German / Bulgaria J-FTC79873 Who are we?

[EngelhornRon]

Hello, my FTDNA Y DNA kit # is 369210, and Haplogroup # is J-FTC79873.

I have been on FTDNA for years with no Y-DNA matches but one my brother. Bought the Big Y over a year ago with no matches. My biological surname is Engelhorn with solid paper trail in Germany back to the early 1500's. Rumor is we migrated from Switzerland.

I am trying to trace our migration line back to its origin around 950 BCE were I match with another J-FTC79873 Bulgarian guy.......does this mean my ancestor migrated from the Bulgarian region?

Thank you,

Ron Engelhorn

 

[Riverman]

If you go to FTDNA, you can find your time tree position:

Welcome to FamilyTreeDNA Discover

Discover more about your paternal ancestry and join in on the research!

discover.familytreedna.com

Beside the Bulgarian, in your upstream clade are Albanians, Sardinians and Turks. This looks like its associated with Greeks or other East Mediterranean people in the Bronze to Early Iron Age and spread out along the Mediterranean routes. The TMRCA to the Bulgarian is 1.000-900 BC, therefore we are again in the LBA-EIA transition. That's pretty old.

What happened in between, between the Early Iron Age and the early modern period, when your tree starts, is completely unknown and its not even possible to guess. No other modern, no other ancient DNA results to work with.

Upstream of your position are branches which show how it can work: One French at the root, than a split between Ashkenazi Jewish and Irish! Both the Ashkenazi and Irish are well tested, their common ancestor is back in the LBA, around 1.300-1.200 BC. The Irish-Scottish branch can be traced back to about 1.000 AD!

Needless to say that both in their and your case a lot could have happened in 2.000-2.500 undocumented years of your branch. Probably it spread already in the Iron Age, or with the Romans. You will probably know eventually, with more samples from both ancients and moderns. For now we can just say it starts from the Near East, moved into the East Mediterranean presumably in the Bronze Age and then spread into various parts of Europe subsequently.

The earlist, very distantly related samples from upstream branches, with a common ancestor to you about 5.000 years BC, are all Imperial Roman (one from Croatia, the other from Italy).

 

[EngelhornRon]

Hello all. I have new information that just popped up on FTDNA.....

Goldenen Stiege 12​

Shared Ancestor

2100 BCE

You and Goldenen Stiege 12 share a common paternal line ancestor who lived around this time.

Rare Connection
1 in 10,000

Only 69 customers are this closely related to Goldenen Stiege 12.
More information about Goldenen Stiege 12 will be added soon.
Reference: MGS012 from K. Wang et al. 2025

Phylogenetic Y-DNA analysis by FamilyTreeDNA. Ancient DNA samples are typically degraded and missing coverage, sometimes resulting in less specific haplogroup placements.
___________________________________________________________________________________

Can anyone shed a little more light on this new match?

 

[Riverman]

He is from the Avar period in Austria, from the site of Moedling, which was predominantely Slavic, but did intermix with the Csokorgasse group, which also part Slavic, but more mixed in a Balkan direction and being completely dominated by E-V13. I think, but this is just my own interpretation at this point, that the majority of the Csokorgasse group came in as allies, levies or the like of the Avars from the Danube-Tisza zone in the East. They settled there, and mixed with Slavs and locals. Since E-V13 was in the vicinity before, we can't say whether they all had the same background, but the bulk seems to have come in with Avars - which had their own settlement nearby, which was mostly East Asian.

 

[EngelhornRon]

Hello all. I have new information that just popped up on FTDNA.....

Goldenen Stiege 12​

Shared Ancestor

2100 BCE

You and Goldenen Stiege 12 share a common paternal line ancestor who lived around this time.

Rare Connection
1 in 10,000

Only 69 customers are this closely related to Goldenen Stiege 12.
More information about Goldenen Stiege 12 will be added soon.
Reference: MGS012 from K. Wang et al. 2025

Phylogenetic Y-DNA analysis by FamilyTreeDNA. Ancient DNA samples are typically degraded and missing coverage, sometimes resulting in less specific haplogroup placements.
___________________________________________________________________________________

Can anyone shed a little more light on this new match?

He is from the Avar period in Austria, from the site of Moedling, which was predominantely Slavic, but did intermix with the Csokorgasse group, which also part Slavic, but more mixed in a Balkan direction and being completely dominated by E-V13. I think, but this is just my own interpretation at this point, that the majority of the Csokorgasse group came in as allies, levies or the like of the Avars from the Danube-Tisza zone in the East. They settled there, and mixed with Slavs and locals. Since E-V13 was in the vicinity before, we can't say whether they all had the same background, but the bulk seems to have come in with Avars - which had their own settlement nearby, which was mostly East Asian.

Thanks for the info, but I'm a J2a, was this found in Avars or was my ancestor a prisoner..LOL.

 

[Riverman]

Hello all. I have new information that just popped up on FTDNA.....

Goldenen Stiege 12​

Shared Ancestor

2100 BCE

You and Goldenen Stiege 12 share a common paternal line ancestor who lived around this time.

Rare Connection
1 in 10,000

Only 69 customers are this closely related to Goldenen Stiege 12.
More information about Goldenen Stiege 12 will be added soon.
Reference: MGS012 from K. Wang et al. 2025

Phylogenetic Y-DNA analysis by FamilyTreeDNA. Ancient DNA samples are typically degraded and missing coverage, sometimes resulting in less specific haplogroup placements.
___________________________________________________________________________________

Can anyone shed a little more light on this new match?

Thanks for the info, but I'm a J2a, was this found in Avars or was my ancestor a prisoner..LOL.

J2a is most likely to have arrived due to Roman migrants - there are some branches in Europe which might have a deeper origin in the region, like some were found in Neolithic or Bronze Age (Kyjatice!) context, but the majority came with Roman era migrants from Anatolia-Levante. Can you tell your exact branch, then we can take a look at it - if you like and don't care of course...