What's in your DNA?

A few weeks ago, I made a passing reference to the Dickson family origins, based on a National Geographic study of our DNA.  Yes, that's right, I swabbed my mouth and sent in my saliva to National Geographic.

 

After a few months of study they came back with a 13 page review tracing both Mom and Pop's lines out of Africa and up to the Middle East and eventually into Europe.  Mary did a version of this and found out that she was 97% from the British Isles.  Surprised?

 

The Dickson family is a little more complicated with a few surprises.  Some conclusions:

 

-- populations that most closely resemble our make-up are in the British Isles and Germany

 

-- you ask our make-up: 45% northern European, 36% Mediterranean and 18% southwest Asian

 

-- almost all humans have DNA traces between 1% and 4% that link them to Neanderthal and Denisovan.  Dicksons have 2.3% Neanderthal and 4% Denisovan.  The average for humans is 2.1%.  Maybe we

Re a little less evolved than we thought we were.  Get out of the trees, Dickson.

 

-- the analysts did a heat map of our maternal and paternal lines, tracing what they thought would have been routes out of Africa that our ancestors took, perhaps 70,000 years ago.  They did this by identifying markers (or mutations) and identifying where they took place, and where others have those same markers.  Looks like Pop's ancestors went a little further into Central Asia than Mom's who headed right for Europe from the Middle East.

 

-- If you're wondering why Pop looked so tan in his wedding pictures, it may be that one of his markers is shared with 38% of the men in Spain and 8% in Italy, 5% in Oman and 1-2% in Lebanon and Iraq.

 

-- Mom's DNA has markers as well that are shared by 21% women in Iraq, and percentages in the high teens for Croatia and Switzerland, hovering around 10% for Greece and Belgium.  Go figure.   That marker goes back 19,000 years from women leaving West Asia.

 

-- Many of Mom's markers show up as well in eastern and Central Europe, indication that her acnestors passed through here on their way further west and north, with many staying put and not continuing the journey.

 

So, who's skeptical?  How do they know?  That would certainly take more than the 13 pages of results that I have to explain.