Faces of America

Allow yours truly to encourage ye socks out there with any interest in genealogy and genetics to tune in to tonight's premiere of Dr. Henry Louis Gates' new PBS series "Faces of America."

While most of you probably only know Dr. Gates for his participation in that ridiculous White House beer summit last year, he previously produced two great seasons of "African American Lives." That series explored roots, too, just focused solely on African Americans. But, this series examines the family trees of a dozen notable people of diverse backgrounds.

Hopefully, the show will live up to the hype!

My deep matrilineage

Well, ye socks, modern genetics has finally accomplished what many years of genealogical sleuthing on my part have been unable to do: trace my mom's side of the family to the other side of the pond.

Until today, my earliest known maternal ancestress was an Irish immigrant named Elizabeth Gallagher who lived in Brooklyn, New York, in the 1840s and 50s.

Unfortunately, there is a tremendous dearth of available documents on 19th Century Irish ancestors . . . oh, who's kidding who . . . there's a dearth of documents on Irish ancestors of any century.

But, now my friends at www.smgf.org tell me that Elizabeth Gallagher and all her matrilineal descendants (yours truly included) belong to the haplogroup H, a great big clan that traces back some 20,000 years to the Dordogne River valley in southern France. (The people who painted all those bison on cave walls, etc.)

That's kinduva big leap from 19th century Brooklyn, no?

Of haplotypes and subclades

If those terms don't mean anything to you, don't feel bad. You'd have to be fairly obsessed with the field of genetic genealogy to be familiar with them.

In researching my own genetic origins, I have found that my paternal ancestry is part of Haplotype I. You can see from this map of Europe, that it's fairly common on that continent.

The eggheads have computed the rise of the haplotype to about 28,000 years ago.

Obviously, it's splintered since then.

Those splinters are known as "subclades."

A couple of my recently-discovered long-lost Morgan cousins have had their DNA tested and been told that we belong to subclade I2b.

But, in reading about it online today, I am beginning to think there may be a problem with that. Our YCAII markers (19,19) don't seem to fit nicely into that pigeon hole . . . then, again, I'm not a geneticist, so what do I know?

Guess this means I need to do a little more reading.

It's stuff like this that will kill a weekend for a genealogy geek . . .

Another author in the family

There must be something in the Morgan genes that predisposes us to writing . . .

The most recent publication to hit the bookstores comes from our cousin Andrea de Robilant.

His Lucia: A Venetian Life in the Age of Napoleon [ISBN 9781400044139] is actually a sequel to his very successful first novel A Venetian Affair.

I just picked up my copy yesterday, so haven't had a chance to finish reading the book. But, I can tell you the basics. It recounts the life of Andrea's 4th great-grandmother Lucia Mocenigo (1770-1854), a noblewoman from Venice, Italy, who moves to Paris, France, and rubs shoulders with a bunch of folks whose names you'd probably recognize from your history textbooks (including the Empress Josephine). She was an interesting person, to say the least. Unfortunately, she is perhaps best known as the much-despised landlady of Lord Byron.

Anyway, this book (besides being a very good read) is also serving as yet another reminder to yours truly that I need to get off my rear end and finish the sequel to my own recent masterpiece.

Wiley Alexander Morgan

That's the name of the earliest known ancestor of one of the participants in our Morgan DNA project.

All we know about him is that he was born in North Carolina about the year 1819, and that his father may have been named James.

My interest in him is somewhat selfish. I hope, since my DNA markers match his descendants' exactly, that I will be able to find a common ancestor somewhere and trace my own roots further back.

So, I spent several hours. I won't bore socks like Darrell with all the gory details. But, I got my hopes up pretty high, only to have them dashed this afternoon.

And, all of this because some jerk had "knitted" old Wiley into a pedigree instead of doing any real research.

Ok, do I sound like a total genealogy geek right now, or what?!

Let's try to salvage what remains of this fine Saturday . . .

William Addams Reitwiesner

That's the name of an oft-quoted genealogical expert of sorts, whose research on prominent figures I have enjoyed perusing over the years.

Now, he's created his own website: http://www.wargs.com

It includes a great archive of his previous works and genealogical essays.

I particularly liked the (rather lengthy) one he did to show his calculations of the ethnic background of the two princes William and Harry.

Following a similar approach, some time ago I came up with my own set of numbers. If you care, they break down as follow:

37% = Irish
33% = English
20% = Scottish
5% = Welsh
3% = French
1% = Dutch
1% = German

That should total to 100% if my math is right . . . had to do a lot of rounding, I'm afraid. (Rounded-down as much as possible on those French numbers!)

If you're interested in checking-out your own genetic/ethnic background, I would point you to an awesome program being conducted by the Sorensen Molecular Genealogy Foundation: http://www.smgf.org

Happy hunting!

Happy Mother's Day!

I'm probably the only person you know who marked at least part of the day in contemplating mitochondria.

Abbreviated "mtDNA," it's the part of your unique genetic code that was inherited exclusively from your mother. And, she inherited it exclusively from her mother, and so on, and so on, ad infinitum.

Anyway, from a genealogical standpoint, it is much harder to trace these maternal lines--at least in western cultures--because surnames change with each generation.

I've only been able to trace my own mtDNA back to an Irish emigrant named Elizabeth Gallagher, who lived in Brooklyn, New York, in the 1850s.

My dad could trace his line to a Sarah Brown, who was born in the old Fairfield District of South Carolina in 1768.

And, my cousin Joanna can trace hers all the way back to 1600s Connecticut.

Well, before I get off on too much of a tangent, I hope those of you reading this in the blogosphere take time today to think about the unique things your mom passed on to you!

Oh, yeah, and two words for my mom: Ham and Cheese!