One of the things that becomes obvious as we study the DNA patterns is that we are related to more regions, nationalities, and races than we had imagined. The degree of "relatedness" varies, but we are all brothers and sisters.
I may have given the occurrences of the Germanna Thomas Haplogroup incorrectly. It takes some study to get this right, and I am just trying to learn something myself. Or, as Marilyn Thomas Hanson puts it, "There is a steep learning curve and we are at the bottom."
The E3b Haplogroup has undergone many mutations in the Y chromosome. Starting with the original Y chromosome of Adam, one mutation led to the E group without any other mutations. But, with the mutations identified as M33 M132 we have the E1 group. With the M75 (think of M as "marker" to the basic E group), we have the E2 group. With the P2 marker to the E group, we have the basic E3 group. Counting the unmodified E3 group, there are ten subgroups of E3 . In one of these, the E3b1c1 group, there are six mutations from the original Y chromosome of "Adam".
There are a total of eight identified mutations that are lumped together as the E3b Haplogroup. Some of these share some of their mutations. Drawn as a tree, it looks like a chart of descendants that we know in genealogy. And, in a broad sense, this is a correct interpretation.
As I understand it, the Thomas Germanna family is in Haplogroup E3b . E3b is a very common haplotype in sub-Saharan Africa. The Fulbe people from Nigeria have ONLY this haplotype. Other regions of Africa have many occurrences of this haplotype, but not quite to this degree. Almost one in five of the Ethiopian Jews has the same chromosome. In North Africa, it is falling off, but 10% of the Mozabite Berbers have the E3b Haplotype. Crossing over the Mediterranean, it falls off even more, but 4% of the northern Portugese have this chromosome. Further north in Europe, the frequency is diminished; however, the basic E3b Haplotype, with additional mutations, is found in Italy, Romania, Bulgaria, and Albanian, to name a few other locations. (This suggests that the basic E3b pattern came directly up from the south of the Mediterranean, and not out of eastern Europe.) Ten percent of Albanians, some from Turkey and some from the eastern Mediterranean, have the haplotype. None of the Eastern Asians, the Pacific people, or the Native Americans have it.
This is an evolving field of research and much is to be learned. It is helpful for tracing how people have migrated around the world.
In the next Note, I may make some modifications or additions to this Note. The Germanna Thomas family is a subset of the basic
E3b
Haplogroup.
(19 Apr 06)
We gratefully acknowledge the work of John Blankenbaker who published over 2,500 Germanna History Notes via the Germanna-L@rootsweb.com email list from 1997 to 2008. We are equally thankful to George Durman (Sgt. George) for hosting the list and republishing the notes via rootsweb.com.