Journals of a Time Traveller

This completes both the Odyssey of Y and Ovum series of blog posts.

Index

Odyssey of Y charts the journey of my Y-DNA, from the Zagros Mountains 25,000 years ago, to my Great Grandfather on the Western Front. It is yDNA haplogroup L. My terminal is Y-DNA Haplogroup L (M20) > M22 > M317 > SK1412 > SK1414 > FGC51088 > FGC 51041 > FGC51036 or simply L-FGC51036.

1. Odyssey of Y - Act 1.  25,000 BCE - Baradostian ibex hunters of the Ice Age Zagros mountains (present day Iran).
2. Odyssey of Y - Act 2.  18,000 BCE - Zarzian hunter-gatherers of the Zagros
3. Odyssey of Y - Act 3.    7,500 BCE - Aceramic Neolithic. Pioneer agriculturalists of the Zagros.
4. Odyssey of Y - Act 4.    3,800 BCE - Chalcolithic teller at Godin Tepe in the Zagros.
5. Odyssey of Y - Act 5.    2,050 BCE - Bronze Age smith at Bakr Awa, Shahrizor Plain of the Zagros. Visits a Ur III City.
6. Odyssey of Y - Act 6.    1,500 BCE - Hurrian merchant takes the lineage westwards to Aleppo, Syria, now under Mitanni control.
7. Odyssey of Y - Act 7.         64 BCE - Temple treasurer at Baalat Gebal, Byblos, Roman Syria.  Two alternative routes next follow, Option A and Option B.
8. Odyssey of Y - Act 8 Option A  235 CE - Early Migration Hypothesis (Roman Empire). A bureaucrat with Levantine roots is posted to Roman Britannia. Political events drives him to seek refuge in the Thames Valley.
9. Odyssey of Y - Act 9 Option A  1430 CE - Early Migration Hypothesis (continued).  Johannes de la Broke at a manor court.
10. Odyssey of Y - Act 8 Option B  1490 CE - Late Migration Hypothesis (Venetian Galley). Fishermen and mariners at Beirut, travels by the route of Venetian galleys to Venice and  onto Southampton, Early Tudor England.
11. Odyssey of Y - Act 9 Option B  1530 CE -  Late Migration Hypothesis (continued). Mariner's son and a wool merchant, takes the lineage from Southampton docks, to the wool producing Hampshire and Berkshire Downs.
12. Odyssey of Y - Act 10.     1746 CE - Recorded genealogy. John Brooker, Copyhold tenant farmer of Long Wittenham in Berkshire, England.
13. Odyssey of Y - Act 11.      1916 CE - My great grandfather on the Western Front in World War One.
14. Odyssey of Y - Act 12. Finale.        - Summary and rationale for my hypothesis that my "ghost" Y-DNA lineage L-FGC51036 remained for millennia in the Zagros region of South West Asia, before transferring to the Levant, where it later hopped onto Venetian galleys, to leave a son in Southampton, England.

Ovum charts the journey of my mitochondrial DNA, from the Levant 25,000 years ago, to my great grandmother at Southwood Hall Farm in Norfolk. It begins as mtDNA Haplogroup H (Helena) and grows over time to H6a1a8 (F8693412).

1. Ovum - Act 1.    25,000 BCE - Helena, Ice-Age hunter-gatherer mother in the refuge of the Levant.
2. Ovum - Act 2.      4,500 BCE - H6/a, early pastoralists and fishing on the Volga (present day South Russian Federation).
3. Ovum - Act 3.      3,000 BCE - H6a1 widow in Chalcolithic Yamnaya culture, leading her herding folk westwards towards the Pannonian plain (present day Moldovia to Hungary).
4. Ovum - Act 4.      2,200 BCE - Hypothesis for the movement of my lineage, and H6a1/a woman in Bronze Age Únětice culture at Moravian Gate (present day Czech Republic). Two alternative routes next follow - Option A and Option B
5. Ovum - Act 5 Option A.  930 BCE - Late Bronze Age Hypothesis (Migration Wave). Woman of Urnfield Culture (Central France) migrates northwards towards coast with English Channel.
6. Ovum - Act 6 Option A.  890 BCE - Late Bronze Age Hypothesis (continued) H6a1a8 woman in Eastern English Fens.
7. Ovum - Act 5 Option B   800 BCE - Hallstatt Iron Age Hypothesis (High status bride) in continental Early Iron Age Hallstatt culture. A hypothesis on movement and on the Celts.
8. Ovum - Act 6 Option B   550 BCE - Hallstatt Iron Age Hypothesis (continued) Elite bride moves from the Rhine to South East Britain, the British Earlier Iron-Age.
9. Ovum - Act 7.             55 CE - Iceni woman in the Brecks of South East Woman, during the transition of the Late Iron-Age La Tène culture to Early Romano-British. And a discussion on the Iceni and the Boudiccan Rebellion.
10. Ovum - Act 8.           440 CE - A girl born in late Romano-British culture, transfers through her lifetime to an early Anglo-Saxon grandmother, outside the ruins of Venta Icenorum, a Roman City in East Anglia.
11. Ovum - Act 9.         1349 CE - Medieval villager in South Norfolk faces loss, grief and hardship from the Great Death of the Plague.
12. Ovum - Act 10.       1661 CE - Recorded genealogy.  Generations of yeomanry in the South Norfolk parish of Carleton Rode. Conformist Anglicans and Worstead spinners.
13. Ovum - Act 11.        1871 CE - Restored portraits, agricultural labourers and rural poverty. A great grandmother from personal memory. Family tales.
14. Ovum - Act 12 Finale.        - My Norfolk mother, the wedding of her parents, ancestral resilience. A research link between my mitochondrial DNA and a resistance to Alzheimer's. 

Zen and the Art of the Haplogroup

​Haplogroup testing has slipped somewhat into the shadows following the surge of general autosomal DNA testing. It is a pity, though I suspect haplogroup testing will see a significant resurrection in the future.

​General genetic tests—those examining recombined nuclear DNA in the autosomes (and occasionally the X chromosome)—work well at a continental level and are sometimes slightly more refined. However, their ability to define lineages much deeper than that is often grossly exaggerated. They are also limited to a span of only several generations; beyond that, an individual's specific ancestral signature is inevitably washed out by the tides of recombination.

​I believe you can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.

​In comparison, testing for Y-DNA and mitochondrial DNA haplogroups shines in its logic and scientific rigour. Whilst restricted to only one or two narrow lines of descent, these genetic markers are incredibly resilient, carrying us back through the millennia.

​Integrated Ancestral Studies

These studies are not restricted to autosomal DNA alone. They embrace recorded genealogy, genetic matching, and local social and economic history. They draw upon landscape history, prehistory, archaeology, topography, architecture, and the broader context of evolutionary life on Earth.

It is, ultimately, a celebration of the ancestors. It is time travel.

The Norfolk Portraits

1932: The Wedding of Ernest and Ivy This image is an AI restoration and colouring of a 1932 wedding photo capturing the marriage of my grandparents, Ernest William Curtis and Ivy Maud Tovell, at Limpenhoe, Norfolk. This project tracks the direct matrilineal line, represented here by the bride and her mother, Caroline Tammas-Tovell, who is seated beside her.

I have mapped a hypothesis of the route my mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) has taken over approximately 1,000 generations. This journey commenced with the emergence of "Helena" 25,000 years ago in the Levant and concludes with my mother in a Norfolk village.

A Childhood Snapshot This is an AI restoration of a snapshot of my mother as a young girl, being "forced" to pose with a kitten by her brother, Dennis.

The Biological Engine: A Story of Fluke and Resilience

Mitochondria are a story of fluke and resilience. Billions of years ago, they were likely independent bacteria. At some point, they were engulfed by a larger cell but escaped digestion; instead, they formed a symbiotic partnership. The mitochondria provided energy, and the larger cell provided protection. They became the power plants located inside almost every cell of our bodies. Just as a city needs electricity to keep the lights on, our cells need a specific kind of "chemical energy" to keep us breathing, moving, and thinking.

Because they reside in the cytoplasm, outside of the central nucleus, they contain their own autonomous DNA. It is the mutations or variants on that mtDNA (in my case, Haplogroup H6a1a8) that I have been following. For geneticists, mtDNA acts as a vital marker; we can date variants and pinpoint their emergence to a specific time and geographic location. It is uniquely useful because, unlike nuclear DNA, it does not recombine or "shuffle" with each generation. Rather, it follows a strict line of descent. Traced backwards, it follows my mother, her mother, and her mother before her—along that unbroken matrilineage, all the way back to "Mitochondrial Eve".

A Legacy of Resilience: The Cache County Study

For students of Integrated Ancestral Studies (IAS), however, this is more than just a marker. It appears that those of us carrying H6a1a, H6a1b, or their descendant "daughter" lineages (such as H6a1a8) may have inherited a significant biological advantage.

The Cache County Study on Memory in Aging—a long-term investigation involving over 1,000 residents of northern Utah—sought to understand why Alzheimer’s disease (AD) clusters in families and why there is a notable "maternal effect." Researchers discovered that individuals belonging to the H6a1a and H6a1b sub-branches of the Helena lineage had a significantly reduced risk of developing Alzheimer’s.

While the exact biological mechanism is still being researched, the findings suggest that these specific mitochondrial lineages are more "resilient" to the ageing process. Their variants are located in genes responsible for the electron transport chain—the machinery that generates cellular energy. For this project, it adds a profound layer of meaning: the route this DNA took over 1,000 generations isn't just a map of migration, but a 25,000-year-old legacy of cognitive resilience. This may explain why Alzheimer’s has plagued my paternal line, yet remained notably absent from my maternal family.

The Journey of the Matrilineage

Matrilineal Staying Power From the perspective of human population genetics, I have noted the remarkable resilience and "staying power" of women across prehistoric societies. Men come and go, but the mtDNA remains. Consequently, Europe has become a broad matrix of diverse mtDNA haplogroups, while a relatively small number of Y-DNA haplogroups dominate. Warriors arrive and are later vanquished, but those who actually till the soil and produce often remain as the enduring genetic background.

The Norfolk Thread Records show that my matrilineage has been incredibly localised in south and east Norfolk since at least 1661 CE. I find it highly probable that the line was present there during the Late Medieval period, and I have further postulated that it may have lingered in this area as far back as the Iron Age. While these theories are based on rational conjecture—factual certainty only begins with that 1661 baptism—the proposed 25,000-year route suggests many instances of "settling" for centuries or even millennia. I view mtDNA as a genetic thread that weaves different cultures together.

H6a1a8: An Iron Age Haplogroup Throughout this journey, I have associated H6a1a8 specifically with the Western and Central European Iron Age. The clues exist in ancient DNA samples found in North Berwick, Scotland, and in its modern distribution. I hypothesise that my matrilineage likely entered the British Isles following the Late Bronze Age migration events from the south, but prior to the Anglo-Saxon "North Sea Migration Continuum."

Admittedly, I may be simplifying these movements. The journey may not have always been a linear "westward" trek from the Volga; the reality is likely far more complex. What I have attempted is to narrate a believable route through 25,000 years, acknowledging that many alternatives may exist.

Closing Log

I hope that someone finds the Ovum series useful, today or tomorrow. This is the personal journal of a Time Traveller left open.

To follow: 

an index bringing together Ovum (my mtDNA narrative) and Odyssey of Y (my Y-DNA narrative). From there, I shall move on to other subjects within Integrated Ancestral Studies, including:

• Restored and colourised photos of my late uncle's Korean War tour. The 1951/2 Royal Norfolk Regiment in colour. National Servicemen in action.

• Viscount Melbourne as Home Secretary personally petitioning for the release of my swing rioter ancestor. The incredible pardon from transportation by the man who a few years later transported the Tolpuddle Martyrs. By his whim alone do I exist today.

• AI for time travel. Strengths and weaknesses.

• Reflections on a forty-year journey through the tracing of ancestors.

• My 18 year old Boer War veteran ancestor of the 9th Foot.

• A fresh look at my late father's metal detector finds from Norfolk, and what they suggest about the boulder-clays of the East Anglian Plateau.

• Identifying struck flint and prehistoric stone tools

• Idyllea: Revisit my adventure tale of three siblings at the close of the Mesolithic period.

• Local history, archaeology, genealogy, genetics, prehistory and more.

If anyone finds these logs one day, then enjoy.