Where I Came From

About 50,000 hears ago, my ancestors were in East Africa at the point of origin shown as CR, which is a Haplogroup designation. About 45,000 years ago they moved north to point F, then moved eastwards to point K by 40,000 years ago. By 30,000 years ago they had moved to points R and R1, then they reached Spain, point R1b, about 25,000 years ago. From Spain they moved northwards into Scotland by recent times, to point R1b1c, which is not shown on this map.

How do I know this?

A couple of months ago I ordered a DNA testing kit through the Clan Henderson Society. When the kit arrived, I used the three little plastic paddles that were included to scrape samples from inside my cheeks, the samples being taken at least four hours apart and immediately stored in little glass tubes. Then I sent my samples off to the laboratory run by Family Tree DNA and the University of Arizona. I recently started receiving results, including a list of people who were closely related to me. Most of them, but not all, had the surname Henderson.

What does "closely related" mean? The simple test identified the allele values for twelve locations on the Y-chromosome. Anyone having the same set of values probably shared a MRCA (Most Recent Common Ancestor) within two (20% probability) to five (40% probability) generations. With 11 of the 12 values the same, the MRCA drops to 20% for ten generations; with 10 of 12, it drops to 20% for 16 or 17 generations. I received lists of people with matches of 12/12, 11/12 and 10/12.

I've looked at genealogy data collected by my cousin Glenn Johnson, who traced our line back to Charlemagne but was never able to establish a firm connection to any of the four families Henderson who originated in Scotland. I now have evidence that a paternal ancestor came from the area (Haplotype R1b1c). But the picture is incomplete, having checked only twelve markers. I've ordered testing for an additional 55 markers, to bring the total up to 67 markers. I should receive the results in another couple of months.