Mitochondrial Mike (April 28, 2008)

[Please note uncertainty regarding R1b in Europe.  Jan’09]

More genetic ancestry.  Because the mitochondrial dna, found in every cell of every human, has a mutation rate much slower than that of the Y chromosome, you tend to get much broader/distant results on genetic testing.

When getting an mtDNA test done, your results are presented in comparison to the Cambridge Reference Sequence (CRS) which is the mtDNA of a random lab scientist at Cambridge when the first sequencing was done in 1981.  All human mitochondrial dna is compared to this sequence and your differences are reported.

I am haplogroup H (which is also the haplogroup for the CRS).  It's pretty much the same migration pattern as for the R1b males.  Iberia during the LGM and then up to the British Isles and probably a Scottish ancestry (which fits the genealogy).

I am getting a further 'mt-H' test done which may help identify a more specific haplotype and perhaps narrow down the geography somewhat.  [Later:  I am H1.  No big surprise here; this more or less mirrors the R1b males.  Due to the slow mutation rate, you tend to get less of a detailed trail for the mtDNA results.]

I do have a high resolution match on the FTDNA database - this means that this person and I share a common ancestor (most likely).  There's a 50% chance that we share a common ancestor in the last 28 generations (vs 52 generations for a low-res match).  This person lives in Texas and has roots in Mass/Me and back into Pictou County, Nova Scotia, on his maternal line.  He seems convinced that our common ancestor is more recent (comparing the genealogy, it would have to be before the 1870s).  Perhaps he's right, but considering the timeframe and breadth of the genetic match, and considering the large Scottish migrations to Nova Scotia between 1773 and 1840, the common ancestor could also have been from before 1773 back in Scotland.  Oh well, it's cool to see that connection and wonder what it might have been.

I must say that all this genetic ancestry has made me stop and think, not just about those who first settled in Nova Scotia, or even those who lived over the last few centuries in Scotland, but over the hundreds and hundreds of generations that ran before.  It's futile, of course, but I just can't help wondering about who they were, what they were like, how they lived, etc.  And when I think about all that, all these people had to go through, I'm a little surprised that I'm even here.  I'm from a line of survivors, but then we all are.

The Source of the Danube and other source-ical stuff (April 12, 2008)

Genetic Ancestry Month continues at the McGregorblog/Campblog with a pic of cousin Ewan.  I think you can probably work Star Wars into just about any post, Dear Reader.

I cannot recommend Stephen Oppenheimer's "The Origins of the British" highly enough.  Here, Oppenheimer comments on myths about British origins, discussing Celtic cultural origins in this case,

1. Central Europe during the last millennium BC certainly was the time and place of the exotic and fierce Hallstatt culture and, later, the La Tène culture, with their prestigious, iron-age metal jewellery wrought with intricately woven swirls. Hoards of such jewellery and weapons, some fashioned in gold, have been dug up in Ireland, seeming to confirm central Europe as the source of migration. The swirling style of decoration is immortalised in such cultural icons as the Book of Kells, the illuminated Irish manuscript (Trinity College, Dublin), and the bronze Battersea shield (British Museum), evoking the western British Isles as a surviving remnant of past Celtic glory. But unfortunately for this orthodoxy, these artistic styles spread generally in Europe as cultural fashions, often made locally. There is no evidence they came to Britain and Ireland as part of an invasion.
   
   Many archaeologists still hold this view of a grand iron-age Celtic culture in the centre of the continent, which shrank to a western rump after Roman times. It is also the basis of a strong sense of ethnic identity that millions of members of the so-called Celtic diaspora hold. But there is absolutely no evidence, linguistic, archaeological or genetic, that identifies the Hallstatt or La Tène regions or cultures as Celtic homelands. The notion derives from a mistake made by the historian Herodotus 2,500 years ago when, in a passing remark about the "Keltoi," he placed them at the source of the Danube, which he thought was near the Pyrenees. Everything else about his description located the Keltoi in the region of Iberia.
   

and later follows up responding to questions from readers.

The MacGregors had lost their lands in Argyll, thanks in no small part to Robert the Bruce favouring the Campbells with grants of land.  Several centuries after they had largely left Argyll (name-wise anyway) the MacGregor name was banned by the Crown.

One variant of MacGregor is Greer.  Who knows if this was a clever twist on the name to avoid the long arm of the law, or simply your typical anglicization.  What about cousin Jane Greer, who was born Bettejane Greer in Washington DC in 1924.  She played quintessential femme fatale Kathi in the 1947 film noir "Out of the Past" with Robert Mitchum and Kirk Douglas.

Watched "Out of the Past" this week.  Excellent.  She's great.  Mitchum absolutely rules the screen.  The dialogue, settings and story are top-notch.  Jane Greer, in fact, was cast as Rachel Ward's mother in "Against All Odds" which was a remake of "Out of the Past".  Steve at Noir of the Week Blog thinks "Out of the Past" is the greatest noir ever made.

1. To me, the film’s greatest strength is of its mysterious characters, who they really are behind their facades. The reasons behind both Jeff’s and Kathie’s actions are ambiguous, there is no monologue provided to explain where each other’s loyalties and goals lie. The lack of explanation works to its advantage, its adds to the mythic feel of these ideal noir characters. I never feel for a moment that Jeff, Kathie, Whit et all are not complex and human (due to the astounding performances of the leads), but it’s quite an accomplishment that they can be so and yet remain ambiguous in their nature.
   

Other noir just recently watched include:

* Murder, My Sweet (1944).  I didn't really like or 'get' this one.  I didn't feel Dick Powell was a great Philip Marlowe although apparently Raymond Chandler liked him in the role.  I just didn't imagine this guy sitting alone in his office with a bottle of bourbon, but then he's being compared to Bogart.  The plot for this one is pretty confusing.

1. *Gun Crazy (1950).  Sort of a Bonnie and Clyde type story.  Certainly keeps your attention, but you won't really think of this as a noir.  Good filmmaking.
   

2. *The Asphalt Jungle (1950).  A great John Huston film, definitely one to watch.  A fatalist, ensemble descent into doom.  As NotWk puts it, this film could be seen as part of the Huston triology of "The Maltese Falcon" and "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre".  Contains great noir lines such as ""If you want fresh air, don't look for it in this town." and when Emmerich's wife complains about "all those awful people" her successful lawyer husband comes into contact with, Emmerlich spells it out: "There's nothing so different about them. After all, crime is only a left-handed form of human endeavor."
   

MacGregor of Craignish (April 10, 2008)

As The Flea notes, this could well be McGregorblog.

I had mentioned previously below that there seems to be a Craignish connection in my genetic matches, a distant Campbell connection to that area of Argyll.

However, one Campbell with whom I am very distantly related is himself more closely related to the MacGregors.  For his relation, he believes it was around the time when the MacGregor name was banned (early 1600s) and his MacGregor ancestor changed his name to Campbell.  (Note, Rob Roy McGregor's legal name was Campbell as he used his mother's family name).

But, I thought it odd that I would have Argyll Campbell connections further back yet be paternally related to this MacGregor-turned-Campbell.

As Kevin Campbell has noted, the Campbell Clan is not from one line (Diarmaid O'Duibhne or whoever) but rather a tapestry of lines including the founding chiefly line, the landed 'gentry' from that area of Scotland, and mostly farmers and commoners from Western Scotland and Ireland.  If you weren't part of the chiefly line, as it appears I am not, then you were something else.

For me, it looks like MacGregor.  I have written the head of the MacGregor Clan in the UK and he has looked at my genetic markers.  He believes that I would be a MacGregor clansman, but distantly related from the time before surnames were used.  So, perhaps I never had an ancestor with a surname MacGregor.  By the time surnames were adopted, my family line had been absorbed by the Campbell group.

As for my afore-mentioned Campbell distant-cousin, I can imagine a scenario where there were two brothers -- one was my ancestor whose line would adopt the Campbell name in Argyll, the other remained a MacGregor and his line moved out of Argyll as the MacGregors lost their lands to the Campbells.

I guess I didn't mention below that the R1b-9 (Rox) haplotype is also known as the 'Basque' haplotype due to its strong resemblance to the present day Basques.  Only Basque Region wines in my house from now on!

So, MacGregor of Craignish.  And my son's name would be Ewan ... McGregor.

This DNA stuff is wild.  A week ago, my family roots stopped at the shores of Cape Breton Island in 1839.  I suppose I wasn't really looking to follow it all back.  However, I did want the deep ancestry and I did want some of the mists to clear.  I have the deep ancestry and now some of the mists from the long past have begun to clear.  This is where my family lived, this is where they had laid down their roots, quite possibly for thousands of years.

Rox (April 4, 2008)

Update: my remaining 37 markers are now in.  Making a few matches with relatives in the database, although few and distant ones.  "Craignish" appears to be popping up for me, from a Campbell whose line came from Craignish, but I'm also matched with a MacPherson gent who has some Campbell matches and has roots in Craignish, and also with a McInnes whose family went to Australia (I note on the wiki page for 'Campbells of Craignish' that there is a connection with the McInnes clan).  I'll have to update my letter below, as this would make me a distant cousin to Her Majesty and Princess Di via the Barons of Saxe Coburg Gotha. [later - not the case, phew!]

Further to this, I received DNA results on my first 12 y chromosome str markers yesterday.  I am of the R1b group -- not all that surprised to see that, but there could have been other results.  [Later:  R1b1c2]

As per Kevin Campbell's analysis of Stephen Oppenheimer's genetic analysis of the British Isles (see Table 2 in particular), my results for the six markers that Oppenheimer used exactly match Oppenheimer's R1b-9 group, which Oppenheimer calls 'Rox'.

Rox was among the first migration north from the Iberian ice age refuge and followed the shoreline (the British Isles were just a peninsula of the continent then due to much lower sea levels - there was no English Channel or North Sea) up along the west coast of Ireland and into Scotland.

So, my paternal lineage is from this indigenous group, the first people of Scotland.

from the desk of Mike Campbell

Her Royal Highness Queen Elizabeth II

Buckingham Palace

London UK

Dear Majesty,

I trust this email finds you well.

I am writing to you as a member of the indigenous Scottish community, Oppenheimer's R1b-9 'Rox' clan in particular.

May I take this opportunity to apprise Your Majesty regarding the matter of certain North Sea oil revenues ...

Please note that any humour, intentional or otherwise, associated with this post in no way relinquishes any of my claims on North Sea oil revenues or anything else I got coming to me as an indigenous Scot (insert joke here, I guess).

In all seriousness, though, I am really quite awed by this finding.  To think my family had been kicking around those monroes and glens for such a long time.  Yesterday was quite a momentous day for me and my family, it's quite something to be provided with this kind of information on your roots.

I do have more markers coming in the next few weeks, as well as the mitochondrial dna test results, so more later.

Haplotype Mike (March 17, 2008)

Ok, a little more on genetic ancestry research.  As I've said, my dna sample has been isolated and has gone to the lab for sequencing.  Should have y results by the end of April.

Looking at my four grandparents, now all deceased, I believe I am able to get dna information on all four of them.  From my testing, I will be able to get my father's paternal line and my mother's maternal line.  I have been in touch with 2nd (or so) cousin on my mother's side who is going to get his y-test done, so this will give me info on my mother's father's paternal line.  This leaves my father's mother's maternal line -- I can get either my father, or one of his siblings or one of his sister's children to get the mtDNA test to provide this information.

As I mentioned before, I am mainly interested in the deep ancestry, not just for my Campbell line but for all four grandparents' lines.  Granted, there is only so far I am likely to be able to go to get this stuff.  For example, there may be someone alive who would be a male descendent of my father's mother's father and who could give me this y-info (also a Campbell line), but it would be a stretch to track this person down.  Something to look at, perhaps.

Remember, considering I am two generations removed from my grandparents, if you go back to 5 generations, that's 32 grandparents.  If you go back 10 generations, that's 1048 grandparents.  If you go back 20 generations (roughly 500 years if you assume 25 years per generation), that's over 1 million grandparents.  And that number doubles with each generation.  Forget about tracing ancestry all the way back, we are all cousins many many times over.

So, getting info on four is interesting, but it gives you just a small number of the millions of lines of ancestry that each of us have had.  In the "60 Minutes" piece, an example is given where someone finds out their y results are Peruvian (or something), and their mtDNA results are Japanese.  Wow, they say, I am of Peruvian-Japanese descent.  But what they don't know and will never know is that every other line of ancestry is Swedish.  Ninety-nine point nine nine nine percent of their ancestry is Swedish, and it's information that has become unknowable to them and has been lost forever from a genetic research standpoint.  (By the way, the whole dna testing thing cannot be considered any kind of 'scam' so long as the person doing the testing has the slightest clue what they're getting done.)

Still, for someone like me who is of ancestry that -- a) appears to have arrived in North America fairly recently, b) were generally 'clannish' to begin with (but then, I suppose, who wasn't?), and c) prior to that, had been residing in a fairly remote part of the world that saw relatively little new faces for a long time -- if I know that ancestor A was an indigenous Scot or if ancestor B was indigenous Irish, then it is likely that a good chunk of the others were the same.  If ancestor C turns out to have been of Central European descent, for example, I would be less confident of how big that other 'chunk' of similar ancestry would be.

Am I R1b?  I?  R1a?  Something else?  We shall see before too much longer.  Over at the Campbell DNA Surname Project (with which I shall be participating with my y results), the administrator Kevin Campbell notes that about two-thirds of Campbells sampled show dna markers that would put them into what would be considered as the 'indigenous Scottish' haplogroup.  About 18 percent is the Scots/Irish group which would relate to the migration of Irish to Argyll as the kingdom of Dal Riata was established some 1500-1700 years ago (and, also, the means by which Gaelic moved from Ireland to Scotland).  Another 12 percent is in the Atlantic Modal Haplotype group.  The AMH is the most common form of R1b and would represent the genetic markers for the first people to enter the British Isles following the Last Glacial Maximum coming out of the Iberian Peninsula.  It would be akin to the present-day Basque haplotype; it is associated with human males along Atlantic Europe.

I don't understand it properly, but I would guess that both the Irish and Scottish indigenous haplotypes would have been split off from an AMH.  Not sure, but I believe the AMH is believed to be the ancestral haplogroup for R1b.