ward
Blake    John        aft 29    Sep    1441    London
Blake    John        aft 29    Sep    1441    London
Blake    John        aft 29    Sep    1441    London
Blake    John    Scot    26    Sep    1465    Lincolnshire, Rathby
Blake    John    Dutch    11    Jul    1440    Hampshire, King's Somborne hundred
Blake    John        10    Aug    1441    Gloucestershire, All Saints
Blake    John    Fleming    24   Jul    1484    Devon, Exeter
Blake    John    Norman    18    Apr    1524    Dorset, Eastbury
Blake    John    Breton    bef 16    Feb    1525    Cornwall, Bodmin
Blake    John    Dutch            c 1524    Essex, Aveley
Blake    Katherine        14    Jul    1467    London
Blake    Lodewicus    Dutch    18    Aug    1441    Northamptonshire, Yarwell
Blake    Lodwico    Dutch    24    May    1440    Northamptonshire, Yarwell
Blake    Patrick        7    Apr    1440    Essex, High Roding
Blake    Patrick        aft 29    Sep    1441    London
Blake    Peter        6    Sep    1463    Bedfordshire
Blake    Peter        20    Sep    1455    Bedfordshire, Dunstable
Blake    Peter        10    Jul    1406   
Blake    Philip        5    Jul    1440    Shropshire, Shrewsbury
Blake    Richard    Scot    15    Sep    1451    Northumberland, Newcastle upon Tyne
Blake    Richard    Irish    10    Jul    1440    Wiltshire, Salisbury
Blake    Richard    Irish    10    Aug    1441    Gloucestershire, St Leonard
Blake    Richard    Irish    7    Sep    1441    Wiltshire, Salisbury
Blake    Robert        28    Aug    1441    Warwickshire, Coventry
Blake    Robert        21    Apr    1440    Gloucestershire, Holy Trinity
Blake    Robert        10    Aug    1441    Gloucestershire, Holy Trinity
Blake    Robert    French    19    Sep    1441    Wiltshire, Great Somerford
Blake    Stephen        11    Jul    1440    Hampshire, Millbrook
Blake    Thomas        aft 29    Sep    1441    London
Blake    Walter        18    Jan    1443    London, Billingsgate ward
Blake    Walter        aft 29    Sep    1441    London
Blake    William        18    Jan    1443    London, Tower ward
Blake    William    Breton    4    Apr    1524    Devon, Morchard Bishop
Blake    wife of Henry Blake            Oct    1441    London, Castle Baynard ward
Blake    wife of Henry Blake        18    Jan    1443    London, Castle Baynard ward
Blake    wife of Walter Blake        18    Jan    1443    London, Billingsgate ward
Blake    wife of John Blake        18    Jan    1443    London

Comparing this information to the map which I prepared from the occurrence of Blake in the Calendar of Patent Rolls is rather interesting as well.

http://kippeeb.blogspot.ca/2013/01/calendar-of-patent-rolls-summary-of.html

The entries in the Calendar of Patent Rolls range between 30 Jan 1230 and 16 Jun 1452. There is some overlap with this new database in terms of time. The Immigrants' database entries range between 10 Jul 1406 (one entry only) and then from 7 Apr 1440 to 16 Feb 1525 with the bulk of the entries between 1440 and 1443. Some of these people could be related especially where no nationality is given. For instance two Bretons William Blake and John Blake settled in Morchard Bishop, Devon and Bodmin Cornwall 1 Apr 1524 and before 16 Feb 1525 respectively. But tantilizingly is this the Cornwall/Devon Blake family that I am busy attempting to put together? There was also a John Blake, noted as Fleming, in Exeter Devon 24 Jul 1484 so a further Blake line to distract me.

Of special interest to me are the entires for Hampshire and Wiltshire where we can see that Richard Blake, noted as Irish, can be located at Salisbury Wiltshire 10 Jul 1440. There is a Stephen Blake, no nationality noted, 11 Jul 1440 at Millbrook Hampshire. John Blake, Dutch, 11 Jul 1440 at King's Somborne hundred, Hampshire. Robert Blake, French, 19 Sep 1441 at Great Somerford, Wiltshire. But as is often the case for immigrants to England, London has the largest number of Blake immigrants with about half of them being listed as living in London.

Another interesting immigrant is John Blake, Norman, 18 Apr 1524 at Eastbury, Dorset. Is he related to Richard le Blake who arrived in 1274? I can not find Blake as a surname in the modern French population but the possibility that it is an earlier form of the present day surname of Blanch[er] (both meaning fair blanc and blak) still remains.

The England's Immigrants Database being available has occurred at a rather interesting time. The Y haplogroup table has now been updated to show the effect of the YFull, Big Y, Gen 2.0, Britains DNA testing and other projects as noted on the website below. Within the haplogroup to which my Blake line belongs one can find (https://sites.google.com/site/compositeytree/home):

I2a1b M423 (19096091 G->A)
• • • • •I2a1b1 L161.1/S185.1 (22513718 C->T)
• • • • • •I2a1b1a L1498/Y4008 (18668472 C->T)
• • • • • • •I2a1b1a1 FGC7218/Y5280 (21354226 G->A) YFull subgroup                   Irish
• • • • • • •I2a1b1a2 FGC14448/Y5450 (7158983 A->G) YFull subgroup                   Irish
• • • • • • •I2a1b1a3 FGC7108/S2640 (14107847 G->A)
• • • • • • • •I2a1b1a3a FGC7197/S7703 (17494645 G->C)
• • • • • • • • •I2a1b1a3a1 S7714 (21345894 T->A)
• • • • • • • • • •I2a1b1a3a1a S8889 (4310132 A->G)

At this moment in time the S2640 has been assigned by BritainsDNA as the subtype but there are a number of other markers within this testing that further define our haplogroup. But the three markers mentioned above are ancestral in my paternal line (namely S7703, S7714 and S8889). This is a very very small haplogroup (0.9% of the I haplogroup which is only 18.1% of the entire database for Y DNA so a very small number) but is most commonly found in Ireland (however this chart does show that only I2a1b1a1 and I2a1b1a2 are said to be Irish) with my group I2a1b1a3 not being assigned to a particular ethnic group. Looking at the anonymized chart which BritainsDNA provided of the  15 testers in S185 looking at S2640 4 were ancestral and 11 derived; those derived belonging to I2a1b1a3. For S7703 5 were ancestral, with the other 10 derived; those derived belonging to I2a1b1a3a. For S7714  11 were ancestral with 4 only being derived; those derived belonging to I2a1b1a3a1. For S8889 13 were ancestral with 2 only being derived; those derived belonging to I2a1b1a3a1a. Of the 15 testers, my line does not have any matches since the four that have S2640 with my line also show new mutations beyond S2640. Although it could be that no one has tested yet to show that some of the other mutations in our signature do constitute a further subgrouping within I2a1b1a3 namely I2a1b1a3b. Still more to come in this field of yDNA testing!

Interesting that on this day I should find that a Richard Blake has come from Ireland to Salisbury Wiltshire 10 Jul 1440 (17 miles from Andover). However, I also find a John Blake, Dutch, even closer 11 Jul 1440 at King's Somborne hundred, Hampshire (about 9 miles from Andover).

On the one hand it might have been quite interesting to be descendant of Richard le Blake whose pedigree chart at 12 feet by 4 feet is an amazing piece of Blake family memoribilia but on the other hand finding a reason for my Blake line to be most commonly found in Ireland and an individual with the Blake surname bringing it to Salisbury Wiltshire is positively intriguing!

Knowing that Robert Blayke left his will in 1521 at Knights Enham (likely born circa mid 1400s as he was quite elderly) further intensifies this thought as he named his son Richard. So finding a Richard in 1440 at Salisbury from Ireland is certainly an interesting happening. Why would he go to Andover when he is in Salisbury? Good question but having driven in that part of the country certainly the green fields around Andover must have been very inviting. The route between Salisbury and Andover is all agricultural and the land looks particularly benevolent in terms of crops and flocks of sheep!

As more and more documents come on line from this early time period perhaps it will be possible to piece together the lives of our ancestors backwards into the past. It still continues to amaze me that this Blake line of mine was so long in the Andover area but the land was rich, they were farmers and it was a fairly quiet valley in terms of wars throughout England's history. 

The British: A Genetic Journey by Alistair Moffat

Over the past month I have managed to read a rather fascinating book by Alistair Moffat titled The British A Genetic Journey. With all my English ancestry I have meant to read this book for awhile. Although he does not use footnotes choosing to write in a less academic style, his text is quite interesting and one can readily look into the literature and discover the science that has been published to which he refers. He paints an interesting story of the peopling of the British Isles. Some of the latest results of Big Y testing are perhaps updating his thoughts but this is an evolving study.

In my family lines, both the yDNA and the mtDNA are ancient to the British Isles according to testing done with BritainsDNA, FT DNA, and Genographic Project 2.0. The I2a2b haplogroup assignment for our yDNA results (FT DNA and I2a1b2 (ISOGG)) has been further broken down in the I2a study at FT DNA and designated as B4 along with two other results. These three results do not match but are said to belong to the same distinct group B4. This is the work of Ken Nordvedt with the three members -  Abijah Sussex being traced back to Devon in the 1600s and Roger Hoyte to circa 1650s at Creed Cornwall and my paternal line traces back to Robert Blayke circa mid 1400s in the Andover Hampshire area (namely Knights Enham). Alistair Moffat refers to this group as the deer hunters as does BritainsDNA. BritainsDNA lists this group as being S-185 but further delineated as S-2640 subtype but no further information on this subgroup. S-185 is just 0.9% of I haplogroup in their study and I haplogroup is just 18.1% of their entire set of results for y haplogroup. If you have 100,000 people tested at BritainsDNA then 18,100 would be I haplogroup and 1,629 of them would belong to I2a2b. Extrapolating that to the total population of the British Isles about 68 million one would have if the percentages actually do match actuality 12 million I haplogroup and 110,000 I2a2b. This subgroup is 3x more frequent in The Irish Republic yielding approximately 84,000 for this area and 26,000 in the rest of the British Isles although the concentration would likely be in the southern to south western part of England according to charts published by BritainsDNA in my brother's results and this does appear to hold true to the results in the FT DNA group where the three members are from Cornwall, Devon and Hampshire for B4 and there are several other groups.

I found a rather interesting article about I2a2b online discussing why this group is so small in the published results (I also think that part of this is because it is a very ancient group to the British Isles and the numbers are still not really large for people testing their deep ancestry in the British Isles). For instance, not one of my 3rd and greater Blake cousins in England has tested. I do not have any 2nd cousins in the Blake line in England (my father was an only child and the only Blake grandson of Edward Blake of Upper Clatford but Edward did have brothers with sons (their father was John Blake of Upper Clatford) and he had uncles with sons (their father was Thomas Blake of Upper Clatford and he was the son of Joseph Blake of Andover)).

http://www.eupedia.com/forum/threads/26211-The-founding-and-migration-of-I2a2b

Lately, with all these discoveries of ancient burials I wonder if one day my own line will be found - an exciting prospect. But having said all of this I still do not have a match at FT DNA, the matches at BritainsDNA are for SNPs only. No Blake, other than my brother, has tested in my known line as far as I am aware. There are several matches using the limited markers of the Blood of the Isles database. Should I actively pursue my 3rd and 4th cousins living still in England in the Andover area? What would they think if I wrote to them? telephoned them? I am still considering that idea. We are going to be in that area next April following Who Do You Think You Are in Birmingham - at least that is the plan. To spend a couple of days in the Andover area including Upper Clatford. Would any of my grandfather's cousins' children be interested in seeing what I have collected? I am basically a rather shy person and the idea of cold-calling people is foreign to me. I keep thinking about my grandfather and what he would have thought if he received a call out of the blue. A few more months to think about that.

The mtDNA of my most ancient ancestress and mine as well (verified with my brother's testing) is H11a2a1. We tested back in 2007 and have watched as H11 has unfolded with the published literature giving a deeper look into H11. This is a small part of the much greater H haplogroup. H11 is about 1% of all H and my own group a much smaller part of that greater group of H11. My best matches are in Ireland and Scotland but also there are some individual matches in Russia of the coding region but they lack the extra mutations that my line has in the British Isles. Tracking the members of my H11 study at FT DNA the further you are away from Ukraina where this group likely wintered during the last Ice Age then the more mutations you have acquired. My own line has three of the four distinct ones found in the British Isles (perhaps my line has reverted on one of these mutations making it somewhat easier to spot matches!).The added mutations perhaps helped them to survive as they are named Pioneers by BritainsDNA. BritainsDNA does not look at H11 individually in their writeup. It is a very very small group in the British Isles. The Blood of the Isles database has 18 with the full four mutations and two matching myself with just three mutations in HVRI (HVRII matches in both groups). There are 16 exact matches with the larger group at FT DNA. I have one match with my brother. This is my one line that I have only family lore to go on back from my great grandmother Ellen Taylor. There is some hint that she may have been Irish so perhaps from the Planters in County Antrim where there are a couple of matches on Oxford Ancestors database or from Scotland where Sorenson has a single match.

I will write a book report in my other blog on this book. 

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.

New yDNA tree and why test your DNA

The revised yDNA tree at FT DNA is still a work in progress especially given that the Big Y results are not yet figured into that tree. The tree is primarily the result of all the testing by the National Genographic Project. Since 20% only of the results of that study are transferred to FT DNA, there will be sections of that tree that might mystify users of it.

Why test though? My grandfather and father might have said that to me I do realize. They would have said we know where we are from; who our relatives are. Why would we bother testing? It has to be because of the deep ancestry although again I must admit my grandfather certainly would have said that his family had always lived in the Andover area; like forever. It is that thought perhaps alone that has most inspired me to test DNA. No one has lived in the Andover, Hampshire, England, UK area for absolutely ever. It is possible that some creatures have lived there but they did not belong to the Homo species to which we all belong. That single item was enough for me to scrape my mouth with the little plastic tool about eight years ago and send a sample off to the Genographic Project. I wanted to be in that big project that was going to find the origin of man if it was possible to do that using DNA. A year later I asked one of my brothers if he too would go into the genographic project for our yDNA and he agreed; he too was finding the idea of our deep ancestry interesting after I showed him the map of our mtDNA coming out of Africa. Then by piecemeal I gradually purchased one test after another as curiosity would impel me forward to learn a little more. It is cheaper to just buy the full genetic scan and the 111 markers and the Gen 2.0 but I was just a little curious but I give better advice than that to people who ask me. Save your money; buy the full test.

But still to this day we do not have any matches of our yDNA and no matches of our Full Genetic Scan of the mitochondria. We were dropped on this planet from somewhere I laughingly say some days. But I know I have cousins who still live in the Andover area and I wonder will they test one day. Will they become interested in their deep ancestry?

Still FT DNA has the best database for comparison and the most surname/geographic projects of any testing agency. They are still the cheapest although I also tested my brother at BritainsDNA and I am very pleased with that result. The chromosome painting still intrigues me although I have now used GedMatch and can do that myself but I saw theirs first and they have lots of prepared charts to look at making it easy for the user to look at their results. No sharing of results there; no databases for comparison but it is all about deep ancestry and that is, primarily, still my main interest.

My grandfather used to mention his furtherest back ancestor known to him by name lived at Old Hall in Enham and there lived Nicholas as he penned his will in 1547. Now that I have pushed that back likely to Robert Blayke who also lived at Enham as he penned his will in 1521, I wonder what my grandfather would think about that. Then I also wonder what the children of his cousins would think of that. Perhaps one day I will find that out. But for the moment I can only say that testing your DNA is a fascinating way to learn about your ancient ancestors. Doing Family Finder has brought me matches but far fewer than my husband with his early colonial American ancestry. No one in my close family other than my siblings has tested.

But I think if you really want your genealogy to be complete then you need to test your DNA to tell you if that ancient male ancestor was a deer-hunter like mine living on the edge of the ice sheets as they retreated or perhaps a Roman soldier or a Celt crossing from France centuries before the Romans or perhaps a Viking or Anglo-Saxon or a Norman or perhaps you came later.

The discovery of Richard le Blak of Rouen requesting to be present at markets in England

http://kippeeb.blogspot.ca/2013/01/calendar-of-patent-rolls-summary-of.html

His license would have read thus:

"Licence, until Michaelmas, for Richard le Blak, merchant of Rouen, to
come to England to trade and to carry his wools and merchandise to the
usual fairs and markets by the public streets and common ways, provided
he do not carry or cause to be carried his wools or merchandise out of the
kingdom, nor deal with the Flemings or others of the power of the countess
of Flanders in the kingdom, or in any way communicate with them, during
the contention between the king and the said countess."


[30 May 1274 Westminster, 2 Edward I, volume 1, pages 51 - 52, Calendar of Patent Rolls]

1274 is 740 years ago. Imagine finding a record of your ancestor from 740 years ago. Now, personally, I do not think this is my ancestor. My Blake line belongs to the haplogroup named deer-hunters by BritainsDNA. Did he stay in England; I have collected some records for Richard le Blak and I need to get to transcribing them but I am an orderly person and still working on the wills. But those documents are to come and they should tell us an interesting story. Words can tell us part of the story and our dna can tell us another part.

BritainsDNA anonymized results for 2000 people

The table showing the anonymized results for 2000 people at BritainsDNA has been taken down for the moment whilst they do some updating. When that is available I will look at with regard to the yDNA results for Blake. I did test my brother there so am able to extract the results that are most similar to him and to do the same for other groupings I would need to know other people who have tested there with the Blake surname.

Once the revised table is available I will publish a blog on that.

Comparison of BritainsDNA and Gen2.0 results

Gen2.0 results have now arrived for my family line (testing my brother) and I have been busy comparing them with BritainsDNA results. The best comparison is between the Reference Populations in Gen2.0 and the Population Percentage Plots of BritainsDNA.

Gen2.0 also finds our autosomal ancestry to be British and German and I think they are weighted equally by them but that is just my take on that. We ended up being 43% Northern European, 39% Mediterranean and 17% southwest Asian as our overall test result. In general British (Gen 2.0) is considered to be 49% Northern European, 33% Mediterranean and 17% southwest Asian as their control group and the German control is 46% Northern European, 36% Mediterranaean and 17% southwest Asian.

At BritainsDNA the drilling down into our ancestry has been broken down further to give us 11% Finnish, 7% Ashkenazi Jewish, 8% Anatolian-Caucasian, 5% Steppe Turkic, 14% Balto-Slavic, 35% Northwestern European, 10% Mediterranean and 10% Basque-Iberian.

Gen2.0 mentions that the autosomal results are looking back six generations (i.e. our three times great grandparents) but also included (of course) our ancient ancestry. Again it causes me to look at Christopher Buller in London the only 3x great grandparent (other than my mitochondrial line which does appear to be solidly Scotland/Ireland) about whom I have no knowledge in terms of his parents. Could one 4x great grandparent tip the scales from 49% to 43% thus making our autosomal results more German than British? I rather think that starting to think about Christopher's parent/grandparents on his maternal line as being German is not a bad hypothesis and one that I shall explore more fully. A 4x great grandparent would contribute 1/64 of our ancestry in purely mathematical terms but depending on the chromosome portion that is inherited the impact can be greater or less.

I think that the BritainsDNA is looking at a much deeper ancestry with their Population Percentage Plots than Gen 2.0. But Gen2.0 does provide a glimpse into the very deep past giving 1.9% Neanderthal (usual is around 2% for Europeans) and 3.5% for Denisovans and the average there is 3 to 5% for Europeans although the mention is made that this result is very experimental and in its early stages and could change. Certainly the Mediterranean at 39% is clearly observable in the BritainsDNA results with 7% Ashkenazi Jewish, 10% Mediterranean, 10% Basque-Iberian and 14% Balto-Slavic. The southwestern Asian 17% clearly visible in the 8% Anatolian-Caucasian, 5% Steppe Turkic although somewhat lower (4%). The 35% Northwest European and 11% Finnish do come up higher than the 43% Northern European (46%) found in Gen2.0. But the overall picture is very similar and each presents in a different way that ends up adding to the deep history of our family lines. I am most content to have done both.

Continuing with the comparison the mitochondrial haplogroup found by BritainsDNA and Gen2.0 are exactly alike. Since I have already tested my own Full Genetic Scan of the Mitochondria at FT DNA I did already know this result. Gen 2.0 does provide the raw scan of the y SNPS, the mt dna and the autosomal results. I have uploaded all of this information to FT DNA but suspect it will take a few days before I can see those results in my brother's project. The raw data for the y SNPS at BritainsDNA is also provided. I have forwarded both sets of the y data to Ken Nordtvedt as he is the expert in I haplogroup and I would like to see these results benefit the overall tree for I2a1b2 (ISOGG) or I2a2b (FT DNA). I have also upgraded the markers for my brother to 111 to give the greatest opportunity to learn more. I shall have to save my nickles to do a Full genetic scan of the Y so that will be awhile!

The total data points returned for mtDNA at Gen 2.0 were 44 and at BritainsDNA there were ten data points given which precisely put us into the H11a2a1 grouping.

The total data points returned for yDNA SNPS at Gen 2.0 were 12,051 and from BritainsDNA there were 14,290.

The autosomal data examined at BritainsDNA was around 300,000 points and at Gen2.0 the autosomal data points examined numbered 130,109. This itself could account for the differences between these results. The greater the number of points the greater the depth of a study. But overall they gave the same picture which is of great value in how I proceed looking at my Buller family of Bermondsey/Surrey. I did find a Buller family at St Olave in the late 1700s and I think that my focus will be to discover where this family lived before they were at Bermondsey. I do not see any relationship between Christopher and this Buller family except they are in the same place at the same time. But travelling back on similar lines can sometimes prove to be most rewarding.

My overall conclusion on the testing that has been done on our lines at BritainsDNA and National Geographic Genographic Gen 2.0 is that both are very valuable in terms of deep ancestry and learning more about your family from the emergence of Homo sapiens to the present time. Who would have thought fifty years ago that we could have such an indepth study of our ancestry through our genes in this new century. Would I place one above the other? Probably not if anyone asked me for my opinion. Each one has given me a different picture of my ancestry through time.

Next step is to test my line at BritainsDNA to compare it with my brother. What valuable information to pass on to one's descendants both collateral and direct can be gleaned from advanced DNA testing. I do not think that I could have ever become this interested in genealogy without having DNA testing. I began my genealogical studies with the advent of DNA testing and the push of my cousin George DeKay who needed me to write a profile of my Pincombe family in Westminster Township, Middlesex County, Ontario in the early settlers book published in 2006. I did do the profile and could add greatly to that now as time has passed but what is in the profile is quite accurate for this Devonshire family who left their home in 1850 and traveled to Canada via the Port of New York and his brother in Genessee New York to southern Ontario.

Blake Newsletter, Volume 3, Issue 1, 2014

Blake Newsletter

Table of Contents

1. BritainsDNA

2. Galway Blake Family

3. Blake yDNA Study

4. Wills Transcription

The third year for Blake Newsletter and it continues at two pages. There is so much I could write about but I already am blogging most days on Blake with the ongoing transcription of wills. Another couple of days will see all the PCC wills for the Blake family in Wiltshire completed.

BritainsDNA

I decided to test my brother at BritainsDNA (and he kindly consented) to see how his results would look when he was tested by a UK company since all of our ancestry is known to be English. The results were pretty much as anticipated and very much in line with the results already obtained from FT DNA. However, there is a different look to the layout of the results and if spending money on DNA testing interests you then I would highly recommend testing with this company. Our paternal line continues without an exact match although that is because no one in our line has tested other than my brother and there are a number of known cousins. Perhaps the most important item I learned was that this is an ancient British Isles line most commonly found today in southern Ireland although less frequently in the Hampshire UK area where my line is located. Since, on paper, this line was in the Andover area from the late 1400s on using the surname Blake I am left to theorize that my line chose the name Blake at some point in the past prior to the late 1400s perhaps in a marriage with the Blake family. The Manor Records for this area interest me greatly in that regard and may provide a solution.

Galway Blake Family

Three members of the study can trace their lines back to the Galway Blake Family and possibly in another issue of the newsletter there will be a short story about their lines. Suffice it to say for the moment that these three members have now given a precise yDNA signature for their particular Galway lines which will be helpful to others trying to trace back to Galway, Ireland in their Blake lines.

Blake yDNA study

The Study continues to grow and expand in terms of results. We now have a result for a Suffolk line which does not match anyone else but is a founder line. Another member of the I2b1 grouping has a match with a Blake member (236981) who is not with FT DNA but has a known ancestry going back to Walcot (Bath), Somerset and Burbage/Wootton Basset, Wiltshire prior to that. A little boost for that member searching their ancestry.

http://www.familytreedna.com/public/blake/default.aspx?section=yresults

Wills Transcription

Once Wiltshire is completed (this week!) I will move on to Hampshire where I have over 60 wills to transcribe which includes the PCC wills and wills from the Winchester Record Office. I have managed to acquire a dozen of the really early wills and will work on that group first.

Happy New Year to members of the Blake family everywhere. 

Elizabeth Kipp (née Blake)

Britains DNA and my Blake line

When we did our first DNA test for National Genographic back in 2006, I was newly into genealogy. I had, by then taken, about 28 courses (of the eventual 42) at the National Institute for Genealogical Studies and my tree had expanded to the 3x great grandparent level on most of my lines and a few more generations on some of them. I used my own family history as I worked on the courses (most people do do that as it is handy to them). The results coming back from National Genographic were so impressive to me that I became swept up in genealogy and DNA and have been that way ever since.

Testing at BritainsDNA was something that I had thought about doing (i.e. testing at a UK testing company) but never quite got inspired until the offer of a reduced price for all the testing that was available (except for Red-Head). I had pretty much exhausted all the available tests at FT DNA (the last one 67 to 111 markers is in process) and I was curious what other companies could offer me in terms of information particularly in deep ancestry.

Family Finder at FTDNA had yielded one result for my brother and one for me and they were slightly different. My brother was 100% European whereas I was 93% Orcadian and 7% Middle East (the Middle East includes Egypt and up into the Steppes (Ukraine/Georgia/Ossettia)). Why the difference (why was I British Isles only and why did I have Middle East and he didn't)?
We both receive from both parents but we only match 48% overall which is quite usual with full siblings. I became curious about the deeper ancestry that was talked about in BritainsDNA advertisements. Chromosome Painting rather attracted me and I am still learning about that process.

The yDNA results came up for our Blake line and they pretty much match the positioning that we have at FT DNA however nearly 15,000 SNPs were tested and there are 287 for our genetic signature of which only some are currently shown on the International Society of Genetic Genealogists (ISOGG) table for I2a1b2 (I2a2b FT DNA style). I have shared the results with one of the well known genetic genealogists working on the I study and on the ISOGG table. Hopefully, there will be a sufficient number for comparison to permit a much greater branching of this haplogroup subclade.

The mtDNA results also matched exactly in terms of haplogroup (H11a2a2). Since the Full Genetic Scan has been done at FT DNA on our mtDNA some mutations that belong to us were not tested in the 3000 markers that were tested at BritiansDNA. I knew that and it is having the verification of our results that most interests me in that regard. Although this subclade is less common than most H subclades, it is frequent enough in the British Isles from whence it came to Canada with my maternal grandmother in 1908 that any plot would show enough users to show significant areas in the UK although the Blood of the Isles database places my mutations in the Argyllshire/Ayrshire area of Scotland which has intrigued me from the very first time I saw my mutations in that database not long after testing at in the National Geographic project. So the trek to Birmingham for my mtDNA line was likely from this area of Scotland but how did it go and when did it go? Did this line travel through Ireland and thence to England or did it come straight down? I have found evidence of this subclade being in the Carlisle area of Cumberland which would tend to support the idea of moving south from Scotland. But there is also evidence of this subclade in County Antrim, Northern Ireland. But the actual holders in terms of surname are hidden to me in the mists of time. Only luck or chance will reveal that to me and the mutations are probably my best bet - a match could be very helpful in this pursuit.

Testing myself or my brother at a UK company that has databases like Oxford Ancestry is one of my thoughts. If my brother then I would have both the yDNA and the mtDNA which is a plus so would probably go for that since he has been really tremendous about being tested all these times this past seven years.

The final set of results is labeled "All my Ancestry" and is the look at the autosomal chromosomes which number 22 pairs and are received from both parents. At conception there is a mixing of chromosomes and each and every child produced by a couple is unique. But these chromosomes have been passed down generation after generation and as can be seen in the chromosome painting there are small bits that have traveled through time all the way from my line being in Africa but only one set shows that. The other one in the set of two has only the colouring for Eurasian. From my understanding the chromosome painting of two to a set is separating out the chromosome from each parent. I am still thinking this through so will just repeat what is said. The multi coloured chromosome shows only two other colours - Sub Saharan African and Asian. The amounts are very very small. The green portions which are Sub Saharan African are particularly small (with the comment that very small areas could actually be noise rather than actual) tiny bits of chromosome that have managed to hold their own through the thousands of years. The sections that are coloured Asian are somewhat larger in comparison but miniscule as you look at the entire chromosome (again the same proviso that very small areas could actually be noise rather than actual). Hence Family Finder reporting only particular lengths does not report these shorter lengths in Population Finder (at least that is my assumption). The Sub Saharan African portion is listed as 0% so must be less than 0.5%. The Asian is listed 2% so equally small in his case. In my case, there must be slightly longer lengths in order for me to show 7% in Family Finder. The best matches outside of the UK for our mtDNA are in Ossettia and the portions listed as Asian include this area. But it is wondrous to see small chunks of African genes on the chromosomes given the 60,000 years that have passed since my line likely left there. Our history lies in our DNA that is for sure. But what does an entirely blue line mean? Still need to work on that. Which one belongs to which parent? Is this information telling me something new that I did not already know? My father's line is well known to me going back centuries and is from the Hampshire/Wiltshire/Dorset area centered on Andover. I would be suspicious that they all descend from very old English lines although that remains to be determined.

Moving to the comparison with 4000 people around the world (in our case it was 3800) and our result was visible on only two charts - the Global Chart and the Europe Chart. No charting was done for the other groups as we do not have sufficient similarities to be compared. When I carefully examine the portion that is attributed to our autosomal chromosomes, the result appears to lie between England and Germany. We, both of us, have a number of matches at Family Finder with people who live in Germany and have lived in Germany a long long time but we have no known German ancestors. However, we do have Christopher Buller (3x great grandfather) who lived and worked in London/Bermondsey in the late 1700s early 1800s. I have not yet been able to discover the parents of Christopher and perhaps, given that his son Henry Christopher Buller (my 2x great grandfather) was later in the confectionary business,  his mother was German or of German descent since confectioners in London in the early 1700s were often German having come with the ascension of King George I to the English throne (he having been a German prince). I have been toying with this idea that I do have at least one German line going back from the 4x great grandparents level and this testing brings that thought to the forefront. I shall have to consider how I can tease out information that might exist to help me with finding the parents of Christopher Buller. One might say could it also be my great grandmother's line (maternal) and I have considered that actually. But she appears to have been born in Birmingham and lived there all her life as far as I can tell. I have checked every birth in Birmingham registered in the time period since she was 37 years old when she died both by the registration and by my grandmother's stories about her mother. My grandmother gave an occupation to her maternal grandfather of shoemaker and indeed there is an Ellen Taylor that fits into a family in the right time frame and the right place. Proving this connection has proven to be very very difficult because I can not find the marriage of Ellen Taylor and Edwin Denner Buller. Since she is always listed as Ellen Buller both by herself and her husband when births were registered, I think they were married but where is the question.

The closeness to Germany is also noted in the Global Connections portion of All my Ancestry. They use up to 300,000 markers and compare to groups all around the world. Worldwide, the sample sits in the midst of the European samples but looking at the European plot the results are just on the side of the British results and overlapping into the German results. Rather a surprise given that the ancestry is at least at the 4x great grandparent level but some sections of chromosome can pass down unchanged generation after generation is my understanding.

Certainly the results at BritainsDNA compliment the results at FT DNA and provide a different way of looking at the deep ancestry of your line which was the whole idea in testing with them. Overall, I am most pleased with the results and they will provide a lot of hours of thinking about my family lines.

I await the results from National Geographic Genographic Gen2.0 study (at 80% completion) next plus I have increased the markers for the yDNA from 67 to 111 and they are due mid January.