DNA, My Mother Line, and Combined History

In this Gencyclopedia entry, we delve into the science and implications of the mapping of human DNA. Most DNA information is gleaned from living people, but testing of ancient remains has increased considerably in recent years. We'll cover autosomal DNA and how genealogical information is taken from it, and how it's helped to fill out our family tree. We'll trace the entire history of Y-DNA in homo sapiens. We'll do the same for mitochondrial DNA, and I'll perform an analysis of my own, what I call my Mother Line. Then we'll review a timeline of civilization with respect to Y-DNA and mtDNA haplogroups and how our ancestors fit in.

Autosomal DNA

Contained in the cells that make up our bodies are DNA molecules, or deoxyribonucleic acid. See the image below of the structure of the DNA double helix. DNA literally are strings of atoms that can be extracted from not just humans, but any lifeform. DNA are essentially a programming structure, containing the rules for features of the form the body that contains them takes. In humans, our DNA is arranged in 23 chromosome pairs. See the next image below for the chromosomes of a male, where the 23rd contains gender information. For boys and men, this consists of what we call the X and Y chromosomes. For girls and women, there are two X chromosomes.


DNA Double Helix


Human Male Chromosomes

Autosomal means a chromosome that isn't specific to gender, which applies to the first 22 pairs. Because the X chromosome is passed from parents to female and male children, it's combined with the others to form a set of 45 chromosomes that can be analyzed to determine information about a person's ancestors' chromosomes. Now see the next image of human chromosomes below. This portrays a male set again, but it shows how a male child might inherit his from his grandparents. I'm not sure why a portion of these chromosomes are unknown, but notice that the unknown part in this example all come from the paternal side, because a child inherits precisely 50% of his genes from each parent and in this example the maternal side is complete. But even with an exact split from mother and father, there can be some variation in how much the child gets from each of his parent's parents. If the portions of each chromosome were divided down exactly in half in each generation, all of the traits of every ancestor in history would be contained in each of us. It's not physically possible to divide molecules indefinitely, so what actually happens is some portions of DNA don't get passed down at all. In this way, the more generations an ancestor is from you, you're more likely to not inherit any DNA from him or her. Also see the next image of the carrying of recessive genes. A recessive gene is a trait that requires both parents to pass it to the child for it to be evident. Red hair for example, could be passed to a child when neither parent has red hair, but ancestors on both sides carried the gene.





Because your chromosomes have segments of DNA from your ancestors, this can be used to determine that two people are related to each other. And it can be used to specify which individual those segments came from, thus narrowing down how those two people are related. This is also how ancestry.com's ThruLines are able to suggest the identity of a person in your family tree. As I've discussed in several places in the stories of my paternal lines, the science of DNA helps to reduce the source of error down to a wrong identity in every tree of the identified individual. If this occurs, inconsistencies become evident compared to other people who claim that individual as an ancestor, and this helps to remove the bad information. Autosomal DNA helps to fill out a family tree up to seven generations out from the tested person. I assume the 8th generation is the point where your chance of inheriting DNA from them approaches zero.

My ThruLines Methodology

As stated above, when ThruLines was first introduced as an ancestry.com feature, I was initially troubled regarding wrong tree information. I suppose that most if not all ancestry.com users start out accepting all hints that it gives for a person you enter in your tree. You don't realize that hints are simply a search of the databases for the name, and maybe some influence from other member trees with that person. This leads a noob to copy info that could be bad. If you follow the hints path without discretion, it definitely will lead you to bad information. I would guess that maybe 80% of ancestry.com users never leave the noob stage - they go down all the rabbit holes that hints lead them on, then they leave their tree like that and never work on it again. If you try harder, the next stage can get dangerous. I was driven to trace my family tree as deep as I could. Within a few generations, you start to run into multiple choices of the parents other members have chosen for a person. I think the majority of the info out there is correct, but if people start to choose the incorrect option that one member guessed, then that bad information can get copied and take on apparent validity as more people adopt it.

Eventually I realized that I was contributing to this problem, and I replaced my original tree. In the second stage I marked each person's name with asterisks if I was uncertain about the veracity of the info. I still run across members who copied people from that tree, not understanding the point of the asterisks. So eventually I became a responsible user, an actual genealogist, where I deleted my old tree and made sure that no person was in it that I wasn't certain of. But the damage had been done. As I say, I knew first hand how bad information was copied, and that made me skeptical of ThruLines.

But I realized one thing quickly, which was that only I have my ancestors, and DNA cousins connect to our common ancestors by different paths. If your DNA cousin connects through the sibling of your ancestor, they didn't copy your exact info. The potential for error is the previous generation. And then when another cousin connects in a different way at the generation before that, then that potential for error is lessened. Initially I graded my matches such that each additional path of connection doubled my certainty. But that actually underestimates the factual power of the network of DNA connections. As time has passed, my confidence in ThruLines has gone way up. But that said, bad information still exists and always will exist. Even if you make the best effort you can, honest mistakes occur. I was certain in the past that I had two different William Merediths of the same age and two different John Merediths as their fathers, and I thought ThruLines was backing it up. There no doubt are wrong names for some men in my tree, and my actual ancestor was their brother. That's fine in the long run because you have the correct father, even if you don't have the correct name. If you bark up the wrong tree, ThruLines won't give matches. Basically, ThruLines is helping all ancestry.com users to work through errors in their trees, step by step, if people are actively doing it.

I titled this section my methodology, and I'm going to get to that now. What finally penetrated my thick skull was that I could leverage ThruLines to break through brick walls in my tree. If documentation doesn't exist, or you haven't found it, and can't figure out the identity of an ancestor, if anyone else on ancestry.com has figured it out, and you've both done a DNA test, ThruLines will find the connection. So, the basic idea is that if I don't know a person's name, usually a woman, I can make an educated guess about her and her parents' identities, and ThruLines will either find matches to cousins who connect to you through those people, or it won't.

The key here is how to make the educated guess. Typically you know the husband's info and you know at least his father's basic info. So, the first educated guess is that the wife's parents were peers of the husband's parents. You know where the husband lived as an adult. If you know where the husband lived as a child, then his parents and the wife's parents may have been acquainted. Census records from that place and time can be searched for neighbors of the husband's parents. Census records from where and when the husband raised his family can be searched for neighbors-in-law. I had one situation where I knew the wife's first name but not maiden name, and these methodologies weren't finding her parents. Part of the problem was the husband died young. I knew that the wife remarried and I was able to find her probate. I guessed that her executor was her nephew, that her maiden name was the same as his last name.

Now the next step, having a prospective maiden name, whatever educated guess you made to find it, is to search databases for a father who lived in the right place and time who could've had a daughter of the target age. The two resources I've used for this are wikitree.com and geni.com. You can use google to find these links if you have the father's name and birth and/or death years, and locations help. If that doesn't work, I usually go to wikitree and enter the surname and manually look for names and locations. What you want is a line that went to as close to the correct location and time as possible that the prospective woman lived. When you have the father's data, and hopefully the mother, invent the daughter's name if you have to (the reason you don't have her may be that no one else has ever looked for her or knew she was a daughter of these people). Then enter her and her parents in your tree with all the info you have and wait for ThruLines to find matches. I believe that the ThruLines are recalculated once per day, so one pass will occur within 24 hours. Sometimes it's a jackpot and you get lots of matches. Other times the initial results change over multiple days. Sometimes you have matches and they go away. Sometimes you initially get none and it takes a few passes for them to register. The bottom line is you should wait at least a few days before drawing conclusions. If you have multiple matches, even only two, you're on track. If there are a lot of matches, then it's a slam dunk. If there are none after a few days, then repeat the process for another educated guess. The only thing I'm really uncertain about is the 5th great grandparent level, where it can't make matches through siblings or parents, I don't know how it knows there's a match.

Y-DNA

Because the Y-chromosome is passed only from fathers to sons, the same strand of DNA goes back on the male line, apparently indefinitely. This is incredibly powerful, being able to look deeply back into history, each generation passing down the same 1/46th of their DNA. But it's not indefinite. Every once in a while (in generations), a mutation of the DNA strand occurs. If it didn't, every man on earth would have the exact same Y-chromosome and it would be useless in distinguishing male ancestors. But mutations do occur. See the image below to illustrate what happens. Notice that both DNA helices are identical except for one pair of what are called nucleobases (T, A, C, G). This is an illustration of a child inheriting this strand of DNA from a parent, yet it comes out different. When this mutation happens, it's called a SNP or single-nucleotide polymorphism. This change in coding of the DNA may result in a change in the child that is beneficial or detrimental. It can lead to increased risk of a certain kind of disease.



When the SNP doesn't make descendants of the child less likely to survive, it leaves a marker where descendants of that child can be distinguished from descendants of his or her siblings. This is how what are called haplogroups are created, how the Y-DNA of humans has branched from what is called Y-DNA Adam, the prospective common male ancestor of all males on Earth. Y-DNA haplogroups are categorized by letter in alphabetical order, with A being the oldest and so forth (generally). See below the Y-DNA tree, showing how SNPs created the branches. The beginning branch is Y-DNA Adam, from which all others descend. M168 led to all haplogroups C to R. M89 led to haplogroups F to T. M9 led to haplogroups K to T. And so on. Each SNP is grouped with the leftmost descendant, for example C-M168, F-M89, K-M9.


SNPs of Y-DNA

Y-DNA Adam is believed to have lived from 200,000 to 300,000 years ago, in central- eastern Africa around Lake Victoria. SNP M168 split from haplogroup B about 100,000 years ago. From this came all homo sapiens who left Africa. See the diagram below for how part of D and E and all of C and F did. All descendants of P143 evidently left, which should mean this SNP occurred outside of Africa. See the next image for the migratory path of haplogroup C, taking it eventually to Asia, Oceania, and North America, although the split from D and others occurred in Africa. Haplogroup D split three ways: one in Africa, one to the Middle East, and one into Asia.




Migration Paths of Y-DNA Haplogroup C

Y-DNA Haplogroup E is the first that plays into the history of my ancestors. This is unexpected, given that 99% of my heritage is European, the vast majority of which emerged in haplogroup R. Haplogroup E emerged about 70,000 years ago. Part of E left Africa, and can be found in the Middle East and Europe. But not the part that I'm related to. Our Hollis paternal line is E2, specifically E-M75, which is extremely rare outside of Africa. I'll come back to E2 in the context of the timeline of civilizations and the path my Hollis line took to start out African and end up being English, which would be triggered another 68,000 years later.


Y-DNA Haplogroup E2 Modern Concentration

The rest of the Y-DNA of the world went through haplogroup F. It branched off from haplogroup C about 70,000 years ago in the area of modern Delhi India. See the image below to illustrate how the vast majority of men today descend from F-M89. Haplogroup G branched from F and is mostly found in the Caucasus. Haplogroup H branched from F and is mostly found today in India. Both of these SNPs occurred 48,500 years ago. The predecessor of both the I and J haplogroups split from F about 47,000 years ago and went west. The two became distinct about 43,000 years ago in the Middle East.


Migration of Descendant haplogroups of F-M89

Both the I and J haplogroups contribute to my most central paternal lines. Haplogroup I went largely to Europe, as indicated by the image below of its complete modern distribution. The Scandinavian concentration is what's called I1 and the Balkan I2.


Y-DNA Haplogroup I1 and I2 Modern Concentration


Y-DNA Haplogroup I-M253 Modern Concentration


Y-DNA Haplogroup I-M223 Modern Concentration

Haplogroup J split into J1 and J2 about 28,000 years ago, with J1 concentrating mostly in Arabia and North Africa and J2 forming an arc from around modern Syria to Armenia. My own Y-DNA is J-M172, or J2. I'll also come back to J2 and my Scott paternal line in the context of the historical development of civilizations. It would be another 26,000 years before its Middle Eastern origin somehow became Scottish. While Family Tree DNA only says that my Y-DNA is J2, I was able to enter the results on nevgen.org and it says this is the full path of my mutations: m172>m410>cts7683>l26>pf5088>pf5125>z2227>z1846>m67>z1847>y4036>z467>S25258. M67 is the most significant of these, aka J-M67, aka J2a4b. I think maybe this information could be used to conclusively prove that my line came from the Hamians, but I don't yet know how to do it. The only connection I've found to J-M67 is it's common in modern Chechnya. I definitely am not aware of how I could be connected to that specific part of the world.


Y-DNA Haplogroup J-M172 Modern Concentration

Getting back to splits from the F haplogroup in modern India, the K-M9 SNP occurred about 48,000 years ago and moved predominantly to the east, centered around modern Bangladesh. K was a pivotal haplogroup. As noted before, while haplogroups G to T descend from F, L to T descend from K. Haplogroups L, M, N, and O split from K in the range of 40,000 to 28,000 years ago. L moved west like many descendants of F, while M went southeast and N and O went east into modern China. P is the last major parent haplogroup, with Q and R descending from it. Q and R both factor into my paternal family lines. P emerged about 35,000 years ago, moving to the northwest into modern Tibet. Q split from P about 30,000 years ago, continuing initially to the northeast as well as R, which emerged about 27,000 years ago. Both began to the east of the Caspian Sea.

The majority of my family lines, as might be expected, come from the R haplogroup, particularly R2, as it makes up the majority of western European men today. It's quite interesting to consider it now, that Q and R came from the same origin, because Q entered my family tree by spreading northward into modern Siberia and eventually eastward until it crossed Beringia into the Americas about 15,000 years ago. Many Rs made the same trip, but I don't descend from that branch. Q1 enters my tree with the Tapp line, but that wouldn't occur until the modern age. I'll return to that in the context of the timeline of civilizations.

The R haplogroup split into R1 and R2 right after R diverged from Q, about 27,000 years ago. R1 is the predominant haplogroup of eastern Europe, while R2 is that of western Europe. As my family tree is almost all British, it's mostly R2. I do have some R1 lines that moved into Germany and Switzerland from the east at some point in the deep past. My R2 lines all descend specifically from the R-M269 branch, with some coming from later mutations. But before we come to relatively modern history, 27,000 years ago they were all hunter-gatherers somewhere in the range from east of the Caspian Sea to the steppe north of the Black Sea.

Mitochondrial DNA

Returning to the basic subject of human chromosomes, from which autosomal and Y-DNA are extracted, neither give specifically maternal information. Recall that the male gender chromosome pair is X and Y, while the female is X and X. The X chromosome doesn't illuminate the mother-to-mother heritage like the Y chromosome does for the male line. This forms a parallel with Western culture's documentation of people, where women of the past utterly disappear. But in science, a way has been found to reveal where our Mother Lines come from: mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA).

The mitochondrion (plural mitochondria) is found in the cells of most organisms, and it's a sort of engine of a cell's operation. I won't get into the details of its work, but genetic study has made use of it because it contains circular-shaped DNA chromosomes, and they are passed from a mother to her children through the egg cell. If you take a look back at the diagram above of the 23 male chromosome pairs for a grandson inheriting from his grandparents, you'll notice the circular-shaped mtDNA is included. It comes strictly from the maternal grandmother while the Y chromosome comes only from the paternal grandfather. Also, SNPs occur in mtDNA the same way as for Y-DNA, or all human beings would have the exact same mtDNA. Therefore mtDNA has left a record of haplogroup branches like Y-DNA. So, let's take a look at when and where those paths took the women of the human race.

See the image below for what I think captures the world history of mtDNA pretty well. mtDNA paints a simpler picture than Y-DNA, which I think makes sense because it indicates that women tended to travel less than men. The basic form of existence for the vast majority of our ancestors was women taking care of children and homes while men were out hunting and exploring. When women foraged, it was closer to home. And young men leaving home permanently to make their own way in other populations remained common up through the 19th century, when afterward both genders became very mobile.


mtDNA Haplogroups and Migrations

I'm no expert on genetic science. I've only learned as much as I need for a basic understanding. And I've not discovered why mtDNA haplogroups begin with L in Africa and A is in the east. The most recent common female ancestor (called mtDNA Eve) is still in Africa, not China. But though the mtDNA haplogroup letter progression doesn't follow the time progression, a tree of succession similar to that of Y-DNA is still formed. The three key pieces of information in the above image are the predominant haplogroups of geographical regions, the migratory paths and times, and the location of the emergence of major haplogroups.

Modern humans split from archaic ancestors 600,000 years ago plus or minus about 100,000 years, and the mtDNA L haplogroup was born. Different letters from L have been allocated to women who left Africa. As can be seen in the map, not all of Africa is predominantly haplogroup L, as enough of later branches spread back to northern Africa to become predominant there. The first migrations, evidenced by splits within the L haplogroup, occurred 200,000 to 130,000 years ago, expanding out from the mtDNA Eve location in southern east Africa. More migrations occurred over the next 50,000 years, including out of Africa through Arabia. As what happened with Y-DNA haplogroup F emerging 70,000 years ago, also around modern India mtDNA haplogroups N and M split from L between 70,000 and 50,000 years ago, and shortly thereafter (relatively) haplogroup R split from N.

M is the predominant mtDNA haplogroup today throughout Asia, established during even greater migrations over the subsequent 20,000 years or so until 30,000 years before present. During the same time, R migrated back to the west and became the dominant haplogroup throughout Europe, Western Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa. Many haplogroups split from R in the same period, including that of my own Mother Line, U, about 45,000 years ago. U is one of the rarer haplogroups in Europe, and it's believed to actually be the first descendant of L to enter it. Rs evidently sat back and were associated with farming before spreading out and with that technology their numbers swamped out other groups that actually descended from R much earlier, like U.

I'll get more specifically into my Mother Line in the next section. But to complete this sketch of the entire mtDNA story, while R was expanding westward and spawning branches, at the same time N went east and formed many branches around China, and reached Australia. M became the predominant mtDNA haplogroup in Eastern Asia. Then from 30,000 to 10,000 years ago, human migration again accelerated to reach nearly every corner of the globe, with haplogroups N, M, and R populating the Americas. In the last 10,000 years, deep sea migration reached Madagascar, the Caribbean, and Pacific Islands. As with the men, up until the last 10,000 years or so, our female ancestors led essentially the same hunting and foraging lifestyle modern humans always had, but spread out all over the Earth. Throughout the last 200,000 years of migration, what we call "races" developed, distinguishing characteristics of peoples who descend from a small group of Africans who left their home continent. But there is more genetic diversity within Africa, given that the majority never left and had 600,000 years of development.

Mother Line

I suppose it's not a coincidence that women are often neglected when it comes to genealogy. Today's western world is a patriarchal society, and going back in time toward the beginning of Christianity it was even moreso. Some ancient cultures that we come from were matriarchal, particularly Britons before the Romans, but that has little impact on the modern world. And it doesn't help to find specific information on our foremothers. I'd like to have as much of a story to tell about the women in my family tree as I do of the men, but there's not much to work with. I have Y-DNA to know things about surname lines, sometimes fairly specific things, going way back in time. I have the same in the mitochondrial DNA my mother passed down to me. But while our patriarchal naming convention allows me to look at all male lines, and even find out the Y-DNA for those lines, that convention is an impediment to doing the same for my foremothers. What follows here is my mitochondrial history, which is a single line and more limited than all the surname lines.

My mother's mother's mother was Elva Leona Hardcastle, born 1897 in Pike County Arkansas. Hardcastle in an English line. Elva's mother was Susan Elizabeth Draper, born 1875 in Grant County Arkansas. Draper is an English line. Susan's mother was Rebecca Ann Harris, born 1845 in Union County North Carolina. Harris is an English line. Rebecca's mother was Elizabeth Wolff, born 1805 in Mecklenburg County North Carolina. Wolff is a German line. Elizabeth's mother was Pamela "Milly" Doster, born 1775 in Mecklenburg. Doster is a German line. Milly's mother was Lydia Springer, born 1740 in Burlington New Jersey. Springer is a Swedish line that was in America before William Penn came.

Before I fully thought through this Mother Line, I expected it to go back to Germany, since it runs into a string of German women. But this happened in America, and it turns out that Lydia Springer's mother was Anne Prickett, born 1715 in Burlington. Prickett is an English line. Anne's mother was Elizabeth Robinson, born 1690 in Burlington. Robinson is an English line, ultimately of Scandinavian origin. Elizabeth's mother was Elizabeth Cozier, born 1678 in New Jersey. Cozier is an English line, where the name comes from French cousere which means a tailor.

The documentary trail of my Mother Line runs out here, which probably means that Elizabeth Cozier's father was an immigrant. The name is said to have come from Oxfordshire. So, in America our matriarchs evidently were in New Jersey. The land of that colony was first settled in 1630 by the Dutch and Swedish. After New Amsterdam became New York in 1664, the English also took control of New Sweden in 1702. Burlington is on the border with Pennsylvania, about 20 miles northeast of Philadelphia. Southern New Jersey had been settled by the Swedes and not the Dutch, but the English took control of it at the same time as the northern part. Burlington New Jersey was incorporated in 1693, so Elizabeth Robinson technically was born three years before Burlington actually existed. It appears that Elizabeth Cozier's father immigrated to the area that would become Burlington.

Evidence seems to place my Mother Line in early 17th century England. Thought the name Cozier came from Oxfordshire, that doesn't mean it necessarily stayed there. The Cosier male line went there probably not much earlier. But that doesn't place our Mother Line. So, we've reached the point of leaning on science to help us understand our deeper history. I have the Mother Line mitochondrial DNA, though I can't pass it to my children. But I've had it tested, and it came back as U2e1f1. As was the case for my Y-DNA, U2 is actually rare in Europe today, and scarcer still in Britain. See the distribution map below. U2e1f1 is the part of U2e that went to Britain, while U2e1 is specifically the European part of U2.



Anyway, apparently U2e initially entered Europe about 35,000 years ago but retreated when the last ice age covered most of the land with a glacier. Then U2e returned through the Steppe into eastern Europe and Scandinavia about 8,000 years ago. Beaker culture female remains have been tested as U2, as have Corded Ware and Yamnaya. But U2 was a minority source of the women in Britain. Most must have entered Britain with the Celts. Some may have come before, and some maybe with the Anglo-Saxons. It's more difficult to tell with mtDNA which of these paths my line took, but paired with R-M269 seems the most likely. See the interesting mitochondrial haplogroup migrations map below. Looking at the continents from the north pole makes more sense than the typical east-west projected map to see the actual distances that humans have trekked.


Mitochondrial DNA migrations that populated the World

Timeline of Civilizations

With all the history already told in this document of the development and migrations of human beings, this was before there was any hint of civilization. In this section we'll put the male and female haplogroups of my family tree into context with the known history of human development. This is dependent upon a record being left, which typically was writing. But science can determine more, from genetics as we've already covered, to archaeology and language. I don't leverage language much here, because it changes so rapidly compared to genetics and migrations. Let's go back to the beginning and get started.

The oldest evidence that's been found of long-distance trade between human groups goes back to the time that Homo sapiens first appeared, about 315,000 years ago. As noted previously, mtDNA traces to ancestors before Homo sapiens, with the L haplogroup beginning about 600,000 years ago. But mtDNA Eve lived as recently as 150,000 years ago and Y-DNA Adam about 270,000. To clarify, this prospective Adam and Eve aren't an attempt to identify the "original" humans. They didn't live at the same time, not even close. What they are is the most recent common ancestor of all humans today. Any earlier people weren't the ancestors of all of us and therefore not traceable to. For example, the first humans to leave evidence of their presence in West Asia was as early as 250,000 years ago, and they weren't any living people's ancestors. The earliest humans in Europe were there about 210,000 years ago, again not anyone's ancestors.



Moving on, by 170,000 years ago, humans began wearing clothing. As mentioned previously, our ancestors began to migrate in Africa around 150,000 years ago. Meantime as recently as 90,000 years ago, the Sahara was wet and fertile. The earliest evidence found of humans building structures was 100,000 years ago in Egypt. Humans began to adorn their bodies with jewelry 82,000 years ago at the latest. Shortly after that, our ancestors began to venture out of the African continent. The earliest cave art known was made about 70,000 years ago. At that time, our Mother Line was still part of the L haplogroup and probably lived somewhere between Arabia and India. Our Hollis E2 line was about to split from C in Africa, somewhere south of the Sahara. All others of our paternal lines were probably in the same area as our Mother Line, and part of the C haplogroup.

But don't get the impression that we're on the verge of civilizations at this time. Until about 40,000 years ago, Neanderthals co-existed with our ancestors. Neanderthals are said to have mixed with Homo sapiens, but if that's been identified in my genes I'm not aware of it. The earliest sewing needle found was made around 50,000 years ago by Denisovans, another non-Homo sapien people. About 48,000 years ago, Cro-Magnon people began to enter Europe. A flute's been found in Germany that was made by Cro-Magnons 42,000 years ago. At the same time, evidence has been found of deep-sea fishing technology being used in Oceania. 50,000 years ago, my Mother Line was part of the R haplogroup and probably lived somewhere in the northwest of modern India. By 40,000 years ago the U haplogroup existed and my Mother Line was somewhere between India and the Steppe north of the Black Sea. By 40,000 years ago, my Hollis line E2 had emerged from haplogroup E but was still most likely somewhere south of the Sahara. At the same time my Scott line was part of the J haplogroup but J2 had yet to emerge, and they were probably somewhere around modern Iraq. I1 and I2 had yet to diverge, and my I lines were probably to the northwest of my Scott line in the Middle East. All the rest of my known paternal lines were part of the L Y-DNA haplogroup by 40,000 years ago and were probably still within the confines of modern India, maybe having moved a bit to the north.


Last Glacial Maximum Refuges (orange and purple)

As illustrated above, what dictated human settlement in Europe until 20,000 years ago was the last ice age. The Cro-Magnon and other peoples were there, in small numbers. mtDNA U was there by about 35,000 years ago, but evidently removed due to the climate and didn't return until 8,000 years ago. Y-DNA haplogroups I1 and I2 had diverged by 30,000 years ago and were also in Europe. I haven't heard that they also didn't stay at the time, but they probably didn't. Yet they likely returned when the ice receded and much earlier than 8,000 years ago. 20,000 years ago, our Mother Line was probably somewhere in the Steppe north of the Black Sea. U2s are more common in India than Europe today, but I doubt my line went that far back to the east.

During this period the dog was domesticated. Rope was first conceived of 28,000 years ago and fibers began to be weaved into cloth. The first pottery was made. The initial signs of what would lead to civilization were stirring. My Scott J2 line emerged 28,000 years ago and by 20,000 years ago was somewhere between modern Armenia and Syria. My Hollis E2 line was still likely sub-Saharan African. The P haplogroup emerged about 35,000 years ago and from it came the Q haplogroup around 30,000 years ago and R 27,000 years ago. By 20,000 years ago my Tapp Q1 line was probably somewhere to the northeast of the Altai mountains, on their way to Beringia. Also by that time R1 and R2 had emerged and were somewhere around the Black Sea.

About 15,000 years ago my Q1 Tapp line was part of the first human migration into North America, by crossing Beringia. The Sahara was still a wet and fertile region, and my E2 Hollis line may have begun its move to north Africa. The pig was first domesticated at this time, and the sheep and goat a couple thousand years later. Archaeological evidence indicates the first warfare between groups of humans occurred in the region from what would be Egypt to the Levant, suggesting the beginnings of settled lifestyle and accumulation of power in individual people. In the Levant in 10,000BC Jericho has evidence of settlement, as well as in modern Syria where my J2 Scott line likely was. An abrupt warming period at this time kicked off the Holocene, the current geological epoch. This is probably what brought the I2 haplogroup to northern and western Europe. My Viking/Norman lines probably settled at this time around southern Denmark. My Tapp Q1 line was somewhere between modern Alaska and Virginia, essentially already at home. My R1 lines may have made their way to eastern Europe, and all the R2 lines were on their way to the area of modern Poland and Germany.

Around 9000BC ceremonial structures were constructed at Gobekli Tepe in southern modern Turkey. It's possible that my J2 Scott line was there, but they were probably in modern Syria as previously stated. At the same time to the south of my Scotts, Jericho had clearly emerged as a settlement, the first of many in the Levant. About 8500BC cattle began to be domesticated. Many megafauna went extinct at this time, due to warming of the planet but probably more to being hunted by humans. The loss of game may have played a role in the human mind of preserving their environment through agriculture, which began at this time in northern modern Iraq. Beer was brewed and bread was baked. The Catalhoyuk settlement was established in southern modern Turkey, again potentially in Scott J2 territory. Our R2 lines were part of the Yamnaya culture north of the Black Sea in 8000BC. Byblos in Egypt was settled by 7000BC. The Sahara became a Savanna at this time, and my Hollis E2 line was likely to the north of it. The first settlement in China was established, and proto-writing began there from 6000BC as well as in the Middle East and maybe southern Europe. My I1 lines were likely in Britain by now, the first of my ancestors. They were still foragers and probably ranged a large area of England and Wales before eventually adapting to the agrarian lifestyle and settling around the border between them. Given their history, they may never have fully embraced staying in one place. About 6000BC all Europeans were hunter-gatherers. In the next 500 years or so, farmers from Anatolia began to move west and wherever they went they subsumed all hunter-gatherer populations because the Anatolians were so much more numerous. The J2s that ended up in Britain were probably with them.


Model of Catal Hoyuk 7300BC Settlement

Evidence in the Balkans of copper smelting shows it began around 5500BC. Hama, the home city of my Scott J2 line, was founded by 5000BC. Around the same time, our R2 lines were with the Corded Ware culture around modern Poland and then the Beaker culture shortly thereafter. Our R1 lines had probably settled by now in modern eastern Germany and Switzerland. It might not have been much later than 5000BC that our McAtee R-M222 split from R-M269 and they went to the area of modern Ulster where they settled and became Irish. Settlements in Ukraine go back to about 4000BC. At the same time the large Mesopotamian civilizations began. The chicken was domesticated, as well as the horse. Horse riding might not have developed for another 2000 years, but it must've been more a means of warfare and projecting power than anything else, since the cultures that used it were agrarian. The Sahara began to turn into a desert about 3500BC. The Indus Valley civilization began about 3300BC. Most of my ancestral lines had been in the area, but were now gone for as much as 30,000 years.

About 3200BC writing was fully developed in Sumer and Egypt. At the same time, the first American civilization arose in modern Peru as well as the first in modern Iran. The first dynasty of Egypt was established in 3150BC. Stonehenge construction was begun about 3000BC. It's believed to have been built by the Anatolian migrants mentioned previously. But older cultures are believed to have first begun it in wood. I1 might've been involved in that, but I don't know. R2 lines began to arrive in Britain at this time as well, but they're not believed to have participated in constructing Stonehenge. They were around though, because it was 800 hundred years later when work on it was ended. Back on the mainland my Burgess R-U106 line split from R-M269 in the modern Netherlands. Our Draper R-DF27 line also split from R-M269 about this time in the Pyrenees in Iberia. Our Parrish R2 line remained in the area of modern Paris at this time. Another of our R2 lines branched from R-M269 around 3000BC, the R-L21 Medders who were then around modern Bavaria. I don't know when they moved to Britain, but it probably wasn't long after other R2s did. The Medders line is English, but R-L21 is much more common in Wales. So, the path they took is uncertain.


Stonehenge in Wiltshire England

The Sumerian epic Gilgamesh was the first story written, in 2700BC. In 2600BC the first civilization of Central America began, the Maya. The Great Pyramid was completed in 2500BC in Giza. It was probably by 2000BC that our Celtic R2 lines established their permanent homes in Britain and Ireland. Hammurabi's Code was recorded in 1780BC. In 1600BC the Hittites arose, and our Scott J2 line became part of that empire. The first song written down as notation occurred around 1400BC. The Hallstatt culture arose in Europe in 1200BC. At the same time, the major civilizations of the Middle East failed including the Scott line's Hittites, in what's called the Bronze Age Collapse. There are theories of Sea Peoples invading and destroying them, but I think it more likely was due to a prolonged drought.


Spread of Indo-European Culture beginning 4000BC, according to Kurgan Hypothesis
Although Indo-European genetics came originally from India 30,000 years ago, it was a later migration back to the east that resulted in the invention of Sanskrit

The technology of iron working began to spread around 1100BC. Around the same time, our Scott J2 line became Syrian. Carthage was founded in north Africa in 814BC, but our Hollis E2 line was probably not part of it. The Greek city-states arose around 800BC. The first recorded olympic games was in 776BC. Rome was founded in 753BC. Buddha was born in 563BC. Confucius was born in 551BC. The Achaemenid empire was founded in 550BC, and our Scott J2 line would then become Persian. In 509BC the Roman Republic was founded. The next year in Athens Greece, Democracy was instituted. In 432BC the Parthenon was completed. In 400BC some of the Parisii Celtic tribe began to migrate to Britain, and our Parrish line was part of that. In 323BC Alexander the Great died at Babylon. In 312BC my Scott J2 line became part of the Greek Seleucid empire. In 64BC the Romans conquered Greek Syria and my Scott J2 line became Roman. In 44BC the Roman empire began. In 27BC Mauretania became vassals to Rome, and I expect that was when our Hollis E2 line, which had merged into Berber culture for 10,000 years, became Romanized. In 4BC Jesus of Nazareth was born. In 43AD Rome first entered Britain.


The Romans invaded Britain for commercial prospects

In 79AD Mount Vesuvius erupted and destroyed Pompeii. In 122AD the construction of Hadrian's Wall began and our Scott J2 line was delivered to the fort at Magnis (modern Carvoran England). In 142AD my Scott line relocated to the Roman fort at Trimontium near modern Melrose Scotland, merging with the Selgovae Celtic tribe. In 178AD the Roman fort at Chesters was rebuilt for horses, and my Draper R-DF27 line came to England as part of the Asturian cavalry from the north of modern Spain. They probably merged with the Brigantes Celtic tribe. In the 3rd century our Hollis line arrived with the Moorish contingent of the Roman auxiliaries stationed near modern Carlisle. Given that they ended up southeast of there in Hampshire, I tend to think they merged with the Brigantes and not the Carvetii, although there may be no distinction between those two anyway. In 406AD the Romans left Britain. Our Hunter R-L2 line may have held on to being Roman longer than others, having been more likely wealthy. But forts are known to have been manned long after the Romans left, and all of our other Roman lines were soldiers.

Anglo-Saxons first began to settle in Britain in the early 4th century as Roman power waned. Meanwhile, in 570AD Muhammad was born in Mecca. In the 7th century, my Scott J2 line became part of the Anglian kingdom of Northumbria. So did our Hollis E2 line, and though they ended up being thoroughly English, I imagine they put up a fight against it at first given their history. Our Parrish line was originally Celtic, but I'm not sure they resisted becoming English.



In 843AD the Kingdom of Scotland was established, but my Scott J2 line wouldn't finally become Scottish until 1066 whem the Normans invaded England and took control of it for centuries, infusing English culture with French. Meanwhile, sometime in the 9th century gunpowder was invented in China. In 1347 the first wave of the Black Death hit Europe. In 1380 Chaucer began writing the Canterbury Tales. In 1381 the Bible was first translated into English. In 1438 the Inca empire was founded. In 1439 Gutenberg invented the printing press in Germany. In 1492 Columbus sailed to the Caribbean, revealing the Americas to Europe. In 1506 Leonardo da Vinci completed the Mona Lisa. In 1531 Henry VIII established the Church of England after the Reformation began in Europe during his reign. In 1563 William Shakespeare was born. In 1585 the failed colony of Roanoke was founded in North America by the English. In 1600 the British East India Charter was established, and the first ship landing was in Indonesia in 1602. In 1607 the Jamestown colony was established in Virginia by the English, and in 1620 the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth. From there, my family lines began to congregate in America.