Legg surname genetic test comparision and Matriline test results

There are many Legg's throughout the world, what is not known is to what extent they share a common male ancestor, as convential records only go back so far. Now an easy mechanism (by Y chromosome genetic testing) is available to answer this question. I have had my 'Y' chromsome tested, and invite all other male Legg visitors who have done same to compare results. I can compare directly against those who have taken either the Oxford Ancestor's test or the Family Tree DNA test, and partially against other testing companies. Contact: gjlegg@hotmail.com .

From the Oxford Ancestors Y line test results:
"on balance, the chances are that your distant paternal ancestors were drawn from the original Celtic inhabitants of Britain and Ireland".
For an explanation of Y line testing below.

I have also taken the Oxford Ancestors matriline test - this covers the descent through the maternal line exclusively, and is much coarser than the 'Y' line test. See below for explanations and results.

From elementary genetics we learn that the 23rd chromosome is the "sex" determining chromosome. Males have both an "X" and a "Y" 23rd chromosome, but females only carry a "X" for their 23rd chromosome. The human egg becomes a female embryo if the male sperm carries an X-chromosome and a male embryo when the sperm has a Y-chromosome. Thus the Y-chromosome is passed down from generation to generation only through the male line. You might want to read an article about the Y-chromosome.

Several recent projects have reported on the use of the Y chromosome to trace and analyze surnames. Reuters issued a news release in early 2000 entitled, "Gene test helps scientist trace family names". In the article, Bryan Sykes of Oxford University was able to demonstrate, using DNA test results from a random sampling of 250 men with the Sykes surname, that they came from a common ancestor. Another fairly famous case involves the question as to whether or not President Thomas Jefferson fathered any slave children by Sally Hemings. The results clearly showed that one of her sons had a Jefferson Y chromosome, either from Thomas or one of his near relatives. A third study involves Jewish men who are kohanim, a Hebrew word literally meaning "priests". During the time of the First and Second Temples and up until the latter's destruction in 70 AD, the kohanim were responsible for performing elaborate rituals of animal sacrifices and grain offerings. Based on a study of 306 Jewish men in Israel, Canada and England, the researchers discovered that the 106 Jews who had identified themselves as kohanim shared genetic markers in their Y-chromosomes that members of the general Jewish population did not.

Description from Oxford ancestors Matriline information page on the seven daughters of Eve.

Over the past decade research in Oxford and other universities throughout the world, has shown that our mitochondrial DNA (or mtDNA for short), which is inherited exclusively through the maternal line, uncovers a genetic legacy which has been invisible until now.

This female genealogy has created an evolutionary framework going back 150,000 years, and reveals that almost everyone in Europe, or whose maternal roots are in Europe, is descended from one of only seven women. Each of them founded a maternal clan whose descendants make up well over 95% of modern Europeans.

These seven women, the 'Seven Daughters of Eve', have been given the names Ursula (Latin for "she-bear"), Xenia (Greek for "hospitable"), Helena (Greek for "light"), Velda (Scandinavian for "ruler"), Tara (Gaelic for "rock"), Katrine (Greek for "pure") and Jasmine (Persian for "flower").

You can now find your own place within this genealogy - by far the world's largest known family tree. If your roots are in Europe, you will discover which of these women is your ancestor and find out about her world.

In other parts of the world, twenty seven equivalent clans have been identified so far. If your maternal roots lie outside Europe, you can find which one of these you belong to and how you are connected to all the other clans.

Matriline analysis
Graeme Legg is a descendant of the clan Xenia

This map shows the parts of Europe where these seven women lived, This map is of modern Europe, however, which is different to the Europe the Seven Daughters would have lived in.

Information on the clan Xenia

Of all the clans, Xenia's is the most mysterious. We know she lived about 25,000 years ago, in one of the remote wooded valleys of the Caucasus Mountains on the eastern edge of the Black Sea. There she feasted on chamois and mountain goat, always wary of wolves and the ferocious cave bears which competed for the best shelters. As the climate grew worse with the onset of the last Ice Age, her children left the rapidly cooling mountains and spread out to the East and West. They must have been prodigious travellers because her clan is now found not only all over Europe but also, intriguingly, in North America. This must mean that a few members of the clan travelled right across Asia and joined the first expeditions across the dry Bering land bridge and into the Americas.

These results are applicable to anyone descended through the same maternal lines as Ethiopia Sevellina.
Test results show haplogroup as R1.

R1 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.

Emerging from superhaplogroup N, haplogroup R has also been called a superhaplogroup on the basis of its pan-Eurasian distribution, and the fact that it gives rise to many of the major haplogroups distributed across Europe, Asia, and the New World. Haplogroup R dates to approximately 65,000 years ago, a time of key population history events in the peopling of the globe by modern humans. Future work will further document the historical distribution of this haplogroup and closely related lineages within the R cluster

These results are applicable to anyone descended through the same maternal lines as Eusebia Pinca. The DNA sequence shows them to be a direct maternal descendent of Djigonasee. (For relationships within Europe see chart for Graeme Legg's results above) Below is more specific technical information.

Description from Oxford ancestors: This is a DNA sequence which is very rare among native Europeans. It belongs to a clan which is found only occasionally within Europe and, because it is so rare, is not among the seven clans which appear on our web site.

Djigonasee - The name is taken from a heroine of the Ontario Hurons, Djigonasee was the mother of the peacebringer Deganiwada, founder of the Six Nations: Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, Mohawk, and Tuscarora. Like many mothers of heroes, Djigonasee was a virgin when her son was born. A herald from beyond this world announced the birth.

She is the founder of one of the four major clans which colonised both North and South America from Eastern Asia about twelve thousand yeas ago. Moving across thc Bering Land Bridge which joined what is now Alaska and Siberian her descendants fbught extreme conditions of cold and ice lo reach the Great Plains. From there they spread out to reach all parts of North America and, within only a thousand years, all of Central and South America as well. Her evolutionary relationship to other clans from around the world is shown on your chart.

We think Djigonasee herself lived in North-Eastern Asia but we are not yet sure exactly when or where.

INTERPRETING THE CERTIFICATE

Your certificate shows the 33 women from whom we are all descended and the ancestral relationships between them The star indicates your place on the chart and also which of these women is your ancestral mother A small grey circle indicates a common ancestral link between them.

The colour of the circle indicates where these women (or clusters of sequences) are found. The colour key is as follows:

THE WORLD

The 33 clusters (or clans) recognised around the world, vary in frequency across locations, but there is no specific association between genetic clans and tribal structures This is a reflection of the great antiquity of our genetic roots, which predate the formation of tribal and other classification systems by more than a hundred thousand years

Africa lays claim to 13 of the maternal clans, a reflection of its status as the cradle of humankind Although these are easily the most ancient clans in the world, it is still possible to construct the genetic relationship between them By doing this it is possible to show there is one maternal ancestor for all of Africa, and therefore for the rest of the world. She is referred to as 'Mitochondrial Eve', and is shown on your certificate.

Obviously, she would not have been the only woman alive at the time, but only her maternal lineage has survived unbroken to the present day She in turn would have had an ancestral mother, and this line reaches back millions of years to the very beginning of our species.

Although modern humans had their origins in Africa, only one of these clans, Lara, has so far been found in the gene pool of the rest of the world She probably lived in what we now know as Kenya or Ethiopia

Four clans - Chochmingwu, Djigonasee, Aiyana and Ina - dominate the genetics of native Americans. Also, about 1% of native Americans are found to belong to the clan of Xenia, which had its origins on the borders of Europe and Asia The clans of Chochmingwu Djigonasee and Aiyana can all be found in modern inhabitants of Siberia and Alaska, but this is not the case for Ina Her descendants are found in South and Central America, but only as far north as Vancouver Island on the north-west Pacific coast. Intriguingly, this same clan is also the one that is closely associated with the Colonization of the Polynesian islands from Southeast Asia.

The detailed mtDNA HVR1 sequence mutations for Graeme Legg are: 16223[T] 16292[T] 16311[C]. Technically this is from Halogroup W (Oxford ancestors have grouped halogroups I, X & W into the clan Xenia. The defining sequence of halogroup W are 16223 & 16292. The third marker from above (16311) represents Graeme's particular offshoot from halogroup W. A full graph of the relationship between major halogroups is available at http://www.stats.gla.ac.uk/~vincent/images/skeleton07-08-02.jpg, while this Macaulay site also gives a reference list of a number of papers summarising the present state of the art in Matriline testing. The specific numbers identified above represent the diferences from the base case (CRS or Cambridge reference sequence) which cooresponds to the base "Helena" case. For current state of the "Mitochondtial Tree": http://www.mitomap.org/mitomap-phylogeny.pdf

The older children are descended from halogroup D, sequence 223T, 295T, 362C. (233 & 362 being the main markers from halogroup D, 295 being the subgroup).

The younger children are descended from haplogroup R1, sequence 16172C, 16278T, 16311C, 16519C.

For those who have taken the Oxford Ancestors Matriline test, Oxford Ancestors maintains a restricted database of all others with the same genetic markers, thus enabling contacts to be made. Similarly for those who have taken the Family Tree DNA tests. Arthur Anders (web page http://www.algonet.se/~andersa/gen/dna/m/) also maintains a database of all test results which have been posted to the web.

Haplogroup W is derived from the N super-haplogroup, which dates to approximately 65,000 years ago. The origin of haplogroup W dates to approximately 25,000 years ago, and it is mainly found distributed in west Eurasia (or Europe). It is likely that individuals bearing this lineage participated in the expansion into the bulk of Europe following the Last Glacial Maximum. Future work, including obtaining more samples from central Asia, will further refine the historical distribution of this haplogroup and better determine the role it played in the peopling of Europe. For more info about haplogroup W: What is Haplogroup W and Where did Haplogroup W originate

Legg surname genetic testing and Matriline test results.