Brit-Am Anthropology and DNA Update (7 October, 2014, 13 Tishrei, 5775)
Contents:
1. R1b not Proto-European by Alias Elucard
2. Are People with the Same Family Name Related?
3. Do 20% of Spaniards Have Jewish Ancestry?
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1. R1b not Proto-European by Alias Elucard
forwarded by Mark Williams
http://www.forumbiodiversity.com/showthread.php/36677-R1b-not-proto-Indo-European
Extracts:
As a matter of scientific facts, the proto-Indo-Europeans did not carry any R1b. They were more or less exclusively R1a-M17 on the paternal side. There's no compelling evidence that forces us to agree that the proto-Indo-Europeans carried any R1b. All the ancient DNA from Andronovo, Krasnoyarsk, Tarim etc., have more or less shown a dominance of R1a. This R1a dominance is in agreement with the linguistic evidence:
'All linguistic evidence suggests that Proto-Indo-European society was patrilineal in descent and male dominated according to that much overworked term patriarchal.'
'J.P. Mallory, In Search of the Indo-Europeans: Language, Archaeology, and Myth, ISBN 050005052X, p. 123
 And in India, it's again R1a, not R1b, that is dominating in the race mixed Indians. It is R1a that is present in most Indo-European speakers in Europe, with the exception of relatively recently Indo-Europeanised western Europeans.
By arguing that R1b wasn't PIE, I'm not insinuating that west Europeans don't have any proto-Indo-European ancestry; they really do have some of that. How it all went down is difficult to answer. Maybe women of genuine Indo-European descent outmarried with R1b males, or maybe R1b males conquered Gaul and slaughtered most R1a males they could find in the Gallic wars, and so on. We also have to remember that populations were much smaller back then than they are now, so haplogroup frequencies were easier to distort.
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2. Are People with the Same Family Name Related?
http://www.genealogyintime.com/NewsStories/2008/October/are_people_with_the_same_family_name_related.html?awt_l=B8lfA&awt_m=JjlQC0X7sAk.Vy#sthash.Ku5s4CDm.dpuf
Extracts:
Family names (also known as surnames) provide an obvious clue to a person's origin. And yet, as any genealogist can tell you, surnames can be difficult to work with and research into surnames often yield unexpected surprises. In particular, two people with the same surname do not necessarily share a common ancestor. Find out why.
Surnames in families change more frequently than most people realize. Two people can share a surname and have no biological relationship to each other. Common surnames, such as Smith and Jones, can have multiple independent founders. As well, adoptions, misspellings, name changes (sometimes used to hide a criminal or immigration past) and non-paternities (the husband is not the biological father of the child) all serve to confuse the picture.
In Britain, surnames have been in existence for only about 700 years. This represents about 25 generations of males, who are the ones that typically carry the surname forward to future generations. So what is the probability that two people having the same surname also share a common ancestor? It turns out that for British men with the same surname, there is a 24% probability of having a recent common ancestor.
Here are some factors that increase the probability of two people with the same surname having a common ancestor:
� If the surname is rare.
� If the surname is an unusual spelling of a more common surname.
� If the surname refers to a small town or specific locality.
� If you have evidence your ancestors stayed in the same small locality for many generations and you come across someone with the same surname from the same region.
Here are some factors that decrease the probability of two people having a common ancestor:
� If the surname refers to any occupation (such as Smith, Cooper, Baker, etc.). These types of surnames are not always easy to spot. Many occupations have fallen out of use. For example, the surname Baxter refers to a female baker.
� If the surname is a color, thing or place (such as Black or Underhill).
� If the surname refers to a physical characteristic (such as Small).
� If your ancestors emigrated from another country and you suspect they changed their name.
� If the surname refers to the son of someone (such as Anderson or Johnson).
- See more at:
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3. Do 20% of Spaniards Have Jewish Ancestry?
Gene Study Questions Spain's Ancestry
http://www.genealogyintime.com/NewsStories/2008/December/gene_study_questions_spains_ancestry.html
Extract:
As reported in the International Herald Tribune, a recent genetic study of the Spanish population provides direct evidence that the second (melting pot) view is more accurate. The study showed about 20% of the population of Spain has Sephardic Jewish ancestry and 11% have Muslim ancestry. This strongly suggests there was mass conversion of Jews and Muslims to Catholicism during the Spanish Inquisition. To put this in perspective, about one-third of Spain has at least some non-Catholic ancestry. For people with Spanish ancestry, it is difficult to determine whether your ancestors would have been affected by the Spanish Inquisition. There is, however, one tantalizing clue that may be helpful. People who converted to Catholicism during this period often adopted the name of the town they lived in as their new last name in order to hide their past. This practice, however, was not exclusive to people who converted to Catholicism. - See more at: http://www.genealogyintime.com/NewsStories/2008/December/gene_study_questions_spains_ancestry.html#sthash.A6Mw1TVY.dpuf