February 2019 – Άρθροe: Art

23 and Me provides its DNA customers with their perspective Haplogroups. What does this mean? Well, as I am still new to deciphering the DNA jargon, as far as I have researched so far, each person is assigned a Haplogroup as determined by their maternal line or paternal line. Women only possess the H group for their maternal line, as they do not carry the paternal chromosome. Men, however possess both a maternal and paternal H group as they inherent a paternal line from their fathers.

What does this mean. It means that humans are able to trace their ancestry back through these lines, as the H group does not change. Women receive their mother’s H group who received their H group from their mother and so on, all the way back to the beginning of time. Men receive an H group from both their mother and father and can trace those back through history. Women who are interested in their paternal Haplogroup can receive their results from either their father or brother.

My maternal Haplogroup is H3. This is a common Haplogroup found within Europe and because of the abundance of the H group, it also common in the royal houses across Europe. The H is the originating group of the H Haplogroup and is followed by several variations of the H Haplogroup (H1, H2, H3….). Nicolas Copernicus was an H MTDNA Haplogroup member, as was Marie Antoinette. What does this mean? Well, so far in my DNA research, this means that at some point within history, I am related to both Nicolas and Marie as our Haplogroups match. It is unclear of when our shared ancestor may have lived, but it is exciting to know that is entirely possible to trace this history. Don’t call me royalty…just yet.

Cited works: Bogdanowicz, Wiesław, Marie Allen, Wojciech Branicki, Maria Lembring, Marta Gajewska, Tomasz Kupiec, and Alan Walker. “Genetic Identification of Putative Remains of the Famous Astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 106, no. 30 (2009): 12279-2282. http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.uta.edu/stable/40484127.

I have always loved to go to new places and see new things. My first plane ride was when I was two years old and though I don’t remember all of the nine-hour flight, I do remember small parts of the Lufthansa flight. The stewardess (1980) was surely annoyed with my inclination to run down the aisle only to turn and run back to my mother again. Her solution was to give me a pair of plastic junior pilot pin on wings and a basket of chocolate and small toys. I do not remember that visit to Germany but the trip definitely left an impression on me.

I have travelled many airlines, from California to New York and London to Dubai. Ships have provided transportation between exotic islands from Mexico, the Bahamas and the Maldives. I even spent the night on the Nile in Egypt on a small boat! Old fashioned travel on modern trains carried me to historic spots across Europe and across the United States. Cars, cars have been one of the best forms of transportation all over the world. In a Citroen, I zipped across Europe in ten days seeing the Eiffel Tower to the casinos in Monaco and the gothic spires in Prague. Wandering has led me to to many great places, some of which I will definitely need to return to, to discover how these places have affected my heritage.

Month: February 2019

Marie-Antoinette and I.

wandering life.