The new 23andMe features provided the revelation that in the past several hundred years my mother’s line had ancestry in Europe/the Near East.

This may be the first confirmation of something about a North African blood connection that my mother once alluded to in conversation with one of my brothers.  It also may provide the explanation of observation that my Mediterranean DNA is too great (around 45%) to be credited solely to my grandfather which should only be about 25%.

Also somewhat surprising is the reference to my father’s line still being found primarily in Africa.

23andMe has added some interesting new features.  One is Ancestry Overview.  One of its segments identifies Top Relative Surnames from all the other 23andMe subscribers that are our cousins–some 1008.  These names include the names of those 23andMe members and all the family surnames that they have included in their files.  Such a facility may be helpful in finding Frank’s true surname, whether it is McCallum or not.

What are those names?

I’ve been asked how we got started on this quest. As all such stories should go, it starts with, “Two people walk into a bar…”

In the spring of 2010 my son, David, was in a Toronto bar with his girlfriend Angella. They were discussing finding an appropriate birthday present for her father.

While surfing the net on a friends web-enabled phone they discovered that 23andMe was offering DNA testing for both medical and genealogical results for $99 down from $495. The offer expired in 20 minutes. They bought one for her father and David also bought one for himself since he had been asking “who am I?” largely motivated by the identity-hole left by his great-grandfather, one that David had unsuccessfully tried to fill.

When his results came back he had no time to check them since he was out of town for two months and had recently decided to do his PhD in Sweden and they had to be there in two months. So he gave curious me access to his file. After a week or so of poking around I stumbled across a MacCallum web site devoted to genealogical DNA research. Hundreds of McCallums (McCallan etc) on it were people with only versions of haplotype R. None were versions of our E. We didn’t belong. Then I checked for other sites related to E1b1b1c1a. Low and behold we came from the Levant (near Abraham’s Harran) around 1515 BCE  (+/-650 years).

It was like waking up on a foreign hotel room and not know which way was home. Completely disorienting—for days.  The Levant is not Glasgow.

Fortunately, Klezmer is every bit as appealing as bagpipes.  My grandfather did marry a Glaswegian and so my love of the pipes must come from her.

While on the subject, yes David’s girl friend’s father’s DNA test must have checked out because David and Angella will marry July 27th on the shore where the Atlantic Ocean meets Canada in Newfoundland.

Just kidding about David checking Angella’s father’s DNA test.

Just to show you that you never know who you are going to turn up in your ancestral closet. I haven’t fully verified these claims but they look legit and you can check them for yourselves at the sites listed below. Also, remember that we are 3 mutations farther branched from that haplotype. You may take awhile to get your head around that one.

http://www.borghesegardens.com/borghese_family_tree.htm
http://www.familytreedna.com/cj.aspx?ftdna_ref=500

Feb 18, 2011 : Ancient, Southern Italian Borghese Family Y-DNA (not Roman) Haplogroup E1b1b1 (M35) Y-chromosome DNA Testing
National Geographic Genographic Project Y-DNA Test results:

The designations for all 12 loci examined for this purpose are listed here, along with the Short Tandem Repeats (STRs) outcome for each.

393 390 19 391 385a 385b 426 388 439 389-1 392 389-2

13 24 13 10 16 – 18 11 12 12 14 11 31
Feb 17, 2011 : Out of Africa or the Middle East ?

E1b1b1-M35 DNA of Albert Einstein and Barack Obama. 12% of Spanish Jews are E1b1b, 20% of Eastern European Jews (the ones who migrated east after they moved northward through Italy) are also E1b1b. Albert Einstein was from the 20% of Eastern European Jews and belongs to Haplogroup E1b1b

Barack Obama’s dad is a Luo-Nilotic from East Africa / Kenya.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama,_Sr.
Feb 16, 2011 : E1b1b1-M35 The Wright Brothers Y-DNA

The Wright Brothers of the United States belonged to Y-DNA haplogroup E1b1b1, subclade E1b1b1a2 (V13). They were supposedly descended from Robert Wright of Brook Hall, Essex, England. Look at Wright DNA Project

DYS – 393-390-19-391-385A-385B-426-388-439-389I-392-389II
Alleles 13 – 24 -13 -10 – 16 – 18 – 11 -12 – 12 – 13 – 11 – 29