American Mormon Pioneer Portraits--a few cherry picked examples

https://archive.org/stream/pioneersprominen00esshrich#page/n6/mode/1up

More Dodecad V3

Dodecad is like Gedmatch 1.0, but I like the idea that since it is the original, it goes more to the heart of my family's origins. 

So after all my tooling about, I am looking at it again. 

What interests me is the disparity in Eastern European for CEU versus British.  It appears to the about the same percentage as for Scottish. Meaning I think that the immigrants to the British Isles were sort of ushered to Scotland. Someone could correct me if I am wrong.  

Mormons supposedly have a high British component, but from the DNA they look a lot more like the Scots.  Also, I wonder if having some Scandinavian helps bump up those Eastern European scores.  

What percentage of Mo's were Viking?  A girl of Mormon heritage from Sweden claims to know she "is a Viking".  Which makes me wonder what makes Viking offspring fall for the tale of secret migrations  from Israel to the New World. 

Maybe it's boat love. 

Dodecad V3 Spreadsheet

Who are the Ulster Scots?

I know we have Ulster Scots heritage on my dad's side.  The Craighead name is prominent in his lineage.  There is a long line of Presbyterian reverends who helped settle the country. For one of them, there is an amusing story which I can't accurately attribute right now, but it's about one of these ministerial men not being paid by his congregation.  It appears his sermons were so unpopular that Cotton Mather had to strongly suggest (I forget how exactly -- I think jail was mentioned) that the parishioners pay him.  They weren't willing to do so voluntarily.

 I was talking about my dad regarding this, and he thought maybe this preacher was like the preacher in the movie Cold Comfort Farm, whose sermons are so bleak that they make everyone tremble with fear.

Anyhoo.....the point is, we know we have Ulster Scots heritage.  What heritage we didn't know we had was Abkhazian.  It shows up on my daughter's Eurogenes K13, and elsewhere as well I do believe. 

It's not much -- just 1.8% on the Mixed Mode Population, which could be naming a lot of other influences as well.  But I was just looking it up to try to explain it to my daughter.  That is when I found this interesting website that notices a similarity between Ulster symbolism and Abkhazian symbolism. 

Some great pictures here

More attempts by scientific community to speciate a "Mormon race"

So, I like Discover magazine.

I like science.  I'm not religious, although I grew up that way. 

But, I think it's interesting the subtle ways that some of them still fall prey to a kind of snarky racism, a la Social Darwinism or eugenics.  I may be overstating my case a little bit, but.....

I suppose if I'm honest, I just viscerally disliked being thrown into a category when I first took this genetic test.  (The whole "CEU" thing.)  I didn't choose to be born Mormon, even though Mormons think I did.  (A Pre-existence condition.... inside joke, possibly influenced by current news.)

I had to make peace with the idea that I was genetically part of a group.  I also liked the genetic test for the ability to deconstruct that identity into its component parts, to better understand myself and my environment.  And now that I've been made into an ethnicity (let's go all the way, and call it a race), I can be actively offended at racial slurs that stereotype me according to my presumed background and presumed beliefs. (tee hee)

And just now, as I am looking at Discover magazine, and I am a little appalled at the way they talk about Mormons.  Do a search term for "Mormon" on their website.  It appears that since Mormons are the least favorite group of mainstream Christians, they are ripe for a flogging from the snarky bloggers who verbally strut their stream of consciousness over yonder.

I'm just not sure how an article with a title like this, especially in a blog called "Gene Expression," would get past a thoughtful editor:  Is Mormonism relatively weird or absolutely weird???

Two years later, the author appears to have a change of heart, or more like he feels some social pressure to not be so, um, xenophobic -- Mormonism isn't that weird  he lets us know, as he has crowned himself Decider of the Weird.  Interesting, since my Super Scientific Face Peering Technology has alerted me to the fact that in the US, he is a genetic outlier.   (That's what the scientists call oddballs, and I've seen a few comments on 23andme boards where some of them are happy that they aren't THAT....)







Then we have this one -- What does a generic Mormon look like? The answer probably won't surprise you.

So, I am trying to figure out just why I am offended by this.  It's kind of funny.  I think we all do it. My husband and I claim to have Mo-Dar -- the analog to gaydar, where you just kind of know when a person is Mormon.  "It's just that special spirit."  

I think it goes back to being pigeonholed. 

 No one has mistaken me for a Mormon recently, so it isn't that.

 I think you have to be actively living the lifestyle to give off the aura.  It could be the "eternal smile" of special underwear peering through one's shirt that really lets people know.  The lowdown from the urban mythology in Discover appears to be that Mormons are more shiny or something because of their intense spirituality....

"Perceptions of health were also responsible for differences in perceived spirituality, explaining folk hypotheses that Mormons are distinct because they appear more spiritual than non-Mormons."

Yes, they misspelled "Background".  And what the !@#$ is an "ecologically important group distinction"?  By face peering (it's like Joseph Smith and his peepstones, yo), you are saving the environment...?  I guess the "ROFL" is a clue that this is done at least partly in jest.

For some reason, the face in H reminds me of the Nauvoo Temple sunstone.  It's probably the focus on the face....

Dad's Dodecad Oracle X -- Population Fitting

These results illustrate a little bit of why we wonder about the accuracy or exactly what we can say with precision about any of these tests:

Dodecad V3

 

Dodecad K12B

Dodecad K7B

Dodecad World9

What I find a little odd about these Oracle X results, is that they don't really seem to mesh with the Mixed Mode population results.  For example, in Dodecad K7B, my dad consistently shows up as Moroccan, Mozabite, Moroccan Jew at a small percentage.  I believe this is accurate, since I have looked at his Rare SNPs and found matches with Haiti only, Morocco only or both Haiti and Morocco.  However, here K7b on Oracle X comes up with some new, unmentioned groups that I want to learn more about, but with whom connections are probably most like distant cousins than descendants.  (If that makes sense.)

I'm going to make a list now of new groups found through Oracle X, that haven't been mentioned in the other Oracles.  A few of them show as 0%, or 0% in one option but some percentage in the other option.  My understanding is in this tool, if it shows up at all, it is because it registered something, although obviously slight.  Also ASW -- is African American from Southwest. (Surely they mean South East US...?).  IBS is Iberian Spanish.  CEU is Utahns.

Athabaskan -- A Native American link, possibly.  Definitely think it could be possible, based on the Mormon lore.  Although the groups in Wikipedia appear to be geographically unlikely -- I think Algonquian is the term for the Native groups of the Northeast, and that seems most probable to me, since that is the side of America that was colonized first.  However, it could still be a stand-in for that -- although why not Finnish, too, if they are linked via Siberia?

Ecuadorian -- Ecuadorians appear to be primarily indigenous (Native American), Spaniard & also sub-Saharan African.  Soooo, it's possible we have all three of those, they just weren't 'assembled' in Ecuador.

Colombian / CLM 30 (also Columbian) -- " Colombians are predominantly Roman Catholic and are a mixture of Europeans, Africans, Middle Easterners and Amerindians."  So, also possible we have the Middle East in my dad, along with the other three ethnic groups also found in Ecuadorians.

Papuan --  From New Guinea.  I'm just not sure how this fits in.

Hadza-He -- From Tanzania, lower east Africa.  This could be the Subsaharan.  I understand that African DNA has had much more time to 'speciate' or differentiate itself, so I wonder why it isn't possible to get a finer-tuned reading on the African DNA.  (I also get Yoruba, Luhya, Bantu-Zulu, Masaai....)

Dominican -- This seems plausible, given the Haiti/ Morocco rare SNP finding.

Khasi -- "The Khasi are an indigenous or tribal people, the majority of whom live in the State of Meghalaya in north east India, with small populations in neighbouring Assam, and in parts of Bangladesh."  Perhaps one of our English folk is a gypsy......

Bonda -- "The Bonda (also known as the Bondo, Bondo Poraja, Bhonda, or Remo) are an ancient tribe of people numbering approximately 12,000 (2011 census) who live in the isolated hill regions of the Malkangiri district of southwestern Odisha, India, near the junction of the three states of Odisha, Chhattisgarh, and Andhra Pradesh." -- Perhaps the same gypsy connection....

Paniya--- Appears to be another  way of naming an India connection

Gara -- Wikipedia isn't finding an ethnicity that corresponds to this name.  Interestingly, it is a Basque newspaper, part of several Romanian village names, a village in Iran & a town in Morocco -- all which may or may not be what is meant here.

Cambodians -- Not sure how this would apply.  I have heard Davidski or others on 23andme forums say something about Asian being a stand-in for the proto-European, since Europeanism apparently evolved from Asianism.  (I know those aren't words.)

Khmer 90%, Vietnamese 5%, Chinese 1%, other 4%.^[3]

Juang -- "One of the primitive tribes, surviving from the stone age, of Odisha, India".  My dad gets several cave men type results on another tool on GEDmatch.  More so than anyone else I saw on the 23andme forums.  He's just primitive somehow.  Most of those cavemen are from Europe, like Otzi the Iceman.  I guess this is just another one of his cave-people ancestors.

Gadaba -- Another way of naming an India connection.  "The Gadabas are one of the Scheduled Tribes of India."

Cypriots -- From Cyprus, the Mediterranean country.

Cantabria -- Sounds pretty.  "Cantabria (English /kænˈtɑːbriə/, /kænˈtæbriə/; Spanish: [kanˈtaβɾja]) is a Spanish historical community^[2] and autonomous community with Santander as its capital city. It is bordered on the east by the Basque Autonomous Community (province of Biscay), on the south by Castile and León (provinces of León, Palencia and Burgos), on the west by the Principality of Asturias, and on the north by the Cantabrian Sea (Bay of Biscay)."

Sardinian -- A Mediterranean island.  Possibly more evidence of my dad's primitive essence.  (haha)  They are a very interesting group from a genetic perspective -- 

"Sardinians are one of the most genetically isolated populations in Europe, though they are the single population that encloses all of the genetic characteristics of the Europeans, such as the highest variability of the Y chromosome found among the European peoples.^{[32][33][34][35]}

According to some studies, along with the Basques they represent an example of a pre-Indo-European population surviving in Europe from the Paleolithic period.^[36][37]

Pulliyar -- Appears to be another India reference

Russian -- Garsh.  Maybe his R1a1a haplogroup?   That haplogroup has high saturation there -- 33.4 to 49%.  The average is 46.7%.
"Autosomally, Russians are generally similar to populations in central-eastern Europe^[48]"

Sidi -- Well, I think it's supposed to be spelled "Siddi" -- that would be another way of naming an India connection.  Or, maybe Pakistan....

Fulani -- A West African group -- They are in Guinea, but are they in New Guinea? I just keep thinking about a phrase in Spanish -- "Fulano de tal" -- which is the Spanish (Mexican?) way of saying "What'shisname".  Which is sometimes what this genetic exercise makes me feel like.

Bulala -- African.  A Muslim people from Chad.  Apparently influenced by French colonialism.

Mada -- I'm not sure, but I think it's another way of naming an India connection.  I like this statement I found about an exemplar of this group, also known as the Yousafzai, a Pashtoon tribe: 

The Yousafzai is an agriculturist, generally fine, well-limbed man, of a good physique and appearance with great deal of race-pride, well dressed and cheery, while his hospitality is proverbial.

”

My father's Dodecad 4 grandparent results

Again, my dad is 1/4 British, 1/4 colonial American, 1/4 more British, and 1/4 Danish.

Here are what the 4 Dodecad tools have to say about his 4 grandparents.

Dodecad V3:

Dodecad K12b:

Dodecad K7B:

Dodecad World9:

My father's Dodecad Mixed Mode Populations

Not going to speculate about anything just yet.

Here's my dad on Dodecad V3, Mixed Mode:

Here's my dad on Dodecad K12b, Mixed Mode:

Here's my dad on Dodecad K7b, Mixed Mode:

Here's my dad on Dodecad World9, Mixed Mode:

I find these results somewhat different from Eurogenes.  I try to get a more precise answer as to why they differ, but I haven't yet received a satisfying answer.  There is overlap that might not be readily obvious.  For example -- Yoruba in Eurogenes may be partly accounted for with Moroccans, Canarias, Puerto Rican and/or Brazilian.  Basque may be a subset of the English population somehow.  His Family Tree DNA results also show French, Spanish & Basque DNA.

And then there's this guy:

It may just be the moustache, but I think he has a bit of a Spanish look.