With the encouragement of one of my most significant DNA matches, I signed up for Family Tree DNA’s ‘Family Finder’ test.

The Family Finder test uses autosomal DNA, that is dna inherited from both the mother and the father, four grandparents, eight great-grandparents etc., to provide a breakdown of your ethnic percentages. The test tries to connect you with relatives descended from any of your ancestral line within approximately the last 5 generations.

The results include genetic matches with relationship ranges, visual tools to show matching DNA, and ethnic percentages. The Family Tree DNA company will continue to update you about new matches and other information regarding your results as they collect more information in their database.

My results were somewhat surprising, but it is important to remember as you look at the results that you are being compared to other people in the existing database. Although my Finnish ancestors account for only 25% of my ancestry, about 90% of the matches that are shown for me are either people living in Finland currently or Americans descended from Finns. I have been in touch with only one potential ‘family member’ so far and she is an American, also descended from Finns who settled in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. I cannot find any connection between our families yet, although someone in her family married a Paavola which is one of my family names. I have no matches closer than a 3rd cousin relationship. So far I do not see anyone with any names remotely close to mine. I am assuming that for some reason, Family Tree DNA is popular with Finns, which is why there are so many Finnish profiles in the database.

My ethnic percentages were predictable: I am listed as 52.49% Western European and 47.51% European, the difference between these two groups being illustrated by a map  showing European as primarily ‘northeastern European’ — regions around the Baltic Sea, Finland, Poland, Sweden and Russia. There is a plus/or minus factor of 9.82% probable in these calculations, so I would estimate that I am roughly 50% Western European/Northeastern European. My Western European origins are described as French and Orcadian.

The Family Finder test offers a raw data file which contains your DNA results code (A,C, T, G, etc.) for each of the thousands of locations tested. This enables you to compare specific segments of DNA with others. I have not done this yet.

Because these files contain the results for thousands of SNPs, Family Finder autosomal DNA and X-Chromosome result files are large. They have been compressed for faster download but you have to search for a program on the internet for extracting the GZIP files. These programs are free of charge.

What is ORCADIAN??? That will be the subject of next week’s post.

Have you ever heard of a ‘nom de guerre’? A ‘nom de guerre’ is actually a pseudonym–a name that a person or group assumes for a particular purpose, which differs from his or her original name. Pseudonyms are most often used to hide an individual’s real identity. We are talking about writer’s pen names, stage names of actors and musicians, resistance fighters or terrorists, criminals. There can be many reasons why a person might want to use a ‘nom de guerre’. Some people even end up with ‘nom de guerres’ by accident!

I have a European friend who has an unusual name which is Turkish in origin, although he is not at all Turkish. He shared with me that this name is a ‘nom de guerre’. Evidently, his Jewish family from Rome, went into hiding on the island of Cyprus during World War II in order to escape persecution. When they arrived in Cyprus, part of their new identity included taking an alias name — a Turkish name so common that it is like ‘Smith’ in Turkey.

After the war, the family returned to Rome and took back their original surname. My friend, who was abandoned by his father, was left with this ‘nom de guerre’. No one thought about him as a child, whether or not he should have his original family name, so by accidental circumstance he has spent his whole life with this odd Turkish name which has no relation to him or his family roots.

For security reasons, many leaders during wars or civil uprisings have taken pseudonyms. Field Marshall Rommel was known as ‘the Desert Fox’ and very few people know that Stalin’s real name was Iossif Vissarionovitch Djougachvili. Some ‘nom de guerre’ were actually code names used during various resistance movements or civil uprisings.

Even more common is the use of pseudonyms by artists: Sting, Madonna, Bono, and Lady Gaga are but a few examples. Many authors have written under their ‘nom de plume’, especially when someone is ghost-writing a book or play. Authors who write in fiction and non-fiction may use pen names to avoid confusing their readers such as the mathematician Charles Dodgson, who wrote fantasy novels under the pen name of Lewis Caroll (Alice in Wonderland). The Bronte family used pseudonyms for their early work so that residents in their local communities did not know that their works related to the neighborhood people. The Brontes used their neighbors as inspiration for characters in many of their books.

Criminals may use aliases, fictitious business names, and dummy corporations to hide their identity or to impersonate other persons or entities in order to commit fraud.

I remember meeting a model once who introduced herself with her ‘nom de guerre’ as if I should know who she was. I thought this was a very presumptuous introduction and would have preferred being introduced to her by her given name.

Rupinski family members and I pose for a photo.

Many of you who have been following my posts know that I took a trip to Poland last April. I contacted a Polish genealogist and traveled with her to Kolonia-Osiek, a small town northwest of Warsaw about two hours drive, where we met with a family named ‘Rupinski’. From old documents, we think that this family may be related to my ‘Repinsky’ family: it looks like our great-grandfathers were brothers.

We went to visit this family on the day after Easter, knocking on their door without announcement. We were received warmly and additional family members were called to join us so that, in the end, we were quite a few people gathered around the modest living room of Janek Rupinski. They were very curious to see me, and hear the story about my great-grandfather Josef who immigrated to the U.S. They had also been expecting me, hearing from gossip in the village that there was an American looking for Rupinski family!

This year at Christmas, I sent a card to the Rupinskis with a photo of my family. I received a lovely letter in response which I just had translated today:

Dear Cousin:

At the beginning of my letter I would like to express my happiness of the fact that you decided to look for your roots and find the family. It is too bad that it is so late (since the emigration of your ancestor — meaning “It is so long since the emigration of your ancestor”), but maybe it is the way it was supposed to be. It is good that you got interested in your family history, as it is an important knowledge.

Now I would like to describe my life briefly. About 20 years ago I started my own family and two years later our son Pawel was born. As it turned out, Pawel was disabled. Today Pawel is seventeen and there is not any chance for him to recover. My line of family ends with me, Janek, and my wife, Bascia. God put us to such an experience and he must have a plan for us. At home our parents help us a lot, which we appreciate very much. So far, they are feeling well.

Now, I would like to ask you to tell us about your life, your activities, your family, your children and grandchildren. We would like to know what do they do, where do they live. Please, send us a photo of your family.

Since we are a family, we would like to keep in touch with you and share our joys and concerns. So, if you would like to correspond with us, we are awaiting your response. We would like to keep in touch with our family over the ocean. Maybe with God’s help we will meet again and sit at the table together.

In our tradition on Christmas, we share a Christmas wafer and exchange wishes. We are sharing with you a Christmas wafer and wish you most of health, fulfilling your deepest dreams with the help of Baby Jesus. May God bless you and the entire family, which we know a little about. Please write back and stay with God.

Rupinski Family from Kolonia-Osiek

A few weeks ago, I posted about mtDNA U3b and the predominance of this haplogroup among the European Roma populations. It is true that 55% of U3b is found in European Roma but U3bers are cautioned by Donald Locke, the administrator of the Romnichel Study Group at Family Tree DNA, not to jump to conclusions about Roma heritage based on U3b DNA alone. He recommends that male members of families be tested for South Asian Y-DNA traces or that autosomal testing be considered for South Asian influences.

I was curious about this and remembered that I had actually done testing with DNA Tribes, a group that assesses heritage through autosomal factors. Autosomal DNA testing is defined as a way to determine the ‘genetic percentages’ of a person’s ancestry from particular continents/regions or to identify the countries and “tribes” of origin on an overall basis. I went back to look at my results to see if there were any Indo or South Asian traces in my autosomal DNA.

I DO have percentages of DNA from North India, South India, Eastern India — but my largest percentages are from Arabia, North Africa, Levantine and Mesopotamia. DNA TRIBES remarks that Caucasian or West Eurasian populations are related to South Asian populations by virtue of their geographical proximity. European populations are descended almost entirely from Near Eastern populations. India contributes to the Near Eastern population at a rate of 21.8%. Thinking about these results made me realize that these are autosomal traces going back to the beginnings of time and the cradles of civilization for all of the world. Understanding this, I started wondering how unusual is it for anyone with European ancestry to have traces of dna from India or South Asia? Is it unusual at all? Perhaps most Europeans have traces of dna from these ancient civilizations.

Eating in Bhutan was a challenge. I think that most of the time, we were being served food that Bhutanese THOUGHT Westerners would want to eat. I don’t think that in reality we ate much that could be called ‘typical’ Bhutanese food. The only dish that I can think of that we saw at every meal which I will always think of as ‘typical’ Bhutanese fare would be a mixture of hot chili peppers with cheese called ‘ema datsu’ that is eaten as a condiment to other foods. My guess is that most Bhutanese food is so plain and bland, consisting mostly of rice, barley, corn or potatoes, that this condiment, the addition of the hot peppers mixed with farmer’s cheese to the bland grains, is necessary to provide any flavor at all.

Red chile peppers drying on the front porch of a teahouse.

All over Bhutan, we saw people drying peppers on their roofs! It provided us with ample colorful photo opportunities. Everywhere — we could snap photos of the drying peppers on the roofs or porches. We also saw merchants selling apples and vegetables on the roads, although I can’t say with any authority whether either of these are staples in Bhutanese diet although I read that these foods are part of the Bhutanese diet in warmer climates in the country. The nomads who live in the high mountains of the north depend on yak butter and cheese to provide them with important calories for staying warm. Having tasted ‘butter tea’, I am sure that I would perish in the highlands! Nepali dahl (lentils) is another food that is popular throughout Bhutan.

Roadside Apple Vendor

Remember that the Bhutanese people are Buddhist. That means that they do not kill animals. It does not necessarily mean that they do not eat meat, but what meat is found in Bhutan is most likely coming from India. Almost all of the meat that we were served, even chicken, was inedible. Beef or pork was so tough that it could not be chewed. The chicken was always chopped up in some way so that there were a lot of bones in it. I finally gave up on meat and ate primarily vegetables, rice, or noodles at every meal. Our meals were ALWAYS served with vegetables….especially cauliflower, broccoli and green beans. My over-riding impression is that this is a country where people eat to live; they don’t live to eat. Food was very bland and ordinary; meals were always the same. The bright spot in our day as tourists was the morning when eggs were sometimes served to order. I started eating two eggs every time I could, just to get some protein into my system. There were no sweets to remark on. If dessert was served, it was a fruit. I have to admit that I returned to the U.S. a couple of pounds lighter, probably from the combination of travel, bland food, and some heat deprivation. This trip was billed as a ’suitcase seminar’. The focus of the trip was learning about the country and culture, not spending time in luxury hotels and eating gourmet meals. On occasion we found hotels that offered wine. I have to say that the wine was terrible! Beer was a much more reliable choice if you wanted to have an alcoholic drink.

Hand-painted boxes discovered in a craft tent in Bhutan.

Probably the most interesting part of any tour to new country for me is experiencing the opportunity to see the local arts and crafts. I realize from my many years of collecting that I love folk art!

During one of our first days of touring, we visited a craft school where children were learning traditional Bhutanese arts and crafts. This was a good introduction to the array of items made in Bhutan. Traditional skills or crafts are defined as zorig chusum. ‘Zo’ means the ability to make, ‘rig’ stands for the science or craft, ‘chusum’ is thirteen — as there are thirteen traditional crafts recognized. Many of these practices have been gradually developed through the centuries and are often passed down through families with long-standing relations to a particular craft. We saw children learning to do traditional embroidery, called ‘tshenzo’, which means working with needle and thread on clothes, boots or appliqued ‘thangkas’ (religious wall hangings).  Other children were learning to carve masks, most often in the image of demons. Some were painting and drawing; others were working in sculpture.

We also visited a paper factory. ‘Dezo’ is the craft of making handmade paper, mainly from the Daphne plant and gum from a creeper root. While it was very interesting seeing how the pulp was boiled down and then transformed into sheets, I can’t say that I was very impressed with any of the end products. We were told that the workers were paid by the number of pieces that each one completed even though it was somewhat of an assembly line process. The woman who was smoothing out the initial sheets of paper from a tub of water looked like she had the most difficult job, with her hands in and out of water all day long. The sheets of wet paper were dried on large heated boards standing like over-sized ladders.

Young women doing traditional weaving in a local craft shop in Paro.

I regularly made the rounds of tourist stores featuring arts and crafts. One store we visited had a whole wall of young women working on looms, making traditional Bhutanese weavings. These weavings are mostly turned into ‘kiras’ — the traditional Bhutanese skirt for women. A kira is a length of fabric which is rolled around the body like a full-length skirt. It was in that store that I bought myself a traditional silk jacket worn by the Bhutanese women, along with the ‘under jacket’ which was a plain silk color to coordinate with the fancier top jacket — the collar and cuffs of the sleeves are pulled up and over the top jacket. I also bought a couple of smaller weavings similar to scarves in size.

My best find was two little painted wooden boxes. These wooden boxes are traditionally used for storing or transporting food such as butter or cheese. They are usually just plain colored balsam wood — but these boxes are painted in Bhutanese designs. I have them displayed on my bookcases.

Prayer beads are found in quantity in Bhutan. Many are new, but many are also old beads which I opted to buy. I have two sets that I will wear as they are — one is a string of turquoise beads and the other is a string of yellow/gold beads. I bought another two strings to take apart and use to make some authentic tribal jewelry. One set of beads is  made of carved yak bone and infused with turquoise and silver. The other is a string of dark beads with turquoise specks showing through.

Necklace made with Bhutanese prayer beads carved out of yak bone with added antique silver beads from India and natural stone.