Q1a

[jamt]

First post! Hello!

I've been using 23andme to get the information for my grandparents generation (2 stand ins with siblings because my grandfathers were dead).

So, my father's father's brother turns out to be Q1a. I know there's a chance they aren't full siblings, and I've never heard anything of the sort, but I may get my father tested eventually and see if it's different.

Based on my knowledge of our family history, our paternal lineage should be British - as the patriarch came to the British Colony of Barbados in the 1600s, and was a Lieutenant - obviously British. Can't say I'm really well versed in the genetics as I'd like... so, why is our Y-DNA Q1a instead of a 'more British' Y-DNA?

 

[RobertColumbia]

First post! Hello!

I've been using 23andme to get the information for my grandparents generation (2 stand ins with siblings because my grandfathers were dead).

So, my father's father's brother turns out to be Q1a. I know there's a chance they aren't full siblings, and I've never heard anything of the sort, but I may get my father tested eventually and see if it's different.

Based on my knowledge of our family history, our paternal lineage should be British - as the patriarch came to the British Colony of Barbados in the 1600s, and was a Lieutenant - obviously British. Can't say I'm really well versed in the genetics as I'd like... so, why is our Y-DNA Q1a instead of a 'more British' Y-DNA?

Hello!

Do you know what region your paternal ancestors were from? Here's a map of Q1a in Europe. It looks like there are Q1a clusters around Liverpool and in the Northeast of England. Q1a is also common in Sweden, so it's possible that your paternal ancestors were Scandinavians who had settled in England, became Anglicized, and then moved to the Caribbean. A specific subclade of Q1a (Q-M3) is found in large quantities among the natives of North America, so it's also possible that your paternal line does not come from Europe at all, at least not within recorded history.

Is Q1a the most specific answer that you have found, or do you know any further subclades? Subclade testing could help you narrow down whether your Q1a is likely from England or somewhere else.

As to why your Y-DNA is not "typical", that may be because not everyone is typical! There are plenty of outliers (including many on this forum!) that don't have a Y-DNA result that is the most typical for their ancestral region.

 

[Brennos]

First post! Hello!

I've been using 23andme to get the information for my grandparents generation (2 stand ins with siblings because my grandfathers were dead).

So, my father's father's brother turns out to be Q1a. I know there's a chance they aren't full siblings, and I've never heard anything of the sort, but I may get my father tested eventually and see if it's different.

Based on my knowledge of our family history, our paternal lineage should be British - as the patriarch came to the British Colony of Barbados in the 1600s, and was a Lieutenant - obviously British. Can't say I'm really well versed in the genetics as I'd like... so, why is our Y-DNA Q1a instead of a 'more British' Y-DNA?

Probably, Scandinavian Vikings brought some Q1 to Britain. But it could also come from Roman slaves from Middle East, or mercenary soldiers in Roman legions.

 

[jamt]

Hello!

Do you know what region your paternal ancestors were from? Here's a map of Q1a in Europe. It looks like there are Q1a clusters around Liverpool and in the Northeast of England. Q1a is also common in Sweden, so it's possible that your paternal ancestors were Scandinavians who had settled in England, became Anglicized, and then moved to the Caribbean. A specific subclade of Q1a (Q-M3) is found in large quantities among the natives of North America, so it's also possible that your paternal line does not come from Europe at all, at least not within recorded history.

Is Q1a the most specific answer that you have found, or do you know any further subclades? Subclade testing could help you narrow down whether your Q1a is likely from England or somewhere else.

As to why your Y-DNA is not "typical", that may be because not everyone is typical! There are plenty of outliers (including many on this forum!) that don't have a Y-DNA result that is the most typical for their ancestral region.

Thanks for the response!

Have no idea where he came from in England, although Liverpool might be a decent guess, since it was involved with the West Indies very early on. He would have arrived shortly after colonisation (1627). The Scandinavian connection makes sense too, however!

Q1a is all that 23andme has told me for that line, not sure if there's a way I can get more specific info from them.

Probably, Scandinavian Vikings brought some Q1 to Britain. But it could also come from Roman slaves from Middle East, or mercenary soldiers in Roman legions.

Quite interesting to imagine!

 

[RobertColumbia]

Thanks for the response!

Have no idea where he came from in England, although Liverpool might be a decent guess, since it was involved with the West Indies very early on. He would have arrived shortly after colonisation (1627). The Scandinavian connection makes sense too, however!

Q1a is all that 23andme has told me for that line, not sure if there's a way I can get more specific info from them.




Quite interesting to imagine!

You're welcome! The Scandinavian possibility is quite interesting due to the very large window of time in which your paternal line could have migrated to England. As mentioned, it could have been in England since Viking/Danelaw times, or it could represent a later migration of traders or scholars after the classical Viking period. It could also be due to one of those sailors with a girlfriend in every port, who never actually moved to England but left his DNA there <3. Lots of possibilities to speculate about.

My own y-lineage (R1b-M222) fits in with the 18th century Ulster Scots "hillbilly" migration to the Appalachian mountain region, where Celtic culture (but not language) remains very much alive to this day.

 

[RobertColumbia]

Thanks for the response!

Have no idea where he came from in England, although Liverpool might be a decent guess, since it was involved with the West Indies very early on. He would have arrived shortly after colonisation (1627). The Scandinavian connection makes sense too, however!

Q1a is all that 23andme has told me for that line, not sure if there's a way I can get more specific info from them.




Quite interesting to imagine!

There are also pockets of Q in the Orkney and Shetland islands, which is consistent with those islands' Scandinavian heritage.

 

[jamt]

So, apparently it is actually Q1, not specifically Q1a.. Is the above still relevant?

I could swear that it said Q1a when I posted this... but now it is saying Q1.

 

[RobertColumbia]

So, apparently it is actually Q1, not specifically Q1a.. Is the above still relevant?

I could swear that it said Q1a when I posted this... but now it is saying Q1.

Yes, Q1 encompasses all of Q1a - it's just a less specific result. It's similar to what would happen if someone was identified as being born in San Antonio, but then later is re-identified as being born in Texas. Since San Antonio is in Texas, it doesn't exclude San Antonio as a possibility, but only indicates that there's also a possibility that the actual location might be somewhere else in Texas.

The Q article that I linked to indicates that Q1b (which is the main alternative to Q1a) is more common among Jewish populations in continental Europe. I don't suppose there is any evidence that your ancestor was Jewish, is there? That Q1b could possibly be from the infamous medieval Khazar converts to Judaism.

Given the fact that your ancestor was probably from England, I think it's likely that you are Q1a (common in Scandinavian, Siberian, and Native American populations), just that, for whatever reason, 23andMe is uncomfortable making a conclusive determination that this is so.

 

[jamt]

Well, it's possible that the male lineage was Jewish but probably not likely, there's no indication of it anyway.
Of course, we can't rule out the idea that there could be a 'step out' — meaning, the British lineage that I uncovered through written records might not have been the real father along the line. In fact, I kind of assume that within 10 generations in the same small little island, somebody must have had a step out at some point..

Even so, I'm intrigued by the theories put forth in this thread for the possible Q1a origin of my line.

 

[RobertColumbia]

Well, it's possible that the male lineage was Jewish but probably not likely, there's no indication of it anyway....

Yes, it's a possibility but probably not the most likely one. It's interesting to hear about some of the more uncommon lineages out there and to wonder how they got to where they ended up.

Considering that Q1 is common in both Asia and the pre-colonial Americas, there's a potentially reasonable possibility that your Q1 could derive from Native Greenlanders or other North American natives that were assimilated into Viking society a thousand years ago when both cultures were in contact. In actuality it probably entered Europe from the other direction (from the east/Asia), but you have to admit that it is possible! There are unusual journeys popping up all the time, and they have to belong to somebody.

 

[jamt]

It has been a while since I came on here, but here is the 23andme composition of the person who was given Q1 (my father's father's brother, same parents, since my grandfather is dead), so I extrapolate my YDNA from that as Q1

Seeing this person's composition, which theory do you think most explains the (apparently) odd appearance of Q1 as his YDNA haplogroup?




Keep in mind, I have researched this line successfully back to colonization in the 1600s, the island was previously inhabited by Indigenous Arawak / Kalinago from South America, but the history books say that there were none left when the English arrived. There were, AFAIK, Natives imported as slave labour early on, which is another possible explanation for the Q1 if somebody's wife had an 'outside child' with somebody of full or partial indigenous ancestry... but that's assuming Q1 also covers South American natives.. I know from other 23andme results that Native Caribbean or South American Native shows up as 'Native American', and this man has no reference to any Native American in their database..

 

[RobertColumbia]

It has been a while since I came on here, but here is the 23andme composition of the person who was given Q1 (my father's father's brother, same parents, since my grandfather is dead), so I extrapolate my YDNA from that as Q1

Seeing this person's composition, which theory do you think most explains the (apparently) odd appearance of Q1 as his YDNA haplogroup?


View attachment 7614

Keep in mind, I have researched this line successfully back to colonization in the 1600s, the island was previously inhabited by Indigenous Arawak / Kalinago from South America, but the history books say that there were none left when the English arrived. There were, AFAIK, Natives imported as slave labour early on, which is another possible explanation for the Q1 if somebody's wife had an 'outside child' with somebody of full or partial indigenous ancestry... but that's assuming Q1 also covers South American natives.. I know from other 23andme results that Native Caribbean or South American Native shows up as 'Native American', and this man has no reference to any Native American in their database..

Welcome back!

Q1 is found in South American natives.

The composition looks like what you would expect a random white person in the Americas to have after 400 years. The sub-1% African mixtures could be something, but at that level could easily be "noise" - that is, artifacts of the imperfect comparison. You did mention that your paternal ancestors have been in Barbados since the 1600's, and that is enough time to fully or nearly-fully dilute the autosomal DNA of that one ancestor.

If there is no indication of Native ancestry in your family tree (and one would suspect that such a thing would be noticed, especially early on when the Native admixure would have been high), I would conclude that your Q1 probably came from Europe via Britain, either through medieval Vikings (cf. the modern elevations of Q1 in Viking-influenced regions such as the Danelaw of England and the Shetland Islands of Scotland), or through more recent Scandinavian migration to Britain.

 

[RobertColumbia]

...Q1 is found in South American natives.
...I would conclude that your Q1 probably came from Europe via Britain, either through medieval Vikings (cf. the modern elevations of Q1 in Viking-influenced regions such as the Danelaw of England and the Shetland Islands of Scotland), or through more recent Scandinavian migration to Britain.

One of the really interesting things that we can see with Q1 is that it has split and traveled around the world in both directions and met itself on the other side. Some Q1 left Siberia to the east over the land bridge to Alaska and the rest of the Americas while another contingent of Q1 went west to Europe, settling mostly in Scandinavia, and then traveling to the Americas with European colonization. That means that we now have Q1 men with European autosomal traits and Q1 men with Native American/Mongoloid traits interacting together who do not have any recent racial admixture. This is another instance of how haplogroups can unite populations of two different "races", and make them closer to each other paternally than either of them is to their same-"race" neighbors. Another example along those lines is the R1b-bearing Hausa people of Cameroon and Nigeria compared with the R1b-bearing Irish people.

 

[jamt]

Welcome back!

Q1 is found in South American natives.

The composition looks like what you would expect a random white person in the Americas to have after 400 years. The sub-1% African mixtures could be something, but at that level could easily be "noise" - that is, artifacts of the imperfect comparison. You did mention that your paternal ancestors have been in Barbados since the 1600's, and that is enough time to fully or nearly-fully dilute the autosomal DNA of that one ancestor.

If there is no indication of Native ancestry in your family tree (and one would suspect that such a thing would be noticed, especially early on when the Native admixure would have been high), I would conclude that your Q1 probably came from Europe via Britain, either through medieval Vikings (cf. the modern elevations of Q1 in Viking-influenced regions such as the Danelaw of England and the Shetland Islands of Scotland), or through more recent Scandinavian migration to Britain.

That's pretty interesting. Thanks for that!