My Mormon interlude was rudely interrupted (by my abrupt departure) before I had the chance to satisfy my craving to find out more about my family history using their much lauded (by them) family history library (not that I expected to find many of my ancestors in America). I’m happy anyway to take the tremendous shortcut of just spitting in a bottle. Beats combing through ancient dusty paper files, definitely. More expensive but faster and simpler.

Happy at the prospect of at least the start being easy – bottle/ spit. Nervous about prospective results (likely unwarranted anxiety but who knows) and a bit challenged by the anticipated individual effort possibly required to track down accurate info.

Beethoven did it, a couple of centuries after his lifetime, but with his permission, as far as he could give it back in his day, not knowing of course about scientific advances in genetics, but using hair, no saliva being currently available.

Here’s an article about some of Beethoven’s health conditions and some intriguing family history:

CNN article by Ashley Strickland, March 22, 2023: Locks of Beethoven's hair reveal secret family history and health issues

Excerpts:

“Before composer Ludwig van Beethoven died on March 27, 1827, it was his wish that his ailments be studied and shared so "as far as possible at least the world will be reconciled to me after my death."

Now, researchers have taken steps to partially honor that request by analyzing Beethoven's DNA from preserved locks of his hair and sequencing the composer's genome for the first time.

Once the research team established Beethoven's genetic profile, they compared it with the DNA of his living relatives in Belgium. But in a twist, they weren't able to determine a complete match.

While some of the relatives shared a paternal ancestor through Beethoven's family in the late 1500s and early 1600s, there was no match for the Y-chromosome in Beethoven's hair samples.

This suggests that somewhere in the family's history, there was an extramarital affair on Beethoven's father's side that resulted in a child.

"Through the combination of DNA data and archival documents, we were able to observe a discrepancy between Ludwig van Beethoven's legal and biological genealogy," said study coauthor Maarten Larmuseau, a genetic genealogist at the KU Leuven in Belgium.

The researchers think the affair occurred sometime between the 1572 conception of Hendrik van Beethoven, an ancestor in the paternal Beethoven line seven generations removed from the composer, and the conception of Beethoven in 1770.”

-----

OK, so something seems to have occurred seven generations before Beethoven’s birth and he’s been gone for nearly 200 years. The family secret, if any, doesn’t seem to matter much any more, except it's interesting.

I’m constantly amazed at the advances in scientific knowledge. It can seem quite intrusive to share DNA with the world but if you’ve got no secrets or don’t mind if some are uncovered it can be fun to “meet” your ancestors. I can’t wait. Although I’m not expecting anything earthshaking to emerge from my search.

On another note, it’s quite an achievement that people still remember you for your life’s work 200 years in the future. Hopefully, remembering you with appreciation and respect. In Beethoven's case, no worries on that score.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/22/2023 05:52PM by Nightingale.

That probably happens in every family line at some point, people being, well, people.

>> On another note, it’s quite an achievement that people still remember you for your life’s work 200 years in the future.

Very, very few of us will be remembered 200 years ahead. Perhaps if our families do genealogy, they will have some knowledge of us. But I often think that this is a great argument for being accepting of differences. If none of us will be remembered in the future, why does it matter if some of us are gay, or trans, or tattooed, or whatever?

Yup. Whole bunch of people in Niagara Falls are realizing that they have a Black niece/cousin.

The older ones knew about my mother and her parents’ brief marriage. My maternal great grandfather and friends threatened to lynch my grandfather. They took my grandmother to a Catholic Infant Foundling to give birth to my mother. It took over a year to get my mom out of there because the nuns wanted my mother to go to a white family.

My grandmother was smart. With the help of a nun, they let her use her real name on my mom’s birth certificate AND listed my grandfather’s as well.

My mother and grandmother found each other in 2007ish and secretly corresponded. It was a joy and a relief to get to know each other and to find out that each was safe.

My plan is, if they don't remember me, to remind them!

Have you ever had your DNA studied?

The mind reels. . .

One of my sons did it, via that new firm, Prophetic Utterances.  He is 3% African.  His mom was a dyed-in-the-wool Southerner, so I blamed it on her.

I'm not doing it unless confronted with a court order.

elderolddog Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> One of my sons did it, via that new firm,
> Prophetic Utterances.  He is 3% African.  His
> mom was a dyed-in-the-wool Southerner, so I blamed
> it on her.

In all seriousness, along with your unrepentant Lamaniticity you have a dollop of Spanish DNA and hence probably a touch of the Moor as well. After all, strict racial distinctions are a fairly recent phenomenon in the Mediterranean world.

My people were from Northern Spain...

In the 8th century the Moors controlled all of Spain up to about 50 miles from the French border. And if we go back to the Roman period, African officers and troops were stationed all over the empire.

I'm suspicious of all notions of racial purity. That applies to your wife as well as you (and the rest of us with Europeans among our predecessors). She may well have African DNA not from her family's time in the South but from ancestral adventures in Europe.

Okay, okay, I'm just going to go ahead and say it: I have no rhythm.

There!

Are you happy now?

Jesus, I'm always happy.

Oh?

So now with threats!!

Don't worry. I'll never ask you to dance.

You must be Brtish. We didn't get the rhythm gene.

Brimex?

Mexish?

Briticano?

Dorothy would probably approve.

At the dawn of time we were offered either the rhythm gene or the irony gene. We chose the latter because we saw it would be more fun. And so it has proved I think.

No dance, please, we're British?

"My people" LOL

Then Ancestry.com revealed I'm just a pathetic drunk.

The reality of these DNA tests is they only show a very small fraction of our true ancestors.

For example...my son shows his native American ancestry through his mother. Hopefully someday we'll be able to tell the tribe, but at this point we cannot.

My granddaughter however, shows none of my sons native American DNA as he only passes on the male side of the family.

So my granddaughter has no DNA proof she is the granddaughter of a native American woman.

Multiply that back through the generations and we see just how much family history is lost when we rely solely on DNA.

I have one grandchild who got ALL my skin tone genes my daughter has.  When you look at their typically mormon family photos, he looks like he has to have been adopted: three white kids and the Lamanite...

But he also got his dad's bad kidney genes, and he had to have a kidney transplant while still in high school.

That must have been very worrisome, EOD. I'm sorry that your grandchild has suffered. I hope that advances in medicine continue to help him.

I prefer not to outlive any of my grandkids...

I think that we all feel that way. I don't want to outlive my niece or nephew, or grandniece. I've had my chance, and they deserve theirs.

I've had a good life. No complaints. I'd love to enjoy my retirement, but if life dictates otherwise, so be it.

elderolddog Wrote:
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> I prefer not to outlive any of my grandkids...

My heavens, that rings true.

Burying a parent is a sad occasion we all must face--hopefully.
Burying a child is quite another matter.

Yes.

The commercially available tests are hit-or-miss at best. State-of-the-art technology would provide a lot more dependable information.

For example, it makes no sense that your son inherited Native American DNA from his mother but did not pass it along to his daughter. Why? Because the only way it could *not* be passed from mother to child is if it were on the Y-chromosome--but your wife does not have a Y-chromosome. Ergo if your son has those genes, they are not gender-dependent and should show up in his daughter as well. In short, the tests are wrong.

Secondly, if there are Native Americans in your wife's ancestry their legacy is present not just in the X- and/or Y-chromosomes but in all her chromosomes. It takes a different test to find the sequences in the non-gender-related DNA, but they are assuredly present.

There is indeed a horizon beyond which all information in DNA is lost. For m-DNA it is about 160,000 years ago. For everything else, the point at which "everything goes dark" is between one and five million years in the past.

My wife found out she was native american via a DNA test and narrowed it down to Cherokee via Ancestry and remote cousins (she didn't know she had). She ultimately became a member of the Cherokee nation which was a 1 year agonizing process. To be part of the Cherokee nation you must prove you had an ancestor on the trail of tears. Google Treaty of New Echota. The DNA came down through her GGGG Mother who was married to a European. After researching the family, Native Americans and caucasians were inter-mingling. Originally, 23andme showed 1% native american. The DNA trait does not show up in her granddaughter probably because there isn't enough to show. As technology gets better and there are more samples, more data will be available.

Another reason some Cherokee bands have strict enrollment rules is that enrollments were sold to white people as a survival imperative.

Beth Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Another reason some Cherokee bands have strict
> enrollment rules is that enrollments were sold to
> white people as a survival imperative.

I didn't know this, and--according to my Mom and my Aunt Tomi (both now deceased)--their side of the family is/was part Cherokee.

I long ago (as an adult) realized that, despite the fervent beliefs and attestations of my Mom's side of the family, they/"we" are very probably NOT actually Cherokee.

I haven't had my DNA tested, but if a DNA test came back that I actually AM part Cherokee, I would be astounded.

And even if it comes back negative, that doesn’t mean you aren’t. Maybe you didn’t inherit whatever markers were used.

Some indigenous populations are reluctant to give DNA samples because blood quantum is seen by many to be something imposed on them by the government. Some populations now use blood quantum to decide who has voting rights on tribal matters.

You never know. You might be a Cherokee princess ;-)

Most of these cheap DNA tests are harvesting your data and selling it to health insurance companies.

Then the insurance companies must be profoundly disappointed by the quality of the data.

<long exhale> Insurance companies don't need DNA information, they can find out all they need via a blood test. There are tests that can identify whether you have a genetic pre-disposition and the likelihood of it being turned on. (in percentage form)

It is interesting to discover genealogy that confirms DNA findings. My DNA report indicated 8% Scandinavian DNA right there in the middle of all my UK and Western European DNA. Subsequent research confirmed the accuracy when I discovered a Swedish ancestor who married an English girl in the late 1700s. By the time of their first son one letter in the name has been changed to anglicize it to my mother's maiden name.

8% is more than twice what a single Scandinavian five (just my guess) generations back would have left in your genome. There may be some other interlopers in your family tree.

Then again, the English carry substantial Scandinavian DNA from the Viking era too.

And from the Normans who were heavily Viking.

Yes.

Plenty of those de Normans in my tree way back when. deNevilles,deVilliers, deFolville.

What I find fascinating are the number of crimes for which there is DNA evidence, but they don’t know who the DNA belongs to. Now they can run it through the various databases, and find out that whoever this person is, they are related to people X, Y, Z and W.

Often there is only one person who is related to that entire group of people. Even if it is multiple people, you can eliminate some of the potential matches by other means, like the person was three years old when the crime was committed.

Worst case, you can do a DNA test on all the potential matches, to find which, if any of them, exactly match the crime scene DNA.

> Worst case, you can do a DNA test on all the
> potential matches, to find which, if any of them,
> exactly match the crime scene DNA.

A major constitutional issue arises at that point. Ignoring the difficult and expensive alternative of following a suspect to pick up a used cig to get the DNA--which is practically impossible if there are more than one or two people under consideration--you need probable cause and a search warrant to get the genetic material.

Probable cause, however, requires that you can demonstrate to a judge that 1) a crime probably occurred, and 2) it was probably committed by the subject of the requested warrant. By definition, therefore, you can only get a warrant for one individual at a time; and if you get a warrant for one person and then go back for another warrant for another person, the judge will be very skeptical.

So testing "all the potential matches" is more daunting than it may first appear.

Yeah, there is that whole ‘probable cause’ thing. I haven’t seen actual statistics, but I imagine if there are multiple people who match a DNA sample, the DNA sample could be narrowed down to a single family, and the other family members could be eliminated as suspects.

I’ve probably gotten a couple dozen notifications from the company I used saying they found a probable first or second cousin, or whatever. I’ve ignored them all.

> I’ve probably gotten a couple dozen
> notifications from the company I used saying they
> found a probable first or second cousin, or
> whatever. I’ve ignored them all.

That's an excellent idea. After all, virtually every family has its EOD just waiting to pounce when given the opportunity.

The phrase, "opportunity knocked (me up)!" does ring a bell...

Off onto a different look at this ancestors, has made me wonder about the idea of reparation for those affected by slavery.

If reparations becomes a fact, how would the payments be made?

By statements made here, it's almost completely a fact that nobody is 100% any one ancestry.

The children of Harry and Meagan are at the best 25% black.

No one’s getting 40 acres and a mule, so don’t worry about it.

$5,000,000 in California if things go the way the Governor wants.

That should get several mules, Lot depends on where the 40 acres are available.

HAHAHAHAHA!

Look. All dude has is a task force.

Like I said, don’t worry about it. It will never happen.

In the 19th century, land would have gone a long way to create generational wealth for Freedmen.

I guarantee you, no one is getting $5M.