My DNA

[Manuell Alvarez]

Hello,

I have decided to have my DNA analyzed this year beginning in October. This is a personal decision that I have made because I am curious about my origins and family tree.

We are new to this country as I am first generation American on my father's side and second on my mother's. We have very few paternal relatives this side of the Atlantic. I consider myself to be of Asturian heritage. That will not change despite what the DNA may indicate.

Manny

[Asturdoptado]

Hello Manuell,

I'm tested in 23andme and FTDNA since 2008-2009, other Asturian biological family members have been tested up to date. Where did you test?

In 23andme you can find several individuals of Asturian ancestry. Some of them with deep genealogical information.

If you are tested in 23andme, tell me your username and I will try to add you to my 23andme shere/contact list.

[Manuell Alvarez]

Hello Asturdoptado,

I did not submit a sample for testing in October as I had indicated in my posting. I apologize to everyone. Thank you for the kind offer of adding me to your listing. Hopefully, this month of November, I will be doing what I proclaimed some months ago.

I am eager to find what is contained with in the genetic codes. We have an ancient history and culture connection to many early individuals who survived harsh conditions so that we as their descendants could have life.

One of the many reasons for my testing, is to identify which side of our European family shares the same hereditary related medical condition. I am not sure if the DNA markers are that revealing or exact.

Further, future generations of our family will know our origins and have a better understanding of our history and the Asturian culture.

Manny

[Asturdoptado]

Well, Let me know when you receive your results.

Which is the Asturian region of your ancestors? I can try to find likely matches for you.

[Manuell Alvarez]

Yes, I will let you know. My late father was born in the village of Vega de Peridiello which is in the el Consejo de Grado. He was seventeen when he came to the United Sates in 1920, and lived in Anmoore, West Virginia. Anmoore is where many Asturians lived including Art's Grandfather.

[Manuell Alvarez]

My oldest brother just received his DNA results, and I have decided not to have mine tested since the results would probably be very similar. It was very surprising that our Slovakian heritage is predominate and not the Iberian; although, I suspect that some of the Asturians migrated from other regions of Europe during ancient times. Asturias was once a mining colony and the Italian connection does not surprise me. My father told me that one of his great grandmother came form Ireland, and the Irish percentage is not surprising either.

Manny

Here are my brother's results:

48% Europe East
21% Italy/Greece
16% Iberian Peninsula
15% 7 Other Regions

Europe East contains the countries of Poland, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Austria, Russia, Hungary, Slovenia, Romania, Serbia, Belarus, and Bosnia.

Italy/Greece contains the countries of Italy, Switzerland, Serbia, Croatia, , and parts of Hungary, Bulgaria, Austria, Bosnia, Romania, and Kosovo.

Of the 7 Other Regions it is mostly Ireland (8%) .

[Art]

Thanks for sharing that info, Manny!

I suspect that the results say that your brother's DNA has similarities with the DNA of people currently living (and tested) in those countries. So, although that would mean that you share traits with people from those areas, it would not necessarily mean that he has a specifically Irish or Eastern European heritage. That would be a subtle difference. For example, it could mean that the people of these areas share similar roots due to migratory patterns.

I am not very familiar with the genetic groupings, but some are. It might be helpful, Manny, if you could list the specific haplogroups, if your brother's test provided those results. Haplogroups, if I understand correctly, haplogroups are a human construction based on statistical analysis of large numbers of genetic tests. The haplogroups show which large geographic zone where a specific set of genes tend to be found. Even native Asturians can have genetic results that show a number of different haplogroups. I am not sure, but I suspect that it does not prove that you have heritage in the zone that the haplogroup is associated with. Maybe someone better informed can clarify that for us?

What kind of test did he have done? Some DNA tests only analyze the Y-chromosome (and can only be taken by a male to look at your direct paternal lineage) or mitochondrial DNA (can be taken by a male or female but only looks at your direct maternal lineage). Others look at a person’s entire genome at over 700,000 locations to determine both the maternal and paternal lineage. Some (maybe all?) of those tests do not tell us which parent the different heritages come from.

Here's a snip from another website ( www.23andme.com/ancestry/ ) that explains this.

Your ancestry results are based on a few different types of DNA—DNA inherited from both of your parents (chromosomes 1-22), Y chromosome DNA and mitochondrial DNA. [This depends on which service does the study for you.]

DNA that you inherit from both parents is called autosomal DNA. Since you inherit approximately half of this type of DNA from each parent, it reflects recent ancestry from both sides of your family tree. The vast majority of our features, including our Ancestry Composition report and DNA Relatives tool, are based on autosomal DNA.

Haplogroups are a different story. Your maternal line haplogroup assignment is derived from a separate piece of DNA called the mitochondria. Since mitochondria is passed on only by mothers to their children, your maternal line haplogroup assignment only tells you about your mother's side of the family. Similarly, the paternal line haplogroup assignment is derived from a different, separate piece of DNA called the Y chromosome. The Y chromosome is only passed from fathers to sons and only traces the paternal line.

Haplogroups are mainly used for doing anthropological research of time frames long before the adoption of surnames. Haplogroups are simply pointers to a large geographic area of the world where that haplogroup is found in high frequency. Some genetic ancestry services only provide autosomal DNA analysis or charge you separately for the maternal and paternal haplogroup information. 23andMe [the service that I took this quote from] includes all of these for a single price.

By the way, one chart I saw here:
http://dna.ancestry.com/learn
indicated that non-twin siblings might only share 25-30% of their genes! So your genes could be significantly different from your brother's.

[Jasm]

Sus resultados son sorprendentes, lo que si es verdad es parece que exisitió conexión de puertos asturianos con Irlanda, aunque Veiga de Peridiello (parroquia de San Martín de Gurullés - Concejo Grado) no esta en la costa, la zona minera de los romanos es más al Occidente, aunque cerca de Veiga pasaba un camino romano, lo que se conoce como camino real de la Mesa que iba de Gijón a Astorga (León), ¿Sabe el apellido irlandés de su abuela?

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Their results are surprising, what if it is true it seems that it had connection Asturian habours with Ireland, although Veiga de Peridiello ( parish of San Martin de Gurullés - Council Grado ) is not on the coast, the mining area of Romans is further West, although near Veiga passed a Roman road, which is known as Camino Real de la Mesa went Gijon - Astorga (Leon). Do you know the Irish surname of his grandmother?

I apologize for my English (I don't speak English), a greeting and sorry for the inconvenience

[Art]

Thanks, Jasm!

It's also likely that the Roman legions traveling the Camino Real de la Mesa included men from Eastern Europe. Some of them may have settled in the area or left behind children with the woman of the region. Nonetheless, I think I read once that the Romans didn't tend to have a marked genetic impact on the areas they were in.

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¡Gracias, Jasm!

Es también probable que las legiones romanas que viajaban por el Camino Real de la Mesa incluían hombres de Europa oriental. Tal vez algunos de estos se establecieran en la zona o dejaran unos niños con las mujeres de la zona. Sin embargo, creo que una vez leí que los romanos no tendían a dejar un marcado impacto genético en las áreas en que se encontraban.

[Art]

Otra idea: Habían mineros polacos, específicamente de Silesia, trabajando a partir del siglo XIX en las minas de las Cuencas Mineras del Caudal y de Mieres. El valle del Caudal incluye los concejos de Mieres, Lena, Aller, Santo Adriano, Morcín y Riosa, pero no Grado. (No sé, pero quizás hubieran otros grupos étnicos, también.)

De hecho, hay un sugerencia (creo que está bien confirmado) de que estos mineros polacos trajeron a Asturias la melodía, una melodía tradicional que ya era popular desde mediados del siglo XIX en Opole, en la zona de Silesia en Polania. Entonces, es posible que los orígenes de la familia de Manny en Europa oriental y la zona de Italia sean el resultado inmigración más recientemente. (Es posible, con firmeza no está seguro.)

(Le interesaría a Manny también que el texto del himno asturiano era escrito por Ignacio Piñeiro Martínez, un músico cubano, el hijo de un emigrante asturiano, natural de Grado, Marcelino Rodríguez.)

http://www.miraquecurioso.com/curiosida ... -asturias/
http://www.elcomercio.es/20060801/socie ... 11559.html

Hay más aquí:
https://www.google.com/search?q=asturia ... ida+polaco

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Another idea: There were Polish miners, specifically from Silesia, working from the nineteenth century in the Cuenca Minera area in the Caudal and Mieres coal mines. The Caudal watershed includes the counties of Mieres, Lena, Aller, Santo Adriano, Morcín and Riosa, but not Grado. (I don't know, but there may have been other ethnicities, too.)

In fact, there is a suggestion (I think it is well substantiated) that there were Polish miners who brought to Asturias the melody of the Asturian anthem, Himno de Asturias. It was a traditional tune that was already popular since the mid-nineteenth century in Opole, in the Silesia area of Poland. So, it is possible that Manny's family's genetic origins in Eastern Europe and the Italian region are the result of more recent immigration. (Again, that's possible, definitely not certain.)

(Manny may also be interested that the text of the Asturian anthem was written by Ignacio Piñeiro Martínez, a Cuban musician, the son of an Asturian emigrant from Grado, Marcelino Rodriguez.)

http://www.miraquecurioso.com/curiosida ... -asturias/
http://www.elcomercio.es/20060801/socie ... 11559.html

There is more here:
https://www.google.com/search?q=asturia ... ida+polaco

[Manuell Alvarez]

The Eastern European percentage is inherited from my maternal grandparents who migrated to the US in the 1920's from Slovakia. My grandfather's citizenship papers state Czechoslovakia. They both spoke Slovakian and Russian. Russian because of their membership in the Russian Orthodox Church. I had a difficult time tracking down his paperwork since they changed their first and last names about four times. It was only through luck, the US Census, and a county clerk of the court who helped me pieced together the name changes.

Until the DNA report came out, we only had Dad's anecdotal story that he had an Irish Great Grandmother. The DNA probably confirms his story.

Our Italian connection may be through the Romans who occupied Asturias. I read somewhere that the Latin name for Oviedo was Ovetum. The Romans were great on census taking and administration of occupied lands. I suspect that there were Roman military outposts in all of Asturias, including Grado. Some of the Asturians may have joined the Roman army, and after serving twenty years brought their Roman wives and children back to Asturias.

We have an acquaintance at our Church who claims that his father was born in Northern Spain and migrated to Italy before coming to America. So it is possible for an Italian to have migrated to Spain.

I am still trying to document our family history----and the road is long, curvy, and up hill. DNA just leaves us with many more unanswered questions concerning to whom we are related, but not how it came to be.

Art, thank you for your insights into the fascinating history of the Asturian peoples. I appreciate having an opportunity to connect and share with others in the Forum. It is exciting that there is much more to be written down and preserved.

Manny

[Art]

Thank you, Manny, for writing about your family's history!