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Archiver > GENEALOGY-DNA > 2006-07 > 1153070365


From: David Faux <>
Subject: S21+ North Germanic marker?
Date: Sun, 16 Jul 2006 10:19:37 -0700 (PDT)


Rich wrote:

As an R1b1c, I am naturally very excited about the news that S21 may be strongly indicative of North Germanic/Scandinavian ancestry, kind of like the Teutonic version of what the NW Irish have - and I envy - in M222. Well, maybe not that pinpoint . . .

I am also pleased to hear that Ethnoancestry has begun its program of add-on testing for the S-series so that those of us who SNP tested with other companies can get the S-series run at a reasonable price.

What I am wondering, however, is what we know about S21 in the rest of the R1b world.

I mean, it's 75% of the R1b in Norway, and that's fantastic; but what if it's 90% in Portugal? What then? Another ubiquitous R1b SNP?

Do we know that S21 does not exist at similarly high levels outside of Greater Friesland and Norway?

____________________________________________________

Rich:

Our customer data strongly suggested that S21 was a North Germanic marker so we went about systematically testing this observation with published samples.

Customer data shows that to date S21 has not appeared in Iberian samples nor in Ireland in a single person with a surname beginning with O' or Mc and as a matter of fact only a single person who traces descent to Ireland - but this may open a door to showing whether there was a migration of Belgae (tribes who resided beside the Frieslanders during Roman times) to Southern Ireland. Ireland has seen the arrival of English settlers, Palatine Germans in 1709, Normans, and Norwegian Vikings so sooner or later S21 will turn up in restricted areas of Ireland. The point is, however, that it is virtually unknown here.

What is also striking based on customer data (we have access to German research samples so will do systematic testing as resources become available) is the yawning divide between Northern Germany and Southern Germany even after all these years and all the migration events. I am sure that eventually we will find S21 in Southern Germany since Marcomanni and others from the north migrated south and west (but may have still been swamped by the sheer weight of numbers of the locals). S28 is the R1b characteristic marker of Alpine Germany and Switzerland. R1b1c* is found everywhere we test in Western Europe but at relatively low rates in some locations such as Friesland. If I was to hazard a guess I would propose that R1b1c* emerged out of the Franco - Cantabrian glacial refugium while S21 and S28 were eking out an existance in the Balkans or other locations in the eastern part of Europe. The migration routes of plant and animal species is known for each refugium
subsequent to the last Ice Age. At some point we can likely correlate the human data to what has been documented for the movements of other species, for example the movements of the reindeer (a major source of food for humans at that time) - whose behavioral habits kept them close to the margins of the ice. But I digress, and much as I enjoy these discussions must return to the busy world of work and grandkids (four born in 2006 alone).

David Faux.


Dr. David K.W. Faux
President
Ethnoancestry USA, Inc.
www.ethnodna.com








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