Our Deep Ancestral Roots: Subclade R-M222

Williams Ancient Blood Lines: R-M222 

In 2006 I sent a DNA sample to Family TreeDNA to try and connect Britton Williams with the legions of Williams scattered in pre-revolutionary North Carolina and Virginia. I was at a dead end trying to find a legal document that would connect Britton Williams with a father or at least to the right family grouping. While I was fairly convinced that he was a descendant of Theophilus Williams of Duplin County North Carolina through a son named John Williams, all I had to base this assumption on was circumstantial evidence. So I paid to have my DNA read to the 12th strand of alleles which would show a probable certain degree of relationship from a common ancestor with others Williamses

The results of the DNA test were that I descend from the Genetic Haplogroup R1b1 specifically R1b1a2a1a1b4b L21 which was not surprising as that is the predominant genetic markers for people who descended from the tribes that settle in the British Isles and Western Europe. Our family line has a distinct subset of genetic markers that is identified as M222. This subclade is very common in pockets of Northern Ireland where nearly 20 percent of the population descend from a common ancestor. The second most common location for the M222 population is Northern Scotland. Interestingly M222 is found the least in Wales among the ancient Britonic kingdoms.

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While the DNA test could not prove conclusively a father to son link for Britton Williams, it did provide enough DNA evidence that I am a paternal descendant of the Welshman John Williams and his wife Ann of Isle of Wight County who lived in 17th Century Virginia. The genetic signature shows a perfect match between myself and the John Williams whose Will was probated in 1691 Virginia and who's children, grandchildren and great grandchildren spread out in along the Southern Atlantic Coastal Colonies of North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia. It also proved that I was not a descendant of the John Williams who died 1689 and had married Ann Whitley. The families of these two men had been confused for generations and most pedigrees still list Theophilus Williams who married Christian Busby in the 18th Century as a son of John and Ann Whitley Williams which is in error.

My DNA not only matched John Williams, the Welsh Immigrant to America in the 17th Century, it also matched three other individuals further back in history nearly 1500 years. Two individuals were located in Wales, Edward Lewis, a 15th Century High Sheriff of Glamorganshire, who died in 1508 AD and a 13th Century Welsh Warrior Ednyfed Fychan Lord of Bryn Ffenigl who died 1246 AD. The third was Nial of the Nine Hostages King of Ireland who died circa 405 AD and is thought to be the ancestor of nearly all who carry the M222 genetic marker.  These matches do not suggest that each of these individuals are a direct paternal ancestor of the descendants of Britton Williams but they do show a paternal male connection and kinship  back to medieval Wales and ancient Ireland.

The following tables showing the DNA markers out to the 25th strand and even with some minor mutations it clearly shows a Y chromosomal link between all them. All these individuals carried the same Y sex cell, passed down through a distant common ancestor who lived between 2000 and 1500 years ago. His DNA signature had slightly mutated and then was passed down to his descendants as part of the M222 subclade of the Hapogroup R1b1 tribes that settled the ancient British Isles.

My DNA Strand R-M222

13

25

14

11

11

13

12

12

12

13

14

29

19

9

10

11

11

25

14

18

31

15

16

16

17

John Williams R-M222 

13

25

14

11

11

13

12

12

12

13

14

29

17

9

10

11

11

25

15

18

30

15

16

16

17

Edward Lewis R-M222

13

25

14

11

11

13

12

12

12

13

14

29

17

9

10

11

11

25

15

18

31

15

16

16

17

Ednyfed Fychan R-M222 

13

25

14

11

11

13

12

12

12

13

14

29

18

9

10

11

11

25

14

18

31

15

16

16

18

Nial of the Nine Hostages R-M222

13

25

14

11

11

13

12

12

12

13

14

29

17

9

10

11

11

25

15

18

30

15

16

16

17

Why Genealogy?

Genealogy is for me more about connections to the past than royal pedigrees. It does not reflect on me as a person or anyone else who our ancestors were. We are all responsible for our deeds and therefore ancestors, famous or infamous, are mostly irrelevant to our character. However some of us have an innate curiosity of "where it all began" and who's genetic code has been passed down to us, a biological mix of enzymes that connects us with distant ancestors.

Many medieval genealogies were created simply as a way for kings to claim authority from a distant historical figure.  The conflicting genealogies of Jesus in the Bible was an attempt to connect a Messiah with the House of David. Medieval kings and princes especially in the British Isle had chroniclers create elaborate pedigrees connecting them to various historical figures such as Claudius Emperor of Rome and other Imperial family members such as Helen the supposedly British mother of Emperor Constantine. Legendary figures such as Joseph of Arimathea, the supposed uncle of Jesus Christ was claimed to have come to the British Isles and established a Celtic connection with the lineage of  House of David. Another legend is that the Prophet Jeremiah escaped Jerusalem when it was destroyed taking with him among other things, "Jacob's Stone (the Coronation Stone), the Ark of the Covenant and his granddaughter Tea Tephi the daughter of King Zedekiah. 

The legend is that Jeremiah took his grandaughter to Ireland where she married the king of Ireland thus establishing another Celtic connection to the House of David. British Royalty uses this legend to this day as authority for their rights to monarchy. The Jacob Stone is placed under the coronation throne when ever a new monarch is crowned at Westminster.  

While all these mythical genealogies trace their origins back to Adam and Eve, the true source of our genealogies is not in ancient records but within our own bodies. The slight mutations in the male Y chromosome is a more accurate record of our origins and our bloodlines that is identified as R-M222 a marker on a strand of DNA. We come from thousands of generations of mating over tens of thousands of years. 

Deep Ancestry: Paleolithic mammoth hunters

The studying of the Haplogroups of various people can determine which group of population descend from a deep ancestral origin,  dating back thousands of years.In human genetics, the haplogroups most commonly studied are the Y-chromosome (Y-DNA) haplogroups that males get from their fathers and mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) haplogroups which both males and females get from their mothers. Y-DNA and mtDNA only change by chance mutation at each generation with no intermixture between parents' genetic material. Sometimes its easier to think of a Haplogroup as as an ancestral clan, or a very large a large family stemming from a common ancestor. 

Our Haplogroup "R" is one of the two branches of the mega-haplogroup from prehistoric times. After leaving Africa, the R group originated about 30,000 years ago in a hunter tribe in Central Asia from one man when his genome mutated slightly. This Haplogroup R* originated before the Last Glacial Maximum (26,500-19,000 years ago) and has been identified in the remains of a 24,000 year-old boy from the Altai region, in south-central Siberia. This individual belonged to a tribe of mammoth hunters that may have roamed across Siberia and parts of Europe during the Paleolithic. This Paleolithic population appears to have contributed mostly to the ancestry of modern Europeans 

R1b1 Nomads of the Caucasus Plains 

Over several millenniums three main branches of R1b1 all seem to have stemmed from the Caucasus region the Middle East. The northern branch, R1b1a, seems to have originated around the Caucasus, eastern Anatolia [Turkey] or northern Mesopotamia [Iraq], then to have crossed over the Caucasus, from where they would have invaded Europe and Central Asia. 

Neolithic cattle herders

It has been hypothesized that R1b people were the first to domesticate cattle in northern Mesopotamia some 10,500 years ago. R1b tribes descended from mammoth hunters, and when mammoths went extinct, they started hunting other large game such as bisons and aurochs [wild cattle]. With the increase of the human population in the Fertile Crescent [Iraq] from the beginning of the Neolithic (starting 12,000 years ago), selective hunting and culling of herds started replacing indiscriminate killing of wild animals.

The analysis of bovine DNA has revealed that all the taurine cattle (Bos taurus) alive today descend from a population of only 80 aurochs. The earliest evidence of cattle domestication dates from circa 8,500 BCE in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic cultures in the Taurus Mountains. The two oldest archaeological sites showing signs of cattle domestication are villages in southeastern Turkey and in northern Iraq, two sites only 250 km away from each others. This is presumably the area from which R1b lineages started expanding - or in other words the "original homeland" of R1b.

The increased involvement of humans in the life of aurochs, wild boars and goats led to their progressive taming. Cattle herders probably maintained a nomadic or semi-nomadic existence, while other people in the Fertile Crescent (presumably represented by haplogroups E1b1b, G and T) settled down to cultivate the land or keep smaller domesticates.

The early R1b cattle herder people would have split in at least three groups. We come from the third branch who crossed the Caucasus into the vast Pontic-Caspian Steppe, which provided ideal grazing grounds for cattle. Here after time they split into two factions: R1b1a1 which went east along the Caspian Sea into Central Asia, and R1b1a2 which at first remained in the North Caucasus and the Pontic Steppe between the Dnieper and the Volga of what is the Ukraine today.

R1b1 Nomads of the Caucasus Plains 

Nine thousand years would pass until another slight mutation in an ancestors DNA spawned a tribe of people identified as R1b1a2 who lived 7,000 years ago still in Central Asia. The next minor mutation happened a little more than 1200 years later when a man living in the east European plain between the Ural and Caucasus Mountains became the father of  the Haplogroup R1b1a2a subclade L23. The R1b1a, people seems to have originated around the Caucasus or eastern Anatolia [Turkey] or northern Mesopotamia [Iraq], then to have crossed over the Caucasus, from where they would have invaded Europe and Central Asia.

The Bronze Age R1b Tribes of Eastern Europe

The native primitive population of Europe began to be replaced by a Bronze Age people who migrated from the northern shores of the Black Sea about 5,000 years ago. The mutation 5300 years ago in the Caucasus Region of Asia gave rise to three sucessor subclades, L51, L11, and U106 over a span of 500 years whose members spread west through Europe all the way to the Iberian penisula. They first moved into the Balkans with its rich deposits of gold and copper and tin. For two thousands years they began to dominate central and western Europe replacing and interbreeding with the descendants of the native Ice Age Cro-magnon men. 

Who Are the Brits? 

For a long time a common myth has been that the Irish are European Celts. The latest research into Irish DNA has confirmed that the early inhabitants of Ireland were not directly descended from the Celts of central Europe. DNA testing through the male Y chromosome show that Irish males have the highest incidence of the haplogroup R1b1 gene in Europe. While other parts of Europe have integrated continuous waves of new settlers from Asia, Ireland's remote geographical position has meant that the Irish gene-pool has been less susceptible to change. The same genes have been passed down from parents to children for thousands of years concentrating the Haplogroup R1b1 the highest in Irish families. 

Around 4500 years ago these new comer to Europe developed a culture called the Bell Beaker movement based on the shapes of their pots. In this period a man passed on to his sons a new chromosomal mutation giving rise to the Subclade P312. Another 500 years or so passed until the next mutation when a man passed to his sons the genetic change known by the Subclade U152.  The tribes of the Bell Beaker continued across Europe and had extensively populated Europe between 4000 and 3000 years ago. During this time a chromosomal mutation created the Subclade L21 which crossed over to the British Isles and on its way produced subclade DF 23 and then M222. 

The highest frequency of men carrying the M222 DNA today is in Ireland and among those of Irish descent. It has long been assumed from this that the M222 subclade found in Scotland, Wales, England, or in populations descended from them, must be due to migration from west to east, from a source in Ireland. Latest studies now show that M222 originated first in Devon among a Celtic tribe known by the Romans as the Dumnonii. Data suggests then that the M222 lineages in British Isles likely originated in Devon, England and from there to Leinster, Ireland and then to South West Scotland.

The Dumnonii of Devon

The Dumnonii or Dumnones were a British Celtic tribe who inhabited Dumnonia, the area now known as Devon and Cornwall today. The Dumnonii settled in the farthest parts of the South West peninsula of Britain, from at least the Iron Age [1000 BC] up to the early Saxon period [500 AD] The Dumnonii gave their name to the English county of Devon. The Dumnonii in Devon and later Ireland and Scotland, lived in small farmsteads, heavily defended, and were largely pastoralists, raising cattle.  In Devon they were part of the tin mining and trade.

According to some historical sources the Dumnonii confederation of tribes initially came
from the region of ancient Gaul called Armorica, modern day Brittany in France.  It is suggested by geneticists that the Dumnonii of Devon were related to the Damnonii of South Western Scotland and to the Laigin (Fir Domnann) in Ireland.

Victorian antiquarians often referred to this Devon tribe as the "Damnonii", which is also the name of another Celtic people from lowland Scotland who may have been part of a tribal confederation. In Ireland these people were known as Fir Domnann who left blood lines dominant in the Irish province of Connacht.  The name of these people in Cornwall is Dewnans and Dyfnaint in Welsh. Our M222 common ancestor lived came out of the Damnonii clan about 1900 to 2000 years ago in Devon and spread to parts of Cornwall, and Somerset England across the Irish Sea to South Eastern Ireland and then across into central and southwestern Scotland. 

  

Irish annals have recorded links between the Fir Domnann tribe and the Connachta people
of western Ireland. In Leinster, the Dumnonii - known as the Fir Domnann or Laigin - conquered all of Western Ireland, Connacht, and birthed the dynasty known as the Connachta, which in turn gave rise to the Uí Néill dynasty of Northern Ireland. Indeed, it would seem that the Connachta descended from the Fir Domnann (aka Laigin or Dumnonii), and of course the Uí Néill Clan [of which Nial of the Nine Hostages belonged] descended from the Connachta.

Based on data analysis and discussion, the M222 mutation in our forebearer is likely to have arisen in South Western England among the Dumnonii. The M222 bearers of the Devon ancestral origin mutation clearly have the oldest common ancestor of M222. However, cross-analysis of lineages shows that the Irish M222 could have arisen immediately after the English M222, but due to a possible bottleneck of the population they started to expand only in the middle of the 1st  millennium of the Common Era. 

The frequency of percentage of people with the M222 haplotypes continue to  be sharply reduced from Ireland where its 28% of the male population to Scotland  where its only 13.5%. It decreases dramatically in England at 4.7% and least of all in Wales at 2.5%.  It is from only 2.5 % of the Welsh population that our American emigrants came from. In overall terms it would seem the rank ages of R-M222 in the Isles we could suggest as follows: (a) Devon, England, (b) Leinster, Ire-land (c) Central Scotland, (d) North Midlands, Ireland (e) Connacht, Ireland (f) Northern Ire-land (g) Wales (h) South West Scotland

R-M222 Subclade Marker of the Ui Neill Dynasty 

As previously stated the genetic marker M222 is particularly associated with male lines among the  northern Irish. The relatively high frequency of this specific subclade among the population of certain counties in northwestern Ireland is due to the Uí Néill dynasty of ancient Ireland. A study conducted at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland, found that a striking percentage of men in Ireland [21%] share the same Y chromosome. Now known as the the "Dynastic Ui Neill Y chromosome" it is traced back to one person, Niall of the Nine Hostages. King Niall established a dynasty of powerful kings that dominated Ireland for six centuries. The Trinity College findings suggest that the 5th-century warlord may be the ancestor of one in 12 Irishmen. His genetic signature is found in  6/10 of one percent of the entire Family Tree DNA database. My DNA matched nearly perfectly with Niall's with only two other slight mutations over the 1500 years between us.

Niall of the Nine Hostages

Niall Naoighiallach was High King of Ireland for twenty-seven years. He succeeded his Uncle Crimthann, and was according to Irish pedigrees, the 126th Monarch of Ireland.He was twice married. His first Queen was Inne, the daughter of Luighdheach, who was the relict [widow] of Fiachadh and his second Queen was Roigneach. He had 12 sons to who he passed the M222 subclade marker that eventually made it through time to Wales, across the Atlantic to Virginia and then across the Southland of the United States.

Niall was said to be "a stout, wise, and warlike prince, and fortunate in all his conquests and achievements, and therefore called Mor or "Great." He was also "Niall of the Nine Hostages," from the royal hostages taken from nine countries which he subdued and made tributary: Munster, Leinster, Connacht, Ulster, Britain, the Picts, the Dalriads, the Saxons, and the Morini [a people of France.] According to chroniclers King Niall began his reign in 379 AD during the last years of the Roman occupation of Britain. He was not only a "high king" of Ireland, he was one of the most powerful to ever hold that office. He took advantage of the Roman retreat from Brittain and France and mobilized great forces for foreign expeditions of plunder. He is known in folklore as a raider of both the British and French coasts. He was supposedly slain in France near the English Channel in 405 A.D. 

King Niall is a very interesting part legendary and part historical figure. In 1919 archeologists discovered a hoard of Roman silver plate, dating from Emperor Valens (365-378) to the early reign of emperor Honorius (395-423 AD.). Earlier a 1854 excavation in County Londonderry, Ireland found silver coins which dated from Constantius II to Honorius. There were approximately 13 finds altogether of Roman treasure none were dated after Emperor Honorius. 

The treasure found in the excavations were thought to have been brought back by Niall's companions after his death and buried. The interest created by the coins helped to make Niall a historical reality. A lot of what is now known about Niall was found while digging around to answer the questions about the coins. Niall of the Nine Hostages died a pagan, but after the dawn of Christianity in Ireland, his descendants thanks to St. Patrick were foremost in promoting and endowing the Christian Church in Ireland. Nearly 300 of his descendants ere canonized as Saints.

The Honorius became Emperor of Rome in 395 AD and sent the Roman Army under the Vandal General Stilcho north to take care of the raiders of his northern cities. Stilcho was successful in putting down most of the raiders on the continent, but he could not stop the raiders from Ireland. The Roman historian Claudian makes it clear that" the most formidable onslaught had come from Ireland under one powerful leader acting in co-operation with the Picts and Saxons." While not naming Niall as the "powerful leader", it is he who went to the Scots and Picts and created an alliance between the  Celtic Scots, Picts, and Irish called the Dal Riada.

Niall sent a fleet to Armorica [Brittany France)]in order to plunder and according to Geoffrey Keating, in his History of Ireland, "St. Patrick was brought as a captive to Ireland in the ninth year in the reign of Niall [388 AD]." An Irish fleet went to the place where Patrick dwelt, then aged 16 years, and as was the custom of the Irish, they brought a large number of hostages with them along with Patrick's two sisters Lupida and Daererca. 

Niall pillaged Wales, Scotland, England and France during his reign. He played a great part in breaking down Roman power in Britain and Frat the river Leor [Lianne].ance between the years of 379 and 406 AD. Keating states Niall liberated Wales from the Roman and that "Wales ceased to be controlled by the central government of London from 380-400 due to Niall". Niall was also said to be the first that gave the name of Scotia Minor to "Scotland," and ordained it to be ever after so called; until then it went by the name of "Alba."

Keating also stated that "Niall having taken many captives, returned to Ireland and proceeded to assemble additional forces and sent word to the chief of the Dal Riada, requesting him to follow with all his host to France." In 405, Niall set out for the new adventure to plunder France.  Some accounts state that after crossing the English Channel, Niall was killed by an arrow from a rival upon reaching France. The spot on the Leor River where this Monarch was murdered is still called the "Ford of Niall," near the French town of Boulogne-sur-mer. Niall’s body was brought back by ship to Ireland and taken to Ochann (in County Meath) for burial. His court poet was Torna Eigeas (the Learned), of whom three poems are said to have survived. He wrote: "Saxons with overwhelming cries of war, hosts of Jutes from the continent, From the hour in which the King fell, Gael and Picts are in a sore straight, Darling hero of the shinning host, whose tribes Are vast, a beloved band; Every man was under his protection when we used to Go to foregather with him" -

Niall of the Nine Hostages died in 405 A.D. and from which of his sons we descend is impossible to know. However descend we did from an unbroken line of sons who became fathers to sons to this present day.