WALT’S Y-CHROMOSOME TEST

I sent my DNA sample in to FTDNA in 2016 and ordered the medium introductory level 37 marker test. When they look at the DNA they have areas where they have found certain patterns of ladder rungs repeat which they call markers. The number of times these patterns repeat within an area is the number they give you for that marker. For instance at marker DYS393 I have a number 12. That means the pattern repeats 12 times. When a mutation occurs this is the number that changes. It might go up to 13 or down to 11, etc. So when all of my 37 markers match someone else it is assumed with a high probability that we have a common ancestor.

I have a perfect match on all 37 markers with a Dr. Michael Joseph Stirniman. I had matches on 25 markers with Mike Stirnaman, John Richard Winkler, Ernest Ray Jepperson, and Dan Stephen Picket; and matches at 12 markers with David Stirnimann. The reason for the matches at 25 and 12 markers is because that is all they have purchased so far and so that is all we could match. It does get rather pricey buying more markers, which is why I started out at a modest level. FTDNA saves your sample and you can buy upwards of 200 markers as well as the other types of tests, but I want to understand what that extra money will get me before jumping in at that level. I have written emails to each of these individuals to see if they wish to communicate concerning our ancestors.

The other thing that is interesting is that we are in the Haplogroup J-M172. Geneticists have begun identifying the initial mutations which identify the branches of the DNA family tree with alphabetic designations. They started with the letter “A” and continued on through “R” or somewhere for the first sets. Then when another mutation is identified within that group they add a letter such as “Ja” and then within that another letter such as “Jab”, etc. Then they began to see that this system would not work because not only did the letters get long but some mutation sets went beyond the 26 letters. They also had a problem when another haplogroup would be discovered but needed to be fit in between two existing letters so they added numbers such as “J2”. So recently they changed to a system that just gives your major haplogroup letter and a designator such as “J-M172”. You can look up the markers that describe this group. Therefore J-M172 actually belongs to the “J2” haplogroup. It is too bad they had to go away from the first method because you could easily go back through the groups to your starting group. The new system is so new that there is no good table out there yet that I can find to give me that information.

The interesting thing about J-M172 is that it is primarily an Arab group. The FTDNA J2 Middle East Project has this to say about the group:

”Early origins
The origin of Y-DNA Haplogroup J maps to the Middle East around the ‘Fertile Crescent’, an area also known as the ‘Cradle of Civilization’ since this area saw the birth of many technological advancements that helped humans move from nomadic hunter-gatherers to an agriculture-based society living in one place. The sprouting of some the first cities and empires in human history were contingent on these developments and featured the proliferation of Haplogroup J. The precise location for the origin of Haplogroup J is not known, but its prominence in the Near East/West Asia and the Middle East/Central Asia indicates that it likely arose in one of these regions. It is closely associated with the Fertile Crescent; an area spanning the Nile and Tigris/Euphrates River systems, with the Levant (present day Lebanon) in between. This region has encompassed many early cultures and empires from the Stone Age (Neolithic) to the Iron Age. Societies, dynasties and empires in this broad region include the Sumerian, Assyrian, Babylonian, Egyptian, Phoenician and Persian. Haplogroup J is also particularly abundant in Anatolia (present day Turkey) and the Y-chromosome diversity observed here suggests that this area is a possible source of this clade. Owing to these strategic locations, Y-DNA Haplogroup J is common on three continents: Asia, Europe and Africa.

J2. M172.

The J2 subclade is similar in distribution to J1, but it is typically present at a higher frequency. J2 is distinguished from J1 by a lower frequency in Arab populations and the near absence in Africa. The J2 subclade is highest in Anatolia and prominent in Mesopotamia and the Levant – all areas that served as centers of agricultural revolution. J2 is common among Turkish, Kurdish and Jewish populations and significant frequencies are found in the Caucasus, Iran, and Southcentral Asia. J2 may be an important Y-chromosome lineage that was part of the demic diffusion and introduction of new agricultural practices into Europe from the Middle East and Anatolia during the Neolithic period. Anatolia could represent a Mesolithic pocket of the J2 subclade, which spread later to Europe in the Neolithic-Holocene periods (10kya) and subsequently featured in the emergence and progress of the Bronze Age (5kya).“

According to the Wiki page, “J-M172 originates between the Caucasus Mountains, Mesopotamia and the region just north of Arabia known as the Levant. J-M172 is linked to the earliest indigenous populations of Anatolia and the Aegean.” This goes back many thousands of years before the area was “Arabised” about 20,000 years ago.

Another interesting quote from the Wiki page says, “Zalloua and Wells 2004 and al-Zaheri 2003 uncovered the earliest known migration of J2, from Sumeria to Canaan. In what may or may not have been a reference to that particular migration from Sumeria to Canaan, Genesis 11:27-28 says that the family of Abraham came from Ur, a Sumerian city; likewise, Sumeria has a myth of a flood, same gods in the Sumerian pantheon as some of those in the Canaanite religion and a creation myth similar to those of the Israelites.” Remember that J2 is the same as J-M172. It is true that J-M172 shows up in a lot of Jewish DNA.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplogroup_J-M172

This matches information that I found earlier. We match another family project on FTDNA known as the Schrok/Schrag Project. They had already found the connection with Dr. Michael Joseph Stirniman and believe through all of their work that our common ancestor goes back to around 1250, about 100 years before they started using last names in Switzerland. They have spent a lot of time and more extensive testing to develop a story about the ancestry connection.

They speculate that the ancestor came out of what today is modern Iran around the time of Christ. There are no other traces of this family (remember they are using many more markers than I) between Iran and Switzerland so they speculate that our ancestor must have come directly. He may have been an Iranian archer conscripted to the Roman legions and sent to the Alps to defend the Roman front lines. I guess they have found this was a common practice for the Romans and the Iranian Archers were noted for their prowess. You can see their page at: https://www.familytreedna.com/public/Schrock-Schrag