Odyssey of Y Act 9 - Option A Late Medieval villeins on Thames Valley, England. 1432 CE

Back to the Future: Time Travel and Haplogroup Index

The Great Mortality of 1348 and 1349, compounded by a succession of 14th-century crises, devastated medieval English communities. The Black Death itself claimed between 30% and 50% of the population, with mortality rates in certain parishes soaring even higher. In the ensuing chaos, entire settlements were thinned to the point of abandonment.

Consequently, this pandemic created a profound 'genetic bottleneck' within the Thames Valley. Y-DNA lineages likely vanished, along with the nascent surnames and families that carried them. It is probable that my own paternal lineage—L-M20 > M22 > M317 > SK1412 > SK1414 > FGC51041 > FGC51088 > FGC51036—already a 'ghost' haplogroup in Britain, very nearly succumbed to the pestilence. Yet, it flowed through; perhaps by the narrowest of margins.

The Long Wittenham Lineage: A Hypothesis of Deep Ancestry

To understand the presence of the rare yDNA haplogroup L-FGC51036 in the lineage of John Brooker—a copyholder in Long Wittenham in 1746—we must look beyond standard genealogical records. While a late-medieval entry via trade routes remains a possibility, an alternative "Early Migration" model provides a compelling explanation for how this exotic marker became integrated into the customary tenant class of the Thames Valley.

Under this Option A hypothesis, the lineage's arrival in Britain dates to the Roman period, perhaps via a Severan-era bureaucrat entering the port of Londinium. As the Roman administration contracted, this family may have transitioned from urban officials to villa owners in the upper Thames Valley. This deep-rooted presence explains the transition from late-antique landownership to medieval tenancy; the family did not arrive as outsiders, but rather weathered the "Dark Ages" in situ. By the eighteenth century, the status of Copyholder under St John’s College was not a sign of recent arrival, but the final legal evolution of a family that had maintained a continuous, rugged attachment to the Berkshire soil for over a millennium.

The status of a Copyholder in 1746 was likely the legal culmination of a three-hundred-year struggle for land security. To understand the John Brooker of the eighteenth century, we must examine the "Customary Tenure" most probably established by his ancestors during the upheaval of the fifteenth century.

The Vocation of the Ditch

In the 15th century, the Thames Valley was a volatile environment where survival was dictated by a family’s relationship with the water. For a progenitor in Long Wittenham, this was a world where the Roman masonry of the past had long been superseded by the practical necessity of the ditch and the levee. Managing the floodwaters at Clifton Brook was more than mere manual labour; it was a socio-political act of preservation. By protecting the communal granary and the wattle-and-daub heart of the village from winter surges, a tenant proved his indispensable value to the Manor and the community at large.

From Custom to Copyhold

This physical preservation of the parish boundaries likely translated into formal recognition at the Manor Court. In this context, the surname Brooker serves as a linguistic fossil; it marks a family that occupied, defended, and ultimately mastered the "marginal" yet fertile alluvial lands by the brook.

Such an ancestor would have secured his standing not through the exchange of coin, but through "Customary Right"—a title established by generations of continuous service and occupancy. This right was eventually codified as a Copyhold, a tenure held "by copy of the court roll." It was this specific legal mechanism that ensured, three centuries later, his descendant John Brooker would still hold title to that same reclaimed ground under the stewardship of St John’s College.

The Genetic Legacy

The DNA evidence supports a narrative of endurance rather than obscurity. The distribution of the rare L-FGC51036 marker in modern charts suggests a lineage that navigated narrow "extinction events" by remaining anchored to a specific geographical niche. This was not a slide into the shadows of history, but a transition into a deeper, more rugged form of belonging—a persistence that allowed an exotic lineage to become an integral part of the English landscape.

When our actual recorded ancestor, John Brooker held his land in 1746, he was merely holding the updated version of the very parchment John atte Broke touched in 1432. The lineage remained unbroken, anchored forever to the curve of the water.


The DALL-E 3 image above illustrates the countless possibilities and alternatives to either of my proposed options. This concludes my fictional narrative, which explored the potential routes my rare Asian yDNA may have taken to arrive in the Thames Valley. By 1746, the records place this lineage firmly on the map: my ancestor was recorded as a copyhold tenant within an open-field system. This specific option followed a Roman Empire hypothesis; however, in Act 10, we leave speculation behind to join the actual recorded lineage as researched from parish registers and other documents.

GO TO NEXT ACT - John Brooker, 18th century copyhold tenant of Long Wittenham, Berkshire. 1746 CE.


Back to the Future: Time Travel and Haplogroup Index

Odyssey of Y Act 8 - Option A Severan Bureaucrat, Romans in Londinium 230 CE

Back to the Future: Time Travel and Haplogroup Index

My yDNA follows the path: L-M20 > M22 > M317 > SK1412 > SK1414 > FGC51041 > FGC51088 > FGC51036. I have been posting episodes detailing events that could have occurred during its 25,000-year journey of development. I traced a journey from its roots in the Zagros and Caucasus mountains to the Levant, culminating in a fictional temple treasurer of Byblos in 64 BCE.

From that point, I have developed two competing hypotheses regarding its leap to the open-field systems of Berkshire. Option A represents the Early Migration or Roman Empire route. In this scenario, my lineage migrates to Londinium, Britannia, via the Romano-Greek colony of Patras and Rome itself, between 180 CE and 205 CE.


A fictional descendant of Phoenician temple treasurers in Byblos had outgrown his Levantine homeland. Seizing the opportunities offered by the Roman Empire, he first relocated to the Greek colony of Patras (Achaia) to bolster his bureaucratic credentials. There, he married a daughter of his Romano-Greek patrons before travelling to Rome itself to receive a new commission.

Septimius Severus (reigned 193–211 CE) was eagerly recruiting administrators from the East to dismantle the entrenched autocracy within his empire. Our ancestor, Aurelius, was keen to advance his career. Yet, once in Rome, he found the appointment to be a formidable challenge—not only for himself but also for his wife and daughter. The posting was Britannia.


The Gateway of Londinium

Home became a town house near the Walbrook stream, a short distance from the massive stone quays of the Thames. To Aurelius’s Greek wife, the docks were a cacophony of damp timber and salted fish—a far cry from her warm home in Achaia. To Aurelius, however, they were his lifeline.

Under Septimius Severus, the province was being transformed into a supply base for the Emperor’s planned campaigns in the North. Aurelius’s days were spent at the Forum, the largest building of its kind north of the Alps, overseeing the arrival of Spanish oil, Gaulish wine, and the local grain destined to feed the legions at Eboracum (York).

On the Road: The Procurement Trail

Aurelius’s duties took him away from the comforts of the capital and onto the straight, paved arteries of Watling Street and the Ermine Way. His task was the annona militaris—the requisitioning of supplies for the army. In the South and East, he met with local civitas leaders; men who styled themselves as Roman senators but still spoke with the lilt of the Belgae or the Iceni. In the ‘palace’ at Fishbourne, he negotiated with regional administrators who were eager to prove their loyalty to the new African Emperor.

The era of independent British kings was largely over, yet the chieftains still held sway over the rural populations. Aurelius had to be a diplomat; he needed their cattle, their leather for tents, and their lead from the Mendip Hills. He carried the authority of an emperor who did not care for tradition. If a local magistrate grumbled about the grain tax, Aurelius reminded them—perhaps with a touch of Levantine wit—that Severus rewarded loyalty but had little patience for the ‘old ways’ of the Italian elite.

The Domestic Struggle

The ‘great challenge’ he had feared in Rome manifested in the small details of daily life. He likely spent a fortune on hypocaust heating, burning endless cords of wood to keep his growing family warm during the ‘perpetual mist’ of the British winter. Whilst he could procure the finest Mediterranean imports for the Governor’s table, his own family had to adapt to local butter instead of olive oil, and the heavy, hopped ales of the North instead of the sweet wines of Achaia.

A Man of Two Worlds

Aurelius was a ‘Severan Man’—a product of a meritocratic, globalised empire. In the morning, he might have offered incense to Mithras or the Syrian Goddess in a small shrine by the London docks; in the afternoon, he was a cold-eyed bureaucrat calculating the weight of British wool.

He was the bridge between the ancient traditions of the East and the raw, developing frontier of the West. He was not just living in Britain; he was building the Roman machinery that kept it pinned to the map of the world.


In 235 CE, on the docks of Londinium, Aurelius heard the news: the assassination of Alexander Severus.

In March of that year, the last of the Syrian line, Alexander Severus, had been murdered by his own troops at Mogontiacum (Mainz, Germany). He was killed alongside his mother, Julia Mamaea—the woman who had effectively governed the Empire. For Aurelius, this was the death of his patron. The new Emperor, Maximinus Thrax, was a career soldier who had risen from the ranks; he had no use for the sophisticated ‘Eastern’ civil administrators favoured by the Severans. To the new regime, men like Aurelius were viewed as ‘palace softies’ who had drained the treasury on bureaucracy rather than the army.

The shift would have been felt instantly in Londinium. Aurelius gathered his family—which now included two daughters and a younger son. They were in grave danger. His only advantage was being among the first to receive the news at the quayside. He acted quickly before his property could be confiscated. Prepared for such a crisis, Aurelius had already formulated an emergency plan: an escape up the Thames with his wealth to a refuge he had kept secret.

Aurelius Belicatus (the son) By 250 CE, Aurelius the senior had passed away, succeeded by his son, Aurelius Belicatus, as head of the household. The farmstead was now developing into a respectable villa. He had married a young, local British wife.


The lineage remained, surviving into the mid-18th century as copyhold tenants. No longer following the imperial bureaucratic rules of movement, the paternal line now adhered to an agricultural rule of stability.

In the villages of the Thames Valley, across the borders of Berkshire and Oxfordshire, the family held their place not by deed, but by the "custom of the manor". Their names were etched into the manorial court rolls, securing their right to the land through generations of quiet husbandry. The ancient Levantine heritage, once carried by soldiers or traders across vast distances, was now tethered to a few acres of English soil—preserved by the very permanence of the feudal tradition.


With each passing generation, the lineage becomes increasingly British, then more specifically English. Few would ever guess at the ancient Asian heritage encoded within the nucleotides of the Y-DNA. That a line of descent has its roots in the Zagros Mountains, and later among the Hurrians and Phoenicians, could remain forgotten for over 1,700 years.

Whether one prefers the "Early Migration" theory or the "Late Migration" narrative—centred on late-medieval Venetian galleys—the genetic reality remains the same. We know that Y-DNA L-M20 > M22 > M317 > SK1412 > SK1414 > FGC51041 > FGC51088 > FGC51036 originated in Western Asia (most likely the Zagros or South Caucasus). It likely moved into the Levant, where it persisted as an uncommon, narrow "ghost" haplogroup. Eventually—whether in antiquity or more recently—it reached Southern Britain, where it remains incredibly rare today.

GO TO NEXT ACT - Option A. Medieval Thames Valley villeins. 1432 CE


Back to the Future: Time Travel and Haplogroup Index

Are the South East English actually Belgian?

The above image illustrates of some of my ancestral locations, as according to documented genealogy.  As can be seen.  I have quite a lot of East Anglian ancestry.  What might also be observed, is the location of East Anglia, and of South East England, in relation to Belgium, the Netherlands, and North East France.

I'm an East Anglian.  Much of my family tree is East Anglian.  Before documented genealogy picks up my family trail, who were the East Anglians, what were their origins?  The traditional answer would be that they were the descendants of the Angles.  An early 5th Century AD tribe, that relocated from Angeln, now in Schleswig Holstein, on the North Germany, South Denmark border.  Them, and maybe a few Saxons, Jutes, Suevvi, etc.  All pretty much from what is now North Germany and Denmark.  See the map below:

Archaeology sort of backs this up ... but also offers some slight alternatives.  At first, British Archaeology supported the Historians - that there was a near genocidal event during the 5th and 6th centuries, where the Anglo Saxon tribes arrived and displaced the Romano-Britons that had until then, lived in South East Britannia.  There certainly is plenty, even, overwhelming evidence, of Anglo-Saxon culture if not settlement in East Anglia at this time.  Below are the locations of a few of the many Anglo-Saxon cemeteries found in East Anglia - and their closest artifact correlations on the Continent - in Northern Germany:

It's all adding up.  However, then, a new trend appears in British Archaeology that plays down the Anglo-Saxon invasion hypothesis. From the 1980's onward, some British archaeologists started to argue that they saw patterns of land use continuity between the Romano-British and Pagan Saxon periods.  They argued there was no archaeology of genocide.  No battle sites.  No mass graves.  Instead they proposed that only limited numbers of Anglo Saxons arrived - and that their culture was largely adopted by the Romano-Britons that already lived here.  Some even suggested that no Anglo Saxons came here - it was merely a cultural import.

Then Genetics stepped in.  Most notably with POBI (Peopling of the British Isles) 2015, but also with a number of other studies, often comparing the DNA from excavated remains to modern populations.  They proposed a new middle house consensus.  No there was no genocide.  The modern English have more old British ancestry than Anglo-Saxon.  However, there was a significant Anglo Saxon immigration event.  But they mixed, intermarried.  Anglo-Saxon culture was adopted, but Anglo Saxons had not displaced the Britons.  They had married them.  The modern English it seems have around 10% to 40% Anglo Saxon ancestry, and 60% to 90% British.  Sort of watered down Celts.

The assumption that we have made, is that rural populations on the front-line immigration - such as East Anglians, were the most watered down, with highest percentages of Anglo-Saxon ancestry.  Why not.  The archaeology would support that.  The East Anglian landscape is littered with Anglo-Saxon, and Anglo-Danish place-names.  It is the most Anglo-Saxon landscape, and later, was firmly within the Dane-Law.

My Ancestry

It's all over this blog.  However, in summary, I am an East Anglian.  Born at Norwich, with all four grandparents of Norfolk birth.  I have been researching my family tree using genealogy, for thirty years, on and off.  I have accumulated the recorded names of 490 direct ancestors.  Around 80% or more of this ancestry lived here in East Anglia.  At Generation 6 (3rd great grandparent), my ancestry was 97% South East English, and 3% Swiss.  This is demonstrated in this fan chart of my recorded ancestry:

If that's not East Anglian enough - look at the right hand side of that fan chart, my mother's side.  My mother has 225 of her direct ancestors recorded, and everyone lived firmly in East Anglia.

I have documents, likenesses in family photos, and family stories to back my narrative ancestry; but I am also gradually building biological evidence through the use of DNA matches to other testers, that share a common ancestry with me, that correlates well with the shared DNA:

That the vast majority of our ancestry is very rural, and poor agricultural working class, would suggest that we have had ancestry here in East Anglia for a very, very, long time.  I have traced some lines back to early parish records in the 16th Century.  I would expect that many of our ancestors belonged to peasant families in Medieval Norfolk and Suffolk.  These, I'd expect were the descendants of Anglo Saxons, Romano-Britons, and Danes.

Here comes the paradox.

Population Genetics and the DNA

Documentary evidence confirms that I'm an East Anglian, and English.  But when I tested with the commercial DNA-for-ancestry vendors, such as 23andme or FT-DNA, my results, although seeing me as pretty firmly, a North West European, doesn't really see me as particularly British.  23andme suggested only 32% British.  They instead suggest that my ancestry is rather Continental.  High levels of "West European" or "French & German".  I at first assumed that this was ancient or early medieval ancestry, my Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Danish East Anglian roots showing through.

But is that the case?  Analysis using some of the latest calculators challenge that.  Here are the PCA locations of myself and my mother, on one such calculator.  This one (By David Wesolowski) includes many modern references grouped on language family, but also includes some references from actual ancient DNA in Northern Europe, including some extracted from Anglo Saxon remains in Cambridgeshire, close to East Anglia:

You see the red squares represent the Anglo Saxons in Cambridgeshire?  Mine and even my very rural East Anglian mother's place well to the right of them, closer to modern day Irish speakers, overlapping with modern day French speakers.  More Celtic it seems than Anglo Saxon.

Here's another PCA showing our positions (red myself, orange, my mother), this one by Lukasz, but based on the Eurogenes K36 calculator:

It puts me closer to Flemish then Walloon, followed by SE English.  Finally a third PCA, from Eurogenes K15: 

We consistently position between SE England and North France, Belgium, and the Netherlands; rather than between SE England and Northern Germany and Denmark.  It appears that we relate closer to Normans, Belgians, Walloons, Flemish, and Dutch - than we do to modern day North Germans or Danes.  Here is our K36 Oracle maps by Lukasz:

My mother has a slight more pull from Denmark and Schleswig Holstein.  Perhaps this is from early medieval Angle/Danish settler in East Anglia?  However, we both pull strongest outside of England, from the Low Countries.  Flemish, Dutch, and Walloon come up as closest Continental matches.  I'm not surprised.  I've noticed for some time, that the big vendors appear to give some testers of Normandy, Hauts-de-France, Belgium, and the Netherlands ancestry, very similar results to my own.

If our results were at all representative of East Anglians of local ancestry, then the modern East Anglian is perhaps as much, or more of a Belgian than he or she is a Dane or Angle.  So I've added a secondary circle to the map that I used above, to illustrate what are popularly beleved to be the origins of the East Anglians.  The new blue circle, represents not what history or archaeology suggests, but what my family's DNA currently suggests:

Note that I have included South East Britain in there - because clearly, there was no displacement.  The Romano-Britons were among our ancestors.

The Language Connection.

It has long been noted, that the very closest dialect or language to English, is West Frisian.  Old Frisian and Old English (or Anglo Saxon) were close.  Linguists group them together as "Anglo-Frisian".  Why is this?  If we all descend from Angles and Danes?

When did our "Belgian" ancestors arrive in Britain?

By Belgian, I'm referring to ancestors that we share not only with Belgians of local ancestry, but also the North French, and the Dutch.  Answer.  I don't know.  All that I am pointing out, is that the DNA of my East Anglian family appears to be more like that of people that today live in that part of the Continent, than in Denmark, Norway, or even North Germany.  However, here are a few ideas:

  1. The Bell Beaker.  During the Late Neolithic.  We believe that the British Bell Beaker people largely crossed over from the Lower Rhine Valley.
  2. The Belgae.  I'm not quite so sure about this one, but let's just go with it.  Roman historians recorded a late Iron Age migration from the Belgium area, into South East Britain.  They described them as using a Celtic language and culture, but being closer related to Germanic tribes to the east.
  3. An unrecorded migration from Northern France to Southern Britain during Late Prehistory.  This one was suggested by POBI 2015, that claimed to detect a relationship between the Southern British and Northern France, that they claimed was most likely Late Prehistoric.
  4. Roman Britain.  Britannia was often administered along with Gaul.
  5. Saxo Frisia.  Saxons didn't only Southern Britain, they also settled the Low Countries, where they took the name of the earlier tribe there - the Frisians.  Did many Anglo-Saxon settlers actually crossed over from Frisia?
  6. Norman.  1066 and all that.  A whole new elite arrived, often bringing artisans and supporters with them.
  7. Angevin and Medieval French.  For a time, large regions of France were ruled along with England.  French artisans, merchants, monks, priests, etc.
  8. The Elizabethan Strangers.  Protestant refugees were invited from the Low Countries, both Dutch and Walloons.  They particularly settled towns in South East England such as Norwich, and Colchester during the 16th and 17th centuries.
  9. The Huguenots.  French Protestant refugees that arrived during the 17th and 18th centuries.
  10. Background migration.  My favourite.  In addition to all of the aforementioned proposed migration events, the slow, gradual contact between South East England and the Low Countries / Northern France, that has always been there.  The drip-drip in the background.  That the North sea and Dover Strait separating the two areas is so narrow.  Merchants, refugees, masons, artisans, weavers - the Dutchmen and Frenchmen recorded as Aliens in many post medieval surveys.  The fishermen from Haut-de-France that frequently beached on the Norfolk coast.  The dutch herring fishermen that traded herring at Yarmouth market.
Summary.

All of this hinges on the DNA test results of just one Norfolk family.  I'm just making observations here, and I would so love to see more East Anglians test, and to use these calculators, to explore their ancient ancestry as well.  I have seen only one other East Anglian of a local family test, and their test results were similar to my own:

My 23andme "speculative Ancestry Composition results:

The other East Anglian local tester:

Pretty similar.

I'm NOT claiming that modern East Anglians or South East English, of local ancestry, do not have Anglo-Saxon, or perhaps Old Danish ancestry.  My mother's K36 radiates slightly around Denmark and Schleswig Holstein.  I'm NOT claiming that all East Anglians with local family trees would have the same results as my family.  However, if they did turn out to do so... then it would appear that we have so far under-rated our close relationship to the Low Countries.

We need more ancient DNA from Anglo Saxons, Angles in Schleswig Holstein, Frisians, Iron Age South-East British, South-East Romano-British, Franks, Old Danes, and others if we are ever to sort this out.  And we need more South east English of local recorded ancestry to DNA test, and to take an interest in population genetics.

Until then, I will postulate that on top of that red circle (Denmark, Northern Germany) - we South East English have more ancestry from that blue circle (Netherlands, Belgium, and North East France), than is popularly assumed.

My Drover Ancestors - walking in footsteps

I've recently, through DNA matching, reinvestigated my Peach ancestors of the Maxey area of Northamptonshire.  The men of this family were usually recorded as drovers or shepherds.  Below for example, are some of my Peach drovers as they stayed for the night at an inn in Hoe, Norfolk during 1851. Young James there, walking livestock from the other side of the Fens, was the 20 year old younger brother of my 3rd great grandfather, David Peach.

The family lived for a number of generations, in the area of Stamford, Maxey, and Eye, in what was then the County of Northants, close to Peterborough.  It was the perfect base for the transportation of Welsh cattle, sheep, and other livestock, from the North and West, across the Fen droves, and down to the rich meadows, pastures, and marsh grasses of East Anglia, where livestock could be fattened, before then being driven down to markets including Smithfields in London. Before the railways, this livestock had to be transported the hard way - by foot along a number of trails and droves, that took in watering points, grazing, and were secure from gangs of rustlers.

Many drovers were young men, that later settled as shepherds and labourers.  They were travellers outside of their home areas.  Visitors to far away inns, markets, fairs, and parishes.  Maybe that was an attraction for some local girls, such as my 3rd great grandmother, Sarah Ann Riches, of the South West Norfolk parish of Great Hockham.  These lads from far away, with strange accents.  Did she walk back with my 3rd great grandfather David Peach, all the way back to Northamptonshire?  They married at Holywell Lincolnshire, in 1835.  Sarah must have been heavily pregnant, because she gave birth to their daughter Ann Peach a few months later at Etton, Northants.

The livestock that these drovers were paid to walk many miles were often highly valuable, their monetary value far in excess of the personal value of a poor drover.  They had to be trusted to take care of them, and to behave with honesty.  It would be so easy to sell an animal on the journey, and to claim that it had died of natural causes.  Some drovers broke that trust.  In 1837, my 3rd great grandfather, David Peach, was convicted at Lincoln Assizes of stealing two cattle.  He was taken to a prison hulk ship moored into the Thames.  A few months later, he was transported for Life.  His convict ship stopped off at Norfolk Island, before then moving him to Van Dieman's Land (Tasmania) in 1838.  He was sent to the notorious hard labour Port Arthur convict settlement.  Some years later he was pardoned, but he was not granted licence to return to Britain.

Meanwhile, his young family suffered.  His wife Sarah Ann, with their young daughter, Ann Peach, returned to her family in Norfolk.  A wife of a convict, even if transported for Life, could not remarry.  She had to find means to survive and to raise Ann on her own.  She lived many years in the Norfolk market town of Attleborough, where she scraped a livelihood as a charwoman.  She had two further children.  One, she named David Wilson Peach.  Wilson, most likely the biological father - but she gave him her husband's first name.  Did she still harbour strong feelings for her far away husband?

Other male Peach's in the family continued to drove, as the above 1851 census reveals.  David was literally in another world.  Two of Sarah's siblings, Henry Riches and Maria Hudson (nee Riches), also migrated to Tasmania, albeit during the 1850s as volunteer settlers to the north of the Island.

Walking in footsteps

I had one of those time-traveller moments today.  It occurred to me, as I found a DNA match supporting my descent from these drovers, when I visited a website about them, how I on a personal level, have always been a long distance walker.  From sponsored long distance walks as a kid, until walking the Marriot's Way, and Boudicca Way in Norfolk only this year.  I absolutely love walking through the countryside.  Testing my endurance.  With a dog or two even better.  I've walked the Peddars Way twice, the Fen Rivers Way, the North Norfolk Coast Path, and the Weavers Way.  In 2016, I walked a part of the Pennine Way.  But all of those walks, some of them would have even crossed where my drover ancestors crossed.  With their dogs.  It's almost as though we have that hereditary link.  I'm the descendant of drovers and I walk.  Without knowing it, I have walked in their footsteps.

Here are some of my photos from my 2017 walks.  Perhaps some of these landscapes may not have been too dissimilar to the green lanes and landscapes that they knew (albeit without the huge open fields).

So maybe, just maybe, there is a link there.  The guy that just loves to walk through the East Anglian countryside all day, and those drovers of the Nineteenth Century.  The desire to walk and to explore.

Father to Son documented genealogy V LDNA test results

I received my son Edward's Living DNA results yesterday, 26 days before the deadline (albeit second sample as first failed. Edward was born severely disabled with severe development delay and doesn't always want to give a swab sample). Here I review all of the Living DNA results against what I believe ancestry is based solely on documented genealogical sources. These documented sources are supported only by family history, interviews, thirty years of documentary research - much of it very local, photographs (likenesses), social background (mainly rural working class, many very localised), local social history, and also in my case by DNA cousin matching:



NPEs and genealogical mistakes (particularly over six generations ago) are possible. However, bearing in mind the above factors, I feel that I have a reasonably good documented record to compare DNA-tests-for-ancestry against.

The two tests in the table below, are my son Edward (left), and myself (right). We are both British by nationality and English by ethnicity. We live in East Anglia, home of many of our documented ancestors. I am mainly of East Anglian ancestry, but with some Oxfordshire, Berkshire, Northants, and Swiss lines. Edward's mother by ancestry is half English (Berks, Wilts, East Anglia, Beds, Somerset) and half Irish.

The "actual documented ancestry" are percentages divided into LDNA sub regions, based on Generation 6 (32 x 3rd great grandparents) with some references to Generation 7 when noteworthy.



Discussion.

Living DNA has made great commercial headway through the use of the POBI dataset, that had been acclaimed by the original team, as demonstrating a distinguishable pattern that aligned well with the Anglo-Saxon period British kingdoms. The reference samples were well chosen, with geographically local born grandparents, and a bias to rural testers over urban (that see more mobility). However, LDNA, we know, have made lot's of alterations with their sub regions.

In both the case of Edward's and my documented East Anglian ancestry, the LDNA saw less than 50% of what I'd expect. I believe that some of our EA went elsewhere - Lincs, SE England, Germanic, Scandinavian, etc.

Edward got a big chunk of Lincs and SE England that I just do not think is real.

I got 10% Tuscan that I don't believe. Something could however correlate to a Swiss 3 x great grandparent. But that percentage? I know it is possible. Edward got no Tuscany.

Edward, with his 25% actual Irish ancestry received 98% GB & Ireland. His father, myself, although 97% actual, received only 70% GB & Ireland. I think that rather like with other test companies - Ireland, Scotland, and Wales look more "British" than do the English on tests. Yet Edward only received a mere 2% Irish on the test! That is an even more serious underscore.

Before I tested with Living DNA, I really was starting to lose faith in autosomal DNA testing for general ancestry. When Living DNA launched, my hopes were raised that with the right references, computing power, and chips, that one day, they could be much more accurate and meaningful than they have been up to now.

After Edward's results, I'm starting to lose a bit of faith again. I feel that these tests are good for pin pointing a corner of Europe at best. Beyond that, there may be average PCA plots, but they are far too fuzzy to base "ancestry composition", my origins", or "ethnicity estimate" percentages on with any degree of certainty or accuracy. Fun yes. Useful to build a personal DNA "ancestral population flavour and PCA plot" yes. But that's all. Beyond that is a roll of the dice. Too many testers take their results far too literally. Too many testers also display brand loyalty.

As for haplogroups, Edward's results were disappointingly basic.

Y-DNA L1

mtDNA H (only 4 mutations listed on the csv file).

Who were my great great great great grandmothers? Generation 7 Female ancestors

Above.  One of my daughters posing in workhouse pauper attire, in the very workhouse that some of her own ancestors lived.  Gressenhall Rural-Life Museum, Norfolk.

Here I will attempt to list as many of my 4 x great grandmothers, who they were, where they lived, and something about them.

  1. Elizabeth Brooker (nee Seymore).  b.1797 Drayton, Oxon. England.  Mother to seven children.  Wife of an agricultural labourer.
  2. Hannah Edney (nee Hedges)  b. 1784 Enstone, Oxon, England.  Wife of a thatcher.
  3. Brickwall.  Switzerland.  Wife of a copper smith.
  4. Susannah Durran (nee Waine) b. 1809 Tadmarton, Oxon, England.  Wife of a tailor, mother of seven.
  5. Anne Bennett (nee Neale).  b. 1786 Norfolk, England.  Farmer's wife.
  6. Frances Baxter (nee Shilling). b. 1778 Gressenhall, Norfolk, England.  Bricklayer's wife and mother of four.
  7. Mary Barker (nee Bligh). b. 1797 Scarning, Norfolk, England.  A shoe maker's wife.
  8. Jemima Barber (nee Harris).  b. 1800 Swanton Morley, Norfolk, England, an agricultural labourer's wife, and mother of eight.
  9. Mary Smith (nee Smith).  b. 1775 Attleborough, Norfolk, England.  An agricultural labourer's wife, and mother of seven.
  10. Elizabeth Hewitt (nee Freeman).  b. 1779 Attleborough, Norfolk, England.  An agricultural labourer's wife, and mother of five children.
  11. Ann Peach (nee ?)  b. 1779. Northants, England.  Wife of a Shepherd, mother of four.
  12. Elizabeth Riches (nee Snelling) b.1781 Banham, Norfolk, England.  Wife of an agricultural labourer, mother of nine children.
  13. Elizabeth Barber (nee ?) Lived at Halesworth, Suffolk, England.
  14. Brickwall
  15. Elizabeth Beckett (nee ?)  b.1770.  Lived at Tasburgh, Norfolk, England.  Wife of an agricultural labourer, mother of seven.
  16. Frances Gooderham (nee ?) b.1790 Saham Toney, Norfolk, England.  Wife of an agricultural labourer, mother of eight.
  17. Mary Ann Curtis (nee Rose) b.1806 Buckenham Ferry, Norfolk, England.  Wife of a marshman and agricultural labourer, mother of nine.
  18. Elizabeth Larke (nee Dingle)  b.1795 Strumpshaw, Norfolk, England.  Wife of an agricultural labourer. Only two children found.
  19. Elizabeth Rose (nee Brooks) b.1806 Postwick, Norfolk, England.  Wife of agricultural labourer, mother of nine.
  20. Hopeful Barker (nee Morrison) b.1804 Lingwood, Norfolk, England.  Wife of an agricultural labourer, mother of eight. 
  21. Susanna Key (nee Briggs) b.1781 Strumpshaw, Norfolk, England.  Wife of an agricultural labourer, mother of four.
  22. Elizabeth Waters (nee Ransby) b.1772 Freethorpe, Norfolk, England.  Wife of a mole catcher, mother of four.
  23. Judith Goffen (nee Shepherd) b.1772 Reedham, Norfolk, England.  Wife of a carpenter, mother of six.
  24. Emily Nichols (nee Beck) b. 1795 Halvergate, Norfolk, England.  Wife of an agricultural labourer, mother of only two known.
  25. Elizabeth Tovell (nee Smith) b.1795 Toft Monks, Norfolk, England.  Wife of an agricultural labourer, mother of six.
  26. Ann Tammas (nee Dove) b.1786 Norfolk, England.  Wife of an agricultural labourer, mother of five.
  27. Ann Lawn (nee Porter) b.1763 Limpenhoe, Norfolk, England.  Wife of an agricultural labourer, mother of four.
  28. Mary Springall (nee Wymer) b.1789 Mouton St Mary, Norfolk, England.  Wife of an agricultural labourer, mother of seven.
  29. Brickwall
  30. Catharine Thacker (nee Hagon) b.1797 Shipdham, Norfolk, England.  Wife of an agricultural labourer, mother of three (died 1832, husband remarried).
  31. Sarah Daynes (nee ?) b.1783 Witchingham, Norfolk, England.  Wife of an agricultural labourer, mother of ten.
  32. Mary Quantrill (nee Page) b.1791 Wymondham, Norfolk, England.  Wife of a weaver, mother of four

What I will also say, is that these ancestors could have had more children, that I have not found baptism records for.  Also, that in addition to looking after the household, and rearing so many children, they would have to contribute to income whenever they could, be it by laundering for others, tailoring, and seasonal casual work on the fields.

The Roman Contribution

I took the above photo of a Roman tombstone at Colchester.  It's the image of a Roman cavalry officer, ruling over a defeated Briton.  It had apparently been damaged during the following Boadiccan Rebellion.  No doubt the Iceni-led rebels against Roman authority would have found this image a tad humiliating.  The point that I want to make here though, is that the cavalry soldier that this tombstone commemorates, may have been Roman, may have died in South-East Britain, but actually hailed from what is now Bulgaria!

The archaeological and historical evidence suggests that as a foreigner in Roman Britain, he was far from alone.  There are a number of similar stories, that suggest that Roman Britain was visited by many other people from across the empire -  not only people from what is now Italy and Bulgaria, but also from what is now the Netherlands, France, Greece, Syria, Lebanon, Germany, Spain, Tunisia, Algeria and Iraq.  Visitors appear to have included not just military, but merchants, specialists, politicians - they all occasionally stare out at us from the archaeology and histories of Roman Britain.

We know that they were here.

Previous anthropological investigations at Trentholme Drive, in Roman York identified an unusual amount of cranial variation amongst the inhabitants, with some individuals suggested as having originated from the Middle East or North Africa. The current study investigates the validity of this assessment using modern anthropological methods to assess cranial variation in two groups: The Railway and Trentholme Drive. Strontium and oxygen isotope evidence derived from the dentition of 43 of these individuals was combined with the craniometric data to provide information on possible levels of migration and the range of homelands that may be represented. The results of the craniometric analysis indicated that the majority of the York population had European origins, but that 11% of the Trentholme Drive and 12% of The Railway study samples were likely of African decent. Oxygen analysis identified four incomers, three from areas warmer than the UK and one from a cooler or more continental climate. Although based on a relatively small sample of the overall population at York, this multidisciplinary approach made it possible to identify incomers, both men and women, from across the Empire. Evidence for possible second generation migrants was also suggested. The results confirm the presence of a heterogeneous population resident in York and highlight the diversity, rather than the uniformity, of the population in Roman Britain.

Leach, Lewis, Chenery etal 2009

I could have alternatively used more historical evidence of individuals - the General from Tunisia, the Syrian in Northern Britain, with a Southern British born wife, the York woman that appears to have had mixed African ancestry, etc, the recurrent Greek names, the Syrians, Algerians and Iraqis that patrolled Hadrians Wall.  As Charlotte Higgens stated in Under Another Sky, Journeys in Roman Britain 2013:  

"In Roman Britain, you do not have to look far to find traces of people sprung from every corner of the empire.  Because of the Roman's insatiable desire to memoralise their lives and deaths, they left their mark.  Some fell in love, had children, stayed.  Many no doubt to, were brief visitors, posted to Britannia and then off to the next job, in Tunisia, perhaps, or Hungary, or Spain.  In the Yorkshire Museum is an inscription made by a man called Nicomedes, an imperial freedman and probably Greek, to go by the name.  He placed an altar to the tutelary spirit of the provenance - 'Britanniae sanctae', sacred Britannia.  Also in York, a man called Demetrius erected two inscriptions in his native Greek - one to Oceanus and Tethys, the old Titan spirits of the sea; the other to the gods that presided over the governer's headquarters.  The Roman empire was multicultural in the sense that it absorbed people of multiple ethnicities, geographical origins and religions.  But Roman-ness - becoming Roman, living as a Roman - also involved particular and distinctive habits, architecture, food, ways of thinking, language, things that Romans held in common whether they were living in York or in Gaza.".

South east Britain was a part of the Roman empire for no less than 370 years, and was strongly influenced by it both before and after that membership.  That represents quite a few generations, maybe around 12 to 18 generations.  So in AD 410, as locals in Britannia fretted about their Brexit, Germanic immigration, and were petitioning Rome to send the troops back, some of their pretty distant ancestors, had witnessed the arrival of Rome with the Claudian Invasion.  That's a long time for contact and admixture to drip feed.

Did this long membership of the empire leave a genetic signature in Britain?  The current consensus is no!  We have not yet found anything in the British admixture, that can be ascribed to Roman Britain.  Not on an autosomal DNA level.  The given explanation is that the Romano-British admixture experience was so cosmopolitan, and diverse, that no one contributing population managed to leave a lasting signature.  Each case was apt to be washed away by the phenomena of genetic recombination.  It hasn't left a background admix in modern South-East British populations that has yet been detected and recognised.

However, enthusiasts that test their DNA haplogroups do often find results that are not easily explained by conventional British population history.  Odd haplogroups turn up.  My own Y-DNA, L-SK1414, with a Western Asian origin, is just one example.  Perhaps some of these rogue haplogroups in Britain, are a smoking gun of Roman Imperial experience. 

The site of Venta Icenorum here in Norfolk.