Victor,

I just purchased a copy of "The Seven Daughters of Eve" by Bryan Sykes... "the science that reveals our genetic ancestry." It was published in 2001, but with the onset of DNA testing made affordable now, I'm sure it will be back in reprint again. I'm anxious to read what he has to say.

I'm not familiar with the YDNA groupings. I'm hoping that my brother will be tested. That test will supply information for both our paternal and male maternal direct lines, because our paternal grandfather was our maternal grandfather's uncle. Their fathers were brothers... hence the common male YDNA line would be the same. Now I just need to locate either a male or female offspring of our paternal maternal line. Very interesting subject... Thank you for your input.
Pat

victor villarreal wrote:
Pat,

E3b* (M35 underived) on the paternal and mtDNA "A" on the maternal line.

You're right about NG's Genographic Project which is focusing on ancestral
migrations or in other words, phylogeography, the geographical distribution
of genealogical-genetic lineages.

Studying the Y chromosome and the mitochondrial DNA gives us a very, very
narrow field of vision into our genetic ancestry, that is, we only discover
two direct lineages and practically nothing of the other parallel lineages
that double with every generational step. But since most of our lines
intersect at different points in time in our genealogical past, when I
learn about your direct genetic lineages I might as well be learning about
those unknown ancestors of mine. And when you learn about my direct genetic
lineages you could as well be learning about some of your unknown ancestors
too.

Paraphrasing that old saying: No man or woman is a genetic island.

Victor

On 6/16/06, Patricia Corbera
wrote:
>
> Victor,
>
> What is your haplogroup and mutations (if any) for your mtDNA ? The
> National Geographic "Genographic Project," is another project focusing on
> the dominant trends of migration.
> Pat
>
>

Hi Victor,

Glad to see a post from you. . .I missed you and your well thought out
and instructive posts to the group.

As for me I'm a flojo sometimes and tend to put things that I want and
need to do to the bottom of the pile. One of those things is to follow
through on the question I asked the Rootsweb DNA group that you answered
awhile back.

If I wanted to take a Hair that had a really big follicle on the root
how would you go about trying to save it for future geneations if this
is even possible? Can I go to funeral home and get a small jar of
embalming fluid and let the hair and roots sit in the for a few hundred
years? Afterall isn't Einstein's brain or parts of it floating around in
various places?

Is there an easy answer to this question? or for me to do this must i
depend on a freezer that keeps the hair at near zero Kelvin?

thanks,

joseph

ps: are there any members of that rootsweb group that you think are
knowledgeable enough for me to interview on DNA for the
http://NuestraFamiliaUnida.com podcast project?

victor villarreal wrote:

>Pat,
>
>E3b* (M35 underived) on the paternal and mtDNA "A" on the maternal line.
>
>
>
>
>
>

One of the long-standing challenges I face as I do research on my
Mexican roots is identifying the places. Part of the problem is that I
do not understand government jurisdictions in Mexico. In the US it's
easy: State, County, City; or State, County, Township; and for the
most part that never varies. Oh, there is the occasional city which is
not part of any county, and there are cities which sprawl across
several counties ... But all in all the arrangement is fairly
straightforward.

And there are books which detail which counties were made from which
and the dates of their formation.

But in Mexico it isn't so easy.

There are States (Estados).

And inside the states there are Municipios, which are somewhat like US
counties, but their history is different. Many of the ranchos and
haciendas and pueblos existed long before -- hundreds of years --
before there was any Municipio to include them. Ranchos were often
"elevated" to haciendas or eventually to municipios. And frankly, I
still don't understand what makes a Municipio or what makes an
hacienda or even if there is a precise definition. Or what
distinguishes an hacienda from a Rancho.

In the US, the county generally existed first. But in Mexico the
smaller jurisdictions existed first.

There are also Parroquias, which have little if any relationship to
the civil boundaries. Parroquial boundaries were supposed by Catholic
law to be well-defined, so that the parishioners would not be confused
about who was responsible for their spiritual help. But there are many
kinds of parishes and there are parishes which aren't technically
parishes and a lot of other complications that are wearisome to read
about (See Catholicity in Google, keywords: parish, diocese).

So ...

How shall I describe a place in my database?

If my ancestor was christened in Rincón de Romos, I know that Rincón
de Romos the town is part of the Municipio of Rincón de Romos, which
is in the estado de Aguascalientes -- so I put

"Rincón de Romos, Rincón de Romos, Aguascalientes, México".

Easy enough. Right?

But it's not.

The Municipio of Rincón de Romos didn't exist until very recently,
sometime after 1900 I think. TODAY, Rincón de Romos is in Rincón de
Romos, but not in the 1800's. The pueblo was situated within the
Parroquial boundaries of San José de Gracia. So I might accurately put
(if I decide to use the parochial boundaries to describe the
location) ...

"Rincón de Romos, Parroquia San José de Gracia, Aguascalientes,
México".

For a lot of things that works fine. But civil jurisdictions for those
small villages is not so easy to define. I think there were about four
"regions" in Aguascalientes, but what was their structure or extent or
nature I do not know.

And to make it even more ambiguous, Aguascalientes as an estado was
not created until ... about 1880's? Before that there was no such
state but the region was called Aguascalientes or Aguas Calientes as
it was named I think from the catholic diocese of that name, but I am
really fuzzy about the details.

It would be great to have one of those maps like are available for the
US that show all of the boundaries and jurisdictions every 10 years or
so.

Then about 1905 (I have not been able to determine the precise date)
it seems that a new parish was formed and it was called Rincón de
Romos. It is hard to tell from the christening record films whether
there really was a Parroquia Rincón de Romos or whether it was just
that the Parish church for Parroquia San José de Gracia was in Rincón,
or maybe it was just that the records were eventually deposited there.
Today, both Rincón and San José are significant cities within their
respective Municipios which bear the same names.

And then there is another small town in the same area called San José
de Gracia that is not the same as the big one ... but that's another
subject.

I have searched the internet in vain to find out when the parishes of
San José de Gracia and Rincón de Romos were created. Does anyone know
this information? Seems like it ought to be part of Catholic church
history recorded somewhere.

If anyone has any insight on this topic I would sure like to hear from
you. To me it is still much of a big mystery. I am hoping this topic
generates some discussion and I'm hoping I might learn something about
Mexico's Place jurisdictions.

--
Best regards,
Stuart mailto:stuart-ranchos@comcast.net