Journals of a Time Traveller

Comparing the ancestry results of two raw files from the same tester (myself) uploaded to DNA.land.

Myself.
Paper trail and family history 100% SE English, mainly East Anglian. 249 direct ancestors named in documentary research.

23andMe result before phasing (spec mode):
100% European broken into
94% Northwestern Europe
3% Southern Europe
3% unassigned European

Broken down further to:
32% British & Irish
27% French & German
7% Scandinavian
29% Broadly NW European
0.5% Iberian
2.4% Broadly South European

23andMe result after phasing with one parent (spec mode):
100% European
96% Northwestern European
1.8% Southern European
2.2% Broadly European

Broken down further to:
37% British & Irish
22% French & German
1% Scandinavian
36% Broadly NW European
1.8% Broadly Southern European

FT-DNA Family Finder My Origins.
100% European

Broken down further to:
36% British Isles
32% Southern Europe
26% Scandinavia
6% Eastern Europe

Now I am comparing the two raw files for the same person, uploaded to, and analysed for ancestry, by DNA.land:

23andMe V4 raw file for myself on DNA.land:

100% West Eurasian.
77% North West European
19% South European (broken into 13% Balkan / 6.1% South/Central European
2.4% Finnish
1.3% Ambiguous

FT-DNA FF raw file for myself on DNA.land:
100% West Eurasian
75% North West European
25% Balkan

Just for more information:

My mother's 23andMe raw file on on DNA.land:
100% West Eurasian
80% North West European
10% South European (broken into 7.7% South/Central Europe / 2.4% Balkan)
6.4% Finnish
2.3% Sardinian
1.5% Ambiguous 

Conclusion

Phasing on 23andme suggested that I inherit (in spec mode) nearly 1% Southern European from each parent. That each of my very East Anglian parents had a Southern European ancestor within the past 300 - 500 years is highly unlikely, considering 1) the paper trail, and 2) local history in this rural area. Therefore I feel that this reflects much older background ancestry for the local SE English population. Ancient DNA calculators also predict that I have higher than average levels of ENF/EEF than other local populations such as the Irish and Scottish, and lower levels of ANE. This appears associated with my Southern European flavour that some tests suggest as a minority percentage. FT-DNA suggested 32% Southern European! Some commentators have suggested that this might indicate significant French admixture to the SE English population, perhaps during the Norman and Medieval periods, carrying a southern signal higher into lowland Britain. Earlier admixture into Lowland Britain from the south, is also possible during late prehistory and the Roman period.

DNA.land has been noted for a bias to predicting both Balkan, and Finnish ancestry for testers, and my results are no exception. I feel that as with all current autosomal DNA test/analysis for ancestry, that DNA.land has a way to go. As with the other predictors, it is very successful at recognising me as 100% European (although ironically my Y-DNA is Western Asian). It is fair at spotting me as NW European, but NOT as successful as 23andMe. Below that level, once again it falls down - but I feel that this is understandable, as most predictors fail down for anciently admixed populations such as the English. They are far more successful at spotting for example, Irish/Scottish. For the English, we tend to be ripped across different European populations. The Southern European element is a particular surprise - but all of the testers so far have been confused by this background signal. Dienekes has himself, suggested Southern European DNA coming into England with the Normans:

http://dienekes.blogspot.co.uk/2016/...-ancestry.html

I'm starting to settle with this hypothesis, although I still have some interest in possible Southern European admixture earlier.

Finally... The two raw files for one person, have produced slightly different results. The FT-DNA raw file has I believe, more tested (but different?) SNPs than the 23andMe file. It would be interesting to know the differences. DNA.land, using the FT-DNA FF file, does not see Finnish, or South/Central European, but enhances the Balkan.

Family Tree DNA (FTDNA) have released a new, unexpected feature to their autosomal DNA Family Finder package.  It is clearly aimed at their customers (both new and existing), of mainly European heritage.  It uses ancient DNA references to plot our ancient ancestry.  It breaks European's ancient Eurasian ancestry down into four groups:

• Hunter-Gatherer (Western Hunter-Gatherer)
• Farmer (Early Neolithic Farmer)
• Metal Age Invader (Yamnaya / Bronze Age Steppe immigration)
• Non European (Other)

First of all, I welcome this new analysis.  Combined with the latest cutting edge research into the origin of the Eurasians, and with other open source calculators of ancient origin available via GedMatch - I feel that it can help us get personal with our ancient Eurasian roots.

However... unfortunately it has faults, as the online community quickly picked up.  In particular, with the Metal Age Invader component.  FT-DNA suggests that it represents the Yamnaya admixture event - where Copper or Early Bronze Age pasturalists, mounted on their horses, expanded from the Pontic and Caspian Steppes of Eurasia, into Europe around 5,000 years ago.  But 1) it doesn't include any ANE (Ancient North Eurasian) component from the Mal'ta-Buret reference, and 2) it of course cannot distinguish it's Western Hunter-Gatherer reference from that inherited directly within Europe or elsewhere.

All that the FT-DNA Metal Age Invader reference appears to represent, is the population known as Caucasus Hunter-Gatherer.  A minority component of Yamnaya DNA as we currently see it.

For the record, as the screendump above shows, my FT-DNA Ancient Origins are:

9% Metal Age Invader

47% Farmer

44% Hunter-Gatherer

0% Non European

Now that I've got that covered, I can move onto my next blog post, which I find more interesting - how I use My Ancient Origins to try to reconstruct my ancestry from 11,000 to 4,000 years ago.

Attribution: Fielding Lucas, Jr. [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

This post is partly an excuse to upload and store the above creative commons image.  My Y-DNA terminal SNP (L-SK1414) twin was a Balochi speaker in Makran, SW Pakistan.  In classical times, Makran was located in the Kingdom of Gedrosia.  It's almost ironic that an open source range of autosomal DNA testers on GEDmatch have been named after Gedrosia.

Gedrosia was a dry, mountainous country along the northwestern shores of the Indian Ocean.  The indigenous name for Gedrosia is thought to have been Gwadar.  It was conquered by the Persian king Cyrus the Great (559-530 BC). The capital of Gedrosia was Pura, which may survive today as modern Bampûr.  In 326 BC, The Macedonian king, Alexander the Great disastrously crossed the Gedrosian Desert, on the return from his campaign in India, and lost 12,000 of his men to the savage conditions.

Image of Gwadar Bay by wetlandsofpakistan (Gwadar - West Bay) [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.

So, although the GedrosiaDNA GEDmatch heritage calculators may have little to do with the legendary land that may have been host to my Y ancestors, out of interest, how do our atDNA test results tally with the GedrosiaDNA calculators?  These calculators are designed to measure Ancient Eurasian Admixture.

My results (using an FT-DNA raw file) against those of my mother (23andMe raw file).

My Eurasia K9 ASI Oracle:

• 39% Western Hunter-Gatherer
• 27% Early Neolithic Farmer
• 15% Eastern Hunter-Gatherer
• 12% Caucasus Hunter-Gatherer
• 7% SW Asian
• 1% Siberian East Asian

Mother's Eurasia K9 ASI Oracle:

• 40% Western Hunter-Gatherer
• 26% Early Neolithic Farmer
• 14% Eastern Hunter-Gatherer
• 12% Caucasus Hunter-Gatherer
• 6% SW Asian
• 1% Siberian East Asian

My Gedrosia K3 Oracle:

• 97.5% West Eurasian
• 2.5% East Eurasian

Mother's Gedrosia K3 Oracle:

• 96% West Eurasian
• 4% East Eurasian

My Gedrosia K15 Oracle:

• 40% Western Hunter-Gatherer
• 25% Early European Farmer
• 21% Caucasus
• 5% Burusho
• 5% SW Asian
• 3% Balochi
• 1% Siberian

Mother's Gedrosia K15 Oracle:

• 40% Western Hunter-Gatherer
• 24% Early European Farmer
• 18% Caucasus
• 4% Burusho
• 3% Kalash
• 2% Siberian
• 1% Balochi

My Ancient Eurasia K6 Oracle:

• 40% West European Hunter-Gatherer
• 39% Natufian
• 21% Ancient North Eurasian
• 1% East Asian

Mother's Ancient Eurasia K6 Oracle:

• 41% West European Hunter-Gatherer
• 38% Natufian
• 19% Ancient North Eurasian
• 2% Ancient South Eurasian
• 1% East Asian

Conclusions

We both appear to have inherited around 40% of our DNA from ancient Western (European) Hunter-Gatherer populations, nothing unexpected there.  Western Hunter-Gatherers not only lived in Europe, but appear to have contributed to some later Eurasian populations such as the Yamnaya and Early European Farmers.

We both have low counts of Ancient North Eurasian - particularly my mother, who scores only 19% ANE (Upper-Paleolithic genomes from the Lake Baikal region of Siberia, identified as Malta, Afontogora 2, and Afontogora 3, dated to 17 to 24 kya).  It has been noted during online discussions, that the English appear to have slightly lower percentages of ANE than do their close neighbours.  ANE is sometimes used to indicate Yamnaya ancestry (ANE was a component), that spread from the Eurasian Steppes into Western Europe during the Early Bronze Age.

I have 3% Balochi compared to 1% Balochi for my mother.  It may mean nothing, but it could just perhaps indicate something in the autosomes that associates on my paternal side with my Y-DNA story.  The indicators (particularly K15) suggest that I have more SW Asian ancestry, presumably from my paternal side - again, it just could associate with what we know about my Y haplogroup L-SK1414.

We have around 24-25% Early European Farmer ancestry, representing early Neolithic descendants of an admix of WHG and "Basal Eurasians".  This signal apparently peaks around 80% in modern Sardinians.  However, the "Natufian" reference are higher - 38-39%.  According to GEDmatch: "Natufian was an Epipaleolithic culture that existed from 12,500 to 9,500 BC in the area of Israel. They were derived about 50% from an original Out-of-Africa population, referred to as Basal Eurasians. If you are a European and show Natufian admixture, this does not imply that Natufians interacted with your ancestors. All it means is that Natufian like admixture was mediated to you via intermediaries, such as the early European Farmers from the Near East".  I'm not sure what to make of that.

By Rodney Burton [CC BY-SA 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons.

This line descends to me via my paternal grandmother, Doris Brooker nee Smith.  Her paternal grandmother was Ann Smith nee Peach. She lived during the 19th Century in Attleborough, Norfolk, but her origins baffled me for years before online genealogical research enabled me to crack it.

I published how I cracked it, and her father's story here.  In brief, her mother, Sarah, was born Sarah Riches near to Attleborough in Norfolk at Great Hockham in 1812.  Then ... somehow, she met a David Peach, from the East Midlands.  He was a shepherd and drover, and I'm best guessing that his vocation brought him into contact with a Norfolk bride.  He may have been droving livestock to Norfolk pastures or markets.  She returned to his home, in Etton.  Etton, is a village on East Midland county borders that has fluctuated in history between Northamptonshire, Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire, and the modern district of Peterborough.  It was this fuzziness that hid his roots from me for a little longer.  They married in Etton in 1835.  Their daughter, and my ancestor, Ann Peach, was born later that year at Etton.

In 1837, her father David Peach was convicted at Lincoln Assize Courts of stealing two cattle.  He was sentenced to Life Transportation to Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania).  He went on to be transferred to a particularly tough penal colony in Tasmania.  He was eventually pardoned, but not granted licence to return to England.  Meanwhile, his wife Sarah, and her young daughter, Ann, somehow managed to return to Norfolk, where she found refuge with her parents, now living in the market town of Attleborough.  For a while they went to live on as servants.  For years, Sarah remained in Attleborough, never remarrying, although she had at least two more children.  She worked to support herself and her children as a charwoman or washer woman, working a laundry.

But ... where were the roots of her East Midland Shepherd husband, David Peach?  I suspected that he was local to the Etton area.  Inquiries at various FHS stands at the 2016 Who do you think you are? event in Birmingham had lead me to this position.  Peach's seemed to be local, but the county boundaries kept changing.  I suspected the Stamford area.

Then a fresh search today.  I've recently taken out a month worth of subscription to Ancestry.co.uk.  They appear to have had a lot of Northamptonshire County Council archive records, indexes, and digitalised images added.  There, I found his family!

The ancestors via David Peach that I discovered today (see the above direct tree) were entirely from the parish next to Etton, the parish of Maxey.  This village today belongs to the District of Peterborough, and has been associated with Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire - but back then, fell within the County of Northampton.

The Peach family seem to have been shepherds and drovers for a few generations at Maxey.  David was baptised at Maxey in early 1807, the son of John and Ann Peach of that village.  His father had taken the name of an elder brother that had died as an infant, while their mother was carrying him.  The elder John had been the twin brother of Joseph Peach.  Joseph turns up as a witness at so many 18th Century Maxey weddings that I'm guessing that he had some sort of local office in the parish, or was a particularly popular man!  Our John (the 2nd), was relatively quiet on record, and unfortunately my search didn't reveal his marriage, nor the surname of his own wife Ann.  He did witness his elder brother's Joseph wedding alongside an Ann Mason.  Who knows?

Our ancestor John Peach's parents were a Maxey couple, that married there in 1762 - Peter Peach and Mary Rippon.  I can then trace Mary's baptism and parents in Maxey - she was baptised there in 1734.  Her father was Robert Rippon, a Maxey tailor.  He married our ancestor Alice Saunderson at Maxey in 1710.  Her parents in turn were Christopher and Alice Saunderson of Maxey.

And so ends today's family history lesson.  I now have 243 direct ancestors named in the tree.  I did add new siblings where I could find them by trawling the online digitalised images of the parish records and bishop's transcripts.

Photo of St Peter's Church, Maxey, Cambridgeshire under Creative Commons by Meg Nicol on Flickr

Updated direct Ancestry stats:

Generation 1 has 1 individual. (100.00%)

Generation 2 has 2 individuals. (100.00%)

Generation 3 has 4 individuals. (100.00%)

Generation 4 has 8 individuals. (100.00%)

Generation 5 has 16 individuals. (100.00%)

Generation 6 has 31 individuals. (96.88%)

Generation 7 has 57 individuals. (89.06%)

Generation 8 has 55 individuals. (42.97%)

Generation 9 has 46 individuals. (18.75%)

Generation 10 has 18 individuals. (3.91%)

Generation 11 has 6 individuals. (0.59%)

Total ancestors in generations 2 to 11 is 243. (12.07%)

Comparing 23andMe V4 kit raw file to FT-DNA raw file.

Both tests were taken by myself this year (2016).  I am here comparing the quality of two separate atDNA tests from the same person, by two different DNA for Ancestry companies.  As will be seen, the quality varies considerably, at least in terms of the number of SNPs that are tokenized once forwarded to GEDmatch.com.  This is NOT a test of how well both companies ascertain our DNA ancestry from these files.  Both use their own reference populations and analysis programs.  I've reviewed that elsewhere.  This test simply weighs how many SNPs are registered from the autosomes and X chromosome of one person.

Using the GEDmatch DNA file diagnostic utility, I received the following SNP counts:

Kit M551698 (23andMe V4)

Token File data:
Chr Token SNP Count
1 40974
2 42110
3 34199
4 31020
5 30421
6 36383
7 26352
8 27900
9 23644
10 27888
11 25363
12 25395
13 19880
14 15957
15 15529
16 16551
17 13745
18 16775
19 9006
20 13530
21 7324
22 7386
X 15359

Processed in batch 5355
Number of SNPs utilized by GEDmatch template = 523997
Number of regular SNPs = 517780
Heterozygosity index = 0.302721 (fraction of total SNPs that are heterozygous)
No-calls = 4911 = 0.93956084952678 percent.
Kit M551698 has approximately 19959 total matches with other kits. Of these matches there are 4982 >= 7cM and 14977 < 7cM.


Kit T444495 (FT-DNA file):

Chr Token SNP Count
1 57931
2 59602
3 47094
4 41772
5 39314
6 47546
7 36567
8 36753
9 30643
10 36889
11 35941
12 35850
13 26763
14 22650
15 20899
16 21935
17 18379
18 22586
19 12773
20 19587
21 10001
22 9750
X 19176

Processed in batch 5914
Number of SNPs utilized by GEDmatch template = 709242
Number of regular SNPs = 694324
Heterozygosity index = 0.281384 (fraction of total SNPs that are heterozygous)

No-calls = 16077 = 2.263088030563 percent.

Kit T444495 has approximately 48755 total matches with other kits. Of these matches there are 9351 >= 7cM and 39404 < 7cM.

Conclusion

1 South_Dutch 3.89
2 Southeast_English 4.35
3 West_German 5.22
4 Southwest_English 6.24
5 Orcadian 6.97
6 French 7.63
7 North_Dutch 7.76
8 Danish 7.95
9 North_German 8.17
10 Irish 8.22

On the same, using my FT-DNA kit (with many more SNPs tested as demonstrated above:

1 Southeast_English 3.75
2 South_Dutch 4.03
3 West_German 5.42
4 Southwest_English 5.68
5 Orcadian 6.33
6 North_Dutch 7.15
7 Danish 7.36
8 Irish 7.59
9 West_Scottish 7.62
10 North_German 7.7

By Hellerick (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0], via Wikimedia Commons.  Modified by Paul Brooker.

I've created this distribution map of known Y haplogroup L, L1b2c or L-SK1414. This is my Y-DNA haplotype.  Not a lot of dots there are there?  This is how rare that this clade is.  L1a and L1b most likely (in my opinion) originated during the last Ice Age circa 18,000 years ago, south of the Caucasus, and west of the Caspian Sea in Western Asia.  In other words, in the area of present day Armenia, Azerbaijan, and North-west Iran.  Again, I emphasise, that is just my opinion, looking at present-time evidence.

Y haplogroup L itself may have diverged between L1 and L2, not so much earlier, or so far away from this region.  Again, just my present opinion.

My sub clade of L1b, is so rare, that it is impossible to say.  As can be seen from the map.  However, this is my blog, so I'm going to push out on this one.  My very best guess would be further to the East than it's parent.  I suspect South East of the Caspian Sea, in what is now Eastern Iran.  I could well be wrong.  We have so few tests from nearby Afghanistan for example.  So far, the SNP SK1414 has only been reported twice.  1) in Makran, SW Pakistan, in a Balochi speaking man.  Balochi is an Iranian language, closely related to North-West Iranian languages.  Researchers suggest that the Balochi people of Makran, largely migrated from south west of the Caspian.

The only other guy in the world so far confirmed is little old me, an Englishman.  I trace my surname (direct paternal) line back to the Thames Valley of Oxfordshire / Berkshire 270 years ago.  If my biological line follows that.  A number of STR testers of English descent appear connected to me by STR analysis.  They all descend from Thomas Chandler, who lived around the same time as my earliest recorded ancestor - only 32 miles away at Basingstoke.

From all of the evidence, I conclude that my Y ancestral line moved, probably in one generation, from Western Asia, perhaps from he edge of Persia, to Southern England conservatively between 2,000 and 400 years ago.  Although I would speculate between 1,600 and 600 years ago - during the Medieval or close by.

The above photograph is of my great great grandfather, William Bennett Baxter, born at Gressenhall Workhouse, Norfolk, England, in 1846.

Well, I've finally updated my Gramps genealogical database for the first time for months.  It's grown!  It now includes details for over 1,600 ancestors and family relatives.  I have to admit, a lot of the swell is down to online genealogical research, using Findmypast.co.uk, Ancestry.co.uk, Norfolk FHS, BMD, FamilySearch.org, etc.  I DON'T ever resort to copying off other people's trees, although I do at times, when I'm stuck, check them to see how other's think, as the hints that they should be.  To be honest though, I often don't agree with their conclusions.  

I do use Search.  I do use transcriptions - but whenever the original image is available (as it increasingly is now), I do verify with it.  Quite often, transcribers get it wrong.  I do also enjoy browsing through digitalised images of parish records, looking for siblings and clues.

Two Fathers

With traditional documentary-based genealogical research, we of course cannot prove a biological line.  We can rarely identify NPEs (Non-Parental Events).  All that we can do, is do our very best to track names through family interviews, documents and records.  Wherever possible, we should verify connections, check and record sources, look for correlations.  This isn't however always possible.  The genealogist has to then decide whether they have enough evidence to connect an ancestor.

For quite some time, I was proud that I had recorded all of my ancestors up to and including great great grandparent level.  However, at great great great grandparent level (Generation 6), I had three missing direct ancestors.  All three of them were the unrecorded father's of three great great grandparents, born illegitimate in Norfolk during the 19th Century.  I had 29 out of 32 biological ancestors recorded for Generation 6.

Then recently, I cracked two of them!  At least I have one evidence for their names.  Two of my illegitimate born great great grandparents, William Bennett Baxter, and Harriet Barber, were actually a married couple.  They were both illegitimate, and had both been born in Gressenhall Union Workhouse close to East Dereham in Norfolk.  William was base-born there  to a pauper named Eliza Baxter.  That she gave him the middle name "Bennett", and there had been Bennetts in the area, always made me suspect that his biological father was believed to have belonged to a Bennett Family, but which?

Then some research online, and it was a back to basics research that cracked it.  I was sure that I had seen their 1866 marriage certificate or entry, at nearby Swanton Morley before, probably years ago.  But if I had seen it before, and I now suspect that I hadn't, then I missed the key.  They BOTH named their alleged biological fathers in their marriage register entry!  How could I have not seen this before?

William Bennett Baxter claimed that he was the son of a labourer, by the name of ... William Bennett.  Harriet Baxter (nee Barber), claimed that her father was a labourer by the name of William Barker.  It's only their word, on their marriage entry - to their knowledge, but I've accepted that testimony, and have added ancestors on those lines.  I haven't yet found much about William Bennett. But I did quickly find more on my 4 x great grandfather William Barker.  He was a shoe maker in East Dereham, the son of a master boot maker.  Perhaps his family didn't approve.  Two years later he married an Elizabeth Wales.

My Fan Chart of Direct Ancestry, updated. I now have 234 direct ancestors named.

Other New Ancestors

The majority (but not all) of my newly claimed ancestors have been Norfolk ancestors on my Father's paternal side, balancing things up rather nicely.  Some of the newly discovered branches include a substantial number of new ancestors recorded both in Dereham, Norfolk, and in the nearby village of Swanton Morley.  They were two very ancestral homes in my tree.  I've recently extended the Baxter of Dereham line back safely to the 1760's.  I've also traced more of my great grandmother Faith Brooker's (nee Baxter) tree, including her direct maternal line to a Rachael Bradfield of Dereham.  Her daughter Elizabeth was baptised there in 1745.  In 1767, Elizabeth Bradfield married our 7 x great grandfather Solomon Harris at Swanton Morley.

I've also extended the line going back from my paternal grandmother (Doris Brooker nee Smith).  I've found more of her ancestors in the South Norfolk village of Hedenham, stretching back to a James Goodram, the son of John and Lydia Goodrum.  James was baptised at Hedenham in 1780.

Finally, I've tidied a few dates on my mother's side, and even started to reassess the ancestry of my children's mother.

Here is a count of direct ancestors from a Gramps report:

Generation 1 has 1 individual. (100.00%)

Generation 2 has 2 individuals. (100.00%)

Generation 3 has 4 individuals. (100.00%)

Generation 4 has 8 individuals. (100.00%)

Generation 5 has 16 individuals. (100.00%)

Generation 6 has 31 individuals. (96.88%)

Generation 7 has 55 individuals. (85.94%)

Generation 8 has 53 individuals. (41.41%)

Generation 9 has 44 individuals. (17.97%)

Generation 10 has 16 individuals. (3.52%)

Generation 11 has 6 individuals. (0.59%)

Total ancestors in generations 2 to 11 is 235. (11.68%)

That's enough genealogy for a while!  Living DNA report next.  Sample was activated and returned.