The Major-Gavay Family of Hungary, Part 6

 

The Major-Gavay Family of Hungary, Part 6

In Part 1, some background information was presented on the Major and Gavay families of Szepsi, Abaúj-Torna, Hungary (now Moldava nad Bodvou, Slovakia) and surrounding towns. Part 2 provided some historical context in which our ancestors lived in old Hungary.  Part 3 covered the immigration of the Major and Gavay families to the U.S.  Part 4 has the genealogy of the Major family in Hungary and the U.S. Part 5 covers the genealogy of the Gavay family in Hungary and the U.S. Part 6 covers the DNA of the Major family in Hungary.

Genealogists depend on three kinds of DNA tests:

• autosomal DNA. Everyone inherits DNA from both parents. This is kind of test that can tell you something about recent ancestry, back a few hundred years. It measures DNA contributed by both parents (and their parents, and so on) and is very valuable in researching families back a few generations.
• Y-DNA. This is a test that only males can take. Males in inherit y-DNA from their father (and their father and so on). These tests can tell you something about the paternal line and can go back thousands of years.
• mtDNA. This a test that measures mitochondrial DNA, which is inside every cell.  Both males and females can take this test, BUT only females can pass the  mtDNA from one generation to the next. Which means that mtDNA can tell you something about your maternal line going back thousands of years.

 

autosomal DNA test contributions from both parents. Y-DNA tests only paternal line. mtDNA tests only the maternal line.
 

The Major-Gavay family is fairly well documented in the genealogical records going back about 200 years or so. The autosomal DNA tests can tell us something about distant cousins and other relationships.

 

Haplogroups

But to understand our Major-Gavay ancient origins, we would need to look at what is called the haplogroup. Think of a haplogroup is a kind of “tribe.” The haplogroup will not tell us much about individual family members, but can tell us something about where we came from. Haplogroups measure precise mutations in the DNA and can be traced back thousands of years to specific times when those mutations occur.

 

Only three testing companies can tell you the haplogroup: Family Tree DNA, Living DNA, and 23andMe. Only Family Tree DNA offer the Y-DNA and mtDNA tests. A few years ago, the National Genograhic Project (from the National Geographic Society) offered a haplogroup result, but the Project has been closed.

 

mtDNA Haplogroups

All mtDNA haplogroups are designated by a specific set of letters and numbers corresponding to mutations or branches in the mtDNA. These mutations can remain UNCHANGED for hundreds or thousands of years. If you take a DNA test, that mtDNA haplogroup number is the same that your mother has, and her mother and her mother, and her mother, back to whenever the mutation occurred…unchanged. mtDNA haplogroups are designated by seven distinct letters (the 7 daughters of Eve): U, X, H, V, T, K, and J. [1]

 

I took the National Genographic, Family Tree DNA, and Living DNA tests and they all tell me the same maternal haplogroup: U5b1c2b. That means I (and my mom and my sister…and my mother’s mother, and her mother, etc.) belong to tribe U with a mutation of U5 and another mutation of U5b, etc. arriving at U5b1c2b.  Geneticists know fairly precisely when these mutations occurred.

 

The last time my mutation, U5b1c2b occurred was about 6,000 years ago. The U and U5 haplogroups are very, very ancient. These haplogroups trace populations back about 40,000 years and is the oldest of the 7 mtDNA groups. They were stone age hunter-gatherers that lived on the southern fringes of the glacier during the last Ice Age. U5 populations were pushed back to western Europe and beyond by later populations of horsemen and farmers. [2]

 

All that means is that my maternal line goes back UNCHANGED for 6,000 years. My mom’s maternal line is Irish, so that means her maternal line could have been in Ireland for about 6,000 years. Archaeologists have dated skeletons throughout Europe and Ireland and my specific mtDNA is found amongst them, including a massive study recently that confirmed at least one Viking skeleton has the same haplogroup. [3]

 

So what does this have to do with Hungarian DNA and genealogy?

 

My DNA tests can trace our Hungarian male population back thousands of years, but there is no data on the maternal line. A daughter of my father’s female siblings (Jennie Major or Nancy Major) would have to take the appropriate DNA test to reveal our Hungarian maternal line, which would be the Gavay line.  A male Gavay would have to test to determine the paternal Gavay line.

 

 Y-DNA Haplogroups

Our Hungarian haplogroup is R-L260. More precisely, R1a1g2,L260.

 

What does that mean?

 

The haplogroup won’t tell you specific people, but it does trace the paternal Hungarian line from my father (Eugene) to his father (our common grandfather) (Eugene, Sr.), to his father (our common great grandfather) (Stephen, our common ancestor), to his father (our 2x grandfather) (Joszef), to his father (our 3x grandfather) (Stephen), and so on, back thousands of years. In addition, my DNA has 2.1% Neanderthal and 2.2% Denisovian, which is pretty typical of European populations (whether that percentage came from maternal or paternal DNA is impossible to tell. Both of my parents have deep European roots). 

The Living DNA test gives the haplogroup as R-Z283, which R-L260 is a subclass.

 

                                                                                We are in the light green area.
 

So, where did we Hungarians come from?

The DNA tests identify specific markers in the paternal (called Y-DNA, for the Y chromosome) DNA going back 60,000 years or more. These markers identify specific shifts of populations.  The R-L260 haplogroup indicates that we left Africa about 60,000 years ago and moved north through western and Central Asia. The population then turned west across the grasslands of Russia into Europe. There they met the Neanderthals and interbred with them. Our R-L260 ancestors lived a hunter-gatherer life style, which paved the way for the settlement of Europe.

                                        We are of the lines to the right of blue.
 

Check here for more information on the R-L260 haplogroup.

 

About 13,000 years ago, our tribe was amongst the settlers of Eastern Europe grasslands, which gave rise to the Slavs and the Magyars.

 

Linguistically, Magyars are not related to Slavs at all. The Magyar language is Finno-Ugric of the Uralic class of languages and not Indo-European. There are tons of studies on the origin of the Hungarian language see [4] for example.

 

But genetically, Magyars and Slavs share a common origin. The R-L260 line is most common in Slovakia and the Czech Republic and Poland.  If you look at the map of Hungary where our Majors came from, it was a region dominated by Slavs.  All this confirms that our male Hungarian heritage is deeply rooted on eastern and central Europe and has been for thousands and thousands of years. 

 

However, our maternal Hungarian DNA origins may be quite different from our paternal Hungarian DNA origins and only a test that also gives the maternal haplogroup will be able to tell us.

 

References

[1] Brian Sykes, The Seven Daughters of Eve: The Science That Reveals our Genetic Ancestry (New York: W.W. Norton 2001).

[2] Boris Malyarchuk, et al. “The Peopling of Europe from the Mitochondrial Haplogroup U5 Perspective,” PLoS ONE 5(4) e10285. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0010285

[3] Ashot Margaryan, et al. “Population genomics of the Viking world,” Nature, 585, (2020) 390-396.

 

[4] B. Csányi, et al. “Y-Chromosome Analysis of Ancient Hungarian and Two Modern Hungarian-Speaking Populations from the Carpathian Basin,” Annals of Human Genetics 72 (2008) 519-534.