Genetic Genealogy Category
Deciphering our past Part One: DNA to Decoration—following the trail of one YSNP FGC22501
Posted on May 24, 2026 1 Comment
Introduction This blog post or what may be a series of blog posts is a collaboration of Vanessa Van der Beke and myself. She has done a lot of the heavy lifting research wise in often esoteric old texts. It has been an unexpected journey that I don’t think we could have ever imagined. You […]
Changes in Genealogical DNA Testing
Posted on November 5, 2025 Leave a Comment
Back in 2005, Francis Collins in his book The Language of Life: DNA and the Revolution in Personalized Medicine predicted that DNA testing for health was on the horizon within 10 years and that your doctor would routinely order DNA tests for you. That hasn’t happened as quickly as he thought, but companies like 23andme […]
Deciphering our past Part Two: Sun Wheels to Druids
Posted on June 5, 2024 2 Comments
I began this post over two years ago with these lines: “With little to go on but a few samples of ancient DNA to guide us, I am going to offer a plausible story to tell one branch of the FGC22501 progeny story. I intuit to bridge the gap between the ancient FGC22501+ skeletons in […]
The Journey of one 4000 Year old Celtic Y-SNP FGC22501: Ten Years of Discovery
Posted on May 22, 2024 Leave a Comment
Background To recap my first dive into Genetic Genealogy was giving my husband a Family Tree DNA Y37 kit for Valentine’s Day in 2011. It was purely out of frustration, as traditional genealogy had failed to connect him with either Thomas WHEADON (later WHEATON) of Branford, Connecticut or Robert WHEATON of Salem and Rehoboth, Massachusetts. […]
How Do We Know What the Y-DNA is Telling Us?
Posted on April 21, 2023 3 Comments
NOTE this was written to the SHELDON DNA project but the information is relevant to other surnames I received an inquiry : “Someone was recently asking me how I knew I was related to John 13 [John of Kingstown], since we obviously don’t have the DNA of an ancestor from hundreds of years ago. I […]
New Speculations on the Origins of Robert WHEATON: Part One
Posted on January 30, 2023 1 Comment
Many years ago I wrote an article TItled Conjectures on the Origins of Robert WHEATON. At that time all of the indications were that he was descended from the Wheatons of Devon. This turned out to be 5 different DNA WHEATON/WHEADON/WHIDDEN lines in Devon, England: Wheaton of Sidmouth; Wheadon of Axminster; Whidden of Buckfastleigh; Wheaton […]
Family History or Family Fiction?: Exposing Secrets
Posted on January 22, 2023 6 Comments
Paul Chiddicks is my muse. Paul publishes popular articles in the UK version of Family Tree Magazine and also authors the Blog The Chiddicks Family Tree. He often writes something that is the impetus for my own blog posts. Such was the case this morning when I read his post Ethical Dilemmas and How To […]
Science as Religion
Posted on December 2, 2022 2 Comments
This may meander a bit but there is a point. This post was provoked in response to a Letter from the Society for American Archaeology and a recent article in The Smithsonian Magazine. I will return to those later. This post is dedicated to the memory of Marija Gimbutas who was a Lithuanian archaeologist who back in […]
The Human Diaspora: Illustrated through a Single Y SNP
Posted on November 30, 2022 8 Comments
At Family Tree DNA many of the Haplogroup projects are for very large Haplogroups (quite old) including thousands of members such as Haplogroup Q or R1b. The project I started is based on a single Y SNP that occurred in a man about 4,000 years ago who is FGC22501+, a descendant of the huge Haplogroup […]
Serendipity: Time Travel with the Romans with a Twist of DNA
Posted on November 27, 2022 8 Comments
“We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.” T.S. Eliot I recently wrote about the unexpected connection between where I stayed in the French Alps (Saint Gervais near les Contamines and the Roman Road and […]
Wheaton Wood 