African Descendents in Yorkshire

DSP · (#1 (**permalink**))

Yorkshire link with Africa revealed in genetic study

By Steve Connor, Science Editor
Published: 24 January 2007

White men with a rare Yorkshire surname have been found to be descended from black African ancestors who came to Britain many centuries ago.

A study of Caucasian men who share the same English surname has found that they also share a type of Y chromosome that has previously been found only in men living in west Africa.
Scientists believe the findings show that Africans who came to Britain as Roman soldiers nearly 2,000 years ago or as slaves after the 16th centuryleft a line of descendants.

The results are the first genetic evidence of black Africans living in Britain centuries before the influx from Commonwealth countries with black populations in the mid-20th century.
The researchers say they have to keep the Yorkshire surname confidential - it begins with the letter "R" - because they would need permission to release it from everyone with the surname who took part in the study.

Professor Mark Jobling of Leicester University said the men are white and did not know they had black ancestry until his team pointed out that they had a type of Y chromosome that could only come from west Africa.

"The Y chromosome is passed down from father to son, so this suggested Mr R must have had African ancestry somewhere down the line. Our study suggests that this must have happened some time ago," he said. The type of Y chromosome is known as hgA1 and was found in seven out of 18 men who shared the same surname. Only 25 other men have the same Y chromosome, all from west Africa.

Because of the west African connection, it is more likely that the origin of the gene in Britain lies with the slave trade which was heavily based in the region, although a garrison of Moors was installed by the Romans when they were building Hadrian's Wall.

The study is published in the European Journal of Human Genetics.

YankeeJamaRican · (#2 (**permalink**))

That is a really interesting story.

I understand the Caldicott/confidentiality argument but I cannot help but feel that these families want to keep their African-ness under wraps. Do you suppose it would be kept secret if these ancestors were, say... Inuit?

I bet that namewould bereleased with a quickness if they could benefit from it.

We should all roll up to Yorkshire and greet them with "Wat up, Blud?" and "Sup, homes?"

DSP · (#3 (**permalink**))

YankeeJamaRican wrote:

Quote:

That is a really interesting story.

I understand the Caldicott/confidentiality argument but I cannot help but feel that these families want to keep their African-ness under wraps. Do you suppose it would be kept secret if these ancestors were, say... Inuit?

I bet that namewould bereleased with a quickness if they could benefit from it.

We should all roll up to Yorkshire and greet them with "Wat up, Blud?" and "Sup, homes?"

Some of them are probably up in arms about it....

Probably feel like they got diagnosed with cancer or something.

babygirl44 · (#4 (**permalink**))

I for one don't know why scientests are surprised. Black people have been in Europe for hundreds if not thousands of years. You only have to go to The National Gallery and see paitings from the 1600s with black people in them. What happened to these black people? many of them must of procreated and as there wasn't a massive pool of other blacks to choose from, they would have married white people and bred themselves out. I have walked the streets and seen Scots and Northern English people who have that look that says that they are not 100% northern european. Look at Gary Bushell, he is 10% black, he never knew until recently but if you look at him closely you can see it. Them white people with that extra thick or curly hair or ful lips always strike me as having some African in them. I would say that places like Bristol and Liverpool where the first blacks went to probably have a sizable percentage of white people who aren't actually genetically 100% white but they would never admit to it.

Tahliba · (#5 (**permalink**))

Where is the article from?

Tahliba · (#6 (**permalink**))

Gene tests on a sample of â€œindigenousâ€? Englishmen have thrown up a surprise black ancestry, providing new insight into a centuries-old African presence in Britain.

The research, funded by the Wellcome Trust, identified a rare West African Y chromosome in a group of men from Yorkshire who share a surname that dates back at least as far as the mid-14[suP]th[/suP] century and have a typical European appearance. They owe their unusual Y chromosome to an African man living in England at least 250 years ago and perhaps as early as Roman times, the researchers say.

Mark Jobling at the University of Leicester, UK, and colleagues recruited 421 men who described themselves as British and analysed their genes as part of a survey of British Y chromosome diversity. To the researchersâ€™ surprise, they found that one individual in the study carried a very rare Y chromosome, called hgA1.

This particular variant has previously been identified in only 26 people worldwide, three African Americans and 23 men living in West African countries such as Guinea-Bissau and Senegal. â€œItâ€™s so distinctive, it really sticks out like a sore thumb,â€? Jobling says of the chromosomeâ€™s unique sequence. He adds that it is virtually impossible for this sequence to have coincidentally evolved in Britain.

The white British subject with the hgA1 variant, however, knew of no African family connection.

Father to son
To explore the mysterious origin of his Y chromosome scientists recruited 18 other men that shared his rare surname, which dates back to the first use of surnames, hundreds of years ago, and was first recorded in the county of Yorkshire, in northern England. The researchers have not disclosed the surname to maintain the menâ€™s privacy.

The team hoped that this would help them pinpoint when the hgA1 had variant entered the lineage, since Y chromosomes, like surnames, are passed from father to son.

Of the 18 men with the Yorkshire surname, six of them carried the hgA1 Y chromosome â€“ including one man in the US, whose ancestors had migrated from England in 1894.

Genealogical records linked these men to two family trees, both dating back to the 1780s in Yorkshire. Jobling believes that these two genealogies are connected by a common male ancestor of West African descent living in England at least 250 years ago.

Viking capture
The British men carry an hgA1 Y chromosome that closely matches the one identified in men presently living in West Africa. This suggests that the former groupâ€™s black ancestor arrived in Britain within the past few thousand years. Had their hgA1 Y chromosome been introduced any thousands of years earlier, when humans first migrated from Africa to Europe, its sequence would have shown greater divergence from the one currently found in West Africa.

The hgA1 Y chromosome could perhaps have entered the gene pool in northern England 1800 years ago when Africans fought there as Roman soldiers, Jobling says. It also might have been introduced in the 9[suP]th[/suP] century, when Vikings brought captured North Africans to Britain, according to some historians.

But scientists note that the majority of black men with the hgA1 variant currently live in Guinea-Bissau and nearby countries in West Africa. Because many slaves from this area came to Britain beginning in the mid-16[suP]th[/suP] century, it is likely that the white men with the hgA1 variant have a black ancestor that arrived this way, researchers say.

This ancestor could have been a first-generation immigrant African or one whose family had lived in Britain for generations.

Famed writer
Jobling says his study provides the first evidence of a long-lived African presence in Britain. He adds that it raises the possibility that relationships among black and white people was perhaps more historically acceptable in Britain than some people might believe.

Vincent Brown of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, US, agrees and points to the example of Olaudah Equiano, a slave from West Africa who bought his freedom in Britain in the mid 18[suP]th[/suP] century and achieved fame for his writing. Equiano lived in London and eventually married a white woman, notes Brown, who studies the history of slavery.

The new findings are unusual because they reveal the hidden African ancestry of white men, Jobling says. He notes that it is much more common for studies to discover or confirm the reverse. For example, gene tests gave strong evidence that the black descendents of the slave Sally Hemmings could also trace their ancestry to her "owner", the third US president, Thomas Jefferson (Nature, vol 396, p 27).

And several years ago, Joblingâ€™s team found that more than a quarter of British African-Caribbean men have a Y chromosome which traces back to Europe rather than Africa.

Journal reference: European Journal of Human Genetics (DOI: 10.1038/sj.ejhg.5201771)

http://www.newscientist.com/article/...ite-brits.html

sunnyflower · (#7 (**permalink**))

Here is some more:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/2757525.stm

Black Britons find their African roots

Beaula McCalla, a youth worker from the UK town of Bristol, never imagined that she would one day meet her relatives in Equatorial Guinea, 6,500 km away.
"It was like blood touching blood... It was like family," she said.
Beaula, an African-Caribbean descendent of slaves, was reunited with her long-lost family thanks to a unique genetic study undertaken for a BBC programme, Motherland: A Genetic Journey.

A romantic ideal I had was shattered

Mark, a Kanuri from London
She says that she always thought of herself as an African but now she has the genetic proof, some 200 years, or 11 generations, after her ancestors were captured, taken across the Atlantic Ocean and made to work as slaves.
Tests showed that some of her ancestors were from the Bubi ethnic group, which live on the Equatorial Guinea island of Bioko.
In the village of Moka, eight people were found to have a common maternal ancestor with Beaula.
They welcomed her with open arms and gave her a piece of land.
"I was just crying, my eyes were just filled with tears, my heart was pounding. All I just kept thinking was: 'I'm going to my motherland,'" she said about her arrival in Equatorial Guinea.
"That completed the circuit."
Ethnic identities
Click here for a map of the slave trade[/b]
For the first time since the enslavement of their African ancestors and the eradication of their ethnic identities, advances in DNA analysis have now made it possible for individuals to discover from which African region or population group their families originated.
The study, the most comprehensive attempt so far to investigate the specific roots of the descendants of slaves, took anonymous DNA samples via a swab from inside the cheeks of 229 volunteers (109 men and 120 women).
The only criterion for all volunteers was that they had four African-Caribbean grandparents.
The universities of Cambridge and Leicester in the UK and Pennsylvania State in the United States analysed the DNA.
'Homecoming'
Mark Anderson, from south London, discovered that he has blood from the ethnic Kanuris who live in south-eastern Niger.
He was surprised to find his distant relatives living among the sand dunes of the Sahara desert, having imagined Africa to be full of lush forest.

Mark was surprised to find a desert in Africa
After this initial shock, he too had an emotional "homecoming" and chose a Kanuri name - Kaigama.
However, he later discovered that this was the name of a Kanuri slave-trader who captured and sold his kinsmen.
"A romantic ideal I had was shattered," he said. "This is a complex story."
In contrast, Jacqueline Harriott, a Peterborough schoolteacher, felt no connection with Africa and was pleased to discover that genetically, she is 28% European.
As well as individual ancestral profiles, the Motherland study also quantifies, for the first time, one of the most sensitive genetic legacies of the Transatlantic slave trade; the extent to which African female slaves were made pregnant by European slave-owners.
The study reveals that more than one in four British African-Caribbeans have white male ancestry on their direct father line.
Analysis showed that 27% of British African-Caribbean men have a Y chromosome (passed directly from father to son) that traces back to Europe, not Africa.
The autosomal study, investigating DNA inherited from all an individual's ancestors, demonstrated that on average, more than one in seven (13%) ancestors of today's Black Britons of Caribbean descent would be of European origin.
The BBC Documentary Motherland: A Genetic Journey will be broadcast on BBC 2 at 9pm on 14 February
[line]

sunnyflower · (#8 (**permalink**))

Home>antenna>Genetic journey to the motherland>The Motherland journey>

Tracing African roots

Ever wanted to trace your family tree? For many Afro-Caribbeans, the only way to trace their African roots is through DNA testing. All other clues were lost when their ancestors were taken as slaves, over four hundred years ago.

Now, hundreds of British Afro-Caribbeans have discovered which part of Africa their forebears came from through the Motherland project.

Volunteers donated DNA samples, and geneticists compared them with samples from around the world, helping to pinpoint African family origins.

Jacqueline Harriott, Beaula McCalla and Mark Anderson all volunteered for the Motherland project.

http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/ante.../111.asproject

shakac · (#9 (**permalink**))

A Scotish man that drinks in my local told me that his family decended from Africans that got ship wrecked there after the Spanish Armarda was dispersed through weather when coming to defeat the English.

Apparently alot of the spanish seamen were of African decent. I didn't believe him at the time as I thought it was him trying to justify his relationship with a sista. However after doing some research it appears to be true.

mba · (#10 (**permalink**))

I saw this story on BBC 24 when the scientist herself who had been helping with the studies explained that the guy who started the study did so because he found he had the chromosone that belonged to west africa.

Very interesting story and glad that the presenter mentioned that it should be no surprise since AFricans are knowing for being the original man and because africans touched down on english soil before the saxons did.

I'd LOVE to know the surname, but can understand those yorshire people wanting to get their head round their whole identity changing.

DSP wrote:

Quote:

Yorkshire link with Africa revealed in genetic study

By Steve Connor, Science Editor
Published: 24 January 2007

White men with a rare Yorkshire surname have been found to be descended from black African ancestors who came to Britain many centuries ago.

A study of Caucasian men who share the same English surname has found that they also share a type of Y chromosome that has previously been found only in men living in west Africa.
Scientists believe the findings show that Africans who came to Britain as Roman soldiers nearly 2,000 years ago or as slaves after the 16th centuryleft a line of descendants.

The results are the first genetic evidence of black Africans living in Britain centuries before the influx from Commonwealth countries with black populations in the mid-20th century.
The researchers say they have to keep the Yorkshire surname confidential - it begins with the letter "R" - because they would need permission to release it from everyone with the surname who took part in the study.

Professor Mark Jobling of Leicester University said the men are white and did not know they had black ancestry until his team pointed out that they had a type of Y chromosome that could only come from west Africa.

"The Y chromosome is passed down from father to son, so this suggested Mr R must have had African ancestry somewhere down the line. Our study suggests that this must have happened some time ago," he said. The type of Y chromosome is known as hgA1 and was found in seven out of 18 men who shared the same surname. Only 25 other men have the same Y chromosome, all from west Africa.

Because of the west African connection, it is more likely that the origin of the gene in Britain lies with the slave trade which was heavily based in the region, although a garrison of Moors was installed by the Romans when they were building Hadrian's Wall.

The study is published in the European Journal of Human Genetics.

mba · (#11 (**permalink**))

I saw this story on BBC 24 when the scientist herself who had been helping with the studies explained that the guy who started the study did so because he found he had the chromosone that belonged to west africa.

Very interesting story and glad that the presenter mentioned that it should be no surprise since AFricans are knowing for being the original man and because africans touched down on english soil before the saxons did.

I'd LOVE to know the surname, but can understand those yorshire people wanting to get their head round their whole identity changing.

DSP wrote:

Quote:

Yorkshire link with Africa revealed in genetic study

By Steve Connor, Science Editor
Published: 24 January 2007

White men with a rare Yorkshire surname have been found to be descended from black African ancestors who came to Britain many centuries ago.

A study of Caucasian men who share the same English surname has found that they also share a type of Y chromosome that has previously been found only in men living in west Africa.
Scientists believe the findings show that Africans who came to Britain as Roman soldiers nearly 2,000 years ago or as slaves after the 16th centuryleft a line of descendants.

The results are the first genetic evidence of black Africans living in Britain centuries before the influx from Commonwealth countries with black populations in the mid-20th century.
The researchers say they have to keep the Yorkshire surname confidential - it begins with the letter "R" - because they would need permission to release it from everyone with the surname who took part in the study.

Professor Mark Jobling of Leicester University said the men are white and did not know they had black ancestry until his team pointed out that they had a type of Y chromosome that could only come from west Africa.

"The Y chromosome is passed down from father to son, so this suggested Mr R must have had African ancestry somewhere down the line. Our study suggests that this must have happened some time ago," he said. The type of Y chromosome is known as hgA1 and was found in seven out of 18 men who shared the same surname. Only 25 other men have the same Y chromosome, all from west Africa.

Because of the west African connection, it is more likely that the origin of the gene in Britain lies with the slave trade which was heavily based in the region, although a garrison of Moors was installed by the Romans when they were building Hadrian's Wall.

The study is published in the European Journal of Human Genetics.