Ukraine: from the sublime (in the worst, archaic sense of the word) to the (slightly) ridiculous

...Oh, No. Here's where my head is right now. Thanks, @green18, for taking me here ...by however circuitous a route.

 

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BTW, did you see the Secrets of the Dead episode on the Vikings? It's available online, but I am not sure if it is now pay for view:

https://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/viking-warrior-queen/5180/

 

Thanks Lots for this, @robinjojo. I haven't had a tv in years, but when I did, it was like, 1) if there was nothing on PBS, it definitively meant that there was nothing on, and 2) Secrets of the Dead was The Go-To Show. I'm about to see what the link does.

 

(Expletive of choice: ) It (other expletive of choice) Worked! Thanks again, @robinjojo. I'm outta here for a minute.

 

Just to keep things numismatic, here's my most related coin, a very rare issue of the Khazars:

And my original write-up:
https://www.cointalk.com/threads/a-very-rare-coin-of-the-khazars.362251/#post-4586785

 

Like many other people I was sucked-in to getting my DNA analysis from Ancestry.com about 5 years ago. They determined that my DNA was 17% Baltics, 17% Eastern Europe & Russia, & 14% Germanic Europe. The link below is their take on Eastern Europe & Russia that I found very interesting .
https://www.ancestry.com/dna/origins/8A1981A8-7D5A-4A1F-87F6-6E794F17B595/ethnicity/2021_061/history

 

Hello @Al Kowsky
Your link, goes to a web page, that seems to require membership at www.Ancestry.com, to view the web page. I'm not a member of www.Ancestry.com, therefore I can't seem to view the web page.

 

Ditto here: I am 50% Celtic (Scot, Western Irish), 30% Germanic, and the remainder as Finnish (no, they are not Scandinavians)... whom were migrated from Central Siberia. That was a fun (cool unusual) find for me!

 

Many of the Cimmerian Kings of the Bosphorus were found in the Ukraine. Even reports of super rare Solidi of Leontius I 484-88AD.

 

I'm around 55% British Isles, 30% German and French, 10% Eastern European, 3% Ashkenazi, and 2% Middle Eastern/North African. That's according to 23andme.

 

sand, Sorry about that . I'll see if I can post a printout from my computer . See if this works....DNA Origins, Eastern Europe & Russia.pdf

 

Thanks Al. That worked.

 

My "ethnicity estimates" from Ancestry and Family Tree DNA are the same: 100% European Jewish, mostly Ashkenazi, with a smidgeon of very distant Sephardic ancestry. Not unusual for people in almost-exclusively endogamous populations like European Jews (given that for ca. 1,500 years it was illegal to marry Gentiles without converting to Christianity and thereby exiting the European Jewish genetic pool, and it was equally illegal for Gentiles to convert to Judaism) to have 100% ancestry from that ethnic group, all of whom are rather closely related for the last 1,500-2,000 years. From paper genealogy, I am half German Jewish, 3/8 Polish Jewish, and 1/8 Lithuanian Jewish. Nobody from Ukraine. My former father-in-law's parents were both from Ukraine (towns not too far from Zhitomir), immigrating shortly before World War I, so my son has 25% Ukrainian-Jewish ancestry.

 

Funny enough, I've got items that I've been waiting for coming from Ukraine via ebay seller since the ninth that just today showed up on usps in New York this morning! Even if they don't show up I will not be requesting a refund.
My wife donated $50 to Ukraine the day before yesterday. Anything you can do helps.
Here's what this mut is made up of via 23&me:

 

Here's a generic "European-American" for you:

 

I have never been tested

But my Dad when visiting my Grandfather back in 1990 in Germany. He went to the archives in Aachen to look back into our Family tree (his side/ from Jülich) Unless you are a "von" and therefore are titled under heraldry its harder to go back to the Medieval times. However he did find a "von Kannen" in 1814. Apparantly the title was lost? On my Moms side they came from Königsberg/ part of Brandenburg-Prüssen.
John

 

Many thanks, @Parthicus, for elevating the tone and for a terrific coin, along with the link to your enlightening thread. You sent me back to Gwynn Jones, History of the Vikings and Vernadsky, Kievan Russia. --Someone here turned me on to Vernadsky ...was it you?

 

@DonnaML, you're due a public apology for my comments earlier in the thread:
"Regarding nationalism generally, from here, the whole concept is reeking crap. A lot like 'race' --Show Me One other example, in mammalian zoological taxonomy, where the term is even used. Back to nationalism, it's kind of like, if you really descend from only one major ethnicity, keep your sons and daughters under lock and key. --For the sake of the rest of the species, because you're frighteningly inbred."
Whether or not this completely absolves me, I had an entirely different demographic in mind. ...Let's not go there, if we don't have to.
...I've had numerous adventures with commercial DNA companies, going back a decade or so. From here, the essential, opening caveat has to be that they are, after all, commercial. Meaning, for one, that their databases are mutually proprietary, and effectively tell you more about the extent, and limits, of their clientele than about the human genetic record at large. It's ultimately more a business than a science.
From memory, among the three companies I wound up giving my money to, all emphasized the predictable British Isles, northwestern European and Scandinavian elements. From there it kind of went into freestyle. Between them, they registered residual Sub-Saharan African descent, along with some Ashkenazi. (--'Residual' apart from, let's see, minor details like facial morphology, the cultural environment, and consequent personal experience. For one benign instance, the guy at the restaurant where I worked who liked to call me 'Cambodian' --he thought that was really funny.) At this level, they differed widely, not only between eachother, but from one month to the next, within the same company. At this interval, 23&me includes both. --But it's also worth noting that, even among the European groups, the various percentages have been no less volatile. Whether or not the science itself is still in its infancy, the commercial application sure makes it look that way.

 

That's because for populations that aren't as predominantly endogamous for very long periods of time as European Jews, the genetic differences among various geographically proximate European populations are negligible given how much migration and intermarriage there was over the centuries. French? German? English? Scandinavian? The distinctions are all rather arbitrary when it comes to autosomal DNA. The idea that people on one side of the Rhine are materially different genetically from those who live on the other side is absurd. Besides, the estimates tend to be based on the genetics of people alive today in these companies' databases who say their grandparents came from specific countries -- not on the genetics of actual remains from 1,000 or 2,000 years ago that were excavated in those countries. So the estimates don't really take the extensive migrations in intervening centuries into account.

 

Thanks for that, @DonnaML. From here, your emphasis on the inherent, methodological limitations of DNA companies is a welcome complement --which never occurred to me-- to mine regarding their databases.