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As of April 2018, a great deal of improvement in understanding the DNA has gone on. You can see the history after this most recent and rather accurate findings from 23andme:
You can see they've narrowed it down to Sweden, Czech Republic and Germany, along with "broadly Northwestern European".
Meanwhile, here's the slow progress as I learned it through time:
My National Geographic kit arrived May 17th, 2005. I swabbed my cheek twice, eight hours apart, and put the tiny jagged scrub tools into the two tiny vials provided for them, and sent the package in. The results came in today. Here is the path of my ancestral migration, based on my matrilineal line:
Info from the project:
I am a member of haplogroup J. This haplogroup is the final destination of a genetic journey that began some 150,000 years ago with an ancient mtDNA haplogroup called L3. Haplogroup L3 occurs only in Africa, but on that continent its derivatives are found nearly everywhere. L3's subclades are most prevalent in East Africa. A single person of the L3 lineage gave rise to the M and N haplogroups some 80,000 years ago. All Eurasian mtDNA lineages are subsequently descended from these two groups, and were the first human migrations out of Africa.
The macro-haplogroup N is composed of many subclades, which are often geographically distant. Haplogroup R is descended from N and has since dispersed across much of the globe. The lineage, in its many subgroups, appears on all continents except Australia and Antartica. Subgroups preHV, U, T, and J are found in Europe and the Near East. The R5 and R6 lineages arose on the Indian subcontinent.
Perhaps I come by my attraction to Egyptian things naturally, for look where my ancestors passed through or by!
One theory is they followed the Nile River northwards.
Haplogroup J arose some 10,000 years ago (on the R line of descent) in the Near East. The members of this group were among the first farmers during a period known as the Neolithic Revolution. The lineage's early agricultural successes spawned population booms and encouraged migration from the Middle East north and west into Europe. The growth of farming was directly responsible for the rise of modern, sedentary communities and cities.
Today this lineage is found throughout Europe, with concentrations in western Eurasia - the Caucasus, Russia (west of the Ural mountain), and the region of the eastern Baltic Sea.
Looking at 'East of Baltic Sea', you can see the Czech Republic, with its capital of Prague, from whence my Mother's people came:
On the WESTERN side of the Baltic Sea is Sweden, from where my Grandmother on my Father's side traces her ancestry.
I look at the DNA map
The seeds of 'me' were carried that far, all the way from Africa.
Should I feel a world traveler, then...
I was on the northbound 'train',
Was it on foot, or did my ancestors use horses?
'Scatterlings of Africa' plays in my mind.
I don't look like my mother, but I do look like my maternal grandmother.
Seeds of me, carried far...
Here are each of us captured in our forties.
Although I don't resemble my mother,
I do seem to very much resemble my maternal grandmother:
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