As I have mentioned in some other posts (1, 2, 3 and 4), I am taking part in the Genographic Project. To my surprise I turned out to have as marker J2 from my dad's side. Now I got my results for my mother and it turned out to be L1c3. The first one is a paternal marker originating from the Middle East with also a lot of representation in the Mediterranean. The second comes from black Africa.
I thought other haplogroups were much more likely based on the stories I had from my family plus the phenotypes I could see: the most common Western European haplogroup from my dad's side (R1b) or perhaps an Indian or an African one from him and an European or Indian from my mother's: she looked very European, my grandmother looked more Indian and her grandmother came from an area with fewer slaves than the one from which my dad's grandfather came from. I see more African traits from my dad's side. I knew all the time I had about all the typical mixes from both sides, one way or the other, my family is like a Benetton picture. Anything was possible.
So, in any case, if this is correct, one of my female ancestors (my mother's mother's mother's...mother) definitely came from Black Africa just some centuries ago (i.d. not way back during the Out of Africa migrations). That gives 2 possibilities:
1) the most likely case is that there was a poor lady, born in Western Africa or Mozambique, who some time between 1528 and 1810 was kidnapped and placed in chains into a slave ship heading to the Americas.
2) the least likely case is that a female descendant of black Africans but integrated into the Moor culture came to Spain with the Muslim expansion and her female descendants assimilated into the Spanish society.
I want to do some experiments with trying to cluster the genetic profiles, specially the J2 (as there is much more data on it) to see if I can find out more about specific migrations. Specially, I want to develop a simulator to try to recreate the possible ways in which the different ethnic groups interacted.
Here an interesting article (the abstract at least) about a recent study of Venezuelans and genetic background.
1) the most likely case is that there was a poor lady, born in Western Africa or Mozambique, who some time between 1528 and 1810 was kidnapped and placed in chains into a slave ship heading to the Americas.
2) the least likely case is that a female descendant of black Africans but integrated into the Moor culture came to Spain with the Muslim expansion and her female descendants assimilated into the Spanish society.
I want to do some experiments with trying to cluster the genetic profiles, specially the J2 (as there is much more data on it) to see if I can find out more about specific migrations. Specially, I want to develop a simulator to try to recreate the possible ways in which the different ethnic groups interacted.
Here an interesting article (the abstract at least) about a recent study of Venezuelans and genetic background.