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DNA Traces Roots Back To Stone Age
Independent (UK) ^ | 3-24-2002 | Paul Lashmar

Posted on 03/25/2002 5:34:27 PM PST by blam

26 March 2002 01:46 GMT

DNA traces roots back to Stone Age

By Paul Lashmar
24 March 2002

Are you a Viking, Saxon, Pict, Celt, or descendant of an ancient African tribe? New DNA testing methods will enable us to trace our family tree right back to the Stone Age.

Until recently, researching your ancestry meant hours of painstaking digging through fusty old files in public record offices or asking older relatives about their family memories. When the 1901 census was released online, demand was so great that the system crashed.

The new scientific technique for tracing relatives allows individuals to submit a DNA sample to a laboratory, to be matched with other, historic samples.

Genealogists Oxford Ancestors launched their "Viking" service this week. For £160 they will test your DNA sample. "We will be able to tell you if your ancestors were Norsemen who arrived here more than 1,000 years ago in a longboat," said chief executive David Ashworth.

The service follows the popularity of the BBC history series Blood of the Vikings. By matching their DNA with samples taken from modern day Danish descendents of the Vikings, a number of Britons were found to have Viking blood, especially in areas where Viking communities settled during the Dark Ages.

Discovering whether you are a Pict or Saxon will be more difficult. "But it will probably be possible in due course," said Mr Ashworth. "In some cases you can get your family tree back as far as 1400 or, exceptionally, 1200. But that is only really if you are related to a king or very prominent family."

Genetic fingerprinting promises to solve this problem, taking researchers as far back as 45,000 years although it does not identify individual ancestors.

Oxford Ancestors has two other DNA tests for avid genealogists. One has traced the maternal ancestry of almost all Europeans to just seven women who lived in different parts of the continent between 45,000 and 10,000 years ago.

The other enabled Oxford Ancestors' founder Professor Bryan Sykes to prove that he and 250 other men named Sykes shared a 14th-century founding father.


TOPICS: Science
KEYWORDS: bryansykes; celts; dnatraces; fartyshadesofgreen; gingergene; godsgravesglyphs; helixmakemineadouble; ireland; johnhawks; neandertal; neandertals; neanderthal; neanderthals; tuscany
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To: LostTribe
Well, yes, some of the stuff is both overblown and rigged. That is, when an agenda is part of the search (as with some anthroplogists who MUST show a recent "out of Africa" scenario). And, there is a reasonable limit to how far one can look back with accuracy. But, if the Celts and the old Hebrews separated about 2500 years ago, there would be footprints in the DNA that would be reasonably reliable.

As far as I'm conscerned, stranger things have happened; personally, I would be delighted (I am of Hebrew ancestry and an Irishophile!

21 posted on 03/26/2002 4:45:36 PM PST by Pharmboy
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To: blam
Genetic fingerprinting... does not identify individual ancestors.

Wheeew... They had me worried there for a minute. Who knows how many outstanding warrants for my ancestors could be floating around out there!

22 posted on 03/26/2002 4:47:24 PM PST by Redcloak
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To: Pharmboy
>personally, I would be delighted...

As someone with a strong technical and scientific background I could also be convinced (one way or the other), or at least influenced by good solid non-agenda driven genetic evidence. Problem is, any organization funding such a genetic study has, by definition, an agenda, or it would not allocate the funds. I have been too close to "scientific research" data in the past to not be very cautious.

Since such evidence is not at hand, a historical approach has to be taken. I am fascinated by the population data, which appears sound. That a population that large should be "assimilated" into neighboring tribes seem more like an excuse for not knowing precisely what happened than a historical fact. That the previously unknown Celts should suddenly burst onto the scene and appear in history en masse, at the same time and same place that the Northern Israelites disappear is just too coincidenal.

23 posted on 03/26/2002 5:00:31 PM PST by LostTribe
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Listen everyone. The English are of Semitic blood. 10,000 year old semitic blood. Bryan Sykes found Jasmine's mtdna in many British. BUt its 10,000 years old not just around 2500 years old as it would be if the British directly descended from the Lost Tribes of Israel.
24 posted on 08/26/2003 11:34:21 AM PDT by TRUTHFULTOTHECORE
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Note: this topic is from 03/25/2002. Thanks blam.

25 posted on 11/03/2019 8:23:31 AM PST by SunkenCiv (Imagine an imaginary menagerie manager imagining managing an imaginary menagerie.)
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