Lloyd Christmas
Posted on 11/23/2005 9:08:42 AM PST by Sax
DNA search for 'father' Christmas By Paul Rincon BBC News science reporter
A team of scientists in Oxford is trying to prove whether families with the rare surname of "Christmas" all descend from a single male ancestor.
They want to study the DNA of men from different Christmas clans to see if they are linked by a common genetic heritage as well as by their surnames.
Bryan Sykes of Oxford Ancestors hopes to do this by studying the male, or Y, chromosomes of volunteers.
The work is part of wider research on the links between surnames and DNA.
DNA analysis company Oxford Ancestors is currently appealing for volunteers for the study and is being assisted in the effort by Henry Christmas, a former telecommunications engineer who has spent 50 years researching the origins and history of his own family name.
Professor Sykes told the BBC News website: "There are several interesting questions such as was there one original 'father' Christmas or were there several different ones?"
A bit of cheek
His team will be taking cheek swabs from those volunteers selected by Mr Christmas in order to extract their DNA.
Every male possesses a Y chromosome which can be inherited only from his father, so this package of genetic material represents a unique record of paternal inheritance.
"If it's a single family with one original founder, then most of them will have the same Y chromosome fingerprint. If there's more than one, we'll identify that," said Bryan Sykes.
"But generally this is the kind of name that, from experience, has one or very few founders."
The work forms a small part of a wider project being conducted by Professor Sykes on the genetic history of Britain.
Surnames can be remarkably informative in reconstructing the genetic family tree of the British Isles, especially those of moderate frequency that can be tied closely to genealogical records.
"Generally speaking, the rarer the name, the more likely it is to have one founder," he explained.
"Most surnames are moderate frequency, like Sykes, like Christmas. Many, even now, are clustered around the historical origin of the name.
"This gives you a way of measuring how much spreading and mixing and movement there has been over the last 800 years - because many English surnames started then."
'Norman origin'
Professor Sykes found about 70% of the men he studied with his own surname had near-identical Y chromosomes. The 70% were all descended from one man who lived in Yorkshire in the 13th Century.
The Christmas family name is established widely through the home counties, but there are two significant geographical clusters; one in Essex and one in Sussex.
"We will select volunteers from those two branches," said Professor Sykes.
"If you didn't have that genealogical information, you wouldn't have the first idea about those two branches or where they come from."
Some genealogy books state that the origin of the surname derives from "one born at Christmas". But Henry Christmas believes this is "too easy".
"The original spelling was 'Chrystmasse', which perhaps indicates Norman origin. There were also Huguenots who came over [from France] with that name," he told the BBC News website.
Professor Sykes said the study should also be able to show how people with the Christmas surname are linked by their genes to other lineages.
And it should link the common male founder - if indeed there was one - to one of the major population groups that have settled in the British Isles over the ages.
But the technique can also reveal signs of female infidelity, turning up errant Y chromosomes that do not fit in the overall genetic tree for a particular lineage.
Sykes is a pretty credible source. I read his book several years ago and found it very readable and interesting. Since I do genealogy as a hobby, I would love to have my DNA tested. But alas, I am not a Christmas--father or mother.
I have a first cousin who is married to a guy with the last name "Christmas".
Uh Oh....wait till the feminists hear about THAT!
sometimes reading between the lines is a bad thing.
Lloyd Christmas
Thus bringing up the possibility that Winston Churchill, British playwright Carol Churchill, and American fraud Ward Churchill all have a common ancestor.
Must have been an interesting guy. Probably a guy who fought to the death to continue writing dirty plays that were based on an ancestry he claimed to have but didn't.
Father Christmas, give us some money
Don't mess around with those silly toys.
We'll beat you up if you don't hand it over
We want your bread so don't make us annoyed
Give all the toys to the little rich boys
that exact song has been stuck in my head since I read this article!
"Uh Oh....wait till the feminists hear about THAT!"
They already have. Mitochondrial DNA is ever-so-much more intriguing, to the militant XX set.
Thought this might interest you, if only to check for later results.
Well, I guess this blows my idea of calling dibs on any word, occasion, event, person place or thing with "Christmas" in it! I had thought, thru copyright laws, to protect the name Christmas, but it looks as tho others have beat me to it (dam those Brits anyway!)
Or the milkman's...
So once a year the local department store can hire him as temp so they can repeatedly page him over the intercomm.
I wonder if there is a Barry Christmas walking the earth somewhere?
When mentioning the milkman, the only thing I like to think of is milk. Not his DNA transfer medium.
I wonder if they grew up hating the season,
Of the good will that lasts ‘til the Feast of St. Stephen...
From: "The St. Stephen's Day Murders" by Elvis Costello and Paddy Maloney
Yup. My kind of 'stuff.' (Thanks)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.