About us
Our Guittard group currently has an excellent variety of seventeen y-testers subgrouped into nine distinct and unrelated Guittard-variant y-dna profiles for a prospect to test against. -- widely dispersed geographically in France, Canada, USA, Spanish Catalonia, Australia, and so on.
I. SUBGROUP -- ALSACE I2b2 S23-A
This subgroup includes our first highly significant MATCH BETWEEN OUR ENORMOUS FAMILY OF PARIS-NEW-BRUNSWICK GUITARDS and OUR SMALLER FAMILY OF ALSACE-OHIO GUITTARDS on 66 out of 67 markers. The subgroup with the three matching tests is color-coded green on our Guittard website Y Results page.
More specifically, this match joins the Fauxbourg, Saint-Antoine, Paris Guitard line with the Brechaumont/Bellemagny, Haut-Rhin, Alsace Guittard line on the eastern side of the Atlantic. On the western side of the Atlantic, it joins the Belledune, New Brunswick Guitards with the Ohio Guittards. It places and confirms all four branches back where they belong on the same Guittard family tree.
We believe this close match, reinforced by paper-records research, proves for the first time that the Paris-New-Brunswick line branched off the Alsace line, and that it did so probably in Brechaumont, Alsace, and probably in the 1700's around the seventh or eighth generation going back.
A. HAPLOGROUP I2b2 -- GEOGRAPHIC ORIGINS
A deep-clade test on our Alsace-Ohio Guittard tester has narrowed the subclade to I2b (old I1b2), defined by mutation M223. Haplogroup researcher Ken Nordtvedt by 5 Jan 2009 email has narrowed the subclade further to I2b2, defined by mutation M379.
Nordvedt wrote us an email 29 Feb 2008, stating that the haplogroup FTDNA now calls I2 "HAS A CONTINENTAL DISTRIBUTION CENTERED IN GERMANY BUT SPILLING OVER INTO NEIGHBORING LANDS INCLUDING FRANCE." Considering that Brechaumont and Bellemagny in Alsace on the northeastern corner of France are located only about 75 miles west of the German border, it would be understandable that our I2 Guittard ancestors could have moved into Alsace from nearby Germany on the east and north. With a different view the FTDNA map of the ancient migration trail for I2 shows it originated in northern France on the way up from Spain and swept through Germany to the north.
FTDNA describes Haplogroup I as a lineage dating back 23,000 years ago or longer, and found distributed at low frequencies throughout Europe. According to National Geographic's Genographic Project, Haplogroup I is a lineage defined by a genetic marker called M170. This haplogroup extends back to the original ancient Y chromosome marker called M168. M168 is a widely dispersed marker that can be traced all the way back to a single individual called "Eurasian Adam." This African man, who lived over 31,000 and up to 79,000 years ago, is the common ancestor of every non-African person living today. His descendants migrated out of Africa and became the only lineage to survive away from humanity's home continent.
90-95% of all non-Africans are descendants of the second great human migration out of Africa, which is defined by the marker M89. M89 first appeared 45,000 years ago in Northern Africa or the Middle East. It arose on the original M168 lineage of Eurasian Adam and defines a large inland migration of hunters who followed expanding grasslands and plentiful game to the Middle East. A population of M89 descendants moved north from the Middle East to Anatolia and the Balkans, trading grasslands for forests and high country.
Arising as a branch off the M89 lineage, the M170 marker first appeared 23,000 years ago or earlier in the Middle East, generally defining Haplogroup I. Haplogroup I is widespread throughout southeastern and central Europe and most common in the Balkans. Its spread into southeastern Europe may have accompanied the expansion of the prosperous Gravettian culture. This Upper Paleolithic people is described as using effective communal hunting techniques and developing art notable for voluptuous female carvings often called "Venus" figures.
I2 (old Ib1), defined by mutation P215, is much less common than I1, which is the most common form of I in western Europe. But I2 is the most common form of Haplogroup I in eastern Europe. The two basic divisions of I2 are I2a (old I1b1) and I2b (old I1b2). One subgroup of I2b, called "Isles," is almost exclusive to the British Isles, with a high concentration in Scotland, while the main subgroup of I2b, dubbed "Continental," is most common in northwestern Europe, southern Scandinavia, and Britain.
The Alsace-Ohio tester's Cullen subclade prediction is as follows:
Haplo-I Subclades and probabilities --
I-S23-A => 64 %
I-S23-B => 22 %
I-S23-C => 13 %
B. POSSIBLE CELTIC ORIGINS OF ALSACE-NEW-BRUNSWICK SUBGROUP
"THE LATER SPREAD OF THIS M170 LINEAGE COULD ALSO BE TIED TO THE MID-FIRST MILLENIUM B.C. CELTIC CULTURE, POSSIBLY EXPLAINING THE WIDER DISPERSAL OF THIS UNIQUE GENETIC MARKER." [emphasis added]
The earliest archaeological evidence associated with the Celts places them in what is now France and western Germany in the late Bronze Age, around 1200 BC. In the early Iron Age, they are associated with the Hallstatt culture, which is now dated from 1,200 BC to 475 BC, named for an archaeological site at Lake Hallstatt in the Salazkammergut in Upper Austria. They probably began to settle in the British Isles during this period. The Hallstatt culture was characterized by a geometric-based art, iron-smelting, superior iron tools and weapons, and developing trade with the Mediterranean world.
The later Iron Age Celtic culture is called La Tene, after a site discovered in the shallow end of Lake Neuchatel in Switzerland, and dated from the 5th century to the 1st century BC. This culture saw new decorative art forms, fast two-wheeled chariots, skilled farming, high living standards, salt mining, high quality iron tools and weapons, and coinage. They achieved the greatest Celtic expansion, with their influence extending from what is now Spain to the shores of the Black Sea. Peter Berresfod Ellis, The Celts A History (New York: Carroll & Graf, 2004).
The word Celt is derived from Keltoi, the name given to these people by Herodotus and other Greek writers. To the Romans, the Continental Celts were known as Galli, or Gauls. Those in the British Isles were called Britanni. In the 4th century BC, the Celts invaded the Greco-Roman world, and conquered northern Italy, Macedonia, and Thessaly. They plundered Rome in 390, sacked Delphi in 279, and penetrated Asia Minor, where they were known as Galatians. The Cisalpine Gauls of northern Italy were conquered by the Romans in the 2nd century BC. Transalpine Gaul (modern France and the Rhineland) was subdued by Julius Caesar in the 1st century BC. Most of Britain came under Roman rule in the 1st century AD. See http://www.celticcallings.com/resources/celtic_traditions/celt_history/0_celt_history.htm
The possible Celtic origins for this family line are readily consistent with the location of the early Guittard commune in Puy de Dome in the territory of the early Celts or Gauls, and with the characteristics of the commune discussed above in the Thiers section, and with the recent ancestral origins shown below.
C. RECENT NATIONAL ORIGINS OF SIMILAR TESTERS
FTDNA's Recent Ancestral Origins section of your testkit page allows us to study the Alsace-New-Brunswick Guittard line's recent ancestral origins by looking at the tester-reported national origins of the testers of all different surnames who are most genetically similar to the Alsace-New-Brunswick Guittard line of Alsatian farmers.
Interestingly, the most genetically similar tests to our Alsatian Guittards are from twenty testers with completely unrelated surnames -- none of whom match our Alsatian Guittards on more than ten out of the basic twelve markers. Sixteen of the twenty tester-reported country origins are British Isles (0.039 % of British testers). Three are Germany/Switzerland (0.033 %). NOT ONE IS FRANCE (as of 14 Oct 2008).
COMMENTS: First, demonstrating the rarity of this Alsatian Guittard profile, we find no matches at 12/12 with any tester of any surname (except in our own subgroup). Even more unusual, so far OUR ALSATIAN GUITTARD SUBGROUP HAS NO MATCHES EVEN AT 11/12 WITH ANY TESTER OF ANY SURNAME ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD. Considering these 10/12 match percentages are for comparatively loose matches where only 10 out of 12 matching markers are required, the percentages are downright tiny, indicating that the Alsatian Guittard Y-DNA profile is exceedingly rare. So far as we know at this time, the Alsatian Guittard 12/12 and 11/12 profiles are both entirely unique to our own Alsatian Guittard-surname family, and have not been found for any other tester of any surname anywhere in the world.
Second, the affinity of this Guittard profile with extremely small percentages of testers in the British Isles, Germany and Switzerland could be due to a common CELTIC heritage. These national origins appear generally consistent with the early geographic presence of Celtic tribes, as described above.
Third, the absence of any matches from France -- even 10/12 loose matches -- may be due in part to the fact that France is still under-represented proportionally in the FTDNA databank, having only 2,230 total testers. England has submitted over seven times the number of total tests as France even though England has about the same population. France could be significantly under-represented in the northeast corner of France where the near-matches would be expected. At these levels an additional three or four near-matching tests from France could have a disproportionate effect in the percentage comparisons, since the numbers are generally small.
II. SUBGROUP -- N3a1-FINN BRETTEN
Our N1 Guittard tester apparently comes down from Bretten, Haut-Rhin, Alsace. We wonder how N1 found its way from Siberia and Scandinavia to this northeastern corner of France. FTDNA identifies his haplogroup as N1, and his Cullen predicted subclade is N3a1-Finn to a 78 % probability.
N Haplogroup is a central Asian lineage defined by the M231 marker. It probably originated in Siberia about 10,000 years ago from Asian haplogroup K lineages -- tribes of hunters and herders who had traveled north across the difficult Pamir Knot mountain region of Tajikistan in central Asia. N1 is now defined by the LLY22g marker, and can be classified by deep-clade SNP testing into 8 subclades.
N descendants trace a migration of Uralic-speaking peoples, a lineage that has dispersed throughout the generations, and now has a wide geographic distribution throughout Eurasia from Finland, Norway and Scandinavia across to northern Asia and China. Its Uralic-speaking cultures include the Saami (Lapps), an indigenous people of northern Sweden, Norway, Finland and Russia, who moved with the reindeer herds and supported themselves by fishing and hunting. As few as 75,000 Saami may still be living today. (It is also interesting that the Saami people of Finland and the Catalonian people of Spain have the highest frequency of mt-DNA haplogroup V, which is the same mt-DNA haplogroup as our Alsace-Ohio Guittard tester.) See DEEP ANCESTRY by Spencer Wells, 2006, National Geographic Society, p. 218.
N's highest frequency occurs among the Finnic and Baltic peoples of northern and eastern Europe, the Ob-Ugric and Northern Samoyedic peoples of western Siberia, and the Siberian Turkic-speaking Yakuts. N1c reaches a frequency of 90% among the Yakuts in Siberia, a Turkic people in the Sakha Republic (Yakutia). N is also found in Japan, Korea, southwestern China, and many other places. Today N is one of the most frequent haplogroups found in Scandinavian Europe.
Eupedia: N is predominant in Finland, its epicenter within Europe, and is found in the Baltic countries, Russia and Siberia, overflowing a bit onto Japan. It is of Uralic-Siberian origin.
The three testers (non-Guittard) who are genetically most similar to our N1 Guittard (one-step mutations matching on 11 out of 12 markers) include
an N1 tester tracing back to Lithuania and
two N1c1 testers tracing back to Native Siberians in Russia.
The next 15 most similar testers (two-step mutations matching on 10 out of 12 markers) include:
2 N1 Native Siberians,
12 N1c1 Native Siberians, and
1 N1c1 Komi (Russian republic west of the Ural Mountains).
III. R1b1b2 SUBGROUPS -- CENTRAL & SOUTHERN FRANCE
A. R1b1b2 TESTERS AND SUBGROUPS
Color-coded on our Y Results page, our six R1b1b2 testers and subgroups include our two Puy de Dome testers plus three other French-origin testers very remotely related to the Puy de Dome testers, plus our tester in Spanish Catalonia. Both Puy de Dome testers have been confirmed as R1b1b2 by the deep clade test. The other four testers are either confirmed as R1b1b2 by deep clade test, or predicted as R1b1b2 by FTDNA to a high probability. The six subgroup testers include four who have traced back to locations in central and southern France, plus one Guittar tester of unknown origin in France, plus our Catalonian Guitart in northeastern Spain.
SUBGROUP -- R1b-NORTH/SOUTH-1 PUY DE DOME.
Our FIRST PUY DE DOME GUITTARD TESTER (tracing back to PONTEIX) now lives on the east side of Puy de Dome -- the same department where the famous Guittard Family Commune was located from the 1100's through 1819. This first Puy de Dome test has been classified as a completely different haplogroup -- R1b1b2 -- Europe's most common haplogroup -- wholly unrelated to the Alsace-Ohio-New-Brunswick line, classified as haplogroup I2. His sub-clade tests out as R1b1b2a1b -- the same as our second Puy de Dome tester below and our Saintonge tester below. His Cullen subclade prediction is R1b-North/South 1 to an 89% probability.
The R1b1b2a1b subclade is described by Eupedia as a lineage defined by marker P312/S116, that originated 4,500 years ago, with its highest frequency in Western Europge, and having Italo-Celtic ethnic associations.
SUBGROUP -- R1b-PUY-DE-DOME-LARODDE.
Our SECOND PUY DE DOME GUITTARD TESTER (tracing back to LARODDE) has now also been confirmed as R1b1b2a1b. The FTDNA TiP report shows our two Puy de Dome testers have a 0.24 % probability of sharing a Most Recent Common Ancestor within the last 24 generations -- roughly 600 years ago. The recalculated TiP shows our two Puy de Dome testers sharing a Most Recent Common Ancestor to a 52 % probability within the last 39 generations - roughly 950 years ago -- around 1050 AD. (Caveat: This recalculated TiP is applied here beyond its normal and accepted range of 24 generations or 600 years, in order to use the newer and more powerful 67-marker tests to explore and investigate the unusual history of the Guittard Commune Family back to the Middle Ages.) His Cullen subclade prediction of Haplogroups and probabilities is as follows:
R1b => 25 %
R1b-E.Europe => 22 %
R1b-Frisian => 18 %
R1b-Frisian3 => 17 %
We are cautiously optimistic that we may be on the threshold of beginning to define an R1b1b2a1b profile as the dominant Puy de Dome profile reaching back to the historic Guittard Family Commune of the 1100's. We need at least one or two more suitable Guittard testers from Puy de Dome to estimate with reasonable confidence whether the R1b1b2a1b profile correctly traces back to the famous Guittard Commune family.
SUBGROUP -- R1b1b2 TOULOUSE.
Our TOULOUSE GUITTARD TESTER has been identified as an R1b1b2, remotely related to the Puy de Dome Guittards. The recalculated TiP report shows our Toulouse tester sharing a Most Recent Common Ancestor with our Larodde Puy de Dome tester to a 53 % probability within the last 35 generations -- roughly 850 years ago -- about 1150 AD. His Cullen subclade prediction is as follows:
R1b => 22 %
R1b-Irish/Continental => 21 %
R1b-S21-Scottish2 => 16 %
SUBGROUP -- R1b-S.IRISH SAINTES.
Our SAINTONGE-MONTREAL GUITARD TESTER has been confirmed as R1b1b2a1b. He is the most remote from the testers in the R1b1b2 Puy de Dome subgroup. The recalculated TiP report shows our Saintonge tester shares a Most Recent Common Ancestor with his closest Guittard tester (Toulouse) to a 53 % probability within the last 43 generations -- very roughly 1050 years ago -- around 950 AD. His Cullen subclade prediction is:
R1b-S.Irish 48% probability
R1b 31% probability
SUBGROUP -- R1b-S29-FRISIAN 2.
Our ST. LOUIS GUITTAR TESTER -- also R1b1b2 -- has been included with the second Puy de Dome tester in this subgroup because the recalculated TiP report shows these two testers are remotely related. They share a Most Recent Common Ancestor to a 54 % probability within the last 36 generations -- roughly 875 years ago -- possibly around the time the famous Guittard commune reportedly began operating in the 1100's. A second test is needed to verify the profile for this line reportedly tracing back to Paul Vincent Guitard, born c. 1726 in Quebec. His Cullen subclade prediction is R1b-S29-Frisian2 to a 100% probability.
Known as Frisian 2 in Prof. Nordtvedt's research, it has been described by Mike Whalen's Cheat Sheet as the R1bSTR3-branch of U106 - confined to S. England (pre-Anglo-Saxon?) -- and a possible Saxon invasion marker or earlier Germanic migration.
Dave Mountain wrote:
Frisians are usually thought of as a seagoing and coastal group. The Frisian culture extended along the North Sea from Holland to Denmark and included regions that are now part of Germany. They also occupied coastal regions of the British Isles.
SUBGROUP -- R1b1b2a SPANISH CATALONIA
Our SPANISH CATALONIAN GUITART TESTER was born and lives in Spanish Catalonia, and may trace back to the famous Guitards of Barcelona and Andorra in the 900's and 1000's.
Deep clade testing confirms this tester as subclade R1b1b2a, described by Eupedia as a lineage defined by marker L23/S141, that originated about 7,000 years ago with its highest frequency in Western Europe and associated with Italo-Celto-Anatolian ethnicity.
His Cullen subclade prediction is:
R1b => 40 % probability
R1b-Ub => 33 %
R1b-E.Europe => 14 %
Recalculated TiP reports show that our Catalonian tester is closest genetically not to our Toulouse tester, but to our Larodde tester. Our Catalonian and Larodde testers shared a Most Recent Common Ancestor within about 53 generations to a 52 % probability. Using the FTDNA rule of thumb of 25 years average between generations, their 53rd generation MRCA lived around 1265 years ago -- very roughly around 735 AD -- during the century of the Moors' conquest of Spain and southern France and Charlemagne's later retaking of southern France and Spain from the Moors. Speculation: This timing during the 700's could mean that some Guitards to the north in France moved south with Charlemagne when he retook Spanish Catalonia from the Moors and stayed there in Spanish Catalonia and Andorra, while other Guittard relatives stayed back in the north, possibly in the vicinity of Larodde in Puy de Dome. Certainly the 700's was a turbulent century in Spain and southern France, and that tumult could readily account for the bifurcation of the Guittard family, leaving a French branch in Puy de Dome and a Spanish branch in Catalonia.
B. HAPLOGROUP R1b1b2
Haplogroup R1b is described as the most common haplogroup in European populations. It is believed to have expanded throughout Europe as humans re-colonized after the last Ice Age around 10,000 years ago. This lineage is also the haplogroup containing the Atlantic modal haplotype. About 22% of the tests in the Ysearch database are R1b. The highest concentration in Western Europe is found in the Basque Country, where 98 % of native men have this R1b haplogroup.
Basque Country and vicinity are believed to have served as a refuge for paleolithic humans during the last major glaciation (Ice Age) when environments further north were too cold or dry for continuous habitation. When the climate warmed about 10,000 years ago, the refuge populations spread north rapidly along the west European coast. Current inhabitants of Britain and Ireland are closely related to the Basques, reflecting their common origin in this refugial area.
Most of the present-day European males with the M343 marker also have the P25 and M269 markers. These markers define the R1b1b2 subclade.
This R1b1b2 sub-haplogroup is believed by some to have existed before the last Ice Age and has been associated with the Aurignacian culture (32,000 - 21,000 BC). Although the precise route of the M269 marker is not known, it is theorized to have originated in Central Asia / South Central Siberia. Archeological evidence supports the view of the arrival of Aurignacian culture to Anatolia from Europe during the Upper Paleolithic rather than from the Iranian plateau. It could have entered prehistoric Europe from the area of Ukraine/Belarus or Central Asia (Kazakhstan) via the coasts of the Black Sea and the Baltic Sea. It is considered to have been widespread in Europe throughout the Paleolithic and before the last Ice Age.
C. RECENT NATIONAL ORIGINS OF SIMILAR TESTERS
Comparing our R1b1b2 Guittard testers to their closest matching non-Guittard testers -- either 12/12 or 11/12, and broken down by national test populations -- we find the matching percentages are very small. Consequently, it is difficult to draw any definite conclusions. Our testers sometimes appear to have the greatest genetic affinity with testers from the British Isles, more than with France or Spain. This similarity could be partly due to the proportionally higher numbers of testers in the British Isles than France, Spain or Germany. More important, the similarity between Basque and British Y-DNA profiles are likely due to R1b1b2 ancestors migrating up from Basque country to the British Isles after the last Ice Age 10,000 years ago.
The national origins of non-Guittard testers most closely related to our R1b1b2 Guittard subgroup testers are summarized below.
Our first Puy de Dome tester (Ponteix) has 12/12 matches with 65 other testers (excluding countries with 1 or 2 matches) as follows:
British Isles 59 (matches) out of 41,441 (total testers) = 0.14 %
France ------ 3 out of 2,230 = 0.13 % -- about the same % as British Isles
Germany --- 3 out of 7,932 = 0.04 % -- much less
Our second Puy de Dome tester (Larodde) has 12/12 matches with 6 other testers, including British Isles 5 (.015 %) and Germany 1 (.014 %) -- about the same small percentages for each.
Larodde has 11/12 matches with over 120 other testers, principally including:
British Isles 72 / 41,441 = 0.17 %
Germany -- 14 / 7932 = 0.18 % -- about the same % as British Isles
France ------ 7 / 2,230 = 0.31 % -- higher % than British Isles
Italy ---------- 8 / 2,348 = 0.34 % -- about the same % as France
Switzerland 5 / 1,131 = 0.44 % -- higher than France or Italy
Netherlands 6 / 1,097 = 0.55 % -- still higher, and, amazingly,
Greece ------ 8 / 514 = 1.56 % -- FIVE TIMES France.
Although Larodde has an extraordinary percentage of near-matches with testers in Greece, the other subgroup testers did not, indicating that the Greek matches may have been a random anomaly.
Our St. Louis Guittar tester has 12/12 matches with over 235 testers, principally including:
British Isles 192 / 41,581 = 0.46 %
Germ./Switz. 30 / 9,070 = 0.33 %
France/Belg. 6 / 2,574 = 0.23 %
Netherlands 5 / 1,097 = 0.46 %
Spain -------- 2 / 2,171 = 0.09 %
Our Toulouse Guittard tester has 12/12 matches with 12 other testers, principally including:
British Isles 9 / 41,441 = 0.22 %
France/Belg 2 / 2,574 = 0.08 % -- less than the British Isles.
Toulouse has 11/12 matches with over 263 other testers, principally including:
British Isles 212 / 41,551 = 0.51 %
France ------- 12 / 2,230 = 0.54 % -- similar to British Isles, more than Spain
Germany ---- 32 / 7,932 = 0.40 %
Spain ---------- 7 / 2,170 = 0.32 %
Our Saintonge tester has 12/12 matches with over 177 other testers, principally including:
British Isles 155 / 42,015 = 0.37 %
Germ./Switz. 10 / 9,070 = 0.11 %
France/Belg. 5 / 2,574 = 0.19 %
Netherlands 3 / 1,097 = 0.27 %
Spain -------- 4 / 2,171 = 0.18 %
Note, however, that the matching R1b1b2 Guittard percentages are up to about ten times larger than the matching percentages for our I2 Alsatian Guittard line, as stated above (for example, about .3 % versus .03 %). The very small matching percentages for our R1b1b2 subgroup are not nearly so small as those for our I2 subgroup, for at least two reasons. (1) The R1b1b2 haplogroup is Europe's most common, while the I2 haplogroup is exeedingly rare. (2) The R1b1b2 percentages apply to much closer 12/12 and 11/12 matches than the Alsatian 10/12 matches. For example, at 10/12 our Larodde tester has 425 total matches (vs. 20 for Alsatian) with 239 from the British Isles (vs. 16 for Alsatian) and 20 from France (vs. zero for Alsatian).
MT-DNA RESULTS ON UNRELATED DIRECT MATERNAL LINE
Our mt-DNA tester has been confirmed as a mt-DNA HAPLOGROUP V on his mt-DNA direct maternal line. Please note these results are NOT related to his Y-DNA direct paternal Guittard line or to any other Guittard tester.
Specific mitochondrial haplogroups are typically found in different regions of the world, and this is due to unique population histories. In the process of spreading around the world, many populations—with their special mitochondrial haplogroups—became isolated, and specific haplogroups concentrated in geographic regions. Today, we have identified certain haplogroups that originated in Africa, Europe, Asia, the islands of the Pacific, the Americas, and even particular ethnic groups. Of course, haplogroups that are specific to one region are sometimes found in another, but this is due to recent migration.
Mitochondrial haplogroup V is a primarily European haplogroup, being largely restricted to western, central and northern Europe. Its age is estimated at 15,000 years ago, indicating that it likely arose during the 5,000 years or so that humans were confined to the European refuges during the last Ice Age. At the end of the last Ice Age it expanded into and recolonized Europe. V OCCURS AT LOW FREQUENCY THROUGHOUT EUROPE. THE HIGHEST FREQUENCY OF HAPLOGROUP V IS FOUND AMOUND THE SAAMI IN FINLAND AND THE CATALONIA REGION OF SPAIN. V is found in around 12 % of Basques, an isolated population in northern Spain, and around 5% in many other western European populations. It is also found in Algeria and Morocco, indicating that these humans migrating out of the Iberian Peninsula also headed south across the Strait of Gibraltar and into North Africa. Future work will better resolve the distribution and historical characteristics of this haplogroup.
I. SUBGROUP -- ALSACE I2b2 S23-A
This subgroup includes our first highly significant MATCH BETWEEN OUR ENORMOUS FAMILY OF PARIS-NEW-BRUNSWICK GUITARDS and OUR SMALLER FAMILY OF ALSACE-OHIO GUITTARDS on 66 out of 67 markers. The subgroup with the three matching tests is color-coded green on our Guittard website Y Results page.
More specifically, this match joins the Fauxbourg, Saint-Antoine, Paris Guitard line with the Brechaumont/Bellemagny, Haut-Rhin, Alsace Guittard line on the eastern side of the Atlantic. On the western side of the Atlantic, it joins the Belledune, New Brunswick Guitards with the Ohio Guittards. It places and confirms all four branches back where they belong on the same Guittard family tree.
We believe this close match, reinforced by paper-records research, proves for the first time that the Paris-New-Brunswick line branched off the Alsace line, and that it did so probably in Brechaumont, Alsace, and probably in the 1700's around the seventh or eighth generation going back.
A. HAPLOGROUP I2b2 -- GEOGRAPHIC ORIGINS
A deep-clade test on our Alsace-Ohio Guittard tester has narrowed the subclade to I2b (old I1b2), defined by mutation M223. Haplogroup researcher Ken Nordtvedt by 5 Jan 2009 email has narrowed the subclade further to I2b2, defined by mutation M379.
Nordvedt wrote us an email 29 Feb 2008, stating that the haplogroup FTDNA now calls I2 "HAS A CONTINENTAL DISTRIBUTION CENTERED IN GERMANY BUT SPILLING OVER INTO NEIGHBORING LANDS INCLUDING FRANCE." Considering that Brechaumont and Bellemagny in Alsace on the northeastern corner of France are located only about 75 miles west of the German border, it would be understandable that our I2 Guittard ancestors could have moved into Alsace from nearby Germany on the east and north. With a different view the FTDNA map of the ancient migration trail for I2 shows it originated in northern France on the way up from Spain and swept through Germany to the north.
FTDNA describes Haplogroup I as a lineage dating back 23,000 years ago or longer, and found distributed at low frequencies throughout Europe. According to National Geographic's Genographic Project, Haplogroup I is a lineage defined by a genetic marker called M170. This haplogroup extends back to the original ancient Y chromosome marker called M168. M168 is a widely dispersed marker that can be traced all the way back to a single individual called "Eurasian Adam." This African man, who lived over 31,000 and up to 79,000 years ago, is the common ancestor of every non-African person living today. His descendants migrated out of Africa and became the only lineage to survive away from humanity's home continent.
90-95% of all non-Africans are descendants of the second great human migration out of Africa, which is defined by the marker M89. M89 first appeared 45,000 years ago in Northern Africa or the Middle East. It arose on the original M168 lineage of Eurasian Adam and defines a large inland migration of hunters who followed expanding grasslands and plentiful game to the Middle East. A population of M89 descendants moved north from the Middle East to Anatolia and the Balkans, trading grasslands for forests and high country.
Arising as a branch off the M89 lineage, the M170 marker first appeared 23,000 years ago or earlier in the Middle East, generally defining Haplogroup I. Haplogroup I is widespread throughout southeastern and central Europe and most common in the Balkans. Its spread into southeastern Europe may have accompanied the expansion of the prosperous Gravettian culture. This Upper Paleolithic people is described as using effective communal hunting techniques and developing art notable for voluptuous female carvings often called "Venus" figures.
I2 (old Ib1), defined by mutation P215, is much less common than I1, which is the most common form of I in western Europe. But I2 is the most common form of Haplogroup I in eastern Europe. The two basic divisions of I2 are I2a (old I1b1) and I2b (old I1b2). One subgroup of I2b, called "Isles," is almost exclusive to the British Isles, with a high concentration in Scotland, while the main subgroup of I2b, dubbed "Continental," is most common in northwestern Europe, southern Scandinavia, and Britain.
The Alsace-Ohio tester's Cullen subclade prediction is as follows:
Haplo-I Subclades and probabilities --
I-S23-A => 64 %
I-S23-B => 22 %
I-S23-C => 13 %
B. POSSIBLE CELTIC ORIGINS OF ALSACE-NEW-BRUNSWICK SUBGROUP
"THE LATER SPREAD OF THIS M170 LINEAGE COULD ALSO BE TIED TO THE MID-FIRST MILLENIUM B.C. CELTIC CULTURE, POSSIBLY EXPLAINING THE WIDER DISPERSAL OF THIS UNIQUE GENETIC MARKER." [emphasis added]
The earliest archaeological evidence associated with the Celts places them in what is now France and western Germany in the late Bronze Age, around 1200 BC. In the early Iron Age, they are associated with the Hallstatt culture, which is now dated from 1,200 BC to 475 BC, named for an archaeological site at Lake Hallstatt in the Salazkammergut in Upper Austria. They probably began to settle in the British Isles during this period. The Hallstatt culture was characterized by a geometric-based art, iron-smelting, superior iron tools and weapons, and developing trade with the Mediterranean world.
The later Iron Age Celtic culture is called La Tene, after a site discovered in the shallow end of Lake Neuchatel in Switzerland, and dated from the 5th century to the 1st century BC. This culture saw new decorative art forms, fast two-wheeled chariots, skilled farming, high living standards, salt mining, high quality iron tools and weapons, and coinage. They achieved the greatest Celtic expansion, with their influence extending from what is now Spain to the shores of the Black Sea. Peter Berresfod Ellis, The Celts A History (New York: Carroll & Graf, 2004).
The word Celt is derived from Keltoi, the name given to these people by Herodotus and other Greek writers. To the Romans, the Continental Celts were known as Galli, or Gauls. Those in the British Isles were called Britanni. In the 4th century BC, the Celts invaded the Greco-Roman world, and conquered northern Italy, Macedonia, and Thessaly. They plundered Rome in 390, sacked Delphi in 279, and penetrated Asia Minor, where they were known as Galatians. The Cisalpine Gauls of northern Italy were conquered by the Romans in the 2nd century BC. Transalpine Gaul (modern France and the Rhineland) was subdued by Julius Caesar in the 1st century BC. Most of Britain came under Roman rule in the 1st century AD. See http://www.celticcallings.com/resources/celtic_traditions/celt_history/0_celt_history.htm
The possible Celtic origins for this family line are readily consistent with the location of the early Guittard commune in Puy de Dome in the territory of the early Celts or Gauls, and with the characteristics of the commune discussed above in the Thiers section, and with the recent ancestral origins shown below.
C. RECENT NATIONAL ORIGINS OF SIMILAR TESTERS
FTDNA's Recent Ancestral Origins section of your testkit page allows us to study the Alsace-New-Brunswick Guittard line's recent ancestral origins by looking at the tester-reported national origins of the testers of all different surnames who are most genetically similar to the Alsace-New-Brunswick Guittard line of Alsatian farmers.
Interestingly, the most genetically similar tests to our Alsatian Guittards are from twenty testers with completely unrelated surnames -- none of whom match our Alsatian Guittards on more than ten out of the basic twelve markers. Sixteen of the twenty tester-reported country origins are British Isles (0.039 % of British testers). Three are Germany/Switzerland (0.033 %). NOT ONE IS FRANCE (as of 14 Oct 2008).
COMMENTS: First, demonstrating the rarity of this Alsatian Guittard profile, we find no matches at 12/12 with any tester of any surname (except in our own subgroup). Even more unusual, so far OUR ALSATIAN GUITTARD SUBGROUP HAS NO MATCHES EVEN AT 11/12 WITH ANY TESTER OF ANY SURNAME ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD. Considering these 10/12 match percentages are for comparatively loose matches where only 10 out of 12 matching markers are required, the percentages are downright tiny, indicating that the Alsatian Guittard Y-DNA profile is exceedingly rare. So far as we know at this time, the Alsatian Guittard 12/12 and 11/12 profiles are both entirely unique to our own Alsatian Guittard-surname family, and have not been found for any other tester of any surname anywhere in the world.
Second, the affinity of this Guittard profile with extremely small percentages of testers in the British Isles, Germany and Switzerland could be due to a common CELTIC heritage. These national origins appear generally consistent with the early geographic presence of Celtic tribes, as described above.
Third, the absence of any matches from France -- even 10/12 loose matches -- may be due in part to the fact that France is still under-represented proportionally in the FTDNA databank, having only 2,230 total testers. England has submitted over seven times the number of total tests as France even though England has about the same population. France could be significantly under-represented in the northeast corner of France where the near-matches would be expected. At these levels an additional three or four near-matching tests from France could have a disproportionate effect in the percentage comparisons, since the numbers are generally small.
II. SUBGROUP -- N3a1-FINN BRETTEN
Our N1 Guittard tester apparently comes down from Bretten, Haut-Rhin, Alsace. We wonder how N1 found its way from Siberia and Scandinavia to this northeastern corner of France. FTDNA identifies his haplogroup as N1, and his Cullen predicted subclade is N3a1-Finn to a 78 % probability.
N Haplogroup is a central Asian lineage defined by the M231 marker. It probably originated in Siberia about 10,000 years ago from Asian haplogroup K lineages -- tribes of hunters and herders who had traveled north across the difficult Pamir Knot mountain region of Tajikistan in central Asia. N1 is now defined by the LLY22g marker, and can be classified by deep-clade SNP testing into 8 subclades.
N descendants trace a migration of Uralic-speaking peoples, a lineage that has dispersed throughout the generations, and now has a wide geographic distribution throughout Eurasia from Finland, Norway and Scandinavia across to northern Asia and China. Its Uralic-speaking cultures include the Saami (Lapps), an indigenous people of northern Sweden, Norway, Finland and Russia, who moved with the reindeer herds and supported themselves by fishing and hunting. As few as 75,000 Saami may still be living today. (It is also interesting that the Saami people of Finland and the Catalonian people of Spain have the highest frequency of mt-DNA haplogroup V, which is the same mt-DNA haplogroup as our Alsace-Ohio Guittard tester.) See DEEP ANCESTRY by Spencer Wells, 2006, National Geographic Society, p. 218.
N's highest frequency occurs among the Finnic and Baltic peoples of northern and eastern Europe, the Ob-Ugric and Northern Samoyedic peoples of western Siberia, and the Siberian Turkic-speaking Yakuts. N1c reaches a frequency of 90% among the Yakuts in Siberia, a Turkic people in the Sakha Republic (Yakutia). N is also found in Japan, Korea, southwestern China, and many other places. Today N is one of the most frequent haplogroups found in Scandinavian Europe.
Eupedia: N is predominant in Finland, its epicenter within Europe, and is found in the Baltic countries, Russia and Siberia, overflowing a bit onto Japan. It is of Uralic-Siberian origin.
The three testers (non-Guittard) who are genetically most similar to our N1 Guittard (one-step mutations matching on 11 out of 12 markers) include
an N1 tester tracing back to Lithuania and
two N1c1 testers tracing back to Native Siberians in Russia.
The next 15 most similar testers (two-step mutations matching on 10 out of 12 markers) include:
2 N1 Native Siberians,
12 N1c1 Native Siberians, and
1 N1c1 Komi (Russian republic west of the Ural Mountains).
III. R1b1b2 SUBGROUPS -- CENTRAL & SOUTHERN FRANCE
A. R1b1b2 TESTERS AND SUBGROUPS
Color-coded on our Y Results page, our six R1b1b2 testers and subgroups include our two Puy de Dome testers plus three other French-origin testers very remotely related to the Puy de Dome testers, plus our tester in Spanish Catalonia. Both Puy de Dome testers have been confirmed as R1b1b2 by the deep clade test. The other four testers are either confirmed as R1b1b2 by deep clade test, or predicted as R1b1b2 by FTDNA to a high probability. The six subgroup testers include four who have traced back to locations in central and southern France, plus one Guittar tester of unknown origin in France, plus our Catalonian Guitart in northeastern Spain.
SUBGROUP -- R1b-NORTH/SOUTH-1 PUY DE DOME.
Our FIRST PUY DE DOME GUITTARD TESTER (tracing back to PONTEIX) now lives on the east side of Puy de Dome -- the same department where the famous Guittard Family Commune was located from the 1100's through 1819. This first Puy de Dome test has been classified as a completely different haplogroup -- R1b1b2 -- Europe's most common haplogroup -- wholly unrelated to the Alsace-Ohio-New-Brunswick line, classified as haplogroup I2. His sub-clade tests out as R1b1b2a1b -- the same as our second Puy de Dome tester below and our Saintonge tester below. His Cullen subclade prediction is R1b-North/South 1 to an 89% probability.
The R1b1b2a1b subclade is described by Eupedia as a lineage defined by marker P312/S116, that originated 4,500 years ago, with its highest frequency in Western Europge, and having Italo-Celtic ethnic associations.
SUBGROUP -- R1b-PUY-DE-DOME-LARODDE.
Our SECOND PUY DE DOME GUITTARD TESTER (tracing back to LARODDE) has now also been confirmed as R1b1b2a1b. The FTDNA TiP report shows our two Puy de Dome testers have a 0.24 % probability of sharing a Most Recent Common Ancestor within the last 24 generations -- roughly 600 years ago. The recalculated TiP shows our two Puy de Dome testers sharing a Most Recent Common Ancestor to a 52 % probability within the last 39 generations - roughly 950 years ago -- around 1050 AD. (Caveat: This recalculated TiP is applied here beyond its normal and accepted range of 24 generations or 600 years, in order to use the newer and more powerful 67-marker tests to explore and investigate the unusual history of the Guittard Commune Family back to the Middle Ages.) His Cullen subclade prediction of Haplogroups and probabilities is as follows:
R1b => 25 %
R1b-E.Europe => 22 %
R1b-Frisian => 18 %
R1b-Frisian3 => 17 %
We are cautiously optimistic that we may be on the threshold of beginning to define an R1b1b2a1b profile as the dominant Puy de Dome profile reaching back to the historic Guittard Family Commune of the 1100's. We need at least one or two more suitable Guittard testers from Puy de Dome to estimate with reasonable confidence whether the R1b1b2a1b profile correctly traces back to the famous Guittard Commune family.
SUBGROUP -- R1b1b2 TOULOUSE.
Our TOULOUSE GUITTARD TESTER has been identified as an R1b1b2, remotely related to the Puy de Dome Guittards. The recalculated TiP report shows our Toulouse tester sharing a Most Recent Common Ancestor with our Larodde Puy de Dome tester to a 53 % probability within the last 35 generations -- roughly 850 years ago -- about 1150 AD. His Cullen subclade prediction is as follows:
R1b => 22 %
R1b-Irish/Continental => 21 %
R1b-S21-Scottish2 => 16 %
SUBGROUP -- R1b-S.IRISH SAINTES.
Our SAINTONGE-MONTREAL GUITARD TESTER has been confirmed as R1b1b2a1b. He is the most remote from the testers in the R1b1b2 Puy de Dome subgroup. The recalculated TiP report shows our Saintonge tester shares a Most Recent Common Ancestor with his closest Guittard tester (Toulouse) to a 53 % probability within the last 43 generations -- very roughly 1050 years ago -- around 950 AD. His Cullen subclade prediction is:
R1b-S.Irish 48% probability
R1b 31% probability
SUBGROUP -- R1b-S29-FRISIAN 2.
Our ST. LOUIS GUITTAR TESTER -- also R1b1b2 -- has been included with the second Puy de Dome tester in this subgroup because the recalculated TiP report shows these two testers are remotely related. They share a Most Recent Common Ancestor to a 54 % probability within the last 36 generations -- roughly 875 years ago -- possibly around the time the famous Guittard commune reportedly began operating in the 1100's. A second test is needed to verify the profile for this line reportedly tracing back to Paul Vincent Guitard, born c. 1726 in Quebec. His Cullen subclade prediction is R1b-S29-Frisian2 to a 100% probability.
Known as Frisian 2 in Prof. Nordtvedt's research, it has been described by Mike Whalen's Cheat Sheet as the R1bSTR3-branch of U106 - confined to S. England (pre-Anglo-Saxon?) -- and a possible Saxon invasion marker or earlier Germanic migration.
Dave Mountain wrote:
Frisians are usually thought of as a seagoing and coastal group. The Frisian culture extended along the North Sea from Holland to Denmark and included regions that are now part of Germany. They also occupied coastal regions of the British Isles.
SUBGROUP -- R1b1b2a SPANISH CATALONIA
Our SPANISH CATALONIAN GUITART TESTER was born and lives in Spanish Catalonia, and may trace back to the famous Guitards of Barcelona and Andorra in the 900's and 1000's.
Deep clade testing confirms this tester as subclade R1b1b2a, described by Eupedia as a lineage defined by marker L23/S141, that originated about 7,000 years ago with its highest frequency in Western Europe and associated with Italo-Celto-Anatolian ethnicity.
His Cullen subclade prediction is:
R1b => 40 % probability
R1b-Ub => 33 %
R1b-E.Europe => 14 %
Recalculated TiP reports show that our Catalonian tester is closest genetically not to our Toulouse tester, but to our Larodde tester. Our Catalonian and Larodde testers shared a Most Recent Common Ancestor within about 53 generations to a 52 % probability. Using the FTDNA rule of thumb of 25 years average between generations, their 53rd generation MRCA lived around 1265 years ago -- very roughly around 735 AD -- during the century of the Moors' conquest of Spain and southern France and Charlemagne's later retaking of southern France and Spain from the Moors. Speculation: This timing during the 700's could mean that some Guitards to the north in France moved south with Charlemagne when he retook Spanish Catalonia from the Moors and stayed there in Spanish Catalonia and Andorra, while other Guittard relatives stayed back in the north, possibly in the vicinity of Larodde in Puy de Dome. Certainly the 700's was a turbulent century in Spain and southern France, and that tumult could readily account for the bifurcation of the Guittard family, leaving a French branch in Puy de Dome and a Spanish branch in Catalonia.
B. HAPLOGROUP R1b1b2
Haplogroup R1b is described as the most common haplogroup in European populations. It is believed to have expanded throughout Europe as humans re-colonized after the last Ice Age around 10,000 years ago. This lineage is also the haplogroup containing the Atlantic modal haplotype. About 22% of the tests in the Ysearch database are R1b. The highest concentration in Western Europe is found in the Basque Country, where 98 % of native men have this R1b haplogroup.
Basque Country and vicinity are believed to have served as a refuge for paleolithic humans during the last major glaciation (Ice Age) when environments further north were too cold or dry for continuous habitation. When the climate warmed about 10,000 years ago, the refuge populations spread north rapidly along the west European coast. Current inhabitants of Britain and Ireland are closely related to the Basques, reflecting their common origin in this refugial area.
Most of the present-day European males with the M343 marker also have the P25 and M269 markers. These markers define the R1b1b2 subclade.
This R1b1b2 sub-haplogroup is believed by some to have existed before the last Ice Age and has been associated with the Aurignacian culture (32,000 - 21,000 BC). Although the precise route of the M269 marker is not known, it is theorized to have originated in Central Asia / South Central Siberia. Archeological evidence supports the view of the arrival of Aurignacian culture to Anatolia from Europe during the Upper Paleolithic rather than from the Iranian plateau. It could have entered prehistoric Europe from the area of Ukraine/Belarus or Central Asia (Kazakhstan) via the coasts of the Black Sea and the Baltic Sea. It is considered to have been widespread in Europe throughout the Paleolithic and before the last Ice Age.
C. RECENT NATIONAL ORIGINS OF SIMILAR TESTERS
Comparing our R1b1b2 Guittard testers to their closest matching non-Guittard testers -- either 12/12 or 11/12, and broken down by national test populations -- we find the matching percentages are very small. Consequently, it is difficult to draw any definite conclusions. Our testers sometimes appear to have the greatest genetic affinity with testers from the British Isles, more than with France or Spain. This similarity could be partly due to the proportionally higher numbers of testers in the British Isles than France, Spain or Germany. More important, the similarity between Basque and British Y-DNA profiles are likely due to R1b1b2 ancestors migrating up from Basque country to the British Isles after the last Ice Age 10,000 years ago.
The national origins of non-Guittard testers most closely related to our R1b1b2 Guittard subgroup testers are summarized below.
Our first Puy de Dome tester (Ponteix) has 12/12 matches with 65 other testers (excluding countries with 1 or 2 matches) as follows:
British Isles 59 (matches) out of 41,441 (total testers) = 0.14 %
France ------ 3 out of 2,230 = 0.13 % -- about the same % as British Isles
Germany --- 3 out of 7,932 = 0.04 % -- much less
Our second Puy de Dome tester (Larodde) has 12/12 matches with 6 other testers, including British Isles 5 (.015 %) and Germany 1 (.014 %) -- about the same small percentages for each.
Larodde has 11/12 matches with over 120 other testers, principally including:
British Isles 72 / 41,441 = 0.17 %
Germany -- 14 / 7932 = 0.18 % -- about the same % as British Isles
France ------ 7 / 2,230 = 0.31 % -- higher % than British Isles
Italy ---------- 8 / 2,348 = 0.34 % -- about the same % as France
Switzerland 5 / 1,131 = 0.44 % -- higher than France or Italy
Netherlands 6 / 1,097 = 0.55 % -- still higher, and, amazingly,
Greece ------ 8 / 514 = 1.56 % -- FIVE TIMES France.
Although Larodde has an extraordinary percentage of near-matches with testers in Greece, the other subgroup testers did not, indicating that the Greek matches may have been a random anomaly.
Our St. Louis Guittar tester has 12/12 matches with over 235 testers, principally including:
British Isles 192 / 41,581 = 0.46 %
Germ./Switz. 30 / 9,070 = 0.33 %
France/Belg. 6 / 2,574 = 0.23 %
Netherlands 5 / 1,097 = 0.46 %
Spain -------- 2 / 2,171 = 0.09 %
Our Toulouse Guittard tester has 12/12 matches with 12 other testers, principally including:
British Isles 9 / 41,441 = 0.22 %
France/Belg 2 / 2,574 = 0.08 % -- less than the British Isles.
Toulouse has 11/12 matches with over 263 other testers, principally including:
British Isles 212 / 41,551 = 0.51 %
France ------- 12 / 2,230 = 0.54 % -- similar to British Isles, more than Spain
Germany ---- 32 / 7,932 = 0.40 %
Spain ---------- 7 / 2,170 = 0.32 %
Our Saintonge tester has 12/12 matches with over 177 other testers, principally including:
British Isles 155 / 42,015 = 0.37 %
Germ./Switz. 10 / 9,070 = 0.11 %
France/Belg. 5 / 2,574 = 0.19 %
Netherlands 3 / 1,097 = 0.27 %
Spain -------- 4 / 2,171 = 0.18 %
Note, however, that the matching R1b1b2 Guittard percentages are up to about ten times larger than the matching percentages for our I2 Alsatian Guittard line, as stated above (for example, about .3 % versus .03 %). The very small matching percentages for our R1b1b2 subgroup are not nearly so small as those for our I2 subgroup, for at least two reasons. (1) The R1b1b2 haplogroup is Europe's most common, while the I2 haplogroup is exeedingly rare. (2) The R1b1b2 percentages apply to much closer 12/12 and 11/12 matches than the Alsatian 10/12 matches. For example, at 10/12 our Larodde tester has 425 total matches (vs. 20 for Alsatian) with 239 from the British Isles (vs. 16 for Alsatian) and 20 from France (vs. zero for Alsatian).
MT-DNA RESULTS ON UNRELATED DIRECT MATERNAL LINE
Our mt-DNA tester has been confirmed as a mt-DNA HAPLOGROUP V on his mt-DNA direct maternal line. Please note these results are NOT related to his Y-DNA direct paternal Guittard line or to any other Guittard tester.
Specific mitochondrial haplogroups are typically found in different regions of the world, and this is due to unique population histories. In the process of spreading around the world, many populations—with their special mitochondrial haplogroups—became isolated, and specific haplogroups concentrated in geographic regions. Today, we have identified certain haplogroups that originated in Africa, Europe, Asia, the islands of the Pacific, the Americas, and even particular ethnic groups. Of course, haplogroups that are specific to one region are sometimes found in another, but this is due to recent migration.
Mitochondrial haplogroup V is a primarily European haplogroup, being largely restricted to western, central and northern Europe. Its age is estimated at 15,000 years ago, indicating that it likely arose during the 5,000 years or so that humans were confined to the European refuges during the last Ice Age. At the end of the last Ice Age it expanded into and recolonized Europe. V OCCURS AT LOW FREQUENCY THROUGHOUT EUROPE. THE HIGHEST FREQUENCY OF HAPLOGROUP V IS FOUND AMOUND THE SAAMI IN FINLAND AND THE CATALONIA REGION OF SPAIN. V is found in around 12 % of Basques, an isolated population in northern Spain, and around 5% in many other western European populations. It is also found in Algeria and Morocco, indicating that these humans migrating out of the Iberian Peninsula also headed south across the Strait of Gibraltar and into North Africa. Future work will better resolve the distribution and historical characteristics of this haplogroup.