DNA Consultants Home of the DNA Fingerprint

An Excursion into Arthurian Legend

We have had previous blog posts on North African genetics in Britain, for instance "When Wales Was Jewish." The present post zeros in on Tintagel, the fabled home of King Arthur and Mark of Cornwall. It is inspired by the mention of Gormund, the Irish "King of the Africans" in Welsh bardic literature, who was, we submit, a Vandal of the fifth or sixth century.

In British myth and historical tradition, not only Ireland but also Cornwall is the stronghold of “Africans.” Mark, the king of Cornwall in Arthurian legend and jealous husband of Isoud or Isolt of Ireland, is portrayed in the Tristan romances as dark-complexioned, rich and of fiery southern temperament. Mark or Marcus is a favored name among Jews, particularly English Jews in memory perhaps of the soldier in Roman Britain who was proclaimed emperor by the army there sometime in 406, in the last death rattle of imperial rule. His sister is Elizabeth, and his royal residence is fixed in Tintagel on the north coast of the Cornish peninsula facing Ireland. This site’s chief fame in medieval literature was as the castle of King Mark in the immensely popular cycle devoted to Cornwall.

A series of excavations began in Tintagel in 1933, uncovering a forgotten chapter in southwest Britain’s prehistory. According to O. J. Padel, “the area of Tintagel headland teems with fragments of pottery of a type manufactured in the Mediterranean area (mainly in North Africa and Asia Minor); these fragments are dated between the mid fifth century and the late sixth).” This researcher at the department of Welsh history at University College of Wales, Aberstwyth, goes on to say:

The importance of Tintagel as a find-site for this pottery cannot be overemphasized. Since being identified there, it has been found to occur at other sites within Dark-Age western Britain and Ireland, including other sites in Cornwall and Devon, Cadbury-south-west Ireland, and as far north as the Scottish Highlands . . . . Being imported from so far away, this pottery represents expensive, luxury, goods.”[i]

Arthur's Name Arabic?

The origin of the name Arthur has been endlessly debated.[ii] It is almost certainly not “Celtic,” neither from a P or Q dialect, and cannot be traced further back than post-Roman times. The center of gravity for its appearance is the sixth century. In 1998, archeological excavations at sixth-century Tintagel brought to light a find subsequently dubbed the Arthur Stone, mentioning the name Artognou, claimed to be cognate. Although the reading is questionable perhaps this inscription and milieu are on the right track.

Arthur’s name has become something of a grail quest for modern researchers. Other theories derive the name from Artorius (Roman or Messapic), Arnthur (Etruscan), Arcturus (the “bear star”) or *Arto-uiros in Brittonic (“bear man”).

Perhaps the Gordian knot of the difficulty can be cut if we consider that many of the names in early Welsh history have Arabic and North African roots. Camlann, for instance, the site of Arthur’s final deadly battle with the usurper Mordred, has resisted all efforts to etymologize or locate it. This unidentified place in England has a name that is supposed to mean Crooked Glenn.[iii] We suspect it may be a corruption of the common Arabic place-name Khamilah, “area of dense trees, low or depressed area with good pasturage.”[iv] Camelot, the fabled capital city of the Round Table, appears to be little more than the plural of the same term.

Arthur’s father is Uthr Pendragon, the epithet following his name meaning Chief, or Head, of the Warriors, or Dragons.[v] Now Arthur’s son is Amr, a pre-Islamic tribal name that is meaningless in any Brythonic language. Ar- is a common prefix in Arabic and North African naming conventions, meaning “the.” Ar-Rumi, for example, the name of an early Arab poet means “the Greek.” Ar-Rahman is “the Most Gracious,” Ar-Rabi, “the Master, and Ar-Rashid “the Right-Minded.”[vi] Many of these are traditional names of God’s servants in pre-Islamic religion. If we take Arthur’s name as Semitic or Arabic or Kufic Arabic it may be a corruption of his father’s name: Ar-Uthr. As to what Uthr might have meant originally, however, we will not venture an opinion here.

True Etymology of Tintagel

The word Tintagel is difficult to etymologize in Cornish. A better theory than Padel’s hypothetical “Cornish *din, ‘fort’ (variant *tin), plus *tagell, ‘constriction’:  ‘the fort of the narrow neck’” (231) might be one based on the Semitic elements Thina “bend of headland” plus Ghayl “place with water,” a description which suits the natural topography (Tintagel Castle, aerial view, above). [vii]


Now how about Excalibur, Avalon and Morgan la Fay?  Watch this space . . . . 

[ii]

See Toby D. Griffen, “Arthur’s Name,” Celtic Studies Association of North America, April 8, 1993, Athens, Georgia, available at http://www.fanad.net/csana94.pdf.

Science, it seems, has been "the new religion" for a long time. And by the same token, it has always had its apostates and heretics, even its unremarkable and quotidian sinners. In an article titled "Disgrace," Charles Gross, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Princeton University, reviews the whole subject of contemporary and historical scientific misconduct (The Nation, Jan. 9/16, 2012, pp. 25-32). He finds nothing new in the shocking case of Harvard's Marc Hauser, who was exposed two years ago for scientific misconduct, in of all fields, the biological basis of morality and genetic inheritance of doing evil.

Hauser apparently was guilty of the very venial sin of fudging facts. The three ways to do that, all frowned upon, are by fabrication (making data up), falsification (altering or selecting data, cherry picking) and sheer plagiarism (which all but entering Freshmen understand).

In 1830, computer science pioneer Charles Babbage published a book in which he distinguished "several species of impositions that have been practised in science...hoaxing, forging, trimming, and cooking."

Gross classifies the Piltdown man as an example of hoaxing. This fossil combining parts of an ape and human skull was discovered in 1911 and not discredited until the 1950s. Most hoaxes are intended to poke fun at the public's credulousness, but the Piltdown hoax was undertaken by well-meaning British imperialists who hoped their construction would fill an awkward gap in the record. Like God, if the missing link did not exist, we should have to invent one. Pip pip for the Royal Society!

Babbage believed that forging was uncommon. Rarely are results completely counterfeited and pulled out of thin air.

"Trimming" is probably a form of scientific misconduct that few scientists confess to their most exacting monitors such as the National Science Foundation but rather quietly cover up in bland hypocrisy. It consists of "eliminating outliers to make results look more accurate, while keeping the average the same." Who has not committed that little white sin? Let him who is without self-assurance cast the first chad.

"Cooking," on the other hand, the purposive selection and distortion of data, might be a real concern for all of us.

Gross goes on to inspect the career of Harvard's "war crimes professor" Richard Herrnstein, who became a co-author after his death of the book The Bell Curve about racial differences in intelligence. It is not a very pretty kettle of fish.

Charles Darwin essentially stole the idea of natural selection from Alfred Russel Wallace, the father of biogeography, did he not, and if he didn't, certainly failed to credit some of his predecessors in his rush to fame and self-glorification.

In genetics, we are reminded that the saintly Gregor Mendel probably falsified the suspiciously exact 1:3 ratio he "observed" in comparing pure dominant with hybrid peas (p. 26).

Alarmingly, we learn that "the modal scientific miscreant is a bright and ambitious young man at an elite institution," just the sort of role model worshiped by the popular press.

Maybe our society should be examining a few of science's feet of clay rather than pompously setting more laurels on the heads of its exalted heroes.

It is clear that consumers, and many geneticists and medical professionals, underestimate the complexity of genetically determined diseases and their risk levels as measured by genomic testing. The question is whether it is ethically sound to sell consumers packaged DNA tests that could exaggerate their risk for say, heart disease, or render a false negative result. In one study, DTC testing on average handed out very slight risk factors across the board, lower than those known to be in the general population. Another study, the first of its kind, performs an experiment comparing traditional genetic screening by counselors to "insta-testing" by Navigenics. It looks like the technology of DTC has a long way to go, while our understanding itself of genetically inherited disorders is still in a rudimentary stage of development. Rather than exploring new sites and new tests the emphasis needs to be on interpreting the studies and data we already have.

Direct-to-consumer genetic testing services: what are the medical benefits?

Thierry Frebourg

Eur J Hum Genet 2012 20: 483; advance online publication, January 4, 2012; 10.1038/ejhg.2011.229

Full Text

The dictionary defines "megapopulation" as a very large one, from the Greek suffix mega, the same element as in "megabyte." In statistics, a population is the whole field from which you choose a sample or representative segment. Thus, to test American Hispanic/Latinos you might draw a sample of 400 people from a predefined population of everyone with a Hispanic surname in a telephone book.

How reliable and valid your sample is depends on methodology. By combining populations you can study a metapopulation (all related populations, for instance North and South American Latin or Iberian populations) or megapopulation (all populations with Iberian ancestry in the world).

Going from the small to the large, we  have then:

Individual

Sample

Population

Metapopulation

Megapopulation

Universe

In a census, the sample and population coincide; everyone is counted.

In population statistics, this hierarchy might look like this:

John Doe

Arizona Hispanic study (n=104, that is 104 persons in the sample)

U.S. Hispanics

North American Hispanic

Iberian American

Iberian or Part-Iberians in the World

At DNA Consultants, megapopulations are the broadest ethnic category calculated and reported to you. (We look at metapopulations, too, but only as a control measure.) Our database coverage is described below.

Megapopulation Names

and number of populations included

 

African 17

African American 28

American Indian 24

Australoid 3

Austronesian 6

Central Asian 39

Central European 13

East Asian 39

East European 8

European American 24

Iberian 32

Iberian American 61

Jewish 3

Mediterranean European 20

Melungeon 1

Middle Eastern 36

North Asian 3

Northern European 15

Romani 4

South Asian 35

Southeast Asian 12

 

 

Beyond Megapopulations (and percentage of total populations) These categories correspond roughly to what people used to think of as "race," a now-discredited notion. They are continent-specific, with African and Caucasian extended to North and South American African and European populations.

 

African   45     11%  

 

Amerind   24    6%

 

Austral 9    2%

 

Asian  67    17%

 

Caucasian  255    64%

 

 

 

Another Calculation We created these totals to see what kind of white versus non-white coverage the database has.

 

White  255  64%

Non-White  145   36%

Total 400 Populations

And that's all you need to know about megapopulations! But in case you're still confused here are some useful links:

Metapopulation in Wikipedia

Autosomal DNA Based Populations in atDNA 4.0 (DNA Consultants)
405 Populations with links to further information in many cases

What Everyone Always Wanted: Our New Megapopulations Report

30-Nov-2011
After a lot of hard work, DNA Consultants has introduced "bottom l... (more)

New Megapopulations: The Bottom Line
17-Nov-2011
Work by our head of statistics over the summer has made it possible to... (more)

Population Pages Are Coming!
09-Apr-2012
Have you ever wanted to know more about the populations you match? May... (more)

Short answer: pre-Roman times.

As is well known, Haplogroup E1b1b1 accounts for approximately 18% to 20% of Ashkenazi and 8.6% to 30% of Sephardic Y-chromosomes. This North African type appears to be one of the major founding lineages of the Jewish population.[i]

In Britain, this quintessential Jewish type (together with J, another telltale sign of Middle Eastern roots) is absent or negligible in many towns and regions but reported in elevated frequencies in Wales (Llanidloes 7%, Llangefni 5%), the Midlands (Southwell, Nottinghamshire 12%, Uttoxeter 8%), Faversham in Kent (9%), Dorchester in the West Country with historic harbors (7%), Midhurst in West Sussex commanding ancient sea-ports (5%)  and the Channel Islands, always an important crossroads of influences (5%).[ii] Bryan Sykes’ survey of paternal clans in England and Wales confirms significant traces of the E haplogroup which he dubs Eshu in southern England (4.9%) and Wales (3.1%).[iii] It reaches its highest point in Britain in Abergele, Wales (nearly 40%), an anomaly that has been attributed to Roman soldiers of Balkan origin but may have alternative and more complex explanations.

See our blog post "Right Church, Wrong Pew," arguing that the footprint of E in Britain is attributable to North African influence, not the descendants of Roman legionnaires from the Balkans.

In 2011, Llangefni  and Wrexham in North Wales became the focus of a call for local men to provide samples of their unusual DNA. A team of scientists lead by Andy Grierson and Robert Johnston from the University of Sheffield hoped to link the migration of men from the Mediterranean to the copper mined at Parys Mountain on Anglesey and on the Great Orme promontory nearby. A preliminary analysis of 500 participants showed 30% of the men carried E1b1b, compared to 1% of men elsewhere in the United Kingdom.[iv]

Significantly, Welsh tradition associates the Iron Age hilltop town on Conwy Mountain known as Castell Caer Seion with a settlement of ancient Jews. This site overlooks Conwy Bay on the north coast of Wales and lies on the ancient road between Prestatyn in Denbighshire and Bangor in Gwynedd opposite Angelsey.  In the Black Book of Caermarthen, the Welsh national bard Taliesin casually remarks in the persona of the battling hero,

When I return from Caer Seon,

From contending with Jews,

I will come to the city of Lleu and Gwidion.[v]

Lleu and Gwidion are the names of two other legendary figures; they are believed to be historical and to have lived in the early centuries of the Common Era or anterior to it.

It is hard to avoid the thought that the hilly area to the west of the town of Conwy, in North Wales was once inhabited by Jews.

Every year in the United States about half a million paternity cases are performed proving or disproving whether an alleged father is the true parent of a child. Sometimes there is a court order to do this; at other times, it is sheerly for personal information. The determination of parentage is made based on a simple comparison of a small rock-hard number of genetic markers in the DNA fingerprint of the child and alleged father. Samples are extracted from a 30-second cheek swab and processed at any of an estimated 2,000 forensic labs across the country. The standard in place since about 1997 has been a set of 30-32 biallelic or double values each person carries on loci spread across their chromosomes, making for a virtually unique identification signature that reflects the equal DNA input of mother and father (and in fact all grandparents and all ancestors).

Often termed CODIS markers (standing for Combined DNA Identification System), these alleles or variations are the magic numbers underlying the popularity of paternity tests as well as the national passion for jailing or exonerating crime suspects. If a value is found in the DNA profile of the child and is not present in the two observed values of the alleged father on the same locus, this constitutes what is known in the paternity business as an exclusion:  the alleged father is almost certainly not the true father. Conversely, if all the alleged father’s values can be detected in the child’s on each location, one after another, that male is judged to be the child’s biological father to a 99.999% certainty. Paternity tests are simple math.

A famous paternity test involved proving who was the true father of the baby born to Anna Nicole Smith in 2006. After her death in early 2007, several men came forward claiming to be in father, including a European prince, Anna Nicole’s bodyguard and a convict who had been a former boyfriend. Larry Birkhead pressed his case. When the results came in, he was declared by Bahamian court to be the baby’s biological father. The child’s original birth certificate was amended to show this.

Can paternity testing be used in a reverse process to establish the identity of a father, given only the child’s DNA profile? No, but with enough DNA profiles available for comparison the missing member of a family group can be reconstructed by comparing alleles they must share, called obligate.  Doing so is a matter of logic and statistics, mostly just either-or, deductive logic.

I became interested in reconstructing a parent’s profile after many of DNA Consultants’ customers inquired if such a calculation or estimate was even possible. Some were adopted persons who had no recourse to testing their parents, some knew one parent but not the other, and some had no access to parents. They were either uninterested or unavailable. In a special category were females who were only-children with both parents deceased who wanted to know something about their father, but who could not take a Y-chromosome haplotyping test, as they did not carry a copy of their father’s male DNA. In this respect, autosomal DNA testing is the great equalizer.

My father, Lawden Henry Yates, died in 1978. My mother, Bessie Cooper Yates, lived to the advent of DNA tests, but I failed to obtain any sample from her before her death in 2006. I had siblings and half-siblings still living, however, so in 2010, I constructed a family group autosomal DNA study with the help of Crystal Wagner at Chromosomal Laboratories/Bode Technology. The results were very satisfying. This paper and blog post will serve as a report to those who are interested.

Step One
I was fortunate to have the participation of three half-sisters by my father, along with his second wife, their mother. Comparing mother and daughters I was able to verify the obligate alleles each daughter must have received from the mother.

Autosomal alleles are fixed in our genealogy, have little or no mutations (unlike YSTRs, which mutate from generation to generation, as do mitochondrial nucleotide positions, though more gradually over time)[*] and derive from both parents equally by recombination at the moment of conception. They are copied and preserved without change in every cell of our bodies. The mother is responsible for half of the equation.  By a process of elimination the other number on each row of the lab report must represent the father’s contributions.  This method is completely logical and unequivocal. There can be no other answer to the problem. No studies suggest these pieces of our double helix DNA change significantly in transmission from one generation to the next or mutate over time in genealogies. Their values and patterns are strictly attributable to heredity.

Step Two
The father’s alleles are confirmed by a comparison with three children by his first wife, my mother.  

Step Three
By the same watertight process we can now proceed to the mother’s reconstructed DNA profile. In it, we can expect to visualize the final piece of the puzzle, proceeding from the known to the unknown according to the immutable laws of autosomal DNA and genetic inheritance.

We have arrived at my mother Bessie Yates’ DNA profile by a multi-step process of extrapolating it using three of her children and three children by her husband’s second marriage, along with the test results of my half-sisters’ mother. Seven tested profiles yielded two reconstructed ones. In the process we have also recovered my deceased father’s DNA profile.

Separating Mother and Father’s Contributions to Ancestry
Having overcome these hurtles, I was most interested in the utility of the results. I felt confidant about the method. But what excited me most was to see how my own autosomal ancestry results might be respectively apportioned in my parents. For this, I ran a DNA Fingerprint Plus on them both. The findings were very satisfying to me personally, helping solve many questions I had always had about what ancestry I got from my father, what from my mother and what from both.

Let’s start with American Indian admixture. My own DNA Fingerprint Test, as well as percentage tests through another company, suggested a relatively large amount, perhaps one-quarter all told by various measures, but family tradition had placed Native American heritage solely on my mother’s side. To be sure, my mother gave me a Native American mitochondrial haplotype, indicating a female line going back to a Cherokee woman in Georgia, traced as far back in records as 1790. Extensive genealogy research showed, however, that my father’s great-grandmother was also a Cherokee with the surname Thomas from North Carolina. What did the new autosomal DNA profiles say?

On a rough measure, I have received a “double dose” of Native American II, a marker co-relating with 80% of 24 tested American Indian populations in the atDNA 4.0 database. (Two siblings and one half-sibling received only single doses.) This seemed to indicate that I had some degree Native American (not possible to say how much) from both parents. True enough apparently, judging from the top world matches for my mother and father. I give here the top ten for comparison.

 

Mother Rank World Population Matches 1 Russia - Chukchi (n = 15) 2 White - Maine (n = 151) 3 Native American - Athabaskan (n = 101) 4 Swedish (n = 311) 5 Hispanic - U.S. (n = 199) 6 El Salvadoran (n = 296) 7 Native American - Choles - Chiapas (n = 109) 8 Portuguese - Azores (n = 100) 9 Argentinian - Patagonian - Chubut (n = 320) 10 Korean - Western U.S. (n = 63)

 

Father Rank World Population Matches 1 Melungeon (n = 40) 2 White - Canadian (n = 164) 3 Belgian - Flemish (n = 231) 4 Native American - Saskatchewan (n =105) 5 India - Indo-Caucasoid - Brahmin (n = 110) 6 Native American  - Minnesota (n = 191) 7 India - Indo-Caucasoid - Kayastha (n = 103) 8 Japanese - Central (n =164) 9 Argentinian - Santa Fe (n = 562) 10 Brazilian - Sao Paulo (n = 113)

 

My mother’s Native American population matches were slightly higher and more numerous than my father’s, including more peoples like the Chukchi and Mongols, but my father’s were not inconsiderable in their own right. Here’s how their two megapopulation rankings look:
 

Mother North Asian 1 in 35 billion Northern European 1 in 632 billion Central Asian 1 in 747 billion American Indian 1 in 827 billion European American 1 in 856 billion Iberian American 1 in 1 trillion Iberian 1 in 1 trillion Central European 1 in 2 trillion Melungeon 1 in 2 trillion Mediterranean European 1 in 2 trillion

Father European American 1 in 20 trillion Northern European 1 in 185 trillion Jewish 1 in 204 trillion Iberian 1 in 274 trillion Iberian American 1 in 728 trillion Central European 1 in 919 trillion Middle Eastern 1 in 924 trillion American Indian 1 in 1 quadrillion East European 1 in 2 quadrillion Mediterranean European 1 in 2 quadrillion

These results confirmed that my father did have some Native American, although evidently not as much. They also suggested that although both bore about the same mixture of European and Native American ancestry (including high matches to Melungeon), my mother had a more pronounced Native American cast, her highest match being to North Asian, one of the supposed Asiatic feeder populations of Native Americans, whereas my father’s top match was European American. Based on profile frequencies, my father was five times more likely to be European American than American Indian if subjected to forensic profiling, whereas my mother was 18 times more likely to come out as a Siberian Native than Northern European. Sometimes, it seems, exotic ancestry rises to the top. My overall conclusion was that my mother probably had 3/8 and my father 1/8 Native American heritage, which corresponds to their proved genealogies.

In my own profile, combining those of my parents, here are my megapopulation results:

 

Self (Donald N. Yates)

North Asian	1 in 3 billion
Central Asian	1 in 12 billion
American Indian	1 in 25 billion
East Asian	1 in 42 billion
European American	1 in 42 billion
Northern European	1 in 44 billion
Iberian American	1 in 50 billion
Central European	1 in 70 billion
Iberian	1 in 75 billion
Melungeon	1 in 103 billion

According to these frequencies, my mother and father’s Native American ancestry reinforced each other in me to make my top four matches Native American (or Siberian-Mongol-Turkic), so that I am about twice as likely to be graded into the Native American category by population statistics than the European. Similar conclusions emerged from my siblings’ tests, and a diminished presence of Native American indicators was confirmed in my half-siblings, although their mother seemed to evince some Native American as well as my father, the shared parent. All participants in this study had grandparents born in North Alabama.

Further observations are possible. For instance, I was surprised to see a large indication of Jewish ancestry in my father’s profile. Genealogy confirms as much, as the family surname is Hebrew (an anagram of Ger Tzedek similar to Katz, Kohen Tzedek). The emigrant Yates figure was reportedly an English Jew in seventeenth-century Virginia. My mother also showed Jewish ancestry. Both parents matched Melungeons, an Appalachian ethnic type suspected to have Sephardic Jewish forebears. My father’s family included uncles named Josephus, Manaen, Irbin, Azariah, Lazarus and Sherith—apparently his Middle Eastern matches were truthful to a partial Muslim background. My mother’s mother was named Palestine, and the names Isaac and Jacob were ubiquitous in her family tree. But neither side of the family claimed any Jewish heritage. It was left to autosomal DNA to reveal that hidden inheritance.

Although never performed before to my knowledge, this method of reconstructing autosomal profiles can be useful to others seeking to recover unavailable relatives’ genetic fingerprints and to separate parents’ contributions to their children’s ethnic and ancestral stories. Since it is based on immutable markers in DNA it rests on more solid ground than Y chromosome alleles or mitochondrial mutations. The challenge in exploiting the method is to have enough subjects in your family group study. In my case, I was fortunate to have a prolific father with six living children. I would like to conclude by thanking all my siblings, half-sisters and my father’s widow. Their participation made it possible to present a true first in DNA genealogy.

Read the working paper
A Method of Reconstructing Parentage and Ancestry by Autosomal DNA Profiles

Go to Learn about DNA

 

 

 

 

Ruling Applies to All Their Ancestors and Descendants

Majorcan Jews belong to the Sephardic (Spanish) division of world Jews. The name of the island is Majorca in Spanish, Mallorca in Catalan (in whose orbit historically it fell). In 2011, a Rabbinical court recognized the Majorcan Chuetas and all their genealogically related families as Jews. It is possible that the Franciscan Majorcan Junipero Serra who founded California's Spanish mission system was Jewish (Converso), as was probably the family of Christopher Columbus.

DNA Consultants is fortunate to have population data on Majorcan Jews. Here is a description, along with some links on Majorca's history and people. The Majorcan – Chueta (also spelled Mallorcan and Xueta, respectively) population data represent DNA samples from 102 unrelated Chuetan (Jewish) individuals on Majorca (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Majorca) -- one of the Balearic Islands (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balearic_Islands) in the Mediterranean Sea, which mark the easternmost part of the Kingdom of Spain, the nation’s official title (http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/2878.htm and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spain). Samples were obtained by the Genetics Laboratory of the Biology Dept. at the University of the Balearic Islands.

For more details on the Chuetas, also called Majorcan Jews, see http://www.majorca.com/v/history/; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chueta;
http://www.espana-spain.com/sephardic-route-palma-de-majorca.html http://www.myetymology.com/encyclopedia/Chueta.html; http://www.jewishideas.org/min-hamuvhar/welcoming-chueta-back-his-jewishness; http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=234668 http://www.northsouthguides.com/history_of_mallorca.html
http://www.northsouthguides.com/mallorca_history.html

Source publication:  Genetic Variability at Nine STR Loci in the Chueta (Majorcan Jews) and the Balearic Populations Investigated by a Single Multiplex Reaction, IJLM, 2000, p263-267.

Dienekes' Anthropology Blog is the grand ole man of genetic blogs, well-praised in all quarters with archives going back to 2004. It is run by Dienekes Pontikos (blogger pseudonym), a Pontos Greek whose family is from Turkey, and who describes himself, far too modestly, as "an anthropology dilettante."

Dienekes keeps current on a large range of scientific papers appearing in human population genetics, physical anthropology, archeology and history. His judgments are sparing, but sound, and he encourages you to "reuse any of the materials of this blog for non-commercial purposes, as long as you attribute them to Dienekes Pontikos and provide a link to either the individual blog entry or to Dienekes' Anthropology Blog." If you are looking for elegant perfection, bookmark Dienekes and follow him on Twitter.

Abusive Posts
DNA Forums is "for posting and discussing news of a Historical/Genealogical/Genetic nature only." It has been online for several years and has 222 topics and 4602 replies. You must subscribe to read and participate. It is hard to tell who runs or moderates its threads. Announcements seem to come from George van der Merwede, who is listed as the owner in a WhoIs search.

There have been complaints about abusive posts on DNA Forums. Blogging, of course, can result in a range of legal liabilities and other unforeseen consequences, including defamation, malicious statements, libel and slander.

Several users have complained about trolling on these forums--making personal comments aimed at causing grief or stirring up hatred. According to the Internet definition, a troll is "someone who posts inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, chat room, or blog, with the primary intent of provoking readers into an emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion."

As long as you do not get involved in any nasty consequences of participating, you should take advantage of the instant world of DNA news and views. For the state of the science as well as unparalleled civility and informativeness, we recommend Dienekes.

Lorton, VA – February 13, 2012 – Bode Technology (Bode), a leading provider of forensic DNA services, announced today the acquisition of Chromosomal Laboratories, Inc., a leading provider of DNA testing for immigration and private paternity.

By adding this expertise to its portfolio of service offerings, Bode will utilize its vast international and domestic presence to provide best inclass immigration paternity and private paternity testing to clients worldwide. Bode is a whollyowned subsidiary of SolutionPoint International, Inc.

“Chromosomal Laboratories has established an excellent reputation through its focus on clientservice, fast turnaround and high quality,” said Barry Watson, CEO & President of Bode. “Their focus on immigration and paternity testing complements Bode’s strengths in forensic casework and databasing, and enables us to expand our domestic and international offerings. With the increased use of DNA for immigration purposes and recent changes in the marketplace, we see opportunities for significant growth.”

“Having admired and respected Bode Technology as a competitor in forensics for years, I am extremely excited and proud that Chromosomal has this opportunity to join their team,” said Vladimir Bolin, CEO and co-founder of Chromosomal Laboratories, Inc. “The ethics, vision,resources and leadership of the Bode team is beyond reproach, and sets a solid foundation for Chromosomal’s technical and market leadership in the coming years.”

Chromosomal Laboratories, founded in 2004, maintains AABB accreditation for relationship testing activities and ISO 17025 accreditation in forensics. It provides relationship and forensic services both in the United States and internationally. Operating out of its state-of-the-art facility in Phoenix, AZ, Chromosomal Laboratories has provided services for samples from every state in the United States and approximately one hundred countries.

DNA Analysis from Fingerprints

Fingerprints are routinely used in crime scene investigations to characterize individuals associated with forensic evidence. However, fingerprints are sometimes smeared or incomplete and cannot be interpreted or used for further analysis. The use of mtDNA for the identification of fingerprints would be valuable in forensic investigations. The research department at The Bode Technology Group has developed a method to obtain mtDNA from processed fingerprints on both non-porous and porous substrates.

The research department at The Bode Technology Group is currently developing methods to obtain STRs from processed latent fingerprints. Many of the same substrates and chemical processes used for mtDNA recovery will be tested for STRs. Updates on our research will be posted periodically on the company's website.

BOOK DESCRIPTION:  Americans have learned in elementary school that their country was founded by a group of brave, white, largely British Christians. Modern reinterpretations recognize the contributions of African and indigenous Americans, but the basic premise has persisted. This groundbreaking study fundamentally challenges the traditional national storyline by postulating that many of the initial colonists were actually of Sephardic Jewish and Muslim Moorish ancestry. Supporting references include historical writings, ship manifests, wills, land grants, DNA test results, genealogies, and settler lists that provide for the first time the Spanish, Hebrew, Arabic, and Jewish origins of more than 5,000 surnames, the majority widely assumed to be British. By documenting the widespread presence of Jews and Muslims in prominent economic, political, financial and social positions in all of the original colonies, this innovative work offers a fresh perspective on the early American experience.

Seven years in the making, Jews and Muslims in British Colonial America was published by McFarland Publishers on February 21. It is a followup to the same authors' When Scotland Was Jewish (2007). A third study on crypto-Jews and crypto-Muslims in English and Welsh history under way will complete a series begun by Hirschman and Yates ten years ago.

Read a notice from Rutgers News service from October 2010.

Jews and Muslims in British Colonial America   A Genealogical History by Elizabeth Caldwell Hirschman and Donald N. Yates  

• Price: $45.00
  
• Learn More

An Index to Jews and Muslims in British Colonial America   Lookup tool for Hirschman and Yates' book Jews and Muslims in British Colonial America  

• Price: $5.95
  
• Learn More

Reader's Review
Nothing Short of Amazing

A few years ago, I retired from a career as a police detective. Sadly, in retirement, I became a junkie. Yes, I freely admit I've been a genealogy junkie for a number of years now. Recently, my insatiable habit has been fed by a newly discovered connection, that of the books authored by two stalwart researchers Elizabeth Hirschman and Donald Panther-Yates. First, there was When Scotland was Jewish. And now, I've just finished my first read through of their latest endeavor, Jews and Muslims in British Colonial America.

As a person addicted to family history, I know I share a frustration with like minded souls in that I've not had the time or means to run down every lead or theory that I'd developed while gazing at family trees, naming patterns, ports of emigration, and maps of migration. Suddenly, I've found two fellow travelers, Hirschman and Yates, who have not only done light years worth of investigation for me, they have actually validated many of the theories I'd developed on my own.

When Scotland was Jewish was an eye opening sojourn through the lands of many of my European forefathers. Jews and Muslims in British Colonial America, on the other hand, has brought it all closer to home. It is nothing short of amazing.

I completed my first read through in two sittings and found so many families I recognized from my own amateurish sifting, including: Van Cortland, Van Resselaer, Abrahamsen, Coffin (Cohen), Giles, Gardner, Van Sandt, Ash, Moore, Yeamans, Davis, Swan, and Vann. The list is almost endless. If you are like me, an obsessed archaeologist, rooting around in your past, Jews and Muslims in British Colonial America is your book. I can only hope the next offering of these two authors is as enlightening!

--George Collord Mount Shasta, California