Genographic Project – My DNA
Trust me to discover the Genographic project as it nears completion. Well the truth is I have known about it for ages, but just been rubbish at doing anything until the end of 2009. It was prompted by me completing a survey for National Geographic that gave me 20% off anything in the NG Store. I thought excellent I can get some books there are always interesting titles, especially on photography. Thats when I spotted the the testing kit and order it straight away. It was just my luck it was out of stock so it took about 6 weeks to arrive. The kit included loads of useful information and I also ordered the companion book for background information whilst I waited for the results. And about 6 weeks later my result were ready.
I decided that it would be interesting to share this information on my blog so that people can understand what the testing provides. Firstly it doesn’t provide details of where you are from, but instead it provides insight into the DNA markers that are caused via mutation as people migrate over a long period of time. For example my markers range from about 60,000 years ago until approximately 10,000 years ago.
So my haplogroup is R1a1 (M198)
Brief background on Haplogroup can be found here
Here is the map that the project provided as part of my results where it shows the DNA migration from its origins in Africa until it settles in Europe (Ukraine / Southern Russia)
Map & Data provided by Genographic Project.
So this map shows the complete path of:
M168 > P143 > M89 > L15 > M9 > M45 > M207 > M173 > SRY10831.2 > M17
M168 - Appeared around 50,000 years ago in Africa and at that time there were approximately 10,000 Homo sapiens
M9 - From around 40,000 years ago in Iran or Central Asia with approximately tens of thousands of Homo sapiens
M45 – 35,000 years ago in Central Asia approx 100,000 Homo sapiens
M207 – 30,000 years again Central Asia, this group split into two groups one heading into India and the other into Europe.
M173 - No surprising mine was the branch that moved to Europe. This marker is very common in Europe especially in UK. It is thought that these humans moved to avoid the ice sheets into Spain, Italy and the Balkans around 20,000 years ago.
M17 – My final marker is very interesting as the map shows this group heading east / south-east towards southern russia. The final marker is from an ancestor born 10,000 – 15,000 years ago on the grassy steppes in the region of Ukraine/Southern Russia. His descendants were nomadic steppe dwellers that spread as far afield as Iceland & India. One of the largest concentrations is in the Czech Republic across the steppes to Siberia and south throughout Central Asia. Around 35% of Hindi speaking men in India carry this marker. There seems to be a close correlation with linguistics as this marker is common with Indo-European languages such as Germany, English, French, Russian and Spainish.
