Celebrating 10 Year Blogiversary/ The Best of RootsTech 2021

 

I began this blog on March 1, 2011 so this is the 10th Anniversary of this blog. During the past 10 years I've shared the agony of waiting for DNA test results, and long waits for something in the mail. I've also shared the thrill of the ancestor chase and the satisfaction that came with breaking down brickwalls. 

What have I accomplished and shared over this decade? First of all I've added some branches to my tree. 

Below you can see just a few of the ancestors I've added since 2011 highlighted (couldn't get them all on a 6 generation chart):

With such a mixed heritage my genealogy research has led me to many different places through this decade. 

Some accomplishments and sources I've blogged about in the past decade include:

1. Photos of my Kappel/Kurta Great-Grandparents were shared with me in 2019, I had never seen photos of them. Had no idea what they looked like before 2019.
2. Owens family brickwall came down in 2015 with a lawsuit and resulting deed documents surfacing.
3. Granada Nicaragua Church and Civil Registration digitized records became available online at Familysearch allowing me to extend by Nicaraguan lines and collect family documents.
4. Irish land records became available online such as the revision books for County Galway which extended my knowledge of my Irish families.
5. Irish Civil Registration records online is another online source I've blogged about.
6. Styria, Austria and Burgenland, Austria Church records have come online in the past few years helping me extend more family lines.
7. Civil Registration records for Burgenland helped fill in blanks in my family history 
8. 1851Census Search Forms came online for Ireland allowing me to add mothers of my Irish great-great grandparents to my tree. 
9. In the past decade Findmypast Ireland has allowed me to extend my Irish families to include new dog family members using the dog license records. Court records have added new stories for my family history. 
10. Newspapers online have helped me confirm family lines and added new stories. A newspaper article provided me with the only photo I have of a great-uncle who was killed by a sniper in Germany at the end of WWII.
11. Deed books coming online at Familysearch and other sites have helped add names to my family tree in the past decade. The James Trigg Campbell deed I located in Jackson County, Indiana may eventually break down my Campbell brickwall? 
12. We confirmed many lines through DNA testing. I started a Forgey family DNA project and a Kappel family project at FTDNA. 
13. IDing photos unmarked photos has also been a project I've been working on often using photo recognition websites. 
14. Naturalization certificate files with photos helped ID photos. 
15. I've blogged about information I've found on death certificates available online at sites such as Ancestry.com where old death certificates are available to view for free. Indiana death certificates are available online at Ancestry for instance. Other vital records now online have also been helpful.
16. Virginia Memory Chancery records online has also been an invaluable resource which I've blogged about.
17. I visited a courthouse in person for the first time in 2018 where I found documents not available online. I shared this experience in my blog. 
18. Luckily I was able to get to all of my ancestral related countries and states in the past few years before COVID shut travel down. I've shared those experiences in this blog. 

Blogging about my family history has helped me focus my research and writing down my findings has helped me formulate proof arguments. I often refer back to old blog posts to review previous findings. 

Rootstech 2021

I always enjoy watching streamed RootsTech  sessions. This year all of the sessions are being streamed because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Videos of the sessions will be available to watch even after the event is over so if you missed them during the event you can watch later. 

I found the animation of photos at MyHeritage one of the most interesting announcements this year. At the bottom of the page you can see one of the best animations produced for my photos which was of my Great-Grandmother Mary Kurta-Kappel. 

Connecting with cousins through the "Relatives at RootsTech" app was also fun.  The app used Familysearch trees to match up cousins who were also streaming the sessions. Since the shared trees at Familysearch contain errors these matches weren't always correct. I did find that 4th cousins and closer were generally correct. 

From "When Your Tree Is a Banyan: Untangling Endogamy" I learned about different sites where you can upload your family tree or have your DNA results analyzed so you can evaluate how much endogamy you might have. I have a little bit of endogamy as you can see in my French Canadian lines as demonstrated by the sideways sweep of lines. Endogamy makes figuring out how you relate to DNA matches difficult. 

 

Also I learned some tips for getting more out of MyHeritage DNA. 

Clicking on the question mark near the predicted DNA relationship brings up a chart showing how you might be related to a match. Below you can see it correctly outlines my relationship to my mother. 

Ancestry has a similar feature if you click on the shared DNA link. Below you see AncestryDNA is nearly 100% positive this match is my first cousin and she definitely is. I like the chart format however because I like charts for easy visualization. 

Another tip presented was if you click on your communities at MyHeritage DNA more information about the location is brought up which includes the number of people in the community, and first and last names common to families in a particular community. Also there is an animation of migrations through time you can play.

 Aside from the DNA information a session on new features at Familysearch and another on tips for using the site were presented. I watched the sessions "Demo: Getting the Most from FamilySearch Search" and "What's New On FamilySearch". 

I heard about the hints at the Familysearch tree before but didn't know how to see them. After the presentation I  played with the tree features and discovered you can't see the hints in the fan chart view when I changed views I could see them. 

Ancestor pages at Familysearch have been updated to include more features and a different layout. This is the page for my Grandfather Rudolph Kapple. 

The session "Hidden Treasures: Discovering Local Sources in Your Irish Research" pointed out a website that led me to a family history society I hadn't heard of called the "Western Family History Association" which I will join. 

Other sessions I found interesting:

• Tracing Ancestral Lines in the 1700s Using DNA
• Reconstructing Parent DNA 
• Using DNA in a Client Research Project to Solve a Family Mystery (a case study that is interesting even if you don't take clients)
• DNA Triangulation: What, Why, and How 
• Understanding Your DNA Ethnicity Results 
• Ugo A. Perego: A Personal Genetic Journey
• Research in the Southern States 
• Organize Your DNA Matches in a Diagram 
• Research Strategies for Early Colonial Ancestors

Many of the sessions are short so it doesn't take a long investment of time to watch them. I've enjoyed watching the sessions over the last few days and learned some new things. Right now I'm working on my Sarah Campbell Jackson County, Indiana brickwall. I've selected sessions based on this particular brickwall. I'll use some of the tips I've learned to continue trying to breakdown this wall down.  

Comparing the new 23andMe Ethnicity/ A New 2nd Cousin Match

In October 2020 new ethnicity estimates were provided to people who tested at 23andMe with the V5 chip. At the time some thought you could only get the update if you tested with the newer V5 chip. My family tested with the V4 chip and we didn't get the update when it first came out. Checking my ethnicity results at 23andMe recently I discovered updated results. 

A previous update to my results, the one before the current estimates, was disappointing. 23andMe appeared to provide the most accurate estimates for my family before that update. The new update seems to correct some of the issues I had with the previous estimates. I believe the estimates around 2018 were the best.

Comparing my estimates 2015 to the present 2021 

My European ethnicity estimate has been pretty consistent in the 90% range over the years. I was surprised when it dropped to 88% with the previous update, but it's back up to 90%. 

My British and Irish started out at 29.5%, went up to 32.6% with an update, went down to 30% with another update. The current update sent that estimate way up to 44.4%. I believe the previous estimates are more accurate. 

French and German estimates started out at 5.6%. It went way up to 13.9% with an update. It likely went way up after my Mother tested and her results were phased with mine. 23andMe phases ethnicity results if parents test which often changes estimates. Another update estimated I had 14.3% French German ethnicity. The current estimate has taken my French German down to 6.3%, which would appear to be too low because one of my Grandfathers was born in Austria and I have French Canadian roots. 

Iberian estimate started out very low at 6.0%. I believe that was way too low considering one of my Grandmother's was Nicaraguan. When my mother tested and her results were phased with mine the Iberian estimate went way up to 18.4%. It went up again with another update to 19.9%. The current estimate is 12.3%. 

Eastern European started out very low at 1.7% and went up to 4.9% after my results were phased with my Mother's. It went down slightly with the last update to 4.4%. It's gone up to 7.4% with the current. That estimate should be higher since paternal Grandfather's family was from an area on the Austrian Hungarian border. 

Native American estimates haven't seen any wild swings. The first estimate was 6.7%, an update raised that to 7.3%. The last update took that estimate down to 6.9%. The current estimate took it back up a tiny bit to 7.1%, 

Sub-Saharan African from 2015 to the present this estimate has never changed and stayed at 1.3%. 

Ashkenazi has been added to my estimates with the current estimate at a trace amount of 0.1%. 

My Mother's European estimate changed quite a bit from 75.6% European to 81.8% European. I believe around 80% is fairly accurate. 

Conclusions

For some reason the previous update seemed to underestimate European admixture? It's now returned to the previous level. The current update raised my British and Irish from around 30% to 44% which is a substantial difference. My French and German estimates seemed to change for the worse while my Eastern European changed for the better. Looking at the updates from 2015 to the present they have become much more specific as you can see in the growing list of places. Personally I know where most my ancestors came from so the ethnicity results are not that important to me. Many Americans don't know where their ancestors came from so accurate results are important to them. 

Update: When I added up my known British and Irish heritage it came out to 38%. 

A new 2nd cousin match

Reviewing my 23andMe matches I also recently found a new 2nd cousin match. I was able to narrow down which line this match came from by looking at shared matches. The match is on my paternal Grandmother's side. Only one of her full siblings had children and I assumed this person was his descendant. Recently I had discovered my paternal Grandmother also had two half siblings, but I assumed they would have shared less DNA with me. 

I contacted this match and she was nice enough to respond to my message. She indeed is a Granddaughter of my Grand-Uncle Frank Mason. 

I've added the new segments to my Genome Mate Pro chromosome chart. Many of the segments overlapped with previous Mason cousins, but a few were new. One segment was extended as you can see looking at the red segments in the charts below. The one on the left shows all my collected segments before the new ones were added, and one on the right shows the Mason segments after I added the new segments. 

I only met Frank once when I was a child and only remembered him mentioning one daughter. With this new match and two other 2nd cousin matches descended from Frank Mason I realized he had more than one daughter. 

Doing research to find out exactly how many children he had I discovered a passenger list for Uncle Frank Mason and his first wife and daughter. According to this passenger list they were being deported from Cuba in 1939. I knew Frank spent time in Cuba, but hadn't heard he was deported from there. I have no idea why he was deported, but thought it was an interesting fact I never knew before. 

Frank had been in Cuba even earlier than that visit. He returned from Cuba in 1934 at the age of 20. Evidently he used his birth certificate to prove he was a citizen. 

I'm not sure why Grand-Uncle Frank spent time in Cuba? Maybe some of our Mullen cousins relocated there during prohibition? Or he was working as a painter there? He must have stayed long enough to learn to speak Spanish because my mother said his Spanish was very good. 

Frank Mason in Cuba

January was a productive month. Hoping some new genetic genealogy tools are unveiled at the end of this month during RootsTech. 

My Year In Genealogy/ More time at home online

More time at home because of the COVID-19 pandemic meant more hours online researching my family history. Spending more time researching produced some great results. Information I've been looking for for years surfaced online. I discovered that Granada, Nicaragua church and civil registration records were now online; something I never expected would happen. I visited Granada, Nicaragua and wasn't able to get access to the records. I've written to my family's parish church and  civil registration offices requesting copies of documents but never received anything back. Seeing the records myself I understand why my family couldn't be identified, the surnames and sometimes first names were different because of illegitimacy and the use of middle names. Accessing these records was a highlight of my year. Another highlight was seeing more family photos online and some given to me by family. Newspapers added stories to go with names I've collected. Being able to search Irish Deeds online was another highlight. 

My month by month progress in 2020:

January: I began the year by reviewing the past decade genealogy wise in a blog post.

February I spent time reviewing Burgenland, Austria church records. I was able to add a few names to add to my Burgenland family lines. I also watched the live streams from Rootstech.

March was spent researching record groups I learned about at Rootstech. I also took a look at the 23andMe DNA family tree I learned more about from a Rootstech presentation.

I also learned about the new photo colorization feature from a Rootstech presentation. As the lockdown began here in California photo colorizing provided me with something to do during this period in March. 

With so much time at home I was able to catch up on some genealogy videos I had missed. Listening to the 2019 Rootstech London presentation  "A Strategic Approach to Irish Genealogy" , by Maurice Gleason I discovered that Irish deed books were online at Familysearch. I was really excited about the ability to search these online and get copies of my family deeds. 

April: I continued my Burgenland church books research. I was also able to build an expanded DNA segment map by comparing segments with a first cousin once removed. Her segments greatly expanded by DNA map for my Grandfather Rudolph Kapple's line. Below is a map of segments I received from my Paternal grandparents. I was very happy to make some progress this year filling in this map. 

 May: Still staying home I continued to read through the Burgenland, Austria church books:

June: I'm the administrator of the Forgey/Forgy & Forgie DNA project. One goal of this group was to confirm whether everyone carrying this uncommon name was related. In June we learned that all Forgeys are at least not closely related within the last few hundred years. A new Y tester matched another Forgy outside our most common Y DNA haplogroup. The most common haplogroup among the early testers was I-M223. A male with the surname Forgy later tested in the R-M269 haplogroup. It was impossible to say whether there was a recent break in this man's line or there was a second unrelated Forgy line? Another Forgey joined our group this year and match the man who previously tested. They appear to be distantly related confirming a different line came to this country and may have come by the surname Forgey/Forgy by a different route. It was very nice to make some progress in this group. 

Another huge breakthrough in June, and for the year that matter, was discovering the Granada, Nicaragua church and civil registration records were online at FamilySearch.org. I was able to find copies of my Grandmother Graciela Del Castillo's church and civil registration records. Records for her parents, Grandparents, Great-grandparents and siblings. I also found a diary written by a friend of my Del Castillo family in Nicaragua. I compiled all of the information into a book I posted on Archive.org.

July: In July I received a copy of a Certificate File I ordered. I've ordered a couple of these files in the past 2 years. I've been ordering them for the photos on the certificate. Sometimes you can find these photos free online with naturalization documents. Unfortunately the online records for my family didn't contain a photo. Someone shared a number of unmarked photos with me and these certificate photos have helped with my photo identification. I received the file for my Great-Aunt in July and was able to compare her with unidentified photos. I was able to ID her in a couple photos using photo comparison software. 

I was able to find photos of distant relatives on naturalization documents online. 

August: A photo of a Great-Uncle surfaced in August. When I signed into my Familysearch account a photo suggestion came up. It was supposed to be of my Great-Uncle William Kappel who was killed in Germany during WWII. He was killed pursuing a sniper at the end of the war. I had never seen a photo of him. The source of the photo wasn't listed but it looked like it came from a Newspaper. I was eventually able to track it down to a Chicago paper. There was a small obituary included. That was a great find this year! 

I found the newspaper at the online site Newspapers.com. I hadn't searched there in a few years and didn't realize the Mattoon, Illinois newspapers were now available there. This led to many mentions of my family in the local Mattoon papers. These bits of information have provided me with stories and other information supporting the Mason/Owens lineage. I can't stress enough how enormously helpful the newspaper information was.  

More information from the newspapers led to more photo finds at Ancestry.com. With time on my hands I was able to add more family photos to my own tree. 

September: I ordered a copy of my Great-Great Aunt Bridget "Sister Mary Kathleen" Mullen's Alien file. I was curious whether she ever became a US citizen? She had been in the United States for decades before she registered as an alien in the 1940's. I was also wondering if she mentioned any other siblings on one of the alien forms. I knew my Great-Grandmother came to America of course. I didn't know if any other siblings did? I had noticed according to a WWI draft registration card a Thomas Mullen gave the name and address of my Great-Grandmother. I thought this might be her brother but couldn't confirm it because the card didn't state their relationship? The alien card did answer the question as to whether Sister Mary Kathleen became a citizen. She became a citizen in the 1950's. It didn't list any other relatives, however, other than her parents. 

An Aunt also sent me family photos in September of my Mother Edna Forgey-Kapple's family. I loved seeing photos of my mother as a young woman and child. It's also nice to see more photos of my grandparents, and my mother's siblings. There seems to be much more photo sharing due to the lockdowns because people have time to digitize the photos and upload them. 

October: I continued researching Newspapers for any family information. I found a story about a Great-Great Aunt Julia Kurta-Deutsch who was nearly murdered by her husband. That was a shocking find. I shared this information in my Halloween blog post. 

November: I decided to push to confirm my Great-Grandmother Helen Mullen's brother also came to America. I knew he was living in Chicago, Illinois when he registered for the draft during WWI. I lost track of him after that. I did see someone matching his description in Arizona in US Census records. Newspapers came to the rescue again. I found an obituary for the Thomas Mullen I was interested in. It mentioned my Great-Uncle Edwin Mason who lived in El Monte at the time of his Uncle's death, and his sister Sr. Mary Kathleen Mullen. That was a great find. 

December: I upgraded a paternal Aunt's DNA test to include mtDNA at Family Tree DNA. Her maternal line is Irish. I was quite surprised when her haplogroup, U5a1a2, turned out to be most common in Finland. Researching the haplogroup its origins appear to have been in the area which is now Ukraine and it spread across Europe during the bronze age. It appears that these bronze age migrants contributed substantially to the genetics of the people of the British Isles and Ireland. So surprisingly the Irish may not be substantially Celtic as once believed.  

I've collected up the Y and mtDNA haplogroups for my ancestors and used DNA Painter to record them on a pedigree chart. 

This year I discovered my paternal grandmother had a half-brother I never heard about. Sadly he had run-ins with the law. I discovered mug-books online at Ancestry.com and was able to get his mug-shot so now I know what this black sheep looked like. 

December was also the month when MyHeritage rolled out a new DNA feature called Genetic Groups. The areas included are accurate for me, but Ireland isn't included in my groups. 

As I stated before I uploaded my Del Castillo family history to Archive.org. I also made some corrections to my Owens Family history and uploaded the book again. I copied blog pages as pdfs and merged them into a single pdf and uploaded it to the same site. 

My goals for 2021

1. I'm carrying over a goal I've had for years now which entails finding a Browning male in my line to DNA test. 
2. Breaking down my Campbell brickwall is something I've been working on for years now. I'm thinking mtDNA testing may help if I can find the right person. 
3. I would like deed records for my Burgenland ancestors. 
4. I'm always looking for more photos. As you can see below there are still photos I lack. 

Staying home had some positive aspects. Putting even more hours than usual into researching my family paid off. The results of my research have been rewarding. The old photos, that are new to me, and the stories I've unearthed have enriched my life. 

Wishing everyone a Happy New Year and success in finding what you're looking for in 2021! 

 

 

Correcting My Previous Blog Post on Irish mtDNA Haplogroup U5/ And some additional information

Beakers National Museum of Archaeology Dublin. 2019 Trip 

Corrections to my previous blog post about my Aunt's mtDNA Haplogroup U5 or as the author of the The Seven Daughters of Eve would put it Ursula Clan. I had put forward the theory that maybe our Irish maternal line came during the Viking era because this haplogroup is most prevalent in Finland. It may have been there long before the Vikings arrived. It likely came to  Ireland many times through invasions and migrations over the centuries. . 

The Ice Age scattered the haplogroups as humans moved south out of ice covered regions. 

Invasions replaced entire populations, and the decimation of populations through disease would result in a change in the makeup of certain areas bringing in new haplogroups  to the area. Subclades of the introduced haplogroups would form due to mutations. 

U5 was in Ireland very early. It likely came in with the first waves of settlement in Ireland after the Ice Age. 

Here is a list of migrations and invasions into Ireland (likely U5 carriers came in on every wave). 

1. "The Neolithic and Bronze Age transitions were profound cultural shifts catalyzed in parts of Europe by migrations, first of early farmers from the Near East and then Bronze Age herders from the Pontic Steppe." ... "The oldest Gaelic literature describes the origins of the Irish people as a series of ancient invasions." (From PNAS January 12, 2016 113 (2) 368-373; first published December 28, 2015; https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1518445113)
2. The first Viking Raids began in Ireland in AD 795. 
3. The Norman invasions began in AD 1169.
4. The Ulster plantation began around AD 1609.

The earliest U5 haplogroups found in Ireland date back to a little over 5,000 years ago. You can see a list of these in Roberta Estes blog post  "Ancient Ireland’s Y and Mitochondrial DNA – Do You Match???".

Our family is particularly interested the subhaplogroup U5a1a2a which may have originated around 2,500 years ago or less. 

Here are the earliest instances or our haplogroup:  

1. U5a1a2a: 4050-3650 years ago (older than some estimates?). A similar mitosubclade U5a1 previously had some women belonging to the Baden culture." (Proceedings of the Academy of DNA Genealogy Boston-Moscow-Tsukuba Volume 13, No. 2 February 2020)
2. Ua1a2a Neolithic Germany, Benzingerode-Heimburg Sex F. Age BC 2287 -2041 Beaker?
3. Ua1a2a Bronze Age (Beaker Culture) Great Britain, Hasting Hill, Sunderland, Tyne and Wear, England Sex M. Age BC 1930 -1759
4. Ua1a2a 900 AD Female Norland, Norway
5. Ua1a2a 1000 AD Female Demark

Looking at the evidence so far it looks like Beaker Culture people may have spread our subhaplogroup around Western and Northern Europe before the common era. Beaker people were likely Yamnaya people who migrated from what is now Ukraine. After the common era Anglo-Saxons, Vikings, and Normans likely spread this subhaplogroup. 

More about the Beaker people from the publication Nature: "However, migration had a key role in the further dissemination of the Beaker complex. We document this phenomenon most clearly in Britain, where the spread of the Beaker complex introduced high levels of steppe-related ancestry and was associated with the replacement of approximately 90% of Britain’s gene pool within a few hundred years, continuing the east-to-west expansion that had brought steppe-related ancestry into central and northern Europe over the previous centuries."(The Beaker phenomenon and the genomic transformation of northwest Europe). 

Around 2,000 BC we know that the exact subhaplogroup of your maternal direct line was in the locations with pins on this map in what is today Germany and the UK. 

The subhaplogroup Ua1a2a may  may also have already been in Ireland round 2,000 BC brought by Bronze age Beaker people? "Beakers arrived in Ireland around 2500 BC and fell out of use around 1700 BC." Wikipedia  "Bell Beaker culture".

From Beaker folk burials Ireland. National Museum of Archaeology Dublin. 2019 Trip 

Maybe some day it will be possible to identify which wave of migration each subhaplogroup is from? It would be nice to know when our direct maternal line ancestor first arrived on a beautiful shore in Ireland. They just need to keep digging up those Bronze Age skeletons. 

A couple few more photos Bronze Age from National Museum of Archaeology Dublin

Bronze Age Canoe from my ancestral area in Addergoole, Galway

Our Irish mtDNA Result/Collecting Haplogroups at 23andMe

 

I upgraded my Aunt Loretta's Family Finder test at Family Tree DNA to include a full sequence mtDNA test. I received the results of her test yesterday which was just short of 5 weeks from the time they began processing her kit.

The main outcome of the test was learning what my Aunt's mtDNA haplogroup is. It's U5a1a2a. Haplogroups can be specific to certain areas. The U5 haplogroup is widespread in Europe, but thankfully not as common as the H haplogroups. U5 is found in low frequencies throughout Europe. 

You can watch a video about her results at this link: https://www.familytreedna.com/mtdna-journey-videos/5fd3f3cac9e77c0001d6bf09

One of the things I hoped to accomplish with this test was to find some matches from the area my Mullen/Huvane family came from in Ireland. Sadly because of record losses in Ireland it's very difficult to trace families back beyond a few generations. I was hoping that my Aunt might have some matches from the area where her maternal Grandmother Helen Mullen-Mason was born.

My Aunt does have matches who have have identified their maternal direct line as Irish, but they are not from my familys area. It's very likely that few women with roots from south Co. Mayo have tested.

The map feature at Family Tree DNA is very helpful for sorting matches out because I'm looking for matches from the area my family lived.

This map shows full sequence matches who have identified a place in Ireland where their direct maternal line traces back to. The yellow pins show where 2 step mismatches' ancestors are said to be from. My Aunt doesn't match anyone closer than 2 steps. Our common shared ancestor could have lived over 1,000 years ago. Since I don't recognized any of the surnames of places that is possible. Three step mismatches are green pins. Those could be even farther back in time.



The matches closest to the area the Huvane/Rhatighan family lived would be those with a perfect match on HVR1 only, they have ancestors from Co. Galway. The Huvane family lived on the border between Co. Galway and Co. Mayo.

More on the Haplogroup

According to Eupedia my Aunt's haplogroup can be found in the following countries:

"U5a1a2: found in England, Scandinavia, Central Europe and Turkey / found in Bell Beaker Germany, in the Unetice culture, in EBA England, in MBA Wales, and in Bronze Age Poland.

Since my Aunt and I tend to get Scandinavian atDNA predictions it could be that her direct female line goes back to the Viking invasions since her haplogroup appears to stem from Finland?

Here is a heat map from Eupedia showing the distribution of the U5 haplogroup. The darker colors show the highest concentrations of this haplogroup. I'm leaning toward thinking there is a Scandinavian Viking link somewhere?

Here is an illustration of my Grandmother's mtDNA U5a1a2 line of descent:

Cousin matches 23andMe Haplogroups

I've looked at my 23andme close cousin matches and collected their haplogroups. A first cousin once removed has tested at 23andMe. Her haplogroup HV6 is very interesting because the highest concentration of this haplogroup is in Eastern Europe. This match's maternal Grandmother was Mary Kurta-Kappel, she was my Great-Grandmother. Mary was born in what is now the eastern border area of Austria; in what is now Inzenhof, Burgenland, Austria. This area used to be in Hungary. 

Eupedia lists the following countries where this haplogroup can be found:

HV6 : found in Iran, Russia, Slovakia and Britain / found in Bronze Age Poland and among the Tian Shan Huns.

I've had Slovakian predicted as one of my admixtures on the atDNA test. There were Huns in Hungary so that could be another possible source?

Below is a heat map showing the distribution of the HV6 haplogroup:

Here is an illustration of my paternal Great-Grandmother Mary Kurta-Kappel's direct maternal line:

Mary Kurta-Kappel's haplogroup is very useful because it narrows her maternal origins to continental Europe, and leads to eastern Europe. Unlike a haplogroup such as H1 thru H3 which are found all over Europe, and the British Isles, this haplogroup is found in fewer places. I didn't know where this line came from this would be a good hint.

K2a2a Haplogroup 

Another interesting haplogroup from a 23andme match is K2a2a. This match is a second cousin and is a direct maternal line descendant of my Great-Grandmother Isis Browning-Forgey. This maternal line of my family shares the K2 haplogroup with Thomas Jefferson.

The K2a haplogroup is common among Ashkenazi Jews. My my Great-Grandmother's direct maternal line likely goes back to Germany. It is possible she had Ashkenazi ancestors? 

This is what Eupedia says about the mtDNA haplogroup  K2a2a:

"Ashkenazi Jews are the ethnic groups with the highest percentage of K lineages today : 32% in average, and up to 50% among Ashkenazi Jews from Germany. There are only three typically Jewish subclades of K: K1a1b1a, K1a9, and K2a2a." 

Here is an illustration of my Great-Grandmother Isis Browning's maternal direct line:

My mother's atDNA admixture predictions sometimes show trace Ashkenazi Jewish. It is possible we had some Jewish ancestry in our German lines. 

Concluding Thoughts

So far our mtDNA haplogroups have been the most informative pointing to possible areas of origin of our direct maternal lines. As far as my Aunt's full sequence mtDNA test we need closer matches in order to use the test to confirm our paper trail and extend our tree. I think the mtDNA test results are interesting and recommend testing if you're interested in delving deeper into your family history. 

My collected haplogroups recorded at DNA Painter: