Does our DNA come from our Ancestors (General)

by jhopkins , Tuesday, August 16, 2011, 10:49 (4852 days ago) @ ritpetite

Kia ora Rita

Perhaps you could have a look in your local library for books by Brian Sykes of Oxford University. They are a great read. His first in the series is Seven Daughters of Eve, wherein he traces mitochondrial DNA (the dna you get from your mum) back to seven hypothetical daughters of a hypothetical Eve. Mitochondrial DNA is very interesting because it is very slow to mutate, and because of the clarity of the record, he has been able to put people into seven broad families.

He did quite a bit of his original research when he was recovering from a motor bike accident in the hospital at Rarotonga - on Polynesian mitochondrial DNA because the hospital had lots of blood samples. A key result of his research has been to trace Māori origins back to Taiwan - thus confirming the navigational, archaeological, and linguistic record, so that part is of interest to us in our wee corner of the world.

There are other books by him, one of which looks at the likely demise of the Y Chromosome, thereby rendering us blokes redundant(A Future Without Men); and he posits some suggestions about why some women only bear sons, and some only daughters (I can't recall which book this is in). Finally, he looks at the DNA makeup of the British Isles (?and Ireland?), and comes to some conclusions based on DNA analysis about the predominance of Celtic genes not only in the Celtic countries, but also in England (book = Blood of the Isles).

I am sure you would enjoy reading his books - I found them very readable and darned exciting. You could have a look here http://www.oxfordancestors.com/ but an internet search for him brings up plenty of references. I think you will find an approachable way of learning about DNA and genetics through Sykes, because of the way he presents his material.

John