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My Genetic Journey

My results from the Genographic project.

 

Your Y-chromosome results identify you as a member of haplogroup J2.

 

The genetic markers that define your ancestral history reach back roughly 60,000 years to the first common marker of all non-African men, M168, and follow your lineage to present day, ending with M172, the defining marker of haplogroup J2.

 

If you look at the map highlighting your ancestors' route, you will see that members of haplogroup J2 carry the following Y-chromosome markers:

 

M168 > M89 > M304 > M172

 

Today, descendants of this line appear in the highest frequencies in the Middle East, North Africa, and Ethiopia, and at a much lower frequency in Europe, where it is observed exclusively in the Mediterranean area. Approximately 20 percent of the males in southern Italy carry the marker, along with ten percent of men in southern Spain.

 

Further down it reads:

 

M172: Toward the Mediterranean

 

Fast Facts

 

Time of Emergence: 10,000 years ago

 

Place of Origin: Fertile Crescent

 

Climate: Ice Age ending

 

Estimated Number of Homo sapiens: A few million

 

Language: Unknown

 

Tools and Skills: Neolithic

 

Your ancestors left a physical footprint that matches their genetic journey. Artifacts from ancient towns such as Jericho, also known as Tell el-Sultan, a site close to present day Jerusalem, provide evidence of permanent human settlements to around 8500 B.C. The sites also suggest the transition from hunter-gatherer to settled life occurred relatively suddenly.

 

The M172 marker defines a major subset of haplogroup J, which arose from the M89 lineage. It is found today in North Africa, the Middle East, and southern Europe. In southern Italy it occurs at frequencies of 20 percent, and in southern Spain, 10 percent of the population carries this marker. Both haplogroup J and its subgroup J2 are found at a combined frequency of around 30 percent amongst Jewish individuals.

 

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As my father's side of the family hails from Italy, it is no surprise that I bear the M172 marker.

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Uploaded on December 19, 2007