About

My Photo

Further reading...

  • Bryan Sykes: Saxons, Vikings, and Celts: The Genetic Roots of Britain and Ireland

    Bryan Sykes: Saxons, Vikings, and Celts: The Genetic Roots of Britain and Ireland
    I read this book under the UK title Blood of the Isles. A must read for those with families from Ireland and Britain. (****)

  • Philip Freeman: The Philosopher and the Druids: A Journey Among the Ancient Celts

    Philip Freeman: The Philosopher and the Druids: A Journey Among the Ancient Celts
    See the Nov 2, 2006 post regarding this delightful book.

  • Bryan Sykes: The Seven Daughters of Eve: The Science That Reveals Our Genetic Ancestry

    Bryan Sykes: The Seven Daughters of Eve: The Science That Reveals Our Genetic Ancestry
    This book by Bryan Sykes came out in 2001. He was an early promoter of genetic genealogy. He is associated with Oxford Ancestors DNA laboratory and is a professor at Oxford University, England. This book is about the world-wide migration history of women. Sykes traces mtDNA, which we inherit from our mothers. The book is well written and intended for the educated lay-person. Although mtDNA is not all that useful yet for genealogy, it does provide a peek into the deep history of our material ancestors, with an emphasis on Europeans and their descendants. Although new information since this book increases the number of "Daughters of Eve" in Europe, it's still the best general readership book on the topic. (*****)

  • Spencer Wells: The Journey of Man: A Genetic Odyssey

    Spencer Wells: The Journey of Man: A Genetic Odyssey
    This book came out in 2002. It is well written, and should give the educated lay-person a good grasp of the big picture with respect to the demographic migrations of human males by tracing their Y-chromosomes world-wide. If you only want to read one book about Y-chromosomes to get the big picture, this is probably the one for you. And if you can't spare the time, there is a DVD of the same title. Visit The Genographic Project for more recent news on this topic. (*****)

  • Alistair Moffat: Before Scotland: The Story of Scotland Before History

    Alistair Moffat: Before Scotland: The Story of Scotland Before History
    This book was on my summer 2006 reading list. It is well written, full of interesting things, and is up to date on the emerging picture of the early genetic origins of the people of the isles: England, Scotland, Ireland, Orkney and Shetland. The section on DNA is very short. By the end of this 352-page book (including references and index), you should be more familiar with prehistorical Scotland. I know I am. This book is not a celebration of the present-day popular notions about Celts and Celtic culture, and in my book, that's a good thing. (***)

30 April 2008

European men 101

Kalevi Wiik in a new paper in  J. Genet. Geneal. 4:35-85, 2008 attempts to summarize the scientific literature with regard to the genetic origins of European men.  The title of this post has two meanings:  first, the article is a kind of primer and the other meaning refers to the 101 maps in this lengthy article. For those without access to the scientific literature, this will be a good source of information and maps of haplogroup frequencies.

Posted at 18:16 in Science overview, Western Europe, Y-chromosome | | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

23 February 2008

The power of more markers

PcaeuropeanFor those of us doing genetic genealogy as a hobby or as a passion, we can only hope for  future economies of scale that will allow us to utilize 624,690 DNA markers to understand our prehistorical pasts in more detail.  Such is the case in a recent Science paper that analyzes human genetic history.  With so many markers, it was possible to clearly differentiate European populations.  See the principle component analysis chart.

Ref: Worldwide Human Relationships Inferred from Genome-Wide Patters of Variation, Science 319, 1100 (2008)

Posted at 14:33 in Science, SNP, Western Europe | | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)