DNA

More about Beth's DNA at:

ruyledna.blogspot.com

In October 2010 Beth Ruyle took a genetic test to determine the mtDNA haplogroup for her and all the females in her maternal line.  Her mtDNA type is J. All of Beth's relatives in the female line will have an identical or very similar J Haplogroup.

DNA theory posits that all people are descended from one woman. This woman lived in Africa.  Each woman passes on her mtDNA to her children.  Each one of her daughters pass on this mtDNA to her children.

Over time there are small changes to the mtDNA. These divisions enable us to follow the migrations of different groups of individuals by their mtDNA.


There are seven founding female mtDNA lineages in Europe. J is one of those founding lineages. Brian Sykes is a genetics expert and author who dramatizes the journey by giving the haplogroup a name - in our case J = Jasmine.

"When Jasmine’s clan formed, the Last Ice Age was at an end. Jasmine’s clan lived in permanent quarters and began to plant seeds, raise crops, and herd animals. Today, 17 percent of Europeans are in the clan of Jasmine. One group followed the Mediterranean coast and found its way to the west of Britain, and is common in Cornwall, Wales, and the west of Scotland. The other is common in the central portion of northern Europe."

____________

Brian Sykes in "The Seven Daughters of Eve" dramatizes and discusses the founding genetic lineages of Europe.

The information below is provided the review below written on Oct 21, 2008 by Sara E. Lewis.

Sykes says his book is about "the history of the world as revealed by genetics." He names the genetic clan groups and describes their world.

The Seven Daughters of Eve is a must read for anyone considering a DNA analysis to supplement genealogical work. Author Bryan Sykes' conversational and breezy writing style demystifies the science. Although most of the book describes his research path (see Understanding Genetic Genealogy), he lapses into the romantic visions of the daughters or clan mothers toward the end.

Differences in mtDNA Noted in 1987

A 1987 paper described how mitochondrial DNA shows human population evolution. If two people have a very similar mitochondrial DNA, then they are more closely related. They have a common ancestor who lived more recently in the past. People with very different mitochondrial DNA share a more remote common ancestor. Both males and females have mitochondria in all cells, but only women pass theirs on to offspring because only women produce eggs. Fathers pass on nuclear DNA (Y-DNA).

Out of Africa

Sykes applied the mitochondrial DNA knowledge to determine the progress of Homo sapiens out of Africa, the only place where there are fossils covering the last three million years from Homo erectus, to Homo neanderthalensis, to Homo sapiens. In 1997, DNA was sequenced from a Neaderthal and it had 26 differences from the average modern European, which indicates that they last shared a common ancestor about 250,000 years ago.

After collecting thousands of DNA samples from across Europe, Sykes fit the sequences into a scheme to show their evolutionary relationship to one another. He found seven clusters (haplogroups or clades) that frame the population of Europe. Six of the seven were older than ten thousand years. Historians had previously believed that agriculturalists overwhelmed the last of the hunter-gatherers on the European landscape after the last Ice Age. But the mitochondrial DNA showed otherwise. It provided evidence that most of Europe is populated by people whose ancestors endured the last Ice Age.

Sykes' Seven Daughters scenarios also draw on archaeology and climate records, including styles of tools, pollen in ice cores, animal and fish bones. “Theses are real people, genetically almost identical to us, their descendants, but living in very different circumstances,” he explained.

Ursula

Ursula is the oldest clan mother and she lived 45,000 years ago. Her clan faced the Neanderthals and moved further into cold Europe than any of there kind had before. They edged the Neanderthals into extinction and currently make up about 11 percent of the modern European population.

Xenia

Xenia and her clan came into being about 20,000 years ago at a time when earlier species of the genus Homo had become extinct and modern humans had Europe to themselves. Although the continent was cold and inhospitable, the tundra was teeming with bison and reindeer. Three branches of Xenia’s clan fanned out across Europe and 6 percent of today’s Europeans trace their mitochondrial DNA back through her clan.

Helena

Helena, or haplogroup H, was formed by genetic mutations beginning 20,000 years ago. The Glacial Maximum pushed these new Europeans south and up against the Alps and Pyrenees. Her clan may have known the cave paintings at Dordogne in France. This was the most successful clan and 47 percent of modern Europeans are descended from them.

Velda

A copy error in DNA marks the genesis of Velda’s clan about 17,000 years ago. The clan lived in southern France, Italy, and the Iberian Peninsula. They maintained a permanent base camp and produced symbolic and naturalistic art. About 5 percent of Europeans were members of this clan.

Tara

Tara’s clan was launched about 17,000 years ago. Her clan lived in Italy in the depths of the Ice Age. They were less prosperous, but perhaps developed musical instruments and boats. The maritime lifestyle provided the clan with mussels and seals to eat. About 9 percent of Europeans are members of the clan of Tara. They live around the Mediterranean and are numerous in Britain and Ireland.

Katrine

Younger still, Katrine’s clan was differentiated about 15,000 years ago. People still lived in small bands at that time, but the world was warming and would soon make this hunting lifestyle less necessary. Katrine’s clan domesticated animals to live in herds and provide food and companionship. Six percent of native Europeans are from the clan of Katrine.

Jasmine

When Jasmine’s clan formed, the Last Ice Age was at an end. Jasmine’s clan lived in permanent quarters and began to plant seeds, raise crops, and herd animals. Today, 17 percent of Europeans are in the clan of Jasmine. One group followed the Mediterranean coast and found its way to the west of Britain, and is common in Cornwall, Wales, and the west of Scotland. The other is common in the central portion of northern Europe.

DNA Connections Through Time and Around the World Build Community Feeling

There are 26 other clans of equivalent status in the rest of the world. Interestingly, Africa has only 13 percent of the world’s population yet 40 percent of the maternal clans originated there.

Said Sykes “Until I started this work I always thought of my ancestors, if I thought of them at all, as some sort of vague and amorphous collection of dead people with no solid connection to me or the modern world, and certainly no real relevance to either

… But once I had realized, through the genetics, that one of my ancestors was actually there, taking part, it was no longer merely interesting – it is overwhelming. DNA is the messenger which illuminates that connections, handed down from generation to generation, carried, literally, in the bodies of my ancestors. Each message traces a journey through time and space … When two people find out that they are in the same clan they often experience this feeling of connection. Very few can put it into words, but it is most definitely there.”

Many DNA communities have been established to explore these connections.

Read more at Suite101: The Seven Daughters of Eve: Bryan Sykes Personalizes the mtDNA Clans that Populated Europe 

http://www.suite101.com/content/the-seven-daughters-of-eve-a74491#ixzz12dawQKxx

Female Descent

Elizabeth Godwin Smith (Revolutionary War Widow with land grant in Smithville)

Martha “Mattie” Carolyn Smith b. May 16, 1847, d. Dec 20, 1891 (Smithville, GA name for her)

Mable (Mae) Barrow  b Oct 19, 1882

Mable Young b Jul 17, 1924 d Nov 20, 2003

The Cousins___________________The Parents

Mary Young Bagwell_________Clarence Young m. Mildred Murray

Grace Young Holbrook
Dorothy "Dot" Young Roberts
Carol Young Lyons
Helen Young 

Robert Young________________Charles Young m. Jean

Debra Young 

Serena Young Windham________ Mable Young

Beth Young Ruyle


Leigh Ann Ruyle     Derek Watson 
                               Christie Tucker


                               Olyvia Tucker

Godwin / Goodwin Name

King Harold Godwin of England   1066

Goodwin Name Meaning and History

English: from the Middle English personal name Godewyn, Old English Godwine, composed of the elements god ‘good’ + wine ‘friend’.

Dictionary of American Family Names, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-508137-4

godwin

English: from the Old English personal name Godwine, composed of the elements god god + winefriend. This name was borne in the 11th century by the Earl of Wessex, the most important man in the England after the king. He was an influential adviser to successive kings of England, and father of the King Harold who was defeated at Hastings in 1066. The personal name continued in use after the Norman Conquest long enough to give rise to a surname. Modern use as a given name is probably a transferred use of the surname, rather than a revival of the Old English name.

________________________________________________________

In 2013 Beth did another DNA test. Very Interesting results. Information on the site below:

ruyledna.blogspot.com

Understanding Your mtDNA

By Craig Hullinger - 22:39

References

http://www.familytreedna.com/

Some Interesting things about Jasmine, excerpted from the link below

http://www.jogg.info/42/files/logan.htm

The origin of Haplogroups J and T in the Middle East and their Neolithic expansion into Europe are well known but the exact origins and specific migration patterns have yet to be established.  There is little doubt that the Jordan area was a significant element in the story.  

In a study of 101 samples from Amman, Jordan and 44 samples from the area of the Dead Sea in the Jordan Valley, Gonzalez et al. (2008) analyzed haplogroup frequencies for these locations and compared them with 23 other Middle Eastern populations.  

The Amman population was found to have typical haplogroup diversity with the frequencies of Haplogroups J and T at about 6% and 10% respectively, whereas the diversity of the Dead Sea population was found to be very limited–it was devoid of Haplogroup T and had only a few J1 samples.  The final conclusion of the authors of the study was that “although the Levant is a proven crossroad of bi-directional migrations between Africa and West Asia, some geographic areas, such as the Dead Sea area, and social isolates, such as the Druze, have generally resisted that human traffic.”

A large-scale phylogeographic study of mtDNA in Western Europe by Richards et al. (1998) proposed that approximately 85% of 757 individuals tested had their origins in the European Upper Paleolithic whereas the ancestors of the other 15% had arrived more recently from the Near East–predominantly from the haplogroup cluster JT.  In an earlier paper (Richards, 1996) they provided the observation that their cluster 2B (now known as Haplogroup T) was relatively uniform throughout Europe with a concentration of about 8%, but their cluster 2A (now know as Haplogroup J) varied widely with a range of about 2% in the Basques up to 22% in Cornwall.

  

They made the observation that it is “in the Middle East, but not elsewhere in the world, we find two missing ancestral haplotypes that link the western and central European clusters” and that the ancestral haplotype is found “in the Middle East but in none of the European samples or elsewhere."  Thus, they suggest that Haplogroup J originated in the Middle East and that several different lineages migrated into Europe, splitting into the western and central European clusters but having little impact on the Iberian Peninsula, especially the Basque country."  

They also developed phylogenetic network for each of several haplotype clusters, including Haplogroups J and T and from these concluded the overall age of Haplogroup J was approximately 28,000 years old, originating in the Middle East and arriving in Europe “when the Neolithic economy spread into Europe starting about 10,000 years ago,” with components evolving between 8,000 and 6,500 years ago.   In a later review, Richards (2003) expressed the opinion that the main Neolithic  founders were “likely to have been members of Haplogroups J and T1, but that the “contribution of the Neolithic Near Eastern lineages to the gene pool of modern Europeans was around a quarter or less."

So you Want to Live to Be 100 Years Old?  Be a Jasmine

In a study of the relationships between mtDNA polymorphisms and aging, De Benedictis et al. (1999), found that 23% a group of centurions in northern Italy were Haplogroup J, whereas only 2% of a control group of younger persons were Haplogroup J.  This contrasted with the results of Haplogroup U that showed centurions were about 2% versus 23.5% for the control group.