Results
COUSINS
Analysis reveals that:
• Kit numbers 81973 and 107613 are related, with a genetic distance of 3 on 67 markers.
• Kit numbers 52669 and 56277 are probably related, with a genetic distance of 2 on 25 markers
• Kit numbers 81973 and 61428 are possibly related, with a genetic distance of 1 on 12 markers.
• Kit numbers 52669 and N18032 are possibly related, with a genetic distance of 1 on 12 markers.
According to Dean McGee’s Y-DNA comparison utility, the length of time since current project participants last shared a common Y-chromosome ancestor ranges from a low of 300 years in the case of 107613 and 81973 (who now know they are third cousins) to more than 21,000 years in several other cases. The formula used to calculate this can only be regarded as a general indicator for those who are most unrelated, but it is safe to say that many current project members have not shared a forefather in the period during which surnames have been in existence. In several cases, it has been many dozens of generations since our most recent common ancestor -- probably since before the start of the last ice age.
HOMELANDS
Six of those who have been tested to date by FTDNA are Americans with an imprecise knowledge of where their families originated in Europe. Among those who do know their European origins:
• Six are from England, the UK or Great Britain; two of the six are Americans who believe they are from the Norfolk-London puritan corridor; one project member currently resides in Norfolk, and another in Hampshire.
• Three from Germany; one of these specifically from Dinkelsbuehl and one from Prussia
• One reports Irish ancestry
• One lives in Stockholm, Sweden.
There also are three Winter/Winters testees at the Sorenson Molecular Genealogy project whose results don’t appear in the current Family Tree DNA database. These are their reported European geographic origins: Netherlands, England and Germany. There also is a deWinter from Canada.
OUR GENETIC CLANS
Two-thirds of participants in the Winter/Winters DNA Project belong to the R1b1b2 haplogroup, the predominant genetic family along Europe's far-western Atlantic zone. (Family Tree DNA in most of these instances takes the classification only to the R1b1 level, but it is virtually certain all these are actually R1b1b2. Tests are available if you want to know for sure.)
The greatest genetic separations apply to several of us who don’t belong to the R1b1b2 haplogroup (until recently called R1b1c), but to other European genetic families. Two of us belong to different subclades of haplogroup I; one to C3; one to J1; and one (probably) to J2.
Someone who has been tested but has not yet joined this project belongs to haplogroup Q with an origin in Czechoslovakia. Someone else, tested by Relative Genetics, is in haplogroup I1b2a*. Another non-member, tested by Family Tree DNA for 67 markers, is R1b1b2. (These were found in Ysearch by the project administrator.)
Much can be learned about these haplogroups by Googling them or looking them up on Wikipedia. The abridged descriptions below are from the latter source.
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HAPLOGROUP DETAILS
Haplogroup R1b1b2
This subgroup probably originated in Central Asia/South Central Siberia and appears to have entered prehistoric Europe mainly from the area of Ukraine/Belarus or Central Asia (Kazakhstan) via the coasts of the Black Sea and the Baltic Sea. It is believed by many to have been widespread in Europe before the last Ice Age, and associated with the Aurignacian culture (32,000 - 21,000 BC) of the Cro-Magnon people, the first modern humans to enter Europe. The Cro-Magnons were the first documented human artists, making sophisticated cave paintings. Famous sites include Lascaux in France, Cueva de las Monedas in Spain and Valley of Foz Côa in Portugal (the largest open-air site in Europe).
The glaciation of the ice age intensified, and the continent became increasingly uninhabitable. The genetic diversity narrowed through founder effects and population bottlenecks, as the population became limited to a few coastal refugia in Southern Europe and Asia Minor. The present-day population of R1b in Western Europe are believed to be the descendants of a refugium in the Iberian peninsula (Portugal and Spain), where the R1b1c haplogroup may have achieved genetic homogeneity. As conditions eased with the Allerød Oscillation in about 12,000 BC, descendants of this group migrated and eventually recolonized all of Western Europe, leading to the dominant position of R1b in variant degrees from Iberia to Scandinavia, so evident in haplogroup maps.
An alternative belief is that R1b represents the Western or centum-speaking branch of the Proto-Indo-Europeans, although this remains uncertain.
A second R1b1b2 population, reflected in a somewhat different distribution of haplotypes of the more rapidly varying Y-STR markers, appear to have survived alongside other haplogroups in Asia Minor, from where they spread out to repopulate Eastern Europe. However, they do not have the same dominance that R1b has in Western Europe. Instead the most common haplogroup in Eastern Europe is haplogroup R1a1, often thought to be associated with a subsequent migration of Indo-Europeans (or perhaps their ancestors) from the East.
Haplogroup J1
Haplogroup J1 appears at high frequencies among populations of the Middle East, North Africa, and Ethiopia. J1 was spread by two temporally distinct migratory episodes, the most recent one probably associated with the diffusion of Muslims from Arabia since the 6th century CE.
Haplogroup J1 is most frequent in Arabs of the southern Levant, i.e. Palestinian Arabs (38.4%) and Arab Bedouins (62% and 82% in Negev desert Bedouins). It is also very common among other Arabic-speaking populations, such as those of Algeria (35%), Syria (30%), Iraq (33%), the Sinai Peninsula, and the Arabian Peninsula. ... Haplogroup J1 is found almost exclusively among modern populations of Southwest Asia, North Africa, and East Africa, essentially delineating the region popularly known as the Middle East and associated with speakers of Semitic languages. The distribution of J1 outside of the Middle East may be associated with Arabs and Phoenicians who traded and conquered in Sicily, southern Italy, Spain, Azerbaijan, Turkey, and Pakistan, or with Jews, who have historical origins in the Middle East and speak (or historically spoke) a Semitic language, though typically Haplogroup J2 is more than twice as common among Jews. In Jewish populations overall, J1 constitutes 14.6% of the Ashkenazim results and 11.9% of the Sephardic results.
Haplogroup J2
Haplogroup J2 is present especially in ethnic groups resident in or originating from Southern Europe, Anatolia, the Levant (Israel, Lebanon), northern Mesopotamia (Kurdistan), the South Caucasus (Armenia, Georgia), Central Asia, and South Asia: for example, Muslim Kurds (28.4%), Central Turks (27.9%), Georgians (26.7%), Iraqis (25.2%), Lebanese (25%), Ashkenazi Jews (23.2%), and Sephardi Jews (28.6%). ... J2 has been found to encompass several subhaplogroups (22 subhaplogroups, including 12 that have high frequencies) that originated or expanded in different regions: Italy, the Balkans, the Aegean, Anatolia (Kurds and Turkey), the Caucasus (Georgia), and Somalia (see ref: Semino et al. 2004). Haplogroup J2 has often been considered a genetic marker of Anatolian Neolithic agriculturalists. It is also very frequent in the Balkans (Greeks 20.6%, Albanians 19.6%) and in southern Italy (16.7-29.1%). Its frequency rapidly drops in the Carpathian basin (Croatians 6.2%, Hungarians 2.0%, Ukrainians 7.3%). A significant presence of J2 (J2b2+J2a) was also detected in western and south-western India (the highest being 21% among Dravidian middle castes, followed by upper castes, 18.6%, and lower castes 14%; Sengupta et al. 2006).
Haplogroup C3
Haplogroup C3 is a Y-chromosome DNA haplogroup mainly found in indigenous Mongolians. Haplogroup C3 is the most widespread and frequently occurring branch of the greater Haplogroup C (M130). One particular haplotype within Haplogroup C3 has received a great deal of attention for the possibility that it may represent direct patrilineal descent from Genghis Khan.
Haplogroup C3 is believed to have originated approximately 20,000 years before present in eastern or central Asia. Its closest phylogenetic relatives are found in the general vicinity of South Asia, East Asia, or Oceania. Haplogroup C3 is the modal haplogroup among Mongolians and most indigenous populations of the Russian Far East, such as the Northern Tungusic peoples, Koryaks, and Nivkhs. ... Beyond this range of high-to-moderate frequency, which contains mainly the northeast quadrant of Eurasia and the northwest quadrant of North America, Haplogroup C3 continues to be found at low frequencies, and it has even been found as far afield as Northwest Europe, Turkey, Pakistan, Vietnam, the Malay Archipelago, and some aboriginal populations of Colombia and Venezuela.
Haplogroup I
Haplogroup I (the letter I, not the number 1) can be found in most present-day European populations, most commonly in Scandinavia, Sardinia, and the Slavic populations of the Western Balkans in southeastern Europe.
According to current theories, Haplogroup I first arrived in Europe around 20,000-25,000 years ago from the Middle East, perhaps associated with the Gravettian culture, and just prior to the onset of the last glacial maximum (LGM). It is most closely related to Haplogroup J, as both Haplogroup I and Haplogroup J are descendants of Haplogroup IJ. The Haplogroup I Y-chromosomes found among the Scandinavians, Sardinians, and Slavs generally belong to different subclades, however, which indicates that each of the ancestral populations now dominated by a particular subclade experienced an independent population expansion, believed to reflect different migrations of people during and immediately after the ice age.
Haplogroup I Y-chromosomes have also been found among some populations of the Middle East, the Caucasus, and Central Asia, but they are found at frequencies exceeding 10% only among populations of Europe and Asia Minor, particularly among Germanic, Slavic, Uralic, and Turkic peoples, as well as among the Romance-speaking populations of France, Romania, Moldova, and Sardinia, the Albanian-speaking population of Albania, and the Greek-speaking population of Greece.
... It could be said that Haplogroup I displays relatively higher frequencies among peoples who have at times been considered to be "northern barbarians". The great majority of the Y-chromosomes among even these "northern barbarians," however, are comprised of the same haplogroups (R1b in Western Europe, R1a1 in Eastern Europe, and N in Northeastern Europe) as the majority of the Y-chromosomes of the southerly, earlier civilized populations.
Haplogroup Q
Haplogroup Q is a branch of haplogroup P (M45). It is believed to have arisen in Siberia approximately 15,000 to 20,000 years ago.
This haplogroup contains the patrilineal ancestors of many Siberians, Central Asians, and indigenous peoples of the Americas. Haplogroup Q Y-chromosomes are also found scattered at a low frequency throughout Eurasia. This haplogroup is surprisingly diverse despite its low frequency among most populations outside of Siberia or the Americas, and at least six primary subclades have been sampled and identified in modern populations.
A migration from Asia into Alaska across the Bering Strait was done by haplogroup Q populations approximately 15,000 years ago. This founding population spread throughout the Americas. Once in the Americas, haplogroup Q underwent a mutation, producing its descendant population defined by the M3 SNP.
In the Old World the Q lineage and its many branches is largely found within a huge triangle defined by Norway in the West, Iran in the South and Mongolia in the East. There is also a rough correlation between the Turkic-speaking peoples of Central Eurasia and Q. The frequency of Q in Norway and Mongolia is about 4% while in the Iranian cities of Shiraz and Esfahan, the frequency runs between 6% and 8%; Iranian samples of haplogroup Q belong almost exclusively to the M25 defined subclade. In the middle of this triangle, in Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, the frequency of Q runs between 10% and 14%. Only two groups in the Old World are majority Q groups. These are the Selkups (~70%) and Kets (~95%). They live in western and middle Siberia and are small in number, being just under 5,000 and 1,500, respectively.