Paternal Ancestry Research Articles

Paternal European ancestry in French Polynesia detected by Y-chromosome haplotypes.

Y-chromosome-specific polymorphisms p49f-a/TaqI were studied in a sample of 68 French Polynesians, and five haplotypes were observed. Three of them were haplotypes characteristic of European ancestry. The mean haplotype (45.6%) in French Polynesia is haplotype XV, a typical western European haplotype. Such an elevated frequency of European haplotypes is due to male gene flow from Europeans in French Polynesia.

‘Land of our Mothers’: Home, Identity, and Nationality for Anglo‐Indians in British India, 1919–1947

My title comes from a book by Herbert Stark called Hostages to India, which was published in 1926. Stark narrates the history of Eurasians in India, those who trace their paternal ancestry to European men who arrived in India from the late fifteenth century, and who, since the Indian Census of 1911, have been known as 'Anglo-Indians'. The book ends with a postscript that considers their uncertain position in the 1920s in the context of Indianization and the struggle for independence. Stressing the continued loyalty and affiliation of Anglo-Indians to their European and, specifically, English forefathers, Stark also describes their attachment to India:'

Three major lineages of Asian Y chromosomes: implications for the peopling of east and southeast Asia.

DNA variation on the non-recombining portion of the Y chromosome was examined in 610 male samples from 14 global populations in north, east, and southeast Asia, and other regions of the world. Eight haplotypes were observed by analyses of seven biallelic polymorphic markers ( DYS257(108), DYS287, SRY(4064), SRY(10831), RPS4Y(711), M9, and M15) and were unevenly distributed among the populations. Maximum parsimony tree for the eight haplotypes showed that these haplotypes could be classified into four distinct lineages characterized by three key mutations: an insertion of the Y Alu polymorphic (YAP) element at DYS287, a C-to-G transversion at M9, and a C-to-T transition at RPS4Y(711). Of the four lineages, three major lineages (defined by the allele of YAP(+), M9-G, and RPS4Y-T, respectively) accounted for 98.6% of the Asian populations studied, indicating that these three paternal lineages have contributed to the formation of modern Asian populations. Moreover, phylogenetic analysis revealed three monophyletic Asian clusters, which consisted of north Asian, Japanese, and Han Chinese/southeast Asian populations, respectively. Coalescence analysis in the haplotype tree showed that the estimated ages for three key mutations ranged from 53,000 to 95,000 years, suggesting that the three lineages were separated from one another during early stages of human evolutionary history. The distribution patterns of the Y-haplotypes and mutational ages for the key markers suggest that three major groups with different paternal ancestries separately migrated to prehistoric east and southeast Asia.

Matrilineal transmission of birth weight in the rhesus monkey ( Macaca mulatta) across several generations

Objective: To investigate how secular trends in maternal weight characteristics, in response to living in a permissive laboratory environment, influence intergenerational trends in birth weight in the rhesus monkey ( Macaca mulatta) and to assess the role of female offspring in perpetuating these matrilineal traits. Methods: A multigenerational data set was used to evaluate the relationship between familial and contemporaneous pregnancy factors and infant birth weight across several generations. These records provided 25 years of information on the maternal and paternal ancestries and reproductive histories, gestation lengths, and birth weights for 1321 infants. Results: Pregnancy weight gain, gestation length, and maternal familial factors were the most important predictors of infant birth weight, followed by infant sex, paternity, and maternal pregravid weight ( P < .001 for each variable). Furthermore, the trend in fetal growth across generations followed a matrilineal pattern of transmission that was much more pronounced for female than male offspring ( P < .001). Although secular increases in maternal pregravid weight and pregnancy weight gain were detected, the upward shift in female birth weight was not explained solely by these changes in maternal weight parameters. Conclusion: With the delivery of ample nutrition and health care in a laboratory setting, there was a dramatic increase in the birth weight of daughters within certain matrilines, providing evidence that an intrauterine mechanism transmitted through female progeny can regulate fetal development. Further, the upward trend in female birth weight had a beneficial influence on the reproductive performance of female descendants in those lineages.

:Saint Teresa of Avila: Author of a Heroic Life

With few exceptions, representations of Renaissance women were created by men. The Spanish saint, Teresa of Avila (1515-1582), who chose to represent herself, was one of those exceptions. What prompted her to write Book of Her Life, Interior Castle, and other works? What does the self-portrait of this 16th-century nun, mystic and founder of the Carmelites reveal about its author, the church, state and role of women? This analysis of Teresa's autobiographical writings explores these and many other questions. Bringing to bear a knowledge of Inquisition studies, theory of autobiography, scriptural hermeneutics and hagiography, the author defines Teresa's writings as a project of self-interpretation undertaken mainly as the result of the perceived, later realized, threat of an accusation of heresy. Being female and of paternal Jewish ancestry, Teresa was vulnerable to such a charge. Teresa's writing project presented her with serious difficulties. Judicial confession, her prescribed genre, presumed the writer's guilt, while the subordinate female script precluded a defense against the suspicion that her mystical experiences came from the devil. Through careful textual analysis, Slade demonstrates that Teresa exploited the nuances of numerous genres - hagiography, New World chronicle, mystical theological treatise, and early novel - to create an innocent textual persona and depict herself in heroic terms.

Tracing paternal ancestry in mice, using the Y-linked, sex-determining locus, Sry.

The molecular evolution of mammalian Y-linked DNA sequences is of special interest because of their unique mode of inheritance: most Y-linked sequences are clonally inherited from father to son. Here we investigate the use of Y-linked sequences for phylogenetic inference. We describe a comparative analysis of a 515-bp region from the male sex-determining locus, Sry, in 22 murine rodents (subfamily Murinae, family Muridae), including representatives from nine species of Mus, and from two additional murine genera--Mastomys and Hylomyscus. Percent sequence divergence was < 0.01% for comparisons between populations within a species and was 0.19%-8.16% for comparisons between species. Our phylogenetic analysis of 12 murine taxa resulted in a single most-parsimonius tree that is highly concordant with phylogenies based on mitochondrial DNA and allozymes. A total evidence tree based on the combined data from Sry, mitochondrial DNA, and allozymes supports (1) the monophyly of the subgenus Mus, (2) its division into a Palearctic group (M. musculus, M. domesticus, M. spicilegus, M. Macedonicus, and M. spretus) and an Oriental group (M. cookii++, M. cervicolor, and M. caroli), and (3) sister-group relationships between M. spicilegus and M. macedonicus and between M. cookii and M. cervicolor. We argue that Y-chromosome DNA sequences represent a valuable new source of characters for phylogenetic inference.

Y chromosome DNA polymorphisms in human populations: differences between Caucasoids and Africans detected by 49a and 49f probes

Several Y-specific TaqI fragments are recognized by 49a and 49f probes in human male DNA digests. The occurrence of polymorphic variations in six of these fragments (A, B, C, D, F and I) has recently been reported, providing a potentially powerful tool for the study of the population genetics of the Y chromosome. The 49a-49f/TaqI polymorphisms were studied in 121 Africans (Senegal and Cameroon) and 125 Caucasians (Italy). In addition to the variability described already, four new bands were observed. Moreover, three patterns were found in which bands constantly present so far (G, O and H-P-R) were missing. At variance with previously reported findings, the coexistence of two different fragments of the same 'allelic' series (A or D) was frequently observed in the Italian sample (10.4%). For some of these 'double-banded' patterns their holoandric transmission could be demonstrated by family studies. In the light of these new findings, the hypothesis of A or D fragments being allelic forms, as advanced by the authors who first described these polymorphisms, has to be reconsidered. A total of 34 haplotypes were encountered, 22 of which are new. The Africans tested all lack C and D fragments. Moreover, about 80% of them are characterized by a band, A1, not present in the Italian group. The combination of A1C0D0 could therefore be a powerful genetic marker of paternal African ancestry. This combination occurs in five haplotypes, one of which, haplotype IV, accounts for 68% of the African sample. In contrast with the results of the mtDNA analysis on the same population samples, the degree of variability displayed by the Y chromosome sequences appears to be much lower in Africans than in Caucasians.

Names at Lepcis Magna

AbstractThis article analyses the occurrence of apparently Roman names at Lepcis Magna and seeks to identify the processes of cultural assimilation taking place between the Libyphoenician population and Rome. Three main categories of change in naming practice (proposed by Herzog in the 1890s) may be recognised and suggest a number of possible explanations, other than Italian settlers, for the appearance of particular names at Lepcis. First, Roman names may have been adopted from the ruling emperor, or a senatorial patron or other suitably eminent Italian family, most commonly on the acquisition of Roman citizenship. This practice will often totally have eradicated the individual's original Libyphoenician nomenclature. The Lepcitani notably favoured aristocratic cognomina. Second, Punic or Libyan names at Lepcis may have been replaced by similar sounding Latin ones, e.g. the adaptation of Himilis to Aemilius and Amilcar to Amicus. Third, the Latin name may sometimes be a literal translation of the Punic or Libyan one. While noting a number of interesting examples of the latter two cases, the analysis here concentrates on the first category. It is concluded that there is little clearcut evidence for Italian settler families at Lepcis. Most of the names can be explained in terms of the assimilation of the indigenous population into the Roman pattern of personal nomenclature and illustrates the interesting choices available to them. The evidence at a number of points adds further weight to the strong probability that the paternal ancestry of the Emperor Septimius Severus was African.

The Illusion of Diabolism in the Cabellian Hero

Many of critics have suggested that the author of The Biography of the Life of Manuel was obsessed with diabolism, and that the Cabellian hero was cursed by foreknowledge of his own damnation. Edgar E. MacDonald, for example, writes, Cabell's hero invariably has a well-developed sense of damnation, but he appears to prefer that state to the conventional morality of society. Edmund Wilson would trace recurrent theme of damnation to the Calvinism of paternal Presbyterian ancestry. 1 Joe Lee Davis, in his book-length study, describes one of major characters in the following terms:

A Note on the Genealogy of a Fact: Aehrenthal's Jewish Ancestry

There are numerous examples in historical literature of an undocumented assertion being repeated so often that it finally achieves the status of a historical fact. In the course of my research for a biography of Count Alois Lexa von Aehrenthal, Austro-Hungarian ambassador to Russia (1899-1906) and foreign minister (1906-12), I discovered that Aehrenthal's assumed Jewish paternal ancestry is one such fact. The point would be trivial if it were not for a recent article which indicates that the fact of Aehrenthal's Jewish forebears might be headed in the future for a far more distinguished career as an explanatory factor than it has had in the past. At a time when historians are becoming increasingly interested in the uses of psychological notions for historical studies, it is worthwhile to sound a cautionary note.1 In psychological explanations of individual and collective behavior small facts are significant, and historians who use psychological concepts for explanatory purposes will have to be more rigorous in verifying facts which hitherto have served mainly as interesting historical asides.

Blethin ap Confyn, his paternal ancestry

Blethin ap Confyn, his paternal ancestry Get access C. P. C. P. Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Notes and Queries, Volume s8-I, Issue 18, 30 April 1892, Page 353, https://doi.org/10.1093/nq/s8-I.18.353f Published: 30 April 1892