Friday, March 27, 2015

Exciting Genetics

As a Christmas present for myself - yes indeed, I do that - I bought myself some DNA testing through a company called Family Tree DNA, which is the testing partner for National Geographic's Genographic Project.

I received a test kit in the mail a couple of months later. The kit consisted of two brushes and two vials. After swiping a brush gently over the inside of the left cheek I stuffed it into one vial and then did the same thing with the right cheek. Then I sent them off to the USA and waited for several more weeks.

Well yesterday the results of one of the tests came in on my assigned webpage. These results are for what is called "The Family Tree Finder", in which I can find my genetic make-up, among other things my origins.

According to the results my origins consist of 96% European (Scandinavia 73%, British Isles 21% and Eastern Europe 2%) and - lo and behold - 4% Central/South Asian. (You can see my genetic hot-spots in colors on the map above.)

What excited me most at first was the Asian origin, which according to the information consisted of Persians, Sogdians and Afghans.

And we all know our history don't we? We all know what famous person lead an army to the hills in Sogdia, besieged the Sogdian Rock and later married into Sogdian royalty and conceived a son, now don't we?

Well, if you didn't understand it before let me tell you the great news! I could of course be the great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great (or something similar) grandson of Alexander the Great and the Sogdian princess Roxana.

There is of course also a very remote possibility that my ancestor was one of Alexanders soldiers or even the carrier of his chamber pot who had a one-night fling with a Sogdian working girl...  But I am inclined to lean more towards the first theory until further information comes to my knowledge.

Furthermore the test tells me the locations of my most distant paternal Family Finder matches to be in The Netherlands and Western Sweden, while my most distant maternal Family Finder matches are located in South Western Norway and Southern Sweden.

I am now excitedly awaiting the results of my Y-DNA and mtDNA screenings.

3 comments :

  1. I found out I was part Irish through the same test! About 8%. I had no idea. Makes St. Patty's day a big party!

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