How strange Liz that you should ask just a couple of days ago concerning African origin
nameholders because only today on the BBC News, there came an announcement from one of the
big pharmaceutical companies concerning Y DNA tests that they have been conducting here in
the UK..
It appears that the testers noted that one sample produced a result which showed clear
evidence that there were West African dna traces present in what seemed to be an entirely
Caucasian Yorkshire English family of a very unusual family Surname with roots known in
that County, way back over many generations!
Having double checked their results, to make sure there was no mistake, the company then
discreetly followed up with the sample provider to enquire if he knew about any mixed race
marriages in his genealogy. He declared that there was nothing in his family history to
suggest any contact with persons of West African origin at all.
With his permission, the company contacted some 26 other members of his Tree for DNA tests
and of these, another 17 showed the same gene pattern indicating West African input.
They are now attempting to rationalise when these DNA tracers came into this family which
seem to have been based on Yorkshire for many generations past.
Two schools of thought here, early slave Africans imported into the UK in the early
1700's OR maybe a much older connection via Roman occupation of Britain when they sent
at least one Legion here whos members were mostly of African origin, who it is thought
garrisoned up in the North of England to guard Hadrians Wall which was built to stop those
naughty Scots invading what was one of the most Northerly limits of the then Roman
Empire.
Regards Timcatt