In case anyone was wondering, my mother and uncle Ben are truly full siblings, sharing over 50% of their DNA. Again, no surprises in his ancestry breakdown, my uncle Ben is a Mongolian, even more than my mother at a chart topping 0.8%. 

The rest of the breakdown is only slightly different. 23andme shows my mother as a bit more southern European (Balkans) and my uncle a  bit more Eastern European but that's probably not a real difference, only a different interpretation by the modeling software. 

Regardless, both of their DNA is completely consistent with being Hungarian. Or Croatian. Something in that neck of the woods, anyway.

Oh, because I don't have any pictures of all the Daku children together except when they are much older (does anyone have a pic?), I'll throw in a lovely picture of my Aunt Shelley holding a beautiful baby boy, even if his expression is looking rather stunned.

The Y-chromosome is passed down from father to son, virtually unchanged. The very small changes that do happen as a result of random mutation is very useful in tracing the history of the Y-chromosome over thousands of years. 

U152 refers to a specific, relatively recent, variation that occurred in the Y chromosome of a man about 2000 years ago, possibly among the Alpine Celts of central Europe (around Switzerland). The male decedents of this man, Ben's ancestor,  spread outward into northern Italy and southern Germany, where the variation is still common today. 

U152 is found in Hungary but is fairly rare. I was hoping that the Dakus might have some ancient Mongolian or even Ottoman Y-DNA but its more likely that our ancient great grandfather might have been from the Austrian Empire, perhaps a German or Italian. Since my Mom has almost 10% northern European autosomal DNA, German seems more likely but she is also 0.6% Italian so that might explain why she made us spaghetti so often while we were growing up

Older variations in the Daku Y-DNA have been used to trace our ancestors further back in time, all the way back to Africa. Our ancestors were among a later wave of humans to leave Africa about 45,000 years ago, settling on the central Asian steppes where they hunted mammoths. It's likely that half of all Europeans today claim the same hunter on these steppes as a common ancestor. 

Over time, our forefathers migrated south into the middle east and then, as the last ice age ended, north up through the Balkans and across all of Europe, including to the Alps, where our 400th great grandfather may have been born.

When James Alexander Woods was born February 2, 1806 in Ross County, Ohio, his father, Samuel, was 25, and his mother, Elizabeth Hall, was 22. Samuel was an immigrant from Ireland while Elizabeth was from Virginia, where her family had lived for three generations after emigrating from England. James was the third of eleven children and the oldest son.

Anna Ritschhart was born one year later, on February 21, 1807, also in Ross County. Her father, Christian, was 67, and her mother, Sophia Mitz, was 26. Christian had immigrated from Oberhofen, Switzerland at the age of 11 and had nine children from a previous marriage. Little is currently known about Sophia except that she was of German ancestry. Christian and Sophia had two children, Fredrick and Anna. Anna grew up speaking, reading, and writing German and never did learn how to read and write in English.

James and Anna married on September 13, 1827 and soon moved north to Michigan, where they had their first child, Samuel, in 1831. However, within two years, they then settled in Elkhart County, Indiana, where they had they had six more children, including my 2nd great grandmother, Rachel Woods, in 1833 and Joanne’s great grandfather, Joseph Hall Woods, in 1841.

The 1850s was a tumultuous decade for the Woods, their oldest son, Samuel, died in 1853 and soon afterwards, the family quit Indiana to relocate in Polk County, Iowa, near Des Moines, where they farmed with one James’ maternal cousins. They were successful farmers and over the next several years, most of their children married and several purchased land in the same or nearby counties.

On January 10, 1858, Rachel married Nelson Simpson and the newlyweds moved to neighboring Dallas County where they had six children, including my great grandfather, Thomas. The family lived in Dallas County until around 1884, when Nelson, Rachel, their children, and one grandson pulled up stakes and moved to Holdrege, Nebraska. Continuing the family tradition of migration, 30 years later, in 1914, Thomas uprooted his family, including my grandfather, Lowell, and relocated to Saskatchewan. Through DNA matching, I recently discovered my father’s 3rd cousin, Joanne, living in southern California. Joanne and my father share the same 2nd great grandparents: James Alexander Woods and Aumain (Anna) Ritschhart.

Here are some tidied up notes about our common ancestor with a description of our relationship with Joanne, if anyone is at all interested.

When James Alexander Woods was born February 2, 1806 in Ross County, Ohio, his father, Samuel, was 25, and his mother, Elizabeth Hall, was 22. Samuel was an immigrant from Ireland while Elizabeth was from Virginia, where her family had lived for three generations after emigrating from England. James was the third of eleven children and the oldest son.

Anna Ritschhart was born one year later, on February 21, 1807, also in Ross County. Her father, Christian, was 67, and her mother, Sophia Mitz, was 26. Christian had immigrated from Oberhofen, Switzerland at the age of 11 and had nine children from a previous marriage. Little is currently known about Sophia except that she was of German ancestry. Christian and Sophia had two children, Fredrick and Anna. Anna grew up speaking, reading, and writing German and never did learn how to read and write in English.

James and Anna married on September 13, 1827 and soon moved north to Michigan, where they had their first child, Samuel, in 1831. However, within two years, they then settled in Elkhart County, Indiana, where they had they had six more children, including my 2nd great grandmother, Rachel Woods, in 1833 and Joanne’s great grandfather, Joseph Hall Woods, in 1841.

The 1850s was a tumultuous decade for the Woods, their oldest son, Samuel, died in 1853 and soon afterwards, the family quit Indiana to relocate in Polk County, Iowa, near Des Moines, where they farmed with one James’ maternal cousins. They were successful farmers and over the next several years, most of their children married and several purchased land in the same or nearby counties.

On January 10, 1858, Rachel married Nelson Simpson and the newlyweds moved to neighboring Dallas County where they had six children, including my great grandfather, Thomas. The family lived in Dallas County until around 1884, when Nelson, Rachel, their children, and one grandson pulled up stakes and moved to Holdrege, Nebraska. Continuing the family tradition of migration, 30 years later, in 1914, Thomas uprooted his family, including my grandfather, Lowell, and relocated to Saskatchewan. 

The American Civil War broke out in 1861 and three of James’ and Anna’s unmarried sons joined the Union army. On April 8, 1862, serving as a private in the 3rd Iowa Volunteer Infantry Regiment, John Lewis Woods was killed at the Battle of Shiloh, a battle that claimed 13,047 union and 10,699 Confederate lives.

Joseph Hall Woods had served as a private in the Iowa 16th Infantry and following the war, on April 17, 1865, married Eliza Jane Calhoun and began farming some land near his parents. Joseph and Eliza had at least 4 children, including Joanne’s grandfather, Frank Edwin Woods. Frank married Eliza Holland in 1892 and, after working as a grocer for a few years in Iowa, moved with his wife and daughter to Spokane, Washington, where they had a second daughter, Vera, who was to be Joanne’s mother. After some further moving around, the family eventually settled down in southern California.

​A specialized Y-DNA test shows that my genetic group is R-M269. That group is pretty generic but when I search for people who match my specific DNA markers, I find them heavily concentrated in the the British Isles, which makes sense given that our distant Simpson ancestors were Scotch-Irish.

When looking at specific matches for my Simpson chromosome, I found no close relatives. Apparently not many Simpsons do DNA testing. However, it did show very distant cousins where our common ancestor likely lived several centuries ago. Looking at Europe, those distant cousins appears to be mostly in Scotland which, happily, supports the written evidence.