Bumped into a sign-up desk for the Healthy Nevada project in a doctor's waiting room about a month ago. It was free, so what the heck? I can spit in a tube as good as anybody.
The DNA parsing company Helix is HealthyNV's partner for collection and analysis, using Geno 2.0 Next Generation testing. My results showed up yesterday on the Helix/National Geographic (another partner) site.
My father's family was from Denmark, almost exclusively, while my mother's family came from England, Germany, and The Netherlands. Genealogical charts prove it.
"Regional ancestry" results? Northwestern Europe 43 percent. That includes Denmark, England, Germany, and The Netherlands. Yawn.
Eastern Europe 34 percent. It and the Central European segment reach into Poland, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Belarus, Ukraine, and Western Russia. Huh. The family hit the road now and again.
Southwestern Europe 9 percent. Links to the Iberian Peninsula and neighboring regions. Also probably the last refuge of the Neanderthals. Also the area from which Europeans expanded to the Americas over 500 years ago. Lots more travelling.
Italy and Southern Europe 8 percent. DNA out of here is trans-Adriatic and trans-Mediterranean. Still can't stand Italian or Greek food.
Northeastern Europe 4 percent. Genetically diverse with a genetic signature from Finnish, Northern Russian, and some Baltic peoples. Ancestry seen in some Scandinavian peoples. Go Norsemen!
"Deep Ancestry" is a hoot.
About 67,000 years ago: Branch/haplogroup L3, East Africa. Madagascar counts as East Africa. Can I be a lemur? L3 people went north. A lot of them. Way north.
L3 is shared by all women alive today, in Africa and around the world. The branch is the major maternal branch from which all mitochondrial DNA lineages outside of Africa arose.
About 60,000 years ago: Branch/haplogroup N, East Africa or Asia. These guys coexisted with other hominids including Neanderthals, and spread all over Asia, Europe, India, and the Americas. Descendants populated most of Europe. Via shanks' mare?
About 55,000 years ago: Branch/haplogroup R, West Asia. This DNA is found almost everywhere. Again with the traveling.
About 25,000 years ago: Branch/haplogroup T, West Asia. Widespread, and common in Eastern and Northern Europe. Branch T people figured out agriculture, domesticating plants, nuts, and seeds. Farmers don't travel much.
About 16,300 years ago, plus/minus 6,500: Branch/haplogroup T1, West Asia. Around 3 percent of the population in Luxembourg, Belgium, The Netherlands, Switzerland, and Portugal; 10 percent in Saudi Arabia, between 7 and 8 percent in Iran, Iraq, and Lebanon, 4 percent in Greece and Croatia.
About 14,500 years ago: Branch/haplogroup T1a, Southwestern Asia and Southeastern Europe. Found among people with ancestry from Greece, Turkey, Ukraine, southern Russia, Italy, Spain, Morocco, and Egypt.
The best part: "Your Hominin Ancestry," 50,000 years ago and older.
Average for homo sap is 1.3 percent Neanderthal; most non-Africans are about 1.1 percent. Helix uses what it calls a new "sophisticated analytical method" that looks at the parts of DNA shared with hominin populations and a person's complete regional ancestral components.
Me? 1.5 percent. Above average. I never doubted it.
Lots of travelers in my genetic past. And horndogs.
I saved the stupidest for last: "Your Genius Matches" (present-120,000 years ago).
Says Helix: "Here we estimate when in time you shared a direct female or direct male ancestor with a famous historical genius." The report used mitochondrial and Y-chromosome DNA.
Geez. Are people's egos are such that they will enjoy bragging rights over any tenuous connection?
Helix says I'm related to:
Petrarch, Italian poet, scholar, humanist. Abraham Lincoln, POTUS. Queen Victoria of the UK. Nicolas Copernicus, maths whiz. Benjamin Franklin, horndog. Marie Antoinette, queen of France. Napoleon, who marched 6 million soldiers to their deaths. Maria Theresa, Holy Roman Empress, Queen of Bohemia, Archduchess of Austria; mother of 16 children, including Marie Antoinette.
My New World ancestors fought to free themselves from kings and queens, so no thanks.
I'll claim Dr. Franklin and Mr. Lincoln, though. We geniuses have to stick together.
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