Tuesday, August 5, 2014

Neanderthals Are Us! Are We! Whichever...

Seriously!

My daughter sent me the link to her DNA test results on 23andMe and the information is much more complicated and broad than the information I received through Ancestry.comEither that or I just don't understand much about genetics. (Pretty likely)  

According to 23andMe, all humans beings outside of Africa have between 1% and 4% Neanderthal DNA. Neanderthals were concentrated in  Western Asia and Europe, especially northern Europe, and most heavily in what is now Finland.

From 23andMe.com

About 35,000 years ago, Homo Sapiens from East Africa migrated northward into what is now Europe and Scandinavia, where they came into contact with and bred with married Neanderthals. The Neanderthals went extinct 30,000 years ago, and then during an ice age 20,000 years ago, surviving Homo sapiens were able to migrate to every continent on the planet except for Antarctica. Ta Dah! So that's how we are partly cave people.  


from 23andMe.com


In addition to learning that she has 2.7% Neanderthal DNA, my daughter also learned about her haplogroup. I don't really understand that well enough to explain it, but this is what her results show:


From 23andMe.com
from 23andMe.com

She is part of haplogroup W.

And her ancestry might include the DNA matching DNA from these countries.


from 23andMe.com

DNA matching that of people in Ireland, UK and the Netherlands makes sense and is more specific information than what I received from Ancestry.com. I knew I had ancestors from Holland, so this matches what I knew. What Pakistan and northern India have to do with our ancestry is a mystery to me.  

Kind of fun! Even though I'm not sure what some of it means.


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