I traced my ancestry through Wales, after taking the Maternal line DNA test.
My Lewis line were Welsh, and belong to the group you described. Family
tree DNA has set up a study group of descendants of these Royal lines (with
surnames such as Lewis, Washington, Warner, Evans etc.). Many of the names
are European settlers of Virginia. There are several study groups of these
lines, who are connected to the Royal lines in England. However, the Welsh
and English are two distinct groups, with the English being Germanic, and
the Welsh described as Celts.
According to Lewis family genealogists, the line entered Europe from the
Iberian Peninsula about 45,000 years ago. They first settled in Spain, and
then Switzerland, Germany, France, and then England. Members of the original
group continue to reside in the Basque region of Spain. I was communicating
with one of my DNA cousins in Belrusia, and she said that her line had been
run out of Spain during the Inquisition. In other words they were in Spain
for thousands of years, before being dispersed. I have communicated with DNA
cousins throughout Europe and the US, and the Europeans have the most
knowledge of their history. The Europeans also have no problem with stating
that the original ancestors came from Africa into Europe.
It actually took a combination of research, oral history, and DNA to solve
the riddles in my line.
Anita
>From: Sunshine49 <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: Discussion of research and writing about Virginia history
> <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: African American Genealogy
>Date: Fri, 9 Mar 2007 23:16:30 -0500
>
>It can be shaky, but it can also be surprisingly accurate. I was referring
>to whatever oral tribal traditions there might still be in Africa. People
>who carry on their traditions orally are more likely to be accurate than a
>family "Grandma said..." kind of thing. Recently there was a report about
>DNA testing of the various peoples of the British Isles. They determined
>that the majority, whether Irish, Welsh, Scots, or English, trace their
>ancestry back to a neolithic hunter-gatherer people who came there maybe
>as far as 16,000 years ago, were small, dark and probably spoke a language
> similar to Basque. Later waves of Celts, Romans, Vikings, Angles,
>Saxons, Normans, etc, added to the basic rootstock. What really impressed
>me about this is that it's pretty much what old Irish tales say about
>their ancestors. They came and found a small, dark, more primitive race
>already living there, whom they looked down on. So it seems that is one
>oral tradition that was pretty accurate, for 6,000 years. If anyone wants
>the link to the article, email me privately.
>
>Then there's the Cherokee legend of their ancestral place which they seem
>to have found in NC and is pretty much as described. So it might be
>possible, if one can find the tribe a slave ancestor came from, to find
>out more from the tribal stories.
>
>Nancy
>
>-------
>I was never lost, but I was bewildered once for three days.
>
>--Daniel Boone
>
>
>
>On Mar 9, 2007, at 10:51 PM, [log in to unmask] wrote:
>
>>A think the oral history thing is bogus. My oral history was that I was
>>descended from a signer of the Declartion of Indenpendence, which turned
>>out to
>>be a fiction.
>>
>>I think the dna analysis is the best criteria.
>>
>>JD South
>><BR><BR><BR>**************************************<BR> AOL now offers
>>free
>>email to everyone. Find out more about what's free from AOL at
>>http://www.aol.com.
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