The Ultimate Ancestor.


When I envisaged this post last night, I was simply going to make it an easy, simple little table of the L haplogroup variants on my Y Chromosome. I had a few problems with that, and therefore consulted for a while with Google Gemini AI. Before I knew it, my post grew and grew. I know that I have a particular kind of mind. One that hyper-focuses, sees patterns in data, and buries itself into whatever science, history, or nature that currently catches my attention. As this blog is intended only for me to enjoy making my observations, I shouldn't be apologizing.

Gemini helped me a little with organising the dating, and contexts of the yDNA. When I was happy with it, I then felt that the beginning of the story was far older than yDNA Adam, and therefore I asked it to add some information on earlier human evolution. But then that wasn't enough, because humans are only the recent end of just one lineage of life, so I asked it to add the story of Life on Earth. But then I knew that wasn't enough. You see, we are star dust. We see ourselves as selves. As individuals that matter the most. We make our own ego. Yet all life is entwined, and interdependent. Every several years, every cell in our body is replaced. Even as an individual I am no more than a chain of events, a process rather than a thing. A small percentage of my bodyweight isn't even the same species - it belongs to countless micro-organisms of a biome. We are also a lichen,

We interbeing not only with life, but with the universe. The matter in the fingers that punch this keyboard have been a part of other lifeforms before me. My existence has consequence for everything. Enough of the profound thoughts, let me get this list of my process down.

​The Dawn of the Y Chromosome

  • ​Age: c. 180 Million Years Ago

  • ​Context: A normal chromosome in early mammals mutates to hold the SRY gene, creating the very first Y chromosome and starting the paternal line we track today.

​The "Y-Chromosomal Adam" (Root of all Y-DNA)

  • ​Age: c. 230,000 to 270,000 Years Ago

​Context: This is the theoretical single male in Africa who passed down the Y-chromosome that all living men carry today.

yDNA Variants

​A01

  • ​Age: 125,500 YBP (c. 123,550 BCE)

  • ​Context: Africa. The root of all human paternal lines.

​F

  • ​Age: 42,500 YBP (c. 40,550 BCE)

  • ​Context: Southwest Asia. Parent of most non-African lines.

​LT

  • ​Age: 37,050 YBP (c. 35,100 BCE)

  • ​Context: West Asia. Paleolithic hunter-gatherers.

​L / M20

  • ​Age: 20,100 YBP (18,150 BCE)

  • ​Context: Caucasus to Iranian Plateau. In Ice Age refuges of West Asia. The birth of the L super-clade. LGM Ice Age Hunter-gatherers.

​M317

  • ​Age: 11,050 YBP (9,100 BCE)

  • ​Context: Eastern Fertile Crescent. Controlling wild herds of ibex, mouflon. Gathering wild cereals.

​SK1412

  • ​Age: 10,050 YBP (8,050 BCE)

  • ​Context: Zagros (Iran) foothills and valleys. Early Neolithic Farmer population herding and cultivating cereals.

​FGC51074 / SK1414

  • ​Age: 7,800 YBP (5,880 BCE)

  • ​Context: Branching out to Anatolia, Caucasus, Near East, Iranian Plain, Gedrosia, and Indus Valley, but my specific line possibly remained in the Zagros region.

​FGC51041

  • ​Age: 7,130 YBP (5,180 BCE)

  • ​Context: Early Copper Age expansion. If still in Zagros region, likely in contact with Elamite, Indus Valley, and Sumerian civilizations. Exploiting soils of floodplains for agriculture 

​FGC51040

  • ​Age: 6,000 YBP (4,050 BCE)

  • ​Context: West Asia. Continued Copper Age movements. Possible link to Assyrians, Hurrians and Mittani dispersals.

​FGC51036

  • ​Age: 3,130 YBP (c. 1,180 BCE)

  • ​Context: End of Bronze Age. Anatolia, Levant or Mediterranean. Greek world?

​Arrival in England

  • ​Age: 600 YBP (c. 1350–1400 CE)

  • ​Context: Late Medieval period; potential entry into Britain. Most likely through the port of Southampton. Suspect Genoese or Venetian galleys. My yDNA ancestor may have been recruited as a crewman from the Levant.

​Brooker / Chandler split

  • ​Age: 400 YBP (c. 1550–1600 CE)

  • ​Context: England. Tudor era. Surnames become solidly fixed. Suspect that the surname split between Chandler and Brooker occurred around the area of Basingstoke, Sherfield Upon Loddon, or Kingsclere in Hampshire, England.

​Recorded genealogy

  • ​Age: 277 years ago (1749 CE)

  • ​Context: Clear paper records begin. My 6x great-grandfather, John Brooker, married Ann Gardiner at Oxford College while residing at Long Wittenham, Berkshire, England. Copyhold farmer on open fields held by St Johns college, Oxford.

​Relocation to Oxfordshire

  • ​Age: 211 years ago (1815 CE)

  • ​Context: My 4x great-grandfather John Brooker takes the yDNA from Long Wittenham to the Rotherfield Peppard, Shiplake, Harpsden, and Henley areas of Oxfordshire. Agricultural labourer.

​Relocation to London

  • ​Age: 144 years ago (1883 CE)

  • ​Context: My 2x great-grandfather Henry Brooker takes the yDNA from Harpsden, Oxfordshire to Fulham, Bethnal Green, Deptford, and then Lewisham, London. Cart driver.

​Relocation to Norfolk

  • ​Age: 120 years ago (1906 CE)

  • ​Context: The yDNA is taken to Norfolk with my grandfather Reginald John Brooker. Labourer.

​My Birth

  • ​Age: 60+ years ago

  • ​Context: I am born.

​The DNA Test

  • ​Age: 10 years ago (2016 CE)

  • ​Context: I took a DNA test and discovered my terminal yDNA branch was L-FGC51036, linking our personal story back through the thousands of generations listed above!