Tag: DNA

It’s a Really Small World

Kris Hocker on 8 Jul 2016

Ethnicity Map

I’ve recently joined the genetic genealogy club. Mom and I both had our DNA tested through Ancestry DNA. My results just came in. You know how the television commercials show someone making a surprise discovery through their DNA? Surprise, you’re not German, you’re Scottish.

Yeah, my results weren’t anything like that.

Ethnicity Chart

Instead, I found out I’m pretty much who I thought I was—genetically speaking—an American of Western European descent. In fact, according to Ancestry, I’m even more Western European than the typical native Western European! I’m 63% Western European, compared to an average of 48%. I’m also 16% Irish, 5% Scandinavian, 11% trace European regions (Iberian Peninsula, Great Britain, Italy/Greece, and European Jewish), 5% West Asian (Caucasus), and 1% South Asian (India). So, 95% European mutt with a little Asian blood thrown in way back.

None of this surprises me. Most of my relatives are of German-descent, including those from Alsace-Lorraine and Switzerland. The rest are from Scotland, Ireland, and Wales—regions reflected in my DNA as Irish and Scandinavian.

Cousins

The surprise came through examining my cousin matches. It seems like there were an awful lot of them! Some of them I even know how we’re related. I had five third cousin matches, including matches from the Hockers, Wieders, and Houdeshells. The rest were fourth-sixth cousins, meaning a common ancestor five or more generations back.

The surprise came in finding out that I match two of my third cousins (siblings) through three of my grandparents! Our match is closest through the Hockers—Albert Curtin and Lillian (Leedy) Hocker. This couple are our great great grandparents. So, we’re third cousins. Our grandfathers knew each other and spent summers visiting their grandparents on the farm in Cumberland County.

But these cousins also match me on the other side of the family! If I go back through my Wieder ancestors through the female line to Abraham and Anna Sibilla (Fuchs) Herb. We descend from their daughters Anna Margaretha (Herb) Bobb and Catharine (Herb) Fronheiser.

And we’re likely related through my ancestor George Heilig whose daughter Eva Elisabetha married Johann Jacob Kline. I’m not sure of the connection, but we both have Heiligs who lived in proximity to one another in our trees.

Furthermore, we match going back through my Hoover family, through Walker, Eckley and Mayes ancestors to the Dotterer family. Catharine Margaret Fetzer, daughter of Andrew and Magdalena (Dotterer) Fetzer, married Andrew Walker about 1791. They settled in Boggs Township, Centre County, Pennsylvania. I descend through their son, John who married Mary Lucas and had a daughter Catharine who married John Eckley, and two of their daughters: Catharine, who married George M. Walker, and Mary Ann who married John Mayes Jr.

It’s a really, really small world.

Archaeological Evidence Reveals Prehistoric Blue-Eyed Hunter-Gatherers

Kris Hocker on 11 Feb 2014

Scientists used to think that blue-eyes were introduced to Europe by farmers who arrived late to the continent. New research shows that the genes responsible for blue eyes may have already been there amongst dark-skinned hunter-gatherers.

An analysis of the DNA of a 7,000 year old skeleton found in a cave in Spain showed that the male carried the African version of genes responsible for the light skin pigmentation of Europeans—meaning he had dark skin—along with the genetic variation that causes blue-eyes.

Makes me wonder where along the line the genetic variation occurred. I doubt this is the very first blue-eyed person.

I’d always thought it likely that blue-eyes and light skin were a genetic response to the need for less pigmentation due to the weaker sunlight of northern Europe. But maybe not. I’d hardly call Spain a northern climate.

I guess we’ll have to see what future scientific discoveries can tell us.

All Blue-Eyed People Share Common Ancestor

Kris Hocker on 31 Mar 2009

The article “Blue-eyed humans have a single, common ancestor” in the Innovations Report states that:

“New research shows that people with blue eyes have a single, common ancestor. A team at the University of Copenhagen have tracked down a genetic mutation which took place 6-10,000 years ago and is the cause of the eye colour of all blue-eyed humans alive on the planet today.”

Unlike green eyes—which, according to the article, are only a variation of brown—blue eyes are not merely a variation of the amount of melanin in the iris. The genetic mutation actually “resulted in the creation of a ‘switch’, which literally ‘turned off’ the ability to produce brown eyes.” The switch doesn’t completely turn off the ability to produce melanin in the iris, but reduces the production of melanin in the iris to the point that brown eye color is completely diluted to blue. Any variation in the amount of melanin in the iris in a blue-eyed person would then only change the shade of blue. Cool.

So, I wonder how that got passed on. The trait is a recessive, meaning you need to get it from both parents. Does that mean that our blue-eyed ancestor had brown-eyed children, and they had brown-eyed children and so on until brown-eyed descendants who carried that gene got together and started producing blue-eyed children and then those blue-eyed children got together…?

I have blue eyes. I’m the product of two blue-eyed parents. However, three of my four grandparents had brown eyes. I have brown-eyed aunts and uncles. In my family just in the last two generations we show the results of chance in genetics. Both my parents just happened to get the blue-eyed gene from their parents. Then they could only pass on the blue-eyed gene…

Makes you think, huh? How has this played out in your family?