Genographic Travels of the proto-Catholicgauzes

The Journey of R1a, Catholicgauze's group

National Geographic is currently running one of the most epic geographical projects in the history, no kidding. The Genographic Project seeks to map the journey of humankind from eastern Africa. Right now it is possible to trace one’s roots from the dawn of man up to approximately 10,000 B.C.

The fee is $107 to buy a kit but I believe it is well worth the money. Genographic will either trace the lineage of the Y-chromosome for men or the Mitochondrial DNA for women. All that is required is two samplings from one’s cheek and it can be done in the comforts of one home. Then one waits for about two months and checks online for the story of their distant ancestors.

Catholicgauze recently did his own test and found out about the journey of an “African Adam” (much more of a Cain than an Adam however) who ditched his clan, started a journey out of Africa, and became responsible for all of the non-Africans in the world.

Catholicgauze’s ancestors stayed in the Mideast for a while, went east into India (while many European ancestors went north into the Caucuses Mountains), lived in the steppes, traveled west into they hit glaciers, and then returned to the steppes. The Y-chromosome group, M17, is commonly found from the Czech Republic all the way to northern India. The ancestors of these people were the Kurgans. The Kurgans started the Indo-European language family and were the first to domesticate horses which were used for agriculture and migration.

This all came as quite of a surprise to me. My father’s male line is one of blue blooded Englishmen so I was expecting a more “European” line. I was thinking maybe a pure Roman lineage. Maybe my ancestors came to Europe soon afterwards or as part of the barbarian invasions against Rome, became Saxons, then Anglo-Saxons. These are some very scenarios for me to ponder.

Over the next few years National Geographic, especially the .COM department, plans to expand on the information available. The hope is to have information relating to human migration with Alexander, Rome, Roma, rise of Islam and Arabs, and etc. I am hoping they are able to pull it off. Having more modern information would give a greater understanding of the human journey to people.

This is a must buy if you can afford to pay the $107 and are a fan of tracing your roots. It is not a genealogical project; however, so do not plan on finding out where great-grandpa was from. Besides that, Genographic is perfect!

Be sure to check out the online atlas which has all the different type of DNA paths.

Category: Miscellaneous