It's been almost two years since I last wrote about Family Tree DNA and thought I'd check in and explore how I'm doing so far (You can see my first post about FTDNA here...just don't laugh because it was also my very first blog post). It looks like FTDNA is now up to over 204000 records as of July 17, 2008. My haplogroup was updated and is now E1b1b1b2 because the Y-chromosome tree changed. FTDNA has also added some cool maps allowing you to pinpoint where potential DNA cousins come from...Here are my 25 marker Y-DNA and high resolution mtDNA maps. I still have no matches I would call a verifiable genealogical possibility.
While my Y-DNA test has enlightened me somewhat on the origin of my paternal family, it has also puzzled me. According to my haplogroup, my paternal family is of North African origin (Berber specifically). This makes complete sense because of the Muslim expansion across the Mediterranean into Spain and Southern Italy. Most of the matches I've received come from people with Spanish or Arabic sounding names completely in line with my haplogroup and my understanding of the history of the Mediterranean world. The puzzling part is represented by the red markers as shown in the 25 marker Y-DNA map in the link above.
If you look closely at the map you'll see a red marker hovering over what is now Poland. These represent eight exact matches for every value on a 25 marker test (I took the 37 marker test, but have received no matches). The orange and yellow also represent 25 marker matches, but have a genetic distances of one and two (this means one or two of the markers are different). Every match here has the same surname except for me - it's very Germanic and the earliest known ancestor was born in Prussia in the mid 1700s. How can I have exact DNA matches with a family appearing to originate in Northern Europe, but have a haplogroup predominately from the Western Mediterranean?
I can understand if those matches had my last name...or I had theirs, but how can I account for the same exact haplogroup, two completely different last names with known family origins so far apart (mine in Italy and my 25 marker matches in Prussia)? I did get an email from one of those matches who asked how I felt being the only one in the group with a different last name. I responded with a bunch of questions, but never got a response. So now I begin to wonder if a mistake was made in the DNA tests, but that doesn't make any sense because FTDNA would have to commit the same mistake 9 different times and I find this unlikely. I guess the family of my matches could have left Southern Italy before the advent of surnames, moved to Prussia and assumed a Germanic surname over time. I kind of discount that possibility because peasants rarely made moves as drastic as this. I did write a post about a theory on the origin of my last name, but those Prussian matches kind of complicate the whole thing. I just find it hard to figure out how my haplogroup could end up in Prussia...
Another unsolvable genealogy mystery. This is the frustrating part of family history - the more you learn, the less you know. If this keeps up I will be completely ignorant fairly soon.
