Genesis (upgrade from Gedmatch)

All of my kits have been converted to Genesis now and about half of them are research only so do not form part of any searches except my own. I have 21 matches with my Living DNA kit to other Living DNA kits on Genesis. Only three have a longest length of 12 cM or greater and only one is particularly significant at 25.7 cM. I match this individual at Ancestry and FT DNA. Like myself, they have tested at a number of sites but I can not yet locate her in my tree although I suspect endogamy in this case and the match is likely much further back than the length of the match would indicate.

I need to look at the other kit that that I have which was tested at Living DNA to see how many Living DNA matches there are.

2nd kit of interest: 16 matches with just one with a longest length of 12 cM or greater. At 13.9 cM it does not catch a great deal of interest from me as I really do not look a lot at matches of less then 15 cM. This match is on chromosome 17 between 5836860 and 10226337. Looking at my list for Chromosome 17 this is one that is only shared by this one sibling.

I always look at all of my matches with the thought that knowing I have 23,000 matches at Ancestry in their database of over 11 million (0.2% of their database) and that I have only 245 matches which are 4th to 6th cousin or less (0.002% of their database), I probably shouldn't expect to have too many matches in databases that are much smaller!

At FT DNA I have 2082 matches and 190 are 3rd to 5th cousin or less and their database is less than one million. Say it was one million then I have 0.2% of their databases as total matches and 0.02% of their database as 3rd to 5th cousin or less.

At 23 and Me which has a database of over 5 million I have 998 matches (0.02% of their database). I have 332 matches that are third to sixth cousin or less (0.007% of their database). I tend to know who these individuals are if they match me at least 0.50% but not always.

I am not that really surprised that I have only sibling matches at Living DNA. My father was an only child so no first cousins. His mother only had half-siblings so do have some half-first cousins. His father had eleven siblings but very few nieces and nephews except his eldest sister had a large family but thus far none have tested. My mother was born in Canada. She had just one brother and he did not have any children. Her father was virtually an only child as none of his full siblings survived to adulthood. He did have a half-sister but none of her descendants have tested. Her mother did have four siblings but thus far none of their descendants have tested as they would be my second cousins.

Reworking the Blake yDNA website at FT DNA

Yesterday I started to rework the DNA results page for the Blake yDNA project at FT DNA. I have only worked on the I haplogroup thus far. It is something I have meant to do for quite a while but time didn't present itself and still time is a little short. I will gradually convert the results from their current status to SNPs of the larger part of each of the individual groups. The decision I need to make is do I include all the members in the new group when the alleles match although they may not have done deep clade testing? It does imply an assumption on my part unless individuals match members within the group who have tested. It was easier looking at the I haplogroup because I have more information on these groups. My Blake line tested by my brothers is I-L161 haplogroup and in the case of our line further defined by Big Y as I-PH3480. The other member in this group is not related to our line in thousands of years. Eventually as we move forward with this new style of referring to the individual groups I will break down the individual haplogroups into subclades even if they have only one member.

The R1b haplogroup is massive for Blake and I need to think carefully how to work those groups. The R1a is fairly straight forward as it turned out although just one member has done deep clade testing,.

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. 

Matches with mitochondrial DNA

I just had an email requesting that I forward information on individuals who had tested within a subclade of H11 which I had created. My only response to this ever is to contact the individuals who match you at FT DNA (or elsewhere but my H11 haplogroup project is at FT DNA). All of the matches that are within a reasonable closeness to you shown in the project will be listed by FT DNA.

There are 269 members in the project and almost every subclade mentioned in the phylotree (2016 update) is included in the project.  In general the rules for administering a project are pretty straight forward. We must protect every member's privacy and I do attempt to ensure that I do do that.

Mitochondrial DNA can be a very helpful tool to some (for instance my mutations bring me to Argyllshire/Ayrshire Scotland or Ireland - thus far no exceptions in my many matches included in the project. That can be very helpful to some. However, it does not tell me the name of that distant ancestor. I am still stuck in Birmingham in the mid 1800s. I do have a possibility. That possibility in several generations does not lead me to Scotland or Ireland. Family Lore helps a little but nothing substantial from that either. My matches and my Living DNA results do point to my having a Irish/Scot connection but I do have 2 3x great grandparents with a Scot surname although rather distant back. I have no perfect matches other than my siblings and ten one step away. Also having this lovely person with the surname of Taylor adds to that challenge.

My husband on the other hand has over a dozen perfect matches to his mtDNA. The only item he has learned from all of that is a match with someone in England whose line has been in England back to the 1700s at least is a perfect match. Looking at this individual there is a possibility that her ancient ancestor was from Denmark/The Netherlands. He can trace his line back to 1654 when Margaret was baptized in Newport Rhode Island but no further for sure. No one else in that particular maternal line has tested that can trace back to Margaret Carr or her sisters.

200 Ancestor Hints (Shaky Leaves at Ancestry)

It is very interesting testing at Ancestry when you have fifty years of research on your family lines particularly if those family lines have deep American Colonial roots. That is the case for my husband and he now has 200 Ancestor Hints (and 705 fourth cousins or less). These hints are very interesting as one of them is a third cousin, 36 are 4th to 6th cousins and the remainder (163) are 5th to 8th cousins (indeed he does have some that are named as 8th cousins and 8th cousins once removed/twice removed). The third and fourth to sixth cousins were all readily known to him (they all have trees online and only 3 of the 4th to 6th cousins are private.

The fifth to eighth cousins are perhaps the most interesting. A number of these have more than one hint (i.e. he is descended from more than one set of common ancestors) and for a few there are three sets of common ancestors (he has a number of loyalist lines in New Brunswick). An amazing number of these lines are in the United States including descendants of the Loyalist lines.

Perhaps the most interesting for someone who has done genealogical research for fifty years is the verification of all that research. American records are scant in the period of the Revolutionary War (War of Independence) so linking back in this time period can be a very difficult process using various records and finding others who may have bible records has been a real asset to his research. He has been able to add quite a number of lines to his tree down to the present.

It is also very pleasant to find these results transferred to GedMatch as he has an ongoing project looking at phasing his grandparents DNA. Unfortunately his brother died in 1996 so he does not have any DNA for a sibling. His father died in 1945 and his mother in 2000 so again no DNA for either of them. A number of second cousins have tested which has been handy but it is amazing how quickly the amount of shared DNA diminishes.

For myself, I have acquired another Ancestor Hint bringing me to a total of 18 and for my siblings I have 16, 15 and 15 hints. Some of these we all share (I have four of us on Ancestry so three of these matches are us matching each other, we have four fourth to fifth cousins that we all share, we have  four fifth to seventh cousins that we all share thus giving us twelve in common). Three of us share three in common, two of us share two in common. There are three that are shared by one only of us giving a total of 21 different Ancestor Hints.

Compared to my husband I have very few Ancestor Hints but our ancestries are very different. With his overwhelming American Colonial ancestry going back to the 1620s/1630s and early 1700s plus one 2x great grandmother and parents from Norfolk, England and one set of great grandparents directly from Germany, Ancestry has proven to be the best place to test for him although his matches at FT DNA and My Heritage are also interesting.

Gradually I am acquiring new matches as more and more people in the British Isles test. My own ancestry is totally British Isles going back as far as I can trace and indeed only England as the Irish/Scot ancestry in terms of actual names other than Routledge remains hidden to me. DNA may reveal it as my maternal grandmother's mother's line remains unknown to me other than she was likely born in Birmingham in the mid 1800s.

Living DNA may prove interesting for both of us as my husband has so many dissenters from England in his early colonial ancestry and with both my brother and I testing there as well I am hopeful that many many people in the British Isles have tested as well and will take part in matching.

Comparison of ethnicity over several testing companies

Looking at my ethnicity testing over several companies. My Living DNA Results have really proven to be significant in my trek backwards and leading up to that test was the presence of Irish DNA in other testing companies results. I always knew that I would test primarily British Isles and would anticipate being strongly from the counties of England since all of my ancestry back many generations in some lines and at least back into the mid 1700s in most lines is English.

That does support my idea that I am primarily English many generations back but other companies have picked up a European component and I might assume that it is fairly ancient because of matches that I have with people living in European countries with lengthy trees dating back there. I still have my Christopher Buller who lived circa 1764 to 1832 mostly in the Bermondsey Surrey area and close to Tooley Street, Bermondsey Lane and Long Lane whose parents are a mystery. His Slop Shop was on Tooley Street; slops being the name for the uniform that sailors wore. With a name like Buller one might think that he is descendant of the Buller family of Somerset or perhaps of Warwickshire (are they the same family? have not yet found that link) but I can not find a link back to either of these families for Christopher. The hint of European and my DNA matches with people of German ancestry (and no other) led to to wonder if the name was anglicized from Buehler to Buller. That still remains a thought as immigration from Germany to England was ongoing especially during the times of the Georges (George I, George II, and George III in particular). This family also was involved in the confectionary business in Birmingham lending more credence to this thought as early German immigrants to London were in the confectionary business.

The Irish ancestry is interesting as some claim that my Charley/Charlie line (my 4x great grandmother Mary (Charlie) Pincombe)) was Irish but this is too strong at Living DNA to just be the influence of Mary one would think! As a 4th great grandmother she would contribute slightly more than 1.5% on average so I do have to keep her in the back of my memory but in general this does look like my maternal grandmother's mother who also quite handily carried my mitochondrial DNA which is passed on to me. The mitochondrial DNA H11a2a1 in the Blood of the Isles Database was found in Ayrshire/Argyllshire Scotland and Northern Ireland. Hence my thoughts did quickly go back to her.

The Scandinavian component (Germanic perhaps) has been picked up by most testing companies in various percentages ranging from a high of 37% to a low of 0%. Certainly the east coast of England has a component of Germanic races and I do have Yorkshire ancestry but always suspected it was a long way back. I still think that but I do have matches come in for fifth cousins or greater who live in Germany, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland and have, where they have family charts dating back for a long time. 

 Living DNA

Great Britain and Ireland 96.5%
South Central England 31.7%
Central England 14.6%
Devon 14.6%
Southeast England 7.2%
South Yorkshire 5.4%
Southwest Scotland and Northern Ireland 4.8%
Northumbria 4%
Northwest England 3.5%
North Yorkshire 3.5%
South England 2.7%
Aberdeenshire 2.5%
Lincolnshire 2%
Europe (North and West) 3.5%
Scandinavia 3.5%

Ancestry DNA

Great Britain 64%
Ireland 14%
Europe West 11%
Scandinavia 6%
Iberian Peninsula 1%
Europe East (less than)1%
Italy/Greece (less than) 1%
Finland/Northwest Russia (less than) 1%
Melanesia (less than) 1%

FT DNA

West and Central Europe 46%
British Isles 38%
Scandinavia 12%
West Middle East (less than) 1%
Finland (less than) 1%
Oceania (less than) 1%

National Genographic

British Isles 48%
Germany 33%
Southern Europe/Middle East 19%

My Heritage

English 53.4%
Scandinavian 33.3%
Irish, Scottish, and Welsh 2.1%
Iberian 10.3%
Italian 0.9%

23 and Me

British and Irish 54.7%
French and German 15%
Scandinavian 2%
Broadly northwestern European 26.9%
Broadly southern European 0.3%
Ashkenazi Jewish 0.2%
Broadly European 0.7%
Broadly Oceanian (less than) 1%
North African (less than) 1%

23 and Me offers an interesting Ancestry Timeline with their ethnicity reporting which places all of my Ashkenazi Jewish, Oceanian, North African ancestry as dating back to a 4th to 7th or greater grandparent likely born between 1680 and 1770. My Scandinavian ancestry from a 4th to 6th grandparent born between 1710 and 1800. My French and German ancestry from a great grandparent to a 3x grandparent born between 1800 and 1860. My British and Irish ancestry from a parent, grandparent or great grandparent born between 1860 and 1920 and of course my father was born in 1904 in Eastleigh, Hampshire, England (and three of my grandparents were born in England in 1875, 1876 and 1886).

Upcoming Presentation

Although it has been my stated intent not to do any more lectures I will be doing a Google hangout for The Surname Society next Saturday. The title  will be DNA and Surname Studies. I am gradually stepping down from my involvement in this society as well. The next issue of the newsletter will be my last. I would like to do some database work for both the guild of one studies and the surname society. But any involvement in either executive is ending.

In reality it has been the entry of DNA into genealogy that has drawn me into genealogy although the initial push came from my fourth cousin George Dekay. He wanted a
Pincombe profile for the Delaware and Westminster  history books published almost ten years ago now. I was reticent to take the project on. I did do so and my forays into genealogy began.

My husband and I first tested our DNA in 2006 in order to be part of The National Geographic Project. We were interested in our deep ancestry and my husband was keen to discover his Kipp line which has a brick wall at his 2nd great grandfather Isaac Kipp who was born in 1764 and came to Canada in 1800 as a settler with his wife Hannah Mead and four of their five sons. He has been studying his families for nearly 40 years.

I really expected to find that my mitochondrial line would be a fairly usual English one but surprises were in store for me. At the NG project I tested as H haplogroup with three differences from the Cambridge Reference Standard. The option to take my results into FT DNA was offered  and I did do that only to discover that I had very few matches - 5 actually. One of them had done further testing and was H11. Interest kindled  and so I did further testing and I have now done everything available. I have tested at Ancestry and 23 and me as well.

Very busy the rest of the day. Will share the presentation.

Ethnicity Estimate - Tests at FT DNA, Ancestry and 23 and Me compared

I now have three Ethnicity Estimates looking at my autosomal DNA.

FT DNA
European 96%
British Isles 51%
Scandinavia 33%
Western and Central Europe 12%
Asia Minor 3%
North Africa 1%

Ancestry
Europe 99%
Great Britain 64%
Ireland 14%
Europe West 11%
Scandinavia 6%
Iberian Peninsula 1%
Europe East  less than 1% Italy/Greece less than 1% Finland/Northwest Russia,  less than 1% Melanesia

23 and Me
European 99.9%
British and Irish 54.2%
French and German 14.4%
Scandinavian 2.0%
Northern European 27.9%
Southern European 0.3%
European 0.8%
Ashkenazi 0.2%
Oceania 0.1%
North Africa 0.1%
Undetermined 0.1%

A bird's eye view of my results says that I have 51%-78% British Isles Ancestry, I have 2%-33% Scandinavian Ancestry, I have 11%-42.5% Northern European Ancestry with the rest all being less than 1%.

The largest ancestry is my British Isles Ancestry and 14 of my great great grandparents were born, lived and were buried in England (two exceptions buried in Canada although both born in England) and their ancestors for the most part going back in time except for two brickwalled lines where I do not know their ancestry. Comments have been made that 23 and Me comes the closest to accuracy with their estimation. A French and German component of 14.4% is huge although compares to 11% Europe West at Ancestry and 12% Western and Central Europe at FT DNA. I think that my results do rather merge together although Ancestry has given me a very high percentage of British Isles at 78%.

Time frame for these estimations would be rather interesting to look at but I do not think it will necessarily break down those brick walls that I have with  firstly my maternal grandmother's mother although knowing the mtDNA may one day help with that particular line and secondly my 3x great grandfather Christopher Buller's parents. They are definitely a mystery and quite a formidable brickwall at least they appear to be given the amount of research I have put into that line at London Metropolitan Archives. However, I have a new piece of information that may be helpful the next time we are there.

I can not resist thinking of these brickwalls when I look at these estimates! I do not yet have my matches at 23 and Me. They are to come in the next week or so. But I have already uploaded my Ancestry and my FT DNA Family Finder results to Gedmatch so do not expect to find anything but the database at 23 and Me is huge. It is just that I know all of my American cousins on the Buller line but I do not know if any of them has ever tested.

All in all I am probably finished testing myself unless I do do BritainsDNA. That would be a late fall project as I save up my loonies. Would I really learn anything more? Well, I have done my brother but we are not close matches at FT DNA in terms of shared cMs - we are at the far limit for full siblings which is a good thing because we do not have our parent's DNA results and having a variety of results from siblings can help us to look at what the parents might have been. So doing myself at BritainsDNA might paint a rather interesting picture of our ancestry.

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52 Ancestor Challenge and DNA

Up to the 19th  of 52 Ancestor Challenge and the last couple permitted me to go in and look at my research (and that of cousins since I can not take credit for all of it) and make new decisions on work done six or seven years ago. Our next trip to London and the London Metropolitan Archives (LMA) will involve some interesting research on the Beard and Hemsley families and another look at the Buller family. It was more of a drop in and check for Christopher Buller's baptism (not found) that first visit and then onto the Society of Genealogists that busy morning that we decided to travel on the City Bus in London as that was the easiest way to get to LMA and then walk to the Society of Genealogists.

 The 20th Ancestor of the 52 Ancestor Challenge is one that I have done all the research on. But I have meant to get back to her and this is an excellent opportunity.

Coming up to half way through I think this is an excellent idea and next year I shall do the 3x greatgrandparents of my children and our son in law giving me again 64 individuals to work on. I know all 32 3x great grandparents for our son in law - about 98% early French Canadian lines. For our daughters I am looking at all sixteen known for my husband's side and I will do the remainder in my lines (just four of the 16 - I will leave out the likely ancestors of my paternal grandmother because they are going to be well discussed this year). I will also omit my paternal grandfather lines except for Ann Farmer's ancestors. I am hoping that I will, by the end of next year, have more information on the Henry Christopher Buller line and the last two will be the parents of Ellen Taylor because by the end of next year when I work on her lines we will have been to Birmingham and London for another couple of good research days. I will report on what I find (or do not find).

I also tested at 23 and Me (at least my sample has now reached the testing facility) and possibly I will learn more about my lines as some of my families are known to have gone to the United States since the early 1900s. They have a huge database.

A recent match was most revealing at Ancestry. A 4th to 6th cousin match turned into a 2nd to 4th cousin match at FT DNA when she brought her results across. We have a sizeable match on one chromosome where I do not match my siblings (they do not come up as a match with her at all although they do have small matches with her). I am suspicious, because of another known cousin match, that I have inherited more of the Ellen Taylor line. My siblings have twice the match that I have with a Pincombe 4th cousin. I do match a known 3rd cousin on my Buller side (descendant of a sister to my greatgrandfather Buller)) but it is somewhat weak as well and it is at Ancestry where only I have tested and she has not elected to bring it across into FT DNA. That leaves the Taylor line for me to have inherited a large chunk via my mother from her mother. DNA can be very very interesting on occasion. I am suspicious that Ellen Taylor is descended from an Irish/Scot family because my mtDNA is mostly found in the Argyllshire/Ayrshire area of Scotland (Blood of the Isles Database and Sorenson). My grandmother did mention once that some of her mother's family had emigrated to the United States and it is a vague memory her saying that. The match at Ancestry can trace her one parent's side back to specific areas in Eastern Europe so not a match there. But the other parent's side is a mystery on the paternal line (the maternal line on that side is known) and Ireland is suspected as the home for this ancestor (noted on the US census). The surname Halloran which is much nicer to look for than Taylor. Although there are actually not all that many Taylor families in Ireland compared to England.

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 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. 

August 2014

August 2014 has been a very busy month for me with very little transcription done of the Blake wills. As always it is a busy gardening time and we uprooted a crab apple tree that we have wanted to take out for a few years. It is always hard for me to remove a tree - they live a long time and in their lifetime see so very much. This tree doesn't have quite such a long history only 35 years but still it was sad watching it come down. Helping to be the remover of its being. I simply love trees. They are one of the many gifts God gave to us. We still have two large trees and they will prosper from the loss of this one using up the ground water. In all we have removed six trees over time from our property. Six trees that we actually put in. But now we have another three trees behind us which the City planted and they are spreading out and covering the end of our property (we back on a main road). Our yard is becoming quite dark by mid afternoon with all the tree cover around us on both sides so this one little crab apple tree will not be missed. I have made jelly and juice from the fruit of that crab apple tree and it was the sweetest crab apple product I ever tasted. The bees likely crossed the apple tree next door with the crab apple so that the fruit was just a little bigger and sweeter than it would have been.

But I digress. This next week will be my week to return to Cornwall trees and hopefully I will manage to get something up this time. It will take me a day or so to get back into momentum with this Blake line. My find yesterday in the Pipe Rolls makes my look back in Cornwall ever the more interesting because this too is an old Blake line. Are they all descendant of the le Blak family of Rouen, Normandy? Did they choose the name spontaneously because of the actual word Blak which has the meaning of fair from the French Gaelic or dark from the Old English. My own line was somewhat fair as my grandfather had grey/blue eyes and he used to comment that his sisters were fair haired and blue eyed. I am the only one of my siblings with a blue eye ring but my eyes would be called hazel rather than green or gray, there is some brown in my eyes.

My other grandfather also had grey eyes but the hair colouring was definitely quite dark. Learning lately from Britains DNA that the predominant eye colour in the British Isles is blue was something I didn't know before. Tempting to test my brother for blue eye colour and I may do that in a bit. Testing at two or three different companies is quite interesting (I have tested our yDNA at FT DNA, National Genographic and Britains DNA; our mtDNA at FT DNA, National Genographic, Britains DNA and Sorenson and our atDNA at FT DNA, National Genographic, Britains DNA and hopefully we will be able to test at Ancestry through my cousin. That is to come and I am quite excited as ancestry has a huge database. Once they open their testing to Canada I shall get my brother to test there as well. We have an amazing number of matches with people in the USA but only one ancestral line here in the Western Hempshere on our direct line - my mother, her father and his mother. I can on occasion be helpful to people looking for their ancestral location when they match me on particular lines where I have traced down all the children back in the 1700s.

Back to the New Brunswick 1921 census and I will complete that tomorrow. I want to then group the families into another couple of blogs and see what I have learned about the descendants of Captain John Blake. I then need to have a look at the OPRs for Scotland where this family is said to be ancestral to and investigate the couple of baptisms there in the right time frame. It would not be that unusual for descendants of the Blake family of Somerset to disappear into Scotland after the Glorious Restoration of King Charles II to the throne of England. They would certainly not have been very favoured given the role they played during the days of Cromwell.

This month has flown by quickly but the long dark days of winter will soon give me more time to work on my genealogy. I have promised to give a talk on one name studies after Christmas to the Ottawa Branch of the Ontario Genealogical Society. This will be the very last one as I really do not want to take the time to work on these talks. It is valuable time to my studies. But it is also nice to explain the idea of one name studies and it does encourage me to look at the larger picture of what I am doing and even make changes in my approach on occasion.

Gardening and new ways to look at my family lines

Gardening is once again taking up most of my time these days. I had thought I could mix the two but the short space between winter and summer here has ended up eating greatly into my transcription time!

Really nice to see the warm summer rays coming into our life after a rather harsh winter though. I will not be posting wills for a few weeks but may be writing short posts on other topics.

I am thinking of a new challenge for myself of constructing one Blake family tree a week taking census and matching it up with a Blake will for some of the counties where I have completed the wills. More on that notion to come and it would start in September.

A second challenge has emerged from reading the rootsweb list for the Guild of one name studies. It is the idea of doing an Ancestor a week. That would be my ancestors. With 52 weeks in the year it would be neat to do 52 of my 64 four times great grandparents or my grandparents 2x great grandparents.  Looking at these grandparents:

Samuel George Blake and I know 14 of his 16 2x great grandparents

Ada Bessie Cotterill Rawlings and I know 13 of her 16 2x great grandparents

John Routledge Pincombe and I know all 16 of his 2x great grandparents

Ellen Rosina Buller and I know six for sure and 5 probables of her 2x great grandparents

That would give me 49 for sure and perhaps by the time I am into the last three weeks I might be surer of my maternal grandmother's mother's parents. I could then go to my 5x great grandparents for whom I would then be looking at my great grandparents 2x great grandparents. Looking at these great grandparents:

Edward Blake and I know 11 of his 16 2x great grandparents

Maria Jane Knight and I know 14 of her 16 2x great grandparents

George Cotterill and I know 6 of his 16 2x great grandparents

Elizabeth Rawlings and I know 9 of her 16 2x great grandparents

William Robert Pincombe and I know 14 of his 16 2x great grandparents

Grace Gray and I know 15 of her 16 2x great grandparents

Edwin Denner Buller and I know 12 of his 16 2x great grandparents

Ellen Taylor and I have 5 probable of her 16 2x great grandparents

This would then give me 81 5x great grandparents and 5 probable so about 1.5 years of weekly posts on these individuals and again I might, whilst I am working on these individuals on their day, be able to push back the line.

Although I am mostly dedicated to my one name studies of Blake and Pincombe, I would like to add in this day to my study week. I think I shall do this blog on Monday mornings.

I also want to work on my French Canadian research and I am thinking of doing 1 blog a week on the 4x great grandparents for whom I know all of these individuals with the exception of two probables for my great grandmother Ellen Taylor. That would get me back into my French Canadian research and give some exposure to my husband's lines on this blog as well as his own blog

http://americancanadianancestors.blogspot.ca/

Adding this in will bring me back to where I was one year ago working away on my own lines my son in law's French Canadian families a little each day! The year has passed quickly with some really interesting discoveries and I hope more to come. I will begin this blog at the beginning of July when the garden work has settled down and time becomes more available for such new pursuits.  I think that I shall do this blog on Friday mornings.

Although it might be interesting to start a new blog for each of these two items I am going to just stay with my one blog which was aptly named English Research from Canada but has the clarifying lines about my French Canadian Research and if I find that I am doing quite a bit of reporting on my husband's lines (which he already blogs) I may add in a short line to my preamble about my blog.

More on all of this later as I start to plan how to get into these three challenges for myself - a Blake family tree once a week, a once a week blog on my 4x great grandparents and a once a week blog on the overall ancestry at the 4x great grandparent level working on French Canadian for my son in law/American-Canadian for my husband/primarily English for my own. There is quite a mixture in all of this as there is quite a bit of French in my husband's line and surprisingly on Family Finder at FT DNA one of my best matches is with an individual who has French Canadian ancestry almost totally! Must write to him and see if we can find the linkage as he is rated as a 2nd to 4th cousin.

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.

FT DNA Sale and continuing Routledge

There is a sale at FT DNA on the 37 marker yDNA test.

https://www.familytreedna.com/login.aspx

It is listed in the pink navigation bar across the site just down from the top of the page.

or the Blake yDNA project page:

https://www.familytreedna.com/group-join.aspx?Group=Blake

I will have more to say on the new y haplotree later.

I am still working away on the Routledge documents for my cousin. There are about 30 to do mostly just 30 lines per document but they are from the latter part of the 1500s so a little challenge there! I should begin posting wills again on Wednesday the 30th of April.

These documents I am working on have occasional references to the Routledge family of Bewcastle and of course my interest in this family is doubled and mostly doubled in each generation back from that. Two of my three x great grandparents were surnamed Routledge - Thomas Routledge and Elizabeth Routledge of Bewcastle married at Bewcastle in 1785 and their parents were Henry Routledge (and Margaret Tweddle) and George Routledge and Grace Routledge (Thomas and Elizabeth respectively). The tendency to marry Routledge continues back in time and of 16  great great grandparents for my great great grandmother Mary Routledge daughter of Thomas and Elizabeth Routledge 13 are surname Routledge. Thus far they represent the Oakshaw, Hill, Parke, Broderigg and a couple of other locations family. However most are from the Oakshaw Routledge line.

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.

BritainsDNA - Global Connections - All My Ancestry

I have been analyzing the results from my brother's testing at BritainsDNA and the global connections plots are most interesting. Given our 100% British ancestry back many generations known, with a couple not known past 3x great grandparents, I may find this the best tool yet to look at possible parents for Christopher Buller in London/Bermondsey. I think that Christopher's father is likely British and of the Buller family of Somerset/Cornwall/Warwickshire (and not sure if I can bring the Warwickshire and the southwest England Buller family together yet). But his mother is a mystery. I know he was born around 1764 from his burial registration at St Olave Church Bermondsey. The results of the Global Connections (European graph) place us right in the midst (to the bottom) of the German results. The British and German results are somewhat intermingled on the edges but we sit distinctively in the German area about midway through. This particular set of results is like a map of Europe when you examine it in detail. The French ancestry are to the south and the Spanish below that and to the side of the Spanish the Basque and then to the north of the British and German you find Norwegian and to the right of the German/Norwegian/British you find Hungarian and Croatian from the middle of this group to the south and from the middle to the north is found Ukranian and Polish. The Russians to the north west of the Ukranian and Polish. The Romanian and Bulgarian to the south west of the Hungarian and Croatian. This continues looking very like the map of Europe/Asia as you move eastward.

This is an unexpected result  in some ways but comparing it to the Family Finder Results at FT DNA not surprising given the number of German matches (individuals with only German ancestry and still living there). The matches are very distant (5th cousin to distant) and I find in general these are really distant; probably a very hearty piece of chromosome that has passed down from centuries past and just continues to get preferred at conception. Plus a sign that we likely have Saxon ancestors as well as our ancient British lines.

So I am looking seriously at the possibility of Christopher's mother being German or his grandmother. This would be the logical line since it is in London back into the 1700s and the wife of Christopher, Mary Beard, has a history in the Surrey area going back into the mid 1600s and earlier for some of her lines. The only other line that is somewhat mysterious is also in this Buller family but at Birmingham. That line is my mtDNA line and shows itself to likely be Scot either directly from Scotland or planters from Ireland coming back to England since the haplogroup is also common in Ireland.

I am considering testing myself now for All My Ancestry at BritainsDNA. There is just so much that can be learned from our genes to keep us on the right paths with our genealogy. Plus it is a wonderful gift to hand on to future generations. Now is the time to collect all this information as we enter the computer age. Our grandchildren may not be able to read these old documents if they do not learn cursive writing. It will be gibberish to them as some Old English documents already are unless you have acquired the skill of Palaeography.

Back to will transcription tomorrow; my weekend has been a busy one. Our extreme cold warning has finally lifted and we have a couple of days of minus 15 all the way up nearly to zero celsius. But then back to the deep freeze for a little bit with minus 30 or even colder. The wind child can be the worst part; at minus 39 you can feel the cold right into the bones after just a couple of minutes.

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.

Eye appointment and drops, All my Ancestry at BritainsDNA

I have been missing these last couple of days as my eyes recovered from eye drops (2 sets) and I always find that I need to stay away from light for a couple of days afterwards. Back to blogging again tomorrow.

The All My Ancestry results are now in at BritainsDNA for my brothers DNA. We match 48% at FT DNA so I am tempted to do All My Ancestry on myself at BritainsDNA in the near future. The results received pretty much compliment the results for him at FT DNA but a slightly deeper ancestral picture shows up. I expected to see some African DNA in our autosomal results but none is reported in the Population Finder at FT DNA however when it is reported with All My Ancestry it shows up as 0% hence less than 0.5% one would assume. My brother shows up as 100% European with 91% West European and 9% as southern European. I show up as 93% British Isles and 7% Middle East/Ukranian/Caucasoid. The reporting for BritainsDNA is much deeper and more extensive.

I have only just had a quick glance but I really like the colouring diagrams with All My Ancestry although I will say I equally like the display that FT DNA has for Family Finder. Both together give me an interesting picture of my autosomal ancestry (my known British ancestry goes back hundreds of years on most of my lines back into the 1500s and earlier in some cases). I do have two lines about which my information is limited - my great grandmother (my mtDNA line) and the mother of my 3x great grandfather (also in my maternal line back from my maternal grandmother's father's grandmother). Neither of the two really add to my knowledge of these two lines although I also do not think they have added any confusion with regards to those two lines which is always a plus in genealogy.