Hungarians, Thracians, Arkels and Swaims

In my 19 June 2021 post I discussed the origin of the van Arkel coat of arms, which consists of two red horizontal lines with regularly-spaced, offset vertical projections, over a white or blank field. I quoted from a German named Blöte who repeated Dirck Pauw's story that the van Arkel line had descended from Trojans, but also stated that the van Arkel coat of arms represented two ladders covered in blood, representing the van Arkel bravery in war in forging ahead of the rest of the army when storming towns and castles, to place these ladders on the walls to enter the town or castle.

It's not clear to me how much of this Blöte actually believed, but the Frankish motif of descent from Trojans (as described Homer in the Iliad) is obviously not factual, since even if the Trojan War was a historic event, it would have happened a couple thousand years before the birth of the Johan Arkel claimed by Pauw to have been a defeated Trojan who left Pannonia for Frankfurt in 346 AD.Thus the van Arkels could not have literally been Trojans.

However, as I discussed in my earlier 21 September 2020 post, I don't think we should simply throw away the entire mythology of the van Arkel origin, because the Frankish Trojan origin mythology may have been grounded in factual history, though distorted and misunderstood through generations of oral repetition within a backgound of general historic ignorance.

In my 2020 post I was exploring a more current mythology that the Swaim/den Hartog paternal lineage was derived from the van Arkel lineage, specifically from the indivdiual named Otto van Arkel, an illegitimate son of the last of the van Arkel line to possess political power and great wealth, Jan van Arkel (-1428 Leerdam). The hypothesis that Willem Ottens was a son of Otto van Arkel is reasonable but isn't based on strong enough evidence to be accepted as a fact. I've proposed an alternative hypothesis that the father of Willem Ottens was Otto Gerrits van Oist, and I think the evidence is stronger for my hypothesis than for the competing hypothesis.

Willem Ottens was the progenitor of the lines that remained in the Netherlands and most often took the surname den Hertog (with many variant spellings), and of the line that emigrated to America in the person of Thys Barentsen and his son Anthony and generally took the surname Swaim (in many variant spellings). Sweym was a surname first used in the line by Jan Sweym Willems, a son of Willem Ottens. It apparently doesn't appear in print again until Thys Barentsen used it once in Holland shortly before emigrating to the New Netherland colony in America, and then in America was used from the early 1700's when the family was pressured by the English to adopt a surname rather than to continue to use the patronymic naming system.

There is no doubt that the Swaim/den Hartog line had some relationship to the van Arkel line. The Swaim/den Hartog line lived in and around the Land of Arkel from at least the time of Willem Ottens, and H. den Hertog mentions ….... suing van Arkel van Heukelom for property...... Also, some members of the family owned property and probably lived the 28-morgen Lang Nieuwland property that had been the van Arkel court and probably residence. This appears to have occurred through some relationship, probably intermarriage, between some of the Swaim/den Hartog line and members of the van Os family that were or had been lords of Blokland. But as it now stands, there is no strong evidence of close relationshp in the 1400's to the van Arkel family (although if Otto Gerrits van Oist was the father of Gerrit and Willem Ottens, he clearly had some relationship to Jan van Arkel van Heukeom since he ws inolved in Arkel's doomed scheme to invade Utrecht (and note that this particular Arkel didn't follow the supposed family tradition of leading the charge to the city walls, but instead sent van Oist and others instead to take that risk)).

Dirck Pauw's Kronijcke

Dirk Pauw wrote Kronijcke de Lants van Arckel Ende Der Stede Van Gorcum (Dirck Franckensz Pauw (Theodericus Pauli). Kronijcke des Lants van Arkel ende der Stede van Gorcum, proefschrift, Amsterdam. (archeologiegorinchem.com) ) which purports to tell the history of the van Arkel line from a point in the distant past in which they were nobles in the city or land of Troy. Pauw isn't a primary source document in regard to the early history of the van Arkel family, but he may have had access to oral sources and to written sources that no longer exist. But even if he only relied on older written sources, those sources might have had accurate some information now believed to be false, even if it's difficult to separate the accurate information from the false information. In other words, some things that Pauw relates might be true even if historians dismiss it—but the problem is that we don't know what was wrong and what was right.

Here's a translation of a part of Pauw's text, which I made using Google Translate which provided a mangled translation that I then had to clean up and rearranged to make sense (Pauw's Dutch used some German and Latin words, and in places in which complex thoughts were expressedwas I can't be certain of my translation—but most of the following is probably what Pauw meant):

“The noble lords of Arkel are true Trojans of the nobility of Troy, and after the Greeks had won at great cost the great city of Troy, in protest the nobles of Troy left from Troy and scattered to many countries. Some went with Eneas to Italy and founded the Roman Empire.

Another group of nobles, including Heyman, Prince of Dardania, and Joincus (i.e, Johan, lord of Arkel) went with Franchion and Anthonore into the lands of Pannonia and Hungary and built the city they named Sycambria, in which those nobles had many children and remained there until the years of our Lord's birth, which was 346 AD.”

In my 2020 post I probably mistranslated the next part of the text when I essentially said that Franchio, Anthonore, Arkel and Heyment left Pannonia to help the Roman Emperor Constans subdue rebellious subjects. Now I think the text probably means that the “Trojans” were in fact the rebellious subjects who refused to submit to Roman rule and pay tribute to Rome, so that this was why they left Pannonia. I can't be sure of this, but in any case they left Pannonia:

“And they went from Pannonia and came through Tyrol and and down the Rhine to the city of Franfurt and surrounding region. After that, in 388 they all sailed together across the Rhine into Gallium, which is now called France, and they fought many men in those lands and won.”

Okay, so obviously this story can't be taken literally as the biographies of the two individuals Heyman of Dardania and Johan Arkel. They Greeks and Romans apparently believed that Homer's Troy and Trojan War were tue historical facts, and no doubt Pauw believed that too. But regardless of whether Homer's story was based on some historical event, Homer was born in the 700's BC, which is more than a thousand years before the time Heyman and Johan were supposed to have been alive, and the supposed Trojan War would have been many centuries before Homer's time. So Heyman and Johan could not have been Trojans during the Trojan war.

But this doesn't mean that Pauw had fabricated this story entirely, or at all. He may have been relaying information that had been passed down orally for generations in the Arkel family, and contained a core of truth that had been embellished over time, as such family stories usually are (e.g., the story of origin of the name Swaim as an acronym regarding the family's participation in the American Revolutionary War in the late 1700's). If we approach the story from this angle, we can view it as the story of a family, or two families, over many generations that the story had conflated into one generation. Not all the detaills will be correct, but the core story might have been close to the truth.

Thus, the following elements can be view as true, or possibly true:

--The ancestors of Johan and Heyman came from a geographical location somewhere near a place called Dardania, as Heyman was supposedly a part of the elite of the society there. Johan must have come from the same general region, but may or may not have been a Dardania.

--The ancestors of Johan and Heyman left that region due to some military conflict they lost, relocating in Pannonia, which was a region partly synonymous with the region today called Hungary. There they built a city that may or may not have been called Sicambria; that name might be mythical. Their families lived there probably for generations, as they had many children.

--In the 300's AD Johan and Heyman were alive and living in Hungary, and in the 346 AD they left Hungary to go to Frankfurt in Germany. The reason they left is unclear, and the date of 346 AD is suspiciously specific for an even tthat happened that long ago. This date was probably Pauw's estimate as he tried to fit the events of the Arkel story into what he thought he knew of Roman history. It may be close to the correct dat eif the name of the Roman Emperor was part of the original story, but it's also possible that the name of Constans was also part of Pauw's effort to fit the story into the history of the Roman Empire. So we can't assume that date is correct.

--But in any case, Johan and Heyman traveled from Hungary to Frankfurt through the Tyrol and then down the Rhine. They later crossed the Rhine in 388 AD into France and there they fought battles and then settled and raised families. Again, this date might not be correct, and probably isn't correct if we're talking about the same Johan and Heyman, since crossing the Rhine into France took place 42 years after leaving Hungary. This would have made Johan and Heyman at least in their 60's or 70's, which was too old to be waging vigorous battles. But again, we may be talking not about the history of two people, but rather abou the history of their lineages.

So that's the basic structure of the story. What struck me about this story in 2020, and still does today, is how eerily similar it is to what we know about the earliest history of the Swaim/den Hartog lineage. These similarities, which I'll describe later in more detail, are consistent with the hypothesis of Otto van Arkel as the father of Willem Ottens, but there are other explanations as well, the simplest ofo them being that the Swaim/den Hartog immgirant ancestor was a relative or simply a companion-in-arms to the van Arkel immigrant ancestor, such that their stories from the earliest days were essentially the same. We could say that the Swaim/den Hartog ancestor was Heyman, although we can accept that as metaphorical rather than an actual fact.

I'll next give an overview of what we know of the earliest Swaim/den Hartog history, most of which comes from Y-DNA analysis.

The Swaim/den Hartog Y-DNA Haplotype

As I've mentioned several times, the Swaim/den Hartog haplogroup falls within the “E” branch of the Y-DNA metaphorical tree. Most Europeans fall within other branches, particularly “R,” “I,” “G,” and “J.” Unlike most of these other European haplogroups, the “E” branch is the most common branch in Africa, and the E Branch in Europe came out of Africa later than did the other branches, although all men and thus all haplogroups ultimately have their origins in Africa. The great majority of “E” in Europe is E-V13, which probably developed in Europe, though some believe it originated in thee Middle East and then moved into Europe through Anatolia and the Balkans.

“Haplogroup E-V13 displays a star-like network radiating from a central haplotype mainly found in the alkan population. This pattern, together with coalescence estimates, points to a recent and rapid expansion of the lineage in the Balkans. Not considering Bosnian Croats and Macedonian Greeks, for which standard errors are too large, the highest age for the Balkans, dating back to Mesolithic times, is found in Western Bulgaria (9.3 +/- 3 kya), indicates that haplogroup E-V13 was already present (if not originated) in Mesolithic times in Western Bulgaria from where it underwent expansion with the transition to farming.” (“Y-Chromosome Diversity in Modern Bulgarians: New Clues about Their Ancestry.” Karachanak et. Al, 2013).

“Despite being one of the most frequent haplogroups in modern Balkan populations, the origin of E-V13 are enigmatic. The earliest record of this haplogroup among historically attesteed groups is in BA-IA [Bronze Age-Iron Age] Bulgaria, suggesting an association with the people known as the “Thracians”. By the early Roman era, V-13 likely experienced significant demographic increase, as it appears at medium to high frequencies in reas where in the preceding Brone and Iron Age it was either very rare (Croatia, Hungary) or entirely absent (Serbia). An association of the exppansion of E-V13 with southeastern Balkan poppulations from the Thracian world is reinforced by one of the Avar-era outliers from Hungary, who is assigned to E-V13 and clusters with BA-IA populations from Bulgaria on the PCA [Principal Component Axis]...A Scythian from Moldova who also clusters close to Balkan IA populations and belongs to E-V13 also displays IBD-sharing with Bulgria IA. Oour findings support late Roman historical records which mention the presence of “Thracian” groups known as the “Bessi.” throughout the Balkans until the 6^th century” (“Ancient DNA Reveals the Origins of Albanians” Davranoglou et al; parenthetical material omitted).

(In this last quote, IBD means Identical by Descent, meaning that somoe of their autosomal DNA came from a common ancestor at some time in the past. In this context the authors are saying that the Scythian who was E-V13 in his Y-DNA shared some autosomal DNA with Bulgrians.)

So it appears from these genetic studies that E-V13 originated in the Thracians, whose population center at least in the historical era was located in and around today's western Bulgaria, altough it shouldn't be confused with modern Bulgarians who didn't expland into the Balkans until several centuries into the AD era. Modern Bulgarians will have a Thracian genetic component, but the early Thracians didn't have a Slavic genetic component.

When I first read the paper from which the last quote came, I went to Wikipedia to its aritcle “Thracians”. In that article was the following photograph, which I later found also in the Wikipedia article “Peltast”:

The caption on the photo in the latter article is: “A peltast with the whole of his panoply (on a red-figure kylix)” A kylix is a ceramic drinking cup, and a peltast was a Thracian light infantryman. The clothing this peltast is wearing is a long cloak called a zeiras, which were usually “decorated with a bright, geometric pattern.”

Here's a close-up of one of the patterns on this peltast's keiras:

And here's a photo of a the pattern found on the van Arkel coat of arms:

These patterns are obviously the same, and in fact would be even more similar in the Middle Ages when patterns were not printed with machine accuracy but were hand-painted.

So does this prove anything? No, but it certainl suggests that Dirck Pauw might not have simply fabricated his story on the very early van Arkel lineage. Is it a coincidence that Pauw stated Heyman was named “the Dardanian” and that Dardania was just adjacent to Thrace, and that “there were Thracian names in the eastern strip of Dardania...” (Wikipedia “Dardani”), and that the van Arkel coat-of-arms pattern was probably a common Thracian art motif?

Dardania

Roman province of Dardania:

By PANONIAN - Own work. Based on data from published sources and web sources. See References below., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7732068

“Dardanai is named after the Dardani, a tribe that lived in the region and formed the kingdom of Dardania in the 4^th century BC. The eastern parts of the region were at the Thraco-Illyrian contact zone. In archeaological research, Illysrian names are predominantly found in western western Dardania (present-day Kosovo), while Thracian names are mostly found in eastern Dardania (present-day south-eastern Serbia).” (Wikipedia “Dardania (Roman province”). This article also says that name analysis “suggests a 'Thracianization' of parts of Dardania.” Thrace was adjacent to Dardania on the east.”

E-FGC11450

E-V13 branched off into two sub-branches, one of which is fairly small, the other of which (E-Z1057) is larger. E-Z1057 itself branched into two further sub-branches, one of which is E-CTS1273. E-CTS1273 then divided into a few more sub-branches, one of which is E-BY3880. E-BY3880 then further branched into ten sub-branches, one of which is E-Z5018. E-Z5018 then branched off into about nine sub-branches, one of which is E-S2979. E-S29799 then branched off into a handful of sub-branches, including E-FGC11457. E-FGC11457 then branched off into three sub-branches, one of which was E-FGC11451. E-FGC11451 then branched off into three sub-branches, one of which is E-FGC11450.

E-FGC11450 is the sub-branch of E-FGC11451 to which the Swiam/den Hartog line belongs. E-FGC11450 itself branches off into further sub-branches, but is onen of the branches that is often discussed, so we'll discuss it here. It's a branch that's pretty close to the Swaim/den Hartog terminal haplogroup, and is of course relatively small in numbers compared to all the larger branches above it from which it branched off.

But first I'll explain what a “branch” is. All branches are sub-branches of a arger branch, until we reach the trunk, which probably no longer exists but existed tens of thousands of years ago.

he names of the branches, such as E-FGC11450 are names of single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), which are the Y-DNA genetic units used to create the haplogroup tree. A SNP is a “germline substitution of a single nucleotide at a specific location in the genome that is present in a sufficiently large fraction of the population (gnerally regarded as 1% or more).” (Wikipedia “Single-nucleotide polymorpism”). For our purpose the exact meaningn doesn't matter; what matters is that the SNPs used in happlotyping mutate at a relatively constant rate, such that the Y-DNA SNPs that a person has can provide a history of of that man's line, and from this a SNP tree can be created, which is the haplogoup tree.

Every man has the SNP of his youngest branch and also of every branch that came before him. Thus, a person with the SNP/haplogroup E-FGC11450 must necessarily also have the SNP E-FGC-11541, E-FGC11457, E-S2979, and so on, up to the metaphorical “Y-chromosome Adam.”

When I first took FTDNA's Y-DNA SNP test (“Big-Y700”), I was placed in the haplogroup E-FGC11450. This was because at that time no one else had been tested who was also in my sub-branch of E-FGC11450. I had several “private” SNPs, which are SNPs that didn't match those of any other test-taker, and one or more of those SNPs would neccesarily be ones that I shared with, e.g., the other Swaims and den Hartogs if one of them ever tested their Y-DNA SNPs, but there was no way to know which SNPs would match until some other Swaim/den Hartog or some less-close man took the test.

Finally anotheer man who matched me at a sub-branch of E-FGC11450, and this placed the two of us in a sub-branch between that of E-FGC11450 and whatever SNP/branch defines the Swaim/den Hartog haplogroup. This man's earliest known paternal ancestor lived in Emelia-Reggio in Italy and was born about 1550. This is useful information but doesn't necessarily mean that the Swaim/den Hartog line had ever lived in Italy. This is because FamilyTreeDNA (FTDNA) estimates that the common ancestor of this match and I lived in about 787 BC, although it could have been as recently as 515 AD. This means that in 787 BC a man was born who had at least two sons, one of which became the progenitor of the Italian match's line and one of which became the progenitor of the Swaim/den Hartog line. Although in these early times most people remained in the vicinity of the placce in which they were born, usually for many generations, it's always possible that eventually the one or more descentants of one or borth of the two lines would leave the region and move somewhere else. This may have occurred here, but we have a good idea of this until further matches show up. Interestingly, however, it was in the 700's BC that the Greeks started to colonize the shores of the Mediterranean, particularly that of Italy since it was quite close to Greece. Thus, the Swaim/den Hartog line may have remained in Greece, while the Italian line emigrateed to Italy. In that case, the Swaim line might have never lived in Italy.

The Italian match and I are in haplogroup E-FT389281 accordingn to FTDNA, but in haplogoup E-Y257534 according to YFull. These represent two different SNPs, but in this case both of us share both of these SNPs. The reason one company uses one SNP to define the haplogroup while the other uses the othre SNP is because one SNP was discovered by FTDNA and the other was discovered by Yfull. The letters in the name of each SNP respresent the name of the coumpany or organization that discovered the SNP, and “FT” stands for “Family Tree DNA” while “Y” stands for Yfull. Each company wants to define the SNP by using “its” SNP, so this created this situation. It's confusing, but in the end the SNPs can be considered identical for our purposes.

Another match with a more recent common ancestor than the Italian match did show up within the last year, but the man taking the test didn't disclose the country of origin of his earliest known ancestor. He did of course probably know this information, even if his earliest known ancestor was his father, but he dhose not to disclose it and so it's of little use to us. Our common ancestor was born about the year 141 BC and as late as 1070 AD, so he was considerably more recent than the Italian match's common ancestor. The earliest known location of his ancestor would be of great interest, but we may never know it and I have no way of contacting him. However, his testing did at least provide a more recent SNP/haplogroup, which is E-FT388654. This match didn't submit his data file to Yfull, so we have no YFull information on him.

YFULL SNP matches

E-FGC11450 was formed about 3400 year ago, plus 1000 years or minus 800 years (4400-2600 years ago). This would be about 1400 BC, which interestingly would have been about 200 years before the Trojan War took place, assuming its historicity; but of course this means nothing.

Each of the matches below belongs to E-FGC11450. This means that the common ancestor of all of these men (and me) was born in about 1400 BC. However, I share a common ancestor with some of them who lived later than that, and this is reflected in the number of SNPs that I share with each match. I share 30 SNPs with the Italian match, but the most I share with any of the others is 22.

The country show is the country in which was born the earliest known ancestor (EKA) of that match. This is the most important data because it shows us where the various descendants of the common ancestor ended up—and as you can see, not all of them stayed in the homeland of the common ancestor. As we've seen, the homeland of E-V13 was probably Thrace in southeastern Balkans, and this may also have been the homeland of the E-FGC11450 common ancestor.

EKA Country          EKA Name          Shared SNPs

Italy                       Giacomo Prati              30

Bulgaria                  Goran                          22

Albania                     NA                              22

Turkey                      NA                             22

Italy                          NA                              22

Austria                  Johannes Kindler          22

Hungary              SRS6609010 (Arpad)     22

Ukraine                  Panas Tytarenko          22

Russia                      NA                              22

Russia                      NA                              22

Russia                      NA                              22

Russia                      Siderov Arkhipov         22

Russia                      Timofei Kobyzev          22

Russia                      Vasilly Ivanov              22

USA (England?)      Cullen Rutlland             22

Sweden                  Magnus Fransson          22

Sweden                  Henrik Jansson             22

Finland                  Ipat Haimakainen          22

Germany                  Jochim Lucht              21

Norway                  Kristoffer Veientajet     21

Albania  (x3)              NA                           21

Finland                  Ivan Osipov                 21

Gemany                  Johann Ehlers            20

Norway                     NA                             20

Norway                  Veientajet                  20

Hungary                  ERS9945186              20

Germany                  Johan Schuetz          20

Albania (x6)              NA                          20

Poland                      Pawel Miklasz          20

Poland                  Michal Kuczmierowicz 20

Scotland                    Folds                          20

These E-FGC11450 SNP matches come from the following countries:

Bulgaria

Albania

Italy

Turkey

Hungary

Austria

Germany

England

Scotland

Ukraine

Russia

Poland

Sweden

Finland

Norway

Noticeably absent are Greece and other Balkan countries other than Albania. This may be due to selection bias, since FTDNA's Big-Y 700 test costs $449, which is probably too expensive for most people in poorer countries. On the other hand, FTDNA's Y-37 STR testing is only $119, so while there are many Greeks who bought one of the STR testing levels, there may be many fewer who bought the much more expensive SNP test. The average salary in Greece in 2021 was 16,235 euros, compared to Germany's 47,700 euros per year.

But then how does that explain so many Albanian matches, when the average Albanian salary is about 7000 euros? This is because somone in Albania had initiated a DNA project and probably paid for all or most of the tests. This not only increases the number of people willing to take a test, it actively recruits people to take the DNA test. This is massive selection bias, and for this reason we can't simply look at the nmbers from a particular country and take those numbers as evidence that as there are more matches from a particular country, that must be the country in which the haplogroup formed.

In other words, we can't assume that these results are random. If we tested a thousand randomly selected individual in each country in the world, then we could probably use numbers from each country as an indication of something. But these countries can't be assumed to have been randomly selected.

With that out of the way, how did E-FGC11450 end up in so many countries throughout Europe? He firs thing to keep in mind is that since all of the sub-branches of E-FGC11450 branched from E-FGC11451 at about the same time, about 3400 years ago, the most common recent ancestor of all of these matches except for the Giacomo Parti match lived around 1400 BC. This doesn't mean that in 1400 BC the ancestors of all these men suddenly dispersed througout the world; rather, the dispersals could have happened much later and at different times rather than all at once. Three thousand four hundred years is a long time for people to wander away from home.

Still, most lineages probably remained near the place they were born because the extended family or clan offers safety from predatory outsiders and the comfort of familiarity. Thus, many lineages remain in the same region for thousands of years.

One event which might have spread E-FGC11450 into many of these countries was through the Greek colonizations of the 700's BC and later. The Greeks formed colonies all along the shores of the Mediterraneann and Black seas. Over the millenia, some of the descendants of these Greek colonists could have moved northward from the Black Sea into Russia and Ukraine, and from there to Poland and Germany and the Nordic coutnries.

Another event could have been via the Roman army, in which many Thracians served. These Thracians could have been stationed in England, Germany, France, and other countries, and raised families who remained in those countries.

In my extended DNA matches that I developed from FTDNA's STR matches, I have some Greek matches whereas in this list I have no Greek matches. This could be due to the selection bias I mentioned earlier, or it could be possible that the Swaim/den Hartog line originated in, say, Thrace rather than Greece, but that their descendants later moved from Thrace to Greece for the relative safety and opportunities provided by the Byzantine Empire compared to the rural Thracian countryside.

It's also possible that E-FGC11450 originated in the western Balkans rather than the eastern Balkans, and this is why it's found in Albania. It's very difficult or impossible to determine such things because the Balkans and Hungary have had a very turbulent history for thousands of years, being repeatedly invaded by various groups of people. Even just one E-FGC11450 individual could wander into a given region and then give birth to a very large lineage of descendants.

The Hungarians

The two Hungarian matches on the list are special because neither were living people who recently took DNA tests; rather, both were long-dead indviduals who died in Hungary and whose bones were removed from their graves or mausoleums and tested. This is and especially useful type of testing because unlike with living people, we know exactly where these people died and therefore where they probably lived.

From these two samples we know for certain that E-FGC11450 was present in Hungary during the Middle Ages. ERS255992 09010 was born about 1000 AD, and SRS6609010 was found in the Royal Basilica of Szekesfehervar, which served as the burial place of the medieval kings of Hungary, along with the body of King Bela III (1145-1196) and eight other bodies. The E-FGC11450 who was found in the Royal Basilica was not an Arpad as the Arpad Y-DNA haplogroup was found to be in the R haplogroup. His identity and relaionship to the Arpad royal family are unknown, but because he ws buried in the royal burial ground, he was obviously somehow related to the royal family.

This does not mean that he was an paternal ancestor to the Swaim/den Hartog line. He could not have been, because the most recent common ancestor of the two lines lived around 1400 BC. However, where there were two E-FGC11450s there may have been others. These two E-fGC11450 Hungarians were not in the same sub-branch of E-FGC11450, so there's no reason to believe that a third haplogroup--the Swaim/den Hartog haplogroup—couldn't also have been also lived in Hungary at that time.

The reason I'm placing emphasis on the Hungarians is, first, that we know for certain that at least two members of E-FGC11450 lived in Hungary; one from about 965 and the other of an unknown age, but possibly from about the same time, although possibly from as late as 1200. Second, according to 23&Me I have a small amount of Central Asian DNA (which I shared with all of my South African autosomal DNA matches) and the most likely reason that we would have such non-European Steppe DNA would be through potential Hungarian ancestors. Thos ancestors were not necessarily in my paternal Swaim/den Hartog line but could have been. I'll discuss this Central Asian DNA a bit later. Third, there were several marriages between Hungarians from the royal Arpad family and Western European (and Eastern European) nobility. As I'll show later, some of the descendants of these marriages are my supposed ancestors such as van Couwenhoven, van Swalmen, and so on. If I received my autosoal Central Asian DNA from one of these matches it would probably not have come through my paternal line, and would therefore not be evidence of the paternal line living in Hungary. But it would be possible that a member of the paternal line had accompanied to Western Europe an Arpad princess who married one of the Western European nobles—and that paternal ancestor may have remained in Western Europe and married a Western European. This is, however, only speculation.

Dirck Pauw wrote that the Arkel line came from Hungary (“Panooyen ende Ungarijen”), living there for some time before after leaving “Troy”. That was supposedly in 346 AD, but on various online and crowdsource family trees there's also the notion that the van Arkel line, in the form of Heijman van Arkel (940 Hungary-1008 Arkel) came from Hungary sometime in the late 900's after serving with Emperor Otto I “the Great.” But without explanation Heijman van Arkel's father was supposedly Jan III Heijmansz van Arkel, born in Lorraine (presumably Pierrepont). This may have come from Dirck Pauw, who wrote that in 973 AD Heyman van Arkel left Otto I's service, kidnapped an East Frisian woman who became his wife, and brought her to Holland where he was given lordship of Arkel. However, Pauw didin't say that Heyman van Arkel had been born in Hungary or had even fought with Otto I against the Hungarians, which would have been in 955. But even if Heyman had fought in the Battle of Lechfeld against the Hungarians, that battle had taken place near Augsburg in Bavaria, not in Hungary, and after he had won the battle Otto I had not followed the Hungarians into Hungary. So if Heyman van Arkel had been born in Hungary before or around 950 he must have been a Hungarian and would have either been too young to fight in the Battle of Lcchveld or if he was old enough would have fought against Otto.

It's possible that Heyman van Arkel was a Hungarian emissary or hostage during negotiations between Hungary and Otto I, but I've seen no evidence of this (although I haven't looked into it very deeply).

In the end, without DNA evidence that we don't yet have it's probably impossible to know the truth about the origin of the van Arkel family, and even if it had been Hungarian that doesn't mean that he was necessarily E-V13 let alone E-FGC11450.

The van Arkel line is a mystery, but the Swaim/den Hartog line definitely originated in the southern Balkans. Historically it wouldn't be surprising to find Thracians in Hungary because the Avars, who ruled Hungary after the Huns and before the Hungarians (Magyars), had moved masses of Thracians into Hungary. This is possibly how the two E-FGC11450 Hungarian SNP matches ended up in Hungary, but it could have been through any number of other ways.

“Populations of largely unadmixed palaeo-Balkan ancestry persisted in pockets in other regions of the collapsing Roman Empire as well. Two samples from Early Avar Pannonia (550-650 CE) cluster with populations from Iron Age Bulgaria and Greece on the PCA, a relationship corroborated by f3-statistics...and IBD-sharing. Such outliers may affirm historical reports of the Avars undertaking mass resettlements of Roman subjects from the area of Thrace towards their Khaganate in Pannonia “.( 72135368 (biorxiv.org))

Y-DNA Extended Matches

In my 2020 post mentioned earlier I also presentd my attempt at determining “extended” Y-DNA matches. FTDNA only provides a list of Y-DNA matches who fall within a certain range that FTDN calls the “genealogic time frame” which it defines as being within 15 generations. Its reasoning is that further back than 15 generations there's unlikely to be any documentary information to allow genealogical researuch, Although this may generally be true, there are many cases in which it isn't, and also this rule makes non sense for Y-DNA because here is still much that can be learned about one's ancestry through Y-DNA without documentation about any individuals.

So what I did was to look through FTDNA's Y-DNA “projects” to look for individuals whose STR profile was close to that of mine. I then determined the “genetic distance” between our STR profiles, which is basically just counting the difference in STRs (although in fact it's more nuanced than that). From the number of difference in STRs time time in the past to the most recent common ancestor can be calculated. In 2020 I applied a simple formula to determine the distance in time to the most recent common acnestors for dozens of distant matches, and from these determinied that the Swaim/den Harot line must have entered Western Europe from the Balkans in about 350 AD, which was astonishingly close to Dirck Pauw's date of 346 AD as the year when Joohan Arkel and Heyman the Dardanian left Hungary for Frankfort.

The process of determing dates using STRs is fraught with various problems and possibilities for error, and SNPs rather than STRs are superior for this purpose, but as I mentioned earlier a lot more men have done STR testing than SNP testing because of the much higher expense of SNP testing.

Here's information from a chart a provided in the 2020 post, showing the most recent appearance of various Balkan (non-Western) countries of my extended STR matches:

Greece 350 AD

Hungary 375 BC

Bulgaria 375 BC

Albania 375 BC

acedonia 455 BC

Turkey 855 BC

Serbia 935 BC

From this chart we can clearly see that Greece was the most recent country from which I could find extended matches in the Balkans (or elsewhere outside of Western Europe). Hungary, Bulgaria and Albanai tie for a distant second place. Since a man from Greece was the most recent match (in terms of a common ancestor) from outside of Western Europe,this indicated that it was from Greece that my immigrant ancestor must have come. As I mentioned earlier, this might not be true because the ancestors of that Greek might have migrated into Greece from further north long after the immigrant ancestor had left for Western Europe, but there's no way to determine the likelihood of that without a great deal of more data.

After this time I found more extended matches, so that the full chart now looks like this:

In this list I've only placed those who had the STR named DYS390 at a value of 23, which is the Swaim/den Hartog value but is a minority value for E-FGC11450. In other words, I'm using DYS390 = 23 as a possible signature of the Swaim/den Hartog line to distinguish it from non-Swaim matches, although my use of this is of uncertain value because I don't know how far back was the mutation to the value of 23 from the original value of 24. Interstingly, the Hnngarian from the Royal Basilica also had a DYS390 value of 23, but when I calculated the genetic distance from the 16 available STRs I came up with a value of 35 STR differences in 111 STRs, which would be a date of our comon ancestor as either 850 BC using an 80.33 year mutation rate or 30 AD using a 55 year mutation rate. Either way, he would not have been a close relative in autosomal terms if we assume he was alive from about 900-1200 AD. But in his line thee DYS390 value of 23 rather than 24 could have occurred independently of that in the Swaim/den Hartog line.

Regarding the two different MRCA date estimates, these vary according to which “MRF” is used, which means the number of years between mutations. The 30.33 MRF comes from my calculation of the rate of mutation of the known den Hertog match from Holland (calculated from the probable number of generations between him and Willem Ottens, who was known to have been born around 1435). This figure is generally aligned with other genealogical MRF estimates. The 55 MRF rate comes from an average of the following actual Swaim matches:

Swaim 111-STR Match: 42

Swaim 67-STR Matches: 50.9

Swaim 37-STR Matches 74.7

(The unweighted average is actually 55.9, so I'm not sure why I didn't use 56 rather than 55, but I'm not going to recalculate all the values now as this is well within any standard of error)

This average Swaim mutation rate is much faster than in the literature, but the above rates are in fact the actual rates at which the Swaim Y-DNA STRs mutated, from the known ancestor Willem Ottens. As I have a couple dozen known Swaim rates and only one den Hertog rate, I'm listing both rates for the time to most recent common ancestor for each each match.

Antoniou from Greece is the most recent match from the Balkans, so the immigrant ancestor must have occurred sometime on or after his year of birth but before that of the first match in Western Europe, Sparr/Spahr from Switzerland. Thus, by my estimates, the immgrant ancestor would have lived sometime between either 270-350 AD (80.33 MRF) or 840-890 AD (55 MRF).

A date of 270-350 AD would place the immigrant ancestor within the period of Roman rule in its Western European provinces, implying that this ancestor was a Roman legionaire who remained in Western Europe.

The later date of 840-890 AD would place the immigrant ancestor within the early Middle Ages. We can't say that he came from Greece rather than Italy, because we don't know whether Antoniou's ancestors had always lived in Greece or whether and when they might have moved there from elsewhere. Either location is historically plausible, because Greece at this time was of course an integral part of the Byzantime Empire, and here was commerce and communication between both the Byzantime Empire and Western Europe and Italy and Western Europe.

In the above chart, there's a Schultz and a Sulc. Sulc is the Czech form of Schultz, so at least once branch with this surname probably emigrated to Bohemia, probably as part of the Ostseidlung migration of ethnic German and Dutch settlers into the eastern areas of the Holy Roman Empire, beginning in the 1100's. Several of my autosomal Dutch DNA matches share Slavic matches with me indicting that we are all descendants of some of these Ostseidlung settlers (although some of these Slavic matches may have come through later marriages as well from those not part of the Ostseidlung).

Hungarians in Western Europe

A couple months ago my daughter reminded me that 23&Me Ancestry Composition estimate said that both she and I a small amount of Central Asian ancestry. She supposedly has 0.3% Centrl Asian and I supposedly have 0.4% Central Asian. My daughter inherited this supposed Central Asian DNA from me, but until this time I had tried to determine the source of this DNA. I have no known ancestors from anywhere in Asia, but of course DNA I hadn't looked into the source of this DNA because it was unlikely I'd ever be able to identify the specific ancestor it came from. But now I decided to see what I could discover about this ancestry, even if I could never identify the that specific ancestor.

Here's 23&Me's current estimate of my ancestry:

DNA testing companies estimate ancestry by comparing the DNA of reference populations to the DNA of their clients, and since different companies use different reference populations and use different algorhythms to determine ancestry, the results will differ. Furthermore, ancestry estimates change through time even from the same company, as more individuals are added to the reference populations and the algorhythms are refined. Also, a testing company may be more certain about various components of your ancestry than it is about others, so that it may be nearly certain about some of your ancestry but only moderately certain about others. As its default setting, 23&Me's “Chromosome Painter” tool is set at the 50% confidence level, which is relatively speculative overall. The above screenshot is from the chromosome painter at the 50% confidence level.

But I wanted to know how certain was 23&Me about my Central Asian ancestry, so I set the tool to the 90% confidence level:

At a higher level of certainty my estimated amount of “British and Irish” ancesty took a nosedive from 52.7% to 14.5%, probably because DNA from the British Isles is so similar to German/French/Low Country DNA that there's a great deal of uncertainty when trying to distinguish DNA from these places. My supposed “Spanish & Portuguese” and “Angolan & Congolese” ancestry disappeared comopletely, but my “Greek & Balkan” ancestry remained unchanged and my “Central Asian” DNA remained, though reduced by 0.1%. So it appears that 23&Me is confident that my Central Asian ancestry is truly Central Asian.

This Central Asian ancestry is one segment of DNA located on one of the two pars of chromosomes for chromosome 4, at genomic position 111501785-1317237791. Here's a screenshot of the two chromosomes for chromosome 4 at the 90% confidence level:

The light blue color of the entire lower chromosome and most of the upper chromosome is “Northern European” DNA. On the upper chromosome from left to right is the color pattern Light Blue-Gray-Dark Green-Gray-Dark Blue-Light Blue. The light blue of the first half of the chromosome and last third of the chromosome isis again Northern European; the other colors mean:

Gray:                Unassigned/No Data Available

Dark Green:    Central Asian

Gray:                Unassigned/No Data Available

Dark Blue        Broadly European

I'm pointing this out because although 23&Me is saying that only the one dark green segment is Central Asian, we can see that this segment abuts on both ends segments that 23&Me can't identify; we can surmise that the Central Asian and Unassigned segments actually all one segment from one ancestor, and this ancestor may have been Central Asian or some associated associated DNA. At the lower confidence level 23&Me calls these unassigned segments as Northwestern European, but clearly there's uncertainty associated with these segments abutting either end of the Central Asian segment.

When I first tested with 23&Me, the company estimated that I had trace Japanese ancestry. It was extremely unlikely that I actually had even a trace amount of Japanese ancestry, and indeed at the next ancestry composition revision my supposed Japanese ancestry disappeared. I never checked to see on what chromosome my supposed Japanese ancestry was on, or when 23&Me first estimated that I had Central Asian ancestry, but my guess is that the supposed Japanese ancestry was from this chromosome 4 segment, and that 23&Me had obtained new Asian reference population samples that allowed it to understand (no doubt correctly) that I had no Japanese ancestry, which was instead Central Asian. At first I was also skeptical about having Central Asian ancestry, but now I believe it makes perfect sense and, as the reader can no doubt guess from the title of this post, probabl has somehting to do with Hungarian ancestry.

There are two reasons I believe that this Central Asian genetic component came through Hungarians. The first is simply that it's the most efficient explanation for its presence in pre-1600 Western Europe. The second is that there's proof of a connection to the royal Arpad family probably from about 900-1200 AD of a man from the Y-DNA subclade E-FGC11450, to which I (and thus the paternal Swaim/den Hartog line) belong. This man was not closely-enough related paternally to be have been an ancestor, but the existence of this subclade in the Hungarian population implies the probable existence of others from the same sub-clade also in that population at that time.

There are two primary ways in which Hungarian DNA was most likely to have entered into the Western European gene pool. The first is through wartime rape by Hungarians in Europe. How common this was seems to be unknown, but it certainly must have occurred at least somewhat during Hungarian raids into Western Europe, and probably happened frequently at times. The below map from the Wikipedia aritcle “Hungarian Invasions of Europe” shows Hungarian raids in Europe during the 800's and 900's

By hu:User:Csanády - Hungarian Wikipedia: w:hu:Image:Kalandozasok.jpg, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4399509

The second way Hungarian DNA could and did enter into the Western European genepool was through the marriage of Western European noblemen to women from the Hungarian royal family, which occurred after the 955 defeat of the Hungarians by the army of Otto the Great; once the Hungarians had accepted Christianity they were integrated into the newly formed Holy Roman Empire and political alliances sealed with marriages.

What is Central Asian DNA?

Here are the geographical regions that 23&Me defines as Central Asian in terms of DNA:

The "Not Detected" statement means that although 23&Me believes this DNA segment to be Central Asian, it can't narrow it down to a more specific regions within Central Asia.

Central Asia has a very complicated genetic history due to the various waves of nomadic horse-riding populations that passed through and settled in the area. The Wikipedia article “Kazakhs” says about Kazakh DNA that “Ethnic Kazakhs were modeled to derive ~63.2% ancestry from an East Asian-related population, specifically from a Northeast Asian source sample (Devil's Gate 1)...”

The article's link to “Devil's Gate” leads to the article “Chertovy Vorota Cave.” This article says that genetic analysis of human remains from the Chertovy Voronta Cave [Deveil's Gate] were found to be related to a few popuations including “contemporary Koreans” and for Devil's Gate 2 “Korean, Japanese [populations].”

Here's the approximate location of the Chertovy Vorota Cave, showing how close it is to Japan and Korea:

                                    Google Maps

So this probably explains why at first 23&Me thought I had Japanese ancestry. This small segment of DNA probably did most closely resemble Japanese DNA until 23&Me had a larger reference population of Asians, at which time 23&Me was able to redefine the DNA as Central Asian rather than Japanese.

During the 300's and 400's AD the ancestors of the Hungarians moved from the area of the Ural Mountains to an area between the Volga and Don rivers, which which was controlled by the Khazar Khaganate. In the early 800's the Hungarian Basin was controlled by the Avar Khaganate. The Hungarians under Almos and his son Arpad, together with the Turkic-speaking Kabars, conqured the Avars and Onoghurs and integrated them into their population, and in 895 entered the Carpathian Basin (Hungary).

               By Fakirbakir - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17096731

                                                           Migraiton of the Magyars to Hungary

Hungarian Marriages in the Holy Roman Empire

Duke Mihaly (940-997), son of Prince Taksony, married Adelajda of Poland, daughter of either Duke Ziemomysl of Poland or of Mieszko I, Prince of Poland.

Laszlo the Bald (-1029), son of Mihaly, married Premislava Vladimirovna of Kiev

Geza, Prince of Hungary, married Adelajda of Poland after his brother Mihaly's death

An unknown daughter of Prince Geza marrived Gavril Radomir son of Samuil, tsar of the Bulgarians

An unknown daughter of Prince Geza married Pietro Ottone Orseolo (Otto Orseolo), Doge of Venice (989-1031)

King Istvan I of Hungary (Stephen I)(967-1038) married Gisela of Bavaria, daughter of Heinrich II of Bavaria and Carinthia

Hedvig, daughter of King Stephen I of Hungary, probably in 1009 married Eberhar IV, Graf in Zürichgau, son of Mangold I of Zürichgau

Another Hedvig, daughter of one of the Hungarian kings, may have married Edmund of England, son of Edmund Ironsides, King of England

Geza I, King of Hungary (1044-1077), son of King Bela I, married Sophie of Looz (Loon), daughter of Emmo, Count of Loon.

Hedvig, sister of King Bela of Hungary, married Adalbert Markgraf of Austria (-1161), son of Leopold III, Markgraf of Austria

Istvan Arpad (1147-1172) married Agnes of Austria, daughter of Heinrich II, Duke of Austria

Bela III, King of Hungary (1149-1196), son of Geza II, King of Hungary, married Marguerite de France, daughter of Louis VII King of France and Constanza de Castille y Leon

The above marriages were taken from the MedLands (fmg.ac) website and thus can be considered reliable. These and other marriages, and the subsequent marriages of their descendants, resulted in Hungarian DNA being dispersed throughout Europe. It's also possible that when a Hungarian princess was sent to a Western European country to marry a noble there, she was accompanied by a retinue including men, relatives or not, who might also have married or otherwise had children in Western Europe.

In any case, the Geni.com family tree shows the supposed descents of many of these marriages, and whether accurate or not in every detail, these descents do show how Hungarian DNA could be dispersed into the population. The following are some genealogies of from the Geni.com tree, although I make no claim about the accuracy of any of them.

However, the Geni tree thas recently eliminated the the speculative and fictitious members from the Hungarian royal family, including the Khazar ancestry that it had previously shown. This isn't really important for our purposes, however, because Hungarians themselves have have Central Asian ancestry. The Wikipedia article “Hungarians” says about the genetics of Hungary that “modern Hungarians formed from several historical population groupings, including the historical Magyars, assimilated Slavic and Germanic groups, as well as Central Asian Steppe tribes (presumably Turkic and Iranian tribes....Historical Magyar genome corresponds largely with the modern Bashkirs, and can be modeled as ~50% Mansi-like, ~35% Sarmatian-like, and ~15% Hun/Xiongnu-like.”

Thus, modern Hungarians and no doubt Hungarisns from a thousand years ago, did have extensive Central Asian ancestry, and so it's probable that if I do have Hungarian ancestry, that this is where my Central Asian DNA came from.

However, it might not have come throught Jutta Praet von Randerath, because her marriage to Johan van Broeckhuysen might itself be fictitious. In the Geni tree there's no real source cited for their marriage to each other, and while the fmg.ac website does verify her existence, it doesn't say anything about who she might have married or whether she'd had any children. Thus, for now this marriage has to be considered fictitious. This means that any Hungarian ancestry that I might have must have come through some other person or persons.

Sources of Hungarian DNA

The introduction of Central Asian ancestry into the Germanic-speaking countries must have been relatively rare before 1500's. One possible source could be from the Hun invasion in 451 led by Attilla, which pushed deep into Gaul, including Metz and Orleans passing close to Paris and Troyes. None of the sources that I've briefly scanned mention rape, but it's hard to believe that any invading army of this period didn't engage in widespread rape as well as murder and plunder. Therefore, this invasion of Huns must have left behind some Hun DNA in Western Europe. This can't be discounted as the source of the chromosome 4 DNA (nor as a source of the Swaim/den Hartog paternal lineage, which may have entered Western Europe just at this time, which is something I'll discuss later).

Another possible source of Central Asian DNA in Western Europe was in the early 900's when the Hungarians penetrated deeply into Europe, including as far as Bremen in 915 and later into Saxony, Lotharingia, France, Basel, Alsace and Burgundy, Luxembourg and Spain. The Hungarians were in part descendants of the Huns, now including Khazars, and again these invasions must have left a genetic signature in Western Europe.

A third source of potential Central Asian DNA is essetially a subset of the second source. In 955 the Germans led by Otto I defeated the Hungarians at the Battle of Lechfeld, south of Augsburg. The Hungarians lost 5,000 fighters and afterward not only no longer invaded Western Europe, but alos the royal Arpad family soon began marrying daughters into the noble families of Europe.If my Central Asian DNA came through a Hungarian ancestor during one of the Hungarian military raids on Western Europe during the early 900's, or through one of Atilla's raids in the mid-400's, then it's extremely unlikely that there'd be a record of it. Even if the woman who gave birth to a child of a Hun or Hungarian was noble, it's unlikely that this fact would ever find its way into print. However, after the Hungarians had been defeated by the Germans and had been Christianized, they merged into the Holy Roman Empire and Hungarian DNA found its way more peacefully into the Western European genome through marriages of Hungarian royal females to a few Western European nobles. I'll discuss a few of these marriages, using the fmg.ac website to verify their authenticity, and then give some examples of how Hungarian DNA might have been passed down to me, and also more generally to other people relevant to families living in Holland and the Land of Arkel in the 1400's-1600's.

Hedwig Arpad's Marriage to Mangold I, graaf von Zurichgau (von Nellenburg)

The Geni.com tree shows that Mangold I von Zurichgau married a daughter of Stephen I, King of Hungary (969-1038) and Gisela of Bavaria (985-1065). Gisela of Bavaria was a daughter of Henry II, Duke of Bavaria (951-995) and Gisela of Burgundy.

he Wikipedia article “Stephen I of Hungary” makes no mention of a daughter named Hedwig, or of any daughter at all. It quotes a source called the Illuminated Chronicle that stated that Stephen I had “many sons,” but doesn't mention whether that chronicle mentioned any daughters. It's possible that Stephen I had many sons but no daughters, but it isn't likely. And even if Stephen I had “many” sons, the Wikipedia aritcle states that only two are known by name.

Charles Cawley's “Foundation for Medieval Genealogy” website, fmg.ac, says that Manegold von Nellenburg was the “possible” son of Burkhard, count of Zürichgau. It also says that the “name of Manegold's wife is not known.” So if the identify of Manegold's wife is not known, then it could have been Hedwig, but in order to put Hedwig in the empty space in the family tree we need some positive evidence that it was her, not merely evidence that it could have been her.

But in the section on the Arpad dynasty of Hungary, we find that there actually is some positive evidence that Manegold's wife might have been Hedwig Arpad: “According to the early 12th century Vita Eberhardi, the mother of Eberhard Graf von Nellenburg (son of Eberhard IV Graf im Zürichgau) was a daughter of István I [Stephen] King of Hungary, although it is somewhat surprising that such a prominent figure as King István, in far off Hungary, would have married his daughter to an obscure Swiss count. The Annales Scafhusenses record the marriage in 1009 of "Ebbo comes de Nellenburc" and "consobrinam Heinrici regis Hedewigam…de curie regis". If "consobrinam" is here used in its precise sense, Hedwig would have been the daughter of one of the sisters of Gisela, daughter of Conrad I King of Upper Burgundy. Hedvig founded Kloster Pfaffenschwabenheim as a widow. If she was the daughter of King István, there is a remote possibility that she was the same daughter who supposedly married Edmund ætheling (see below), although if this is correct she would have been much older than her second husband. This supposed Hungarian origin appears unlikely, given Hedwig’s property holding in Rheingau mentioned in the following document: “Comes Eberhardus cum domina Hadewiga matre sua” founded Kloster Pfaffen-Schwabenheim bei Kreuznach with his mother’s property “im Rheingau” by charter dated 1034 (1009)….”

This means that there was actually a documentary source stating that Stephen I did have a daughter named Hedwig who did marry a von Nellenburg. Although Cawley is skeptical that Stephen I would have married high daughter to such an “obscure” Swiss count, I don't consider that skepticism completey valid because although von Nellenburg might be obscure to us today, he might not seemed obscure to Stephen I. In his section on the Nellenburg family Cawley quotes from various documents in which Holy Roman Emperor Otto I granted property a property to the Zurichgau/Nellenburg family and other properties to church entities in their lands, so the family can't have been all that obscure to Otto, and perhaps not to the Hungarians, either, if one or more members of the family had fought the Hungarians alongside Otto I. Furthermore, the website quotes from a document that stated that in 987 “king Otto” (given the date, presumably HRE Otto III) gave property to Manegold (Managoldo comiti). There is clearly a connection between the Ottonians and the von Zurichgau/von Nellenburg family.

It isn't made explicit in the fmg website, but it appears that the early counts named Gerold in the Counts of Thurgaus section and the early counts named Gerold in the Counts of Zürichgau section are from the same family, and that Manegold and the counts of Nellenburg are their descendants. Many names are the same and the Ottonian kings are mentioned in relation to both, which is probably because they were related to them. A count of Thurgau named Udalrich VI (AKA Outzo), who died in the 950's, had a son named Burchard who was in one document called “nepotem meum” (“my nephew”), “referring to Emperor Otto.” Furthermore, Udalrich VII, the grandson of Udalrich VI, is stated in a document to have “fought in the war of Emperor Otto I against the Hungarians.”

In the Wikipedia article “Burchard III, Duke of Swabia”, Burchard III (915-973) is said to have been “the count of Thurgau and Zürichgau” (and then Duke of Swabia) and that Burchard “was an intimate of Otto....” Is this the same Burchard II (d. > 968) listed in the fmg Counts of Zürichgau section who was “Graf im Zürichgau 963/965”? I think that it is, or that he was a close relation.

The counts of Zürichgau begin with two counts named Gerold who seem to be descendats of the counts of Thurgau name Gerold, and and are succeeded by their descendants, among a few other two counts of Zürichgau named Eberhard. Eberhard III is confusingly called “Graf im Thurgau 957/971” even though he's in the Counts of Zürichgau section. Then in the Counts of Nellenburg section there's Eberhard, graf of Nellenburg. It isn't specfically stated, but seems clear that the counts of Nellenburg directly descend froom the countrs of Zürichgau, who in turn seem to descend from the counts of Thurgau, and appear to somehow be related by marriage to Otto I and his descendants, the two families often interacting.

Manegold von Nellenburg, who the Geni.com tree says was married to Hedwig Arpad the Hungarian, was a son of Eberhard, Count of Nellenburg. Given the close connection of Manegold's family to that of the Ottonian Holy Roman Emperors, and the connection of the the Ottonians to the Hungarians, whom Otto I had crushed in battle, and who thereafter became Chrisitan and tied themselves to the Western European nobility, I don't think that Manegold von Nellenburg can be called and “obscure Swiss count.” If the von Nellenburg family was related to the Ottonians, the Holy Roman Emperors, such a marriage would probably have been seen by the Hungarian royal family as quite suitable, particularly when ancestors of that family had been among the warriors who had defeated their ancestors at the Battle of Lechfeld.

So we have a document, the “Life of Ebehard,” that states that the mother of Count Eberhard von Nellenburg had been the daughter of king Stephen I of Hungary. That document apparently didn't give her name as Hedwig, however. Then we have the document “Annals of Schaffhausen,” which came from a monastery in Schaffhausen in Switzerland and “...tell of the marriage of the count Eberhard von Nellenburg as well as the foundation and consecration of the monastery.” (Historical sources: Werk/408 (geschichtsquellen.de) ). This document for year 1009 states: “In this time the count of Nellenburg married a cousin of King Henry on his mother's side named Hedwig, from the king's court.” (MGH SS 5 (dmgh.de) ).

By King Henry, this document probably meant Henry II (973-1024) who was Holy Roman Emperor from1014. Gisela of Bavaria was the sister of Henry II, and Gisela was married to Stephen I of Hungary. Thus, a daughter of Stephen I would actually be Henry II's niece rather than his cousin.

The mother of Henry II was Gisela of Burgundy, so the children of her siblings would be Henry II's cousins in his mother's line (consorbrina). If the Geni tree is correct, none of those children of Gisela of Burgundy's children was named Hedwig, and none was married to Eberhard von Nellenburg.

It's likely that the monks of Schaffhausen who wrote the Annals probably didn't know the correct relationship of Henry II to the woman named Hedwig, and may simply have called her a cousin simply to mean someone closely related. Given the uncertainty and paucity of information in those times, when every printed document was handwritten, this is no surprise. Accurate information was hard to obtain, and exactness in defining family relationships apparently wasn't expected when writing documents. A similar issue is that of the Dutch word neef, which was used to me cousin as well as nephew.

Thus, it's fair to say that we have one document stating that Eberhard von Nellenburg's mother was the daughter of Stephen I of Hungary, and another stating that his wife was named Hedwig and that she was closely related to Henry II. These two statements don't contractict each other anyway because one is about Eberhard's mother and one is about Eberhard's wife. Both are possible, but neither says that Eberhard's mother was named Hedwig.

The Geni.com tree says that Eberhard was married to Hedwig von Egisheim (von Metz) (990-1044), but the reference is to Eberhard von Sponheim rather than Eberhard von Nellenburg. The wife of Eberhard von Sponheim was in fact named Hedwig, but she was apparently a daughter of Eberhard von Nellenburg, not his wife. Thus, this entry is incorrect and should be ignored.

Taking all of this together, we have one source saying that Eberhard's mother was a daughter of Stephen I of Hungary, but without naming her. We have no documents contradicting. The fmg.ac website gives documentary evidence providing the probability that Manegold was Everhard's father; thus, Manegold must have married Stephen I's daughter.

This is problematic, however. Manegold died in 991 whereas was born about 975 and died in 1038. Thus, Manegold couldn't have married Stephen I's daughter and that daughter couldn't be Everhard's mother. We don't know when Eberhard was born, but we know that he died between 1030-1034. Therefore, it's possible that he married a daugher of Stphen I. He would likely have been significantly older than she was, but that appears to have been common among the nobility in the Middle Ages. This would be conssistent with the statemenn in the Schaffhausen Annals, although as mentioned, Hedwig would have been Henry II's niece rather than cousin. It would however be inconsistent with the “Life of Eberhard,” which stated that it was Eberhard's mother who had been the daughter of Stephen I. The writer of that could simply have been mistaken as to which von Nellenburg had married Hedwig (if that was her name).

Taken altogether, even though the evidence is conflicting, it seems possible that Eberhard von Nellenburg was married to a daughter of Stephen I of Hungary. But it's not a certainty.

Felicite d'Oupeye

Felicie d'Oupeye, the wife of Dirck van Oist and potentially the grandmother of Otto Gerrits vaon Oist who is potentially the father of Gerrit Ottens and Willem Ottens, joins the list of descendants of Stephen I of Hungary and Gisela of Bavaria.

Felicite d'Oupeye (~1350)

Adelheid van Lummen Oudenaarde (1325-1379)

Arnold van Lummen van Oudenaarde (1290-1340)

Lodewijk II van Lummen, heer van Marcke en Chaumont (1260-1312)

Arnold van Lummen, heer van Oudenaarde en de Marcke (1230-1283)

Mathilde van Limburg van Lummen (1205-1261) Castle Burg in Lummen?

Frederik van Limburg (1180- )

Sophia of Saarbrücken (1148-1214) County of Saarbrücken

Mathilde von Sponheim (1117-1181)

Meginhard von Sponheim (1093-1155)

Stephan II von Sponheim (1065-1118)

Stephan I von Sponheim (1020-1070)

Hedwig von Nellenburg (978-)

Eberhard IV von Nellenburg (975-1034)

Hedwig Arpad (?)

Stephan I, King of Hungary (969-1038) married to Gisela of Bavaria (985-1065)

Reinoud IV, Duke of Jülich (Gulik) and Guedlders (Gelre)

Reinoud IV duke of Jülich and Guelders (1365-1423)

Wihelm VIII von Jülich (1327-1393)

Wilhelm I von Jülich (1299-1361)

Gerhard V von Jülich (1256-1329)

Wilhelm IV von Jülich (1212-1278)

Mathilde van Limburg (1183-1234)

Walram III von Limburg (1165-1226)

Sophia of Saarbrücken (1148-1214)

Mathilde von Sponheim (1117-1181)

Meginhard von Sponheim (1093-1155)

Stephan II von Sponheim (1065-1118)

Stephan I von Sponheim (1020-1070)

Hedwig von Nellenburg (978-)

Eberhard IV von Nellenburg (975-1034)

Hedwig Arpad (?)

Stephan I, King of Hungary (969-1038) married to Gisela of Bavaria (985-1065)

Count Gerhard IV von Jülich

Gerhard IV von Jülich (1256-1329)

Wilhelm IV, Count of Jülich (1212-1278)

Mathilde von Limburg (1183-1234)

Walram III von Limburg (1165-1226)

Henry III of Limburg (1133-1221)

Matilda of Saffenberg (1112-1145)

Margaretha von Schwartzenberg (1097-1134)

Enbelbert von Schwartzenberg-Sponheim (1080-1125)

Richardis von Sponheim (1060-1151)

Engelbert I von Sponheim ( -1096)

Siegfried I von Sponheim (1000-1065)

Hedwig von Nellenburg (978-)

Eberhard IV von Nellenburg (975-1034)

Hedwig Arpad (?)

Stephan I, King of Hungary (969-1038) married to Gisela of Bavaria (985-1065)

Bernhard IV zur Lippe

Bernhard IV zur Lippe (1366-1415)

Simon III zur Lippe (1340-1410)

Irmgard von der Mark (1308-1361)

Mechtilde von Arenberg (1286-1348)

Katharina von J ülich (1247-1287)

Wilhelm IV, Count of Jülich (1212-1278)

Mathilde von Limburg (1183-1234)

Walram III von Limburg (1165-1226)

Henry III of Limburg (1133-1221)

Matilda of Saffenberg (1112-1145)

Margaretha von Schwartzenberg M(1097-1134)

Enbelbert von Schwartzenberg-Sponheim (1080-1125)

Richardis von Sponheim (1060-1151)

Engelbert I von Sponheim ( -1096)

Siegfried I von Sponheim (1000-1065)

Hedwig von Nellenburg (978-)

Eberhard IV von Nellenburg (975-1034)

Hedwig Arpad (?)

Stephan I, King of Hungary (969-1038) married to Gisela of Bavaria (985-1065)

Van Couwenhoven

Even if the marriage between Johan van Broeckhuysen and Jutta Praet is fictitious, I could still have Hungarian DNA through my van Couwenhoven ancestry, assuming the New Netherland van Couwenhovens were the noble van Couwenhovens.

Gerrit Wolphertse van Couwenhoven (1610-1645)

Wolpher Gerretse van Couwenhoven (1479-1662)

Gerrit Jans van Couwenhoven (1516-1604)

Jan Willemsen van Kouwenhoven (1495-1550)

Cunera van Lynden (1445-1495)

Goswijn van Lynden (1382-1445)

Steven van Lynden (1346-1400)

Dirck III Halfheer van Lynden (1290-1368)

Dirk II Steven van Lynden (1250-1300)

Margareths Praet van Randerode (1227-)

Lodewijk I Praet van Randerode, heer van Boxtel (1185-1279)

Beatrix von Ahr Nuerberg (1150-1247)

Ulrich von Ahr-Hochstaden (1130-1197)

Hedwig von Sponheim (1089-1130)

Stephan II von Sponheim (1065-1118)

Stephan I von Sponheim (1020-1070)

Hedwig von Nellenburg (978-)

Eberhard IV von Nellenburg (975-1034)

Hedwig Arpad (?)

Stephan I, King of Hungary (969-1038) married to Gisela of Bavaria (985-1065)

Schenk van Nydeggen

I could also have potentially received it through a Schenk line that's linked in Geni to the Schenk van Nydeggenn line. Once again, I don't know that this link has ever been proven.

Joseph Filmore Swaim (1852-1926)

Elisabeth Miller (1829-1924)

Elizabeth Kline (1709-1880)

Phoebe Nevius (1766-1845)

Peter Rolofse Nevius (1727-1804)

Roelof Martense Schenck (1619-1704)

Maria Margareth von Bockhorst (1590-1688)

Anna von Everstein (1578-1607)

Anna von Lippe (1551-1614)

Katharina von Waldeck-Eisenberg (1524-1583)

Philp III von Waldeck (1486-1539)

Phlip II von Waldeck (1486-1539)

Volrad I von Waldeck (1399-1475)

Heinrich VII von Waldeck (1367-1442)

Heinrich VI von Waldeck (1340-1397)

Otto II von Waldec (1307-1369)

Adelheid von Kleve (1292-1320)

Dietrich VI von Kleve (1256-1305)

Dietrich V von Kleve (1226-1275)

Aleidis Heinrich von Sponheim Heinsburg (1234-1293)

Heinrich von Sponheim, heer von Heinsburg (1212-1259)

Gottfried III von Sponheim (1175-1223)

Gottfried II von Sponheim (1149-1183)

Gottfried I von Sponheim (1130-1159)

Meginhard von Sponheim (1093-1155)

Stephan II von Sponheim (1065-1118)

Stephan I von Sponheim (1020-1070)

Hedwig von Nellenburg (978-)

Eberhard IV von Nellenburg (975-1034)

Hedwig Arpad (?)

Stephan I, King of Hungary (969-1038) married to Gisela of Bavaria (985-1065)

Van Swalmen

Otto Orseolo, 27^th doge of Venice (993-1031)

Grimelda Arpad, daughter of Grand Prince Geza of Hungary ( -1026)

Frozza Adelheid Orseolo (1015-1071)

Ernst von Babenberg (1027-1075) Tulln, Austria

Justizia von Babenberg (1060-1120) Tulln, Austria

Adelheid von Wolfratshausen (1084-1126) Wolfratshausen, Bavaria

Gebhard III von Sulzbach (1105-1188) Sulzbach

Adelheid von Sulzbach (1146-1189)

Arnold IV von Kleve (1160-1201) Duchy of Kleve

Beatrix von Kleve (1170-1246) Duch of Kleve

Jutta Praet von Randerath (1198-1247) Boxtel

Seger II van Broeckhuysen van Swalmen (1242-1286) Swalmen

van Couwenhoven

Otto Orseolo, 27^th doge of Venice (993-1031)

Grimelda Arpad, daughter of Grand Prince Geza of Hungary ( -1026)

Frozza Adelheid Orseolo (1015-1071)

Ernst von Babenberg (1027-1075) Tulln, Austria

Gertruid von Babenberg (1066- )

Arnold II van Este van Wachtendonk (1090-)

Diederik van Este van Wachtendonk

Agnes van Wachtendonk (1150-1203) Lienden, Guelders

Willem I van Lynden (1166-1227) m. Christina van Brederode (1118-1211)

Floris II van Lynden (1197-1347)

Dirck I van Lynden (1220 Lienden – 1367 Middelburg, Zeeland)

Dirck II Steven van Lynden (1250 Ommeren – 1300 Utrecht)

Dirck III Halfheer van Lynden (1290 Ommeren – 1368 Beesd)

Steven van Lynden III (1346-1400) Hemmen

Goswijn van Lynden (1382-1445) Hemmen

Cunera van Lynden (1445-)

Jan Willemsen van Couwenhoven (1495 Schoonhoven – 1550 Ammerstol)

Gerrit Jans van Couwernhoven (1516 Couwenhoven, Utrecht – 1604 Amersfoort)

Wolfert Gerretse van Couwenhoven (1579 Amersfoort – 1662 New Netherland)

Jean III de Walcourt

Otto Orseolo, 27^th doge of Venice (993-1031)

Grimelda Arpad, daughter of Grand Prince Geza of Hungary ( -1026)

Frozza Adelheid Orseolo (1015-1071)

Ernst von Babenberg (1027-1075) Tulin, Austria

Gertruid von Babenberg (1066- )

Arnold II van Este van Wachtendonk (1090-)

Diederik van Este van Wachtendonk

Agnes van Wachtendonk (1150-1203) Lienden, Guelders

Willem I van Lynden (1166-1227) m. Christina van Brederode (1118-1211)

Christina van Lynden (1198-1254)

Willem II van Strijen (1215-1285) m. Elizabeth van Arkel (1417-1263)

Willem III van Strijen (1232-1285) m. NN van Randerode (1231-1290)

Beatrijs van Strijen (1247-1273)

Diederik van Gavere (1221-) Gavere?

Isabeau van Gavere (1315-1384)

AlIsabelle de Loon d'Agrimont (1335-)

Jean II de Walcourt de Rochefort (1358-1377) m. Felicite d'Oupeye

Jean III de Walcourt de Rochefort (1377-1408)

In this case descendants of Walcourt de Rochefort could have Hungarian DNA and d'Oupey DNA, but descendants of d'Oupeye and Dirck van Oist would not have Hungarian or Walcourt de Rochefort DNA through this line.

tto Orseolo, 27^th doge of Venice (993-1031)

Grimelda Arpad, daughter of Grand Prince Geza of Hungary ( -1026)

Frozza Adelheid Orseolo (1015-1071)

Ernst von Babenberg (1027-1075) Tulln, Austria

Gertruid von Babenberg (1066- )

Arnold II van Este van Wachtendonk (1090-)

Diederik van Este van Wachtendonk

Agnes van Wachtendonk (1150-1203)

Willem I van Lynden (1166-1227) m. Christina van Brederode (1118-1211)

Christina van Lynden (1198-1254)

Willem II van Strijen (1215-1285) m. Elizabeth van Arkel (1417-1263)

Hugeman Willemsz van Strijen van Zevenbergen (1263-1340)

NN Hugemansdr van Strijen van Zevenbergen

Arnout Vastraetsz van Ghiessen (1265-)

Vastraet III Arnoutsz van Ghiessen (1294-1350)

Arnoud Vastraetsz van Ghiessen (1335-1403)

Lodewijk Aertz van Ghiessen (1369-1414) Hendrik Ido Ambacht – Altena NB m. Yda Loukin Florisdr van Dalem (1375-1414) (Yda's GGF was Laurens Herbarensz van Heukelom (1306-1331) m. to NN Florisdr van Cuyl van Kijfhoek)

Ronilda Lodewijksdr van der Ghiessen (1410-1475) m. Roelof Jansz Cranendonck (1410-1482) Ridderkerk

Gerrit Roelofsz Cranendonck (1435-1514) Ridderkerk

Adriaen Gerritsz Cranendonck (1470-1538)

Pauwel Adriaensz Cranendonck (1520-1567) Ridderkerk

Adriaen Pauwelsz Cranendonck (1567-1646) m. Arienantje Cornelisdr van der Ghiessen (1580-1627) Sandelingen-Ambacht

also son of Ronilda:

Ronilda Lodewijksdr van der Ghiessen (1410-1475) m. Roelof Jansz Cranendonck (1410-1482) Ridderkerk

Pieter Roelofsz Cranendonck (1450-1502) m. Jnneke Lodewijksdr van Ghiessen (-1502)

also son of Lodewijk Cornelis' line:

Lodewijk Aertz van Ghiessen (1369-1414) Hendrik Ido Ambacht – Altena NB m. Yda Loukin Florisdr van Dalem (1375-1414) (Yda's GGF was Laurens Herbarensz van Heukelom (1306-1331) m. to NN Florisdr van Cuyl van Kijfhoek)

Aernt Lodewijk van Ghiessen (1398-1470)

Lodewijk Aerntsz van Ghiessen (1430-1502) m Soetke Willemdr Wijt (1430-1502)

Cornelis Lodewijksz van Ghiessen (1475-1522) m NN

Anthonis Cornelisz van der Ghiessen (1500-1562) m NN

Cornelis Anthonisz van der Ghiessen (1530-1587) m. Niestken Cornelisdr van Driel (1540-60)

Van Arkel

And then there's the van Arkel lines, from which probably most of my DNA matches descend one way or another.

,

Otto van Arkel (1400-1475)

Jan V van Arkel (1362-1428)

Otto I van Arkel (1330-1396)

Irmgard von Kleve (1307-1362)

Otto I von Kleve (1274-1310)

Dietrich VI von Kleve (1256-1305)

Dietrich V von Kleve (1226-1275)

Aleidis Heinrich von Sponheim-Heinsburg (1234-1293)

Heinrich von Sponheim, heer von Heinsburg (1212-1259)

Gottfried III von Sponheim (1175-1223)

Gottfried II von Sponheim (1149-1183)

Gottfried I von Sponheim (1130-1159)

Meginhard von Sponheim (1093-1155)

Stephan II von Sponheim (1065-1118)

Stephan I von Sponheim (1020-1070)

Hedwig von Nellenburg (978-)

Eberhard IV von Nellenburg (975-1034)

Hedwig Arpad (?)

Stephan I, King of Hungary (969-1038) married to Gisela of Bavaria (985-1065)

This is not the van Arkel paternal line, but there's a line of belief that the first van Arkel was Heijman van Arkel, born about 940 in Hungary. This would be the Heijman van Arkel who supposedly fought for Otto I “the Great,” kidnapped Tielman's daughter and moved to Holland where the count gave him Arkel in fief. I don't know from what source the information came that this van Arkel was born in Hungary; this is not the story given by Dirck Pauw in his Arkel biography. Otto I did in fact fight and defeat the Hungarians at the Battle of Lechfeld in 955, and it's possible that van Arkel was a Hungarian who for some reason left with Otto I from Hungary. Pauw also relates the story of when a van Arkel was in Italy on crusade he fought with a fellow Crusader from Hungary over the Hungarian's coat of arms, which van Arkel considered to be his own coat of arms; this dispute was resolved without a death, and presumably the Hungarian was a cousin of van Arkel's.

DNA Match Swanepoel

But let's run with this bit of DNA and see what else we can find. This is from a download of my 23&Me ancestry analysis:

This shows that the DNA that 23&Me is claiming to be Central Asian is on Chromosome 4 (pair 1), genomic position 111501785-121723791.

So the question is, do I have any DNA matches with whom I also share this DNA segment? And the answer is yes, I do, and in fact I discussed this very DNA segment in a previous post (“Autosomal Arkels” 6 Sept 2021) although then I hadn't realized that this DNA segment was Central Asian because MyHeritage doesn't characterize it as Central Asian DNA. The Dutch person with whom I share this DNA is Swanepoel. The earliest known paternal line Swanepoel was born in Nieuwmunster, Flanders, 34 miles northwest of Ghent; again, when I wrote 2021 post I didn't know the significance of Flanders to the Swaim/den Hartog line.

In the “Autosomal Arkels” post I was using the Geni tree to find relationship paths from some of my DNA matches to Jan V van Arkel, using me as a hypothetical proxy based on the hypothesis that the Swaim/den Hartog line was descended from Otto van Arkel, Jan V van Arkel's illegitimate son. Pathways generally did exist, but I pointed out that this didn't necessarily mean that the Swaim line descended from the van Arkel line, because other pathways could also exist even if the Swaim/den Hartog line didn't descend from the van Arkel line. But the point I want to make here is that there was indeed a path in the Geni tree from Otto van Arkel to Jan Hendrik Swanepoel, who shared the same Swanepoel grandfather with the DNA match Swanepoel.

In that Geni path, the Most Recent Common Ancestor of Swanepoel and Otto van Arkel was Eberhard I von Sponheim (990-). In the post I noted that Sponheim was an ancestor of Guy de Dampierre, who was also an ancestor of DNA match Verstraeten of Limburg. What I hadn't paid any attention to, though, was that Eberhard I von Sponheim's wife was Hedwig von Nellenburg, the daughter of Eberhard Eppo von Nelleburg whose mother was Hedwig Arpad, the daughter of Stephe ancestryn I, king of Hungary, and Gisela of Bavaria.

In other words, Swanepoel may have Hungarian from Stephen I of Hungary, according to the geni.com tree.

And Swanepoel's earliest known paternal ancestor was born in Flanders about 1650, probably within a days horseback ride of Ghent.

This is Swanpoel's Central Asian chromosome 4 DNA segment that he shares with me:

Other Triangulated Matches with Chromosome 4

Swanepoel and I share this Central Asian chromosome 4 segment with 21 other matches on MyHeritage. All of these matches excpe for about 2 either live in South Africa or are part of the recent South Africa diaspora and live in Australia, New Zealand or England. The other 2 live in the USA and only 1 has a tree extensive enough to determine if they have South Afican ancestry.

I have no South African ancestry, I do have a couple dozen South African and South African diaspora DNA matches, which I now realize can be explained mostly, or probably exclusively, as matches throught this one Central Asian DNA segment. This is probably explainable as an example of the genetic Founder Effect, in which DNA from one person is magnified in the descendants of a population when a group of people break away from a larger group, usually through geographic migration. Specifically, it's probable that of everyone who emigrated to South African from the Netherlands, Belgium, or Germany originally had this chromosome 4 DNA segment, but because the Boers were a relatively small population that mostly intermaried with each other for generations, the number of living descendants with this one chromosome segment is now large, whereas in the Netherands, Belgium and Germany today is is relatively rare because this DNA segment had to compete with a much greater variety of other chromosome 4 DNA segments in its larger population.

Another explanation is that this DNA segment might have a strong survival value in immigrant groups that emigrant into new and dangerous environments; this possibility shouldn't be too quickly dismissed, as the DNA segment originally came from a nomadic steppe population and now appears most strongly expressed in Dutch/German disapora populations that had in the 1600's emigrated into the relatively dangerous frontiers of America and South Africa.

Because it's so widely spread in the South African population, it would be difficult or impossible to prove which individual originally brought it into that population. It's tempting to point to Swanepoel because his paternal ancestry is from Flanders and very close to Ghent, which dovetails nicely with my hypothesis that the Swaim/den Hartog line originated in Ghent with Siger van Gent. And it might have, but I can't prove it.

One last item regarding a triangulated match with Swanepoel and me. One of the American DNA matches for chromosome 4 is a woman surnamed Koester. Koester's paternal line came from Oldenburg, Germany. This is something to note for later, as the von Oldenberg line led up to another Hungarian line.

Conclusion of Chromosome 4 Segment

Swanepoel, the other South Africans, and I all inherited the Central Asian chromosome 4 segment from a common ancestor. All of these matches have ancestry from the Low Countries or Germany before the 1600's, and all of their ancestors emigrated from the Low Countries or Germany in the 1600's. Therefore, our common Central Asian ancestor had to have been born in the 1500's or before, and had descendants who emigrated to Germany and the Low Countries. These are facts based on DNA matching.

It's likely that the Central Asian chromosome 4 DNA is a legacy of one of these events. As we've seen, descent through “Hedwig,” a daughter of Stephen I, King of Hungary, to Manegold von Thuringia (Nellenburg) is a possibility as she left many descendants in the noble houses of Western Europe. But did Hegwig actually exist?

Summary of the Hedwig Hungarian Line

If Hedwig was truly a daghter of Stephen I of Hungary and married a Nellenburg, her DNA could be scattered widely throughout Germany and the Low Countries, and could be the source of the chromosome 4 Central Asian DNA segment. If it is, however, it might not have come through Jutta Prate von Randerath, because there seems to be no real evidence that she was Johan van Broeckhuysen's wife. Even if Jutta Praet wasn't the source of the DNA, it could have come through van Arkel, van Couwenhoven, d'Oupeye, or some other source.

Orseolo Hungarian Line

There was another female member of the Hungarian royal family who married into the Western European nobility, this time through a doge of Venice. This was Grimelda Arpad, daughter of Geza, the Grand Prince of Hungary ( -1026), who married Pietro Otto Orseolo, the 27^th doge of Venice (993-10301). “Doge” comes from the same root as “duke,” but the doge was not hereditary but was elected by the nobility of Venice and served for life (or until deposed).

Unlike the previous marriage, this marriage is well attested, although her name appears unknown but since the Geni.com tree names her Grimelda we'll just use that name. The following are a few of her descendants, taken from the Geni.com:

Maybe:

Cornelis Lodewijksz van Ghiessen (1475-1522) m NN

Cornelis Cornelissen van der Giessen m. Geertgen, daughter of Jan Zweynen Willems

I'm sure many more can be found, but I'm stopping with these three.

There's yet another Hungarian princess who might have contributed to the Western European noble gene pool, although I haven't tried to trace her line except as it supposedly led down to me. This was Sophia of Hungary ( -1095), the daughter of Bela I Arpad. The descent goes as below and then follows the same path to me as shown in the previous pathway from Stephen I of Hungary, both lines leading into Berhard II (1140-1212);

Bela I of Hungary (1016-1063) m. Richeza of Poland (1013 Krakow – 1075 Hungary)

Sophia of Hungary (-1095)

Elika von Billung of Saxony (1080-1142) Luneberg-Ballendstedt

Albrecht I von Brandenburg (1096-1170)

Bernhard III von Sachesen (1140 Dresden – 1212)

Hungarian DNA Matches

Sipos

The chromosome 4 DNA segment is an interesting clue to probable Hungarian ancestry. Another approach is to examine my Hungarian DNA matches. I have no Hungarian ancestors in my family tree as it now exists, but I have 5 DNA matches who live in Hungary and appear to be ethnically Hungarian.

Two of these Hungarians are a father-daughter pair with the surname Sipos, which is a Hungairan name, but unfortunately these matches have suppressed their DNA information so that it's inaccessible to me. I shared dozens of matches with both Sipos, almost all of which are American, although the father and I share one Swedish match, one Finnish match, and one German-Russian match. Without being able to analyze the DNA information and MyHeritage's ethnicity estimates there's not much I can do with the Sipos matches, other than to take a look at the father's 3 European shared matches. A shared match is a match of a match (a cousin of a cousin), which necessarily means that this shared match is my match (cousin) as well as Beckman's match (cousin). Examining matches of matches, and matches of matches of matches, can often yield interesting information.

The German-Russian shared match is named Beckmann. MyHeritage estimates the ancestry of Beckmann be be 72% East European, 21% North and West European and 7% Scandinavian. MyHeritage's Genetic Groups analysis places the father Sipos in several German and Slavic groups, but also in the group “Netherlands (South Holland, North Holland, Gelderland and Utrecht”. This might be because she has Dutch ancestry, but alternatively it might be because she has a genetic compenent that became assimilated into Dutch ancestry but originated elsewhere.

Beckmann has several Finnish, Swedish, Norwegian, Czech, Slovakian, and other shared matches. Man of these are also shared matches with a few of my Dutch DNA matches:

Shared Matches with German match Beckmann and Dutch match Weening:

Riikki (Finnish)

Kärkkäinen (Finnish)

Oskarsson (Swedish)

Hexeberg (Norwegian)

Erejärvi (Finnish)

Torkkeli (Finnish)

Björklund (Swedish)

Sjöö (Finnish)

Lindell (Swedish)

Hanstad (Norway)

Väyrynen (Finnish)

Poikonen (Finnish)

Ylikangas (Finnish)

Salmela (Finnish)

Sahlström (Finnish)

Edstrand (Swedish)

Cederberg (Swedish)

Cauzic (France)

Majo (Slovakian)

Sosniakova (Slovakia)

Pruchova (Czechia)

Symbonis (Greece-Romania)

Statnyk (Ukraine)

Shared Matches with German match Beckmann and Dutch match Steenbergen:

Kaskikallio (Finnish)(NT)

Shared Matches with German match Beckmann and Dutch match Stelling:

Jorendal (Swedish)(NT)

Shared Matches with German match Beckmann and Dutch match van Rosmalen:

Veijalainen (Finnish)(NT)

Shared Matches with German match Beckmann and Dutch match Pieters:

Danielsson (Swedish)(NT)

So what does this mean?

First, we got here because Sipos was a match to Beckmann, and all these Finns and Swedes and Norwegians and Slovaks, etc.m are matches to Beckmann and also to one of the five Dutch matches (Weening, Steenbergen, Stelling, van Rosmalen, Pieters). And I'm matches to everyone (as I must be, because I can only see them if I'm also a match to me).

Remember that the word cousin and match in the context of DNA matching means exactly the same thing. The only matches that aren't cousins are those who are siblings, parents, children, and aunts/unces. Many of these cousins may be very distant cousins, but are cousins nonetheless, meaning they shared a common ancestor at some point back in time.

Sipos is only a match to Beckmann, a German, and to me. Because Sipos hid his DNA information from the public, we don't know how Beckmann is related to Sipos except that he's a cousin. However, I do know that Beckmann is related to me through one 8.0 cM segment of DNA on chromosome 13 (genomic position 43637997-49798391).

Beckmann shares as matches with me 10 Finns, 5 Swedes, 2 Norwegians, 2 Slovakians, a French person, a Czech, a Ukrianian, and a person with Greek and Romanian ancestry. Beckmann's tree is private, but it's possible that she's related to the Scandinavins through her Russian anccestry, since the region around St. Petersburg was once controlled by Sweden-Finland. I actually don't think that's what's going on here, but it's possible.

Of course I'm also related to these Scandinavians (or I wouldn't know they existed), and that's no surprise given my recent Scandinavian ancestry, but It's not certain that our common ancestor was actually a Scandinavian. Given the Ukrainian, Czech, and Romanian matches, it's possible that the common ancestor was an East European with descendants who ended up in both Scandinavia and Germany/Netherlands. An I don't know if I inherited the chromosome segment from a German or Dutch on my father's side or a Scandinavian on my mother's side.

Beckmann, Weening, all of Weening's shared matches, and I are all triangulated matches on the same genomic position on chromosome 13. A triangulated match is one in which the DNA segment of three matches is on the same chromosome and same pair of that chromosome at the same genomic position, and it means that all triangulated matches received that DNA segment from a common ancestor. Since this chromosome 13 DNA segment is found in so many countries, it's possible that this indicates that the common ancestor lived a very long time ago, and this gene segment was widely spread throughout Europe, possibly through marriages by nobles. Given the Hungarian, Romanian, Czech and Ukrainian matches, it's possible that this was DNA came from the marriage of a Hungarian royal family member to a German noble, and subsequent marriages spread it around both Western Europe and Scandinavia.

Unlike Weening, Steenbergen, Stelling, van Rosmalen and Pieters do not share the chromosome 13 DNA segment. They're all matches to Beckmann, but not through chromosome 13.

Hunbarian Matches Nagy, Cseh, Gal

Nagy, Cseh and Gal are the remaining 3 Hungarian matches. Here are the chromosome segments are share with these matches;

Nagy Chromosome 6 (130885909-136022651) 6.3cM

Chromosome 20 (19277603-25011423) 7.0cM

Cseh Chromosome 6 (125973077-135233686) 9.7cM

Gal Chromosome 12 (1831246-4973359) 8.6cM

So we can see that Nagy and Gal overlap on chromosome 6 and thus share a common ancestor and are a triangulated match with me.

All three of these Hungarian matches appear to be ethnic Hungarians, and the question is how I'm related to them since I have no known Hungarian ancestry. That being the case, all of these chromosome segments are likely to be from as many as 40-50 generations ago, or from about 750-1000 AD. If we're lucky the pattern of shared matches and possibly the genealogies involved may show us how I came to have these Hungarian distant cousins.

Hungarian Match Nagy: Chromosome 20

Nagy has a family tree just large enough to verify that all 4 of her grandparents were Hungarian. Although Nagy and I share DNA segments on both chromosome 6 and chromosome 20, we have no shared matches with her on chromosome 6. This includes the chromosome 6 segment even though as you can see the genomic position of Nagy's and my chromosome 6 segment overlaps that of the chromosome 6 segment I share with Cseh. This seems confusing because if Nagy and Cseh overlap on that chromosome, shouldn't they be matches to each other?

I'm pretty sure what's happening here is that I share this DNA segment with Nagy on one of the two pairs of chromosome 6 and I share with Cseh this DNA segment on the other of the two pairs of chromosome 6. This means that Nagy and Cseh (and I) didn't descend from a common ancestor through this chromosome, and this is why Nagy and Cseh aren't matches to each other. It's just a coincidence that I match Nagy at a small segment on chromosome 6 and Cseh also at a small segment on chromosome 6 at the same genomic position. But such a coincidence bothers me, becaue Nagy and Cseh are both Hungarians, and I have very few Hungarian matches. In fact I do think that these are probably the same segment, and I think that Nagy and Cseh do descend from a common ancestor through chromosome 6, but I think that because the same segment ended up on different chromosome pairs for Nagy and Cseh, this is why they don't show as matches through this chromosome. I think both came from a gene pool in which this chromosome 6 segment was widespread or even fixed, and they inherited it on different pairs of chromosome 6 so that they don't show as matches but actually did receive the DNA from the same ancesor with whom it originated. But I'm not certain of this.

For chromosome 20 Nagy and I share only 7 matches, 5 of which are triangulated. However, none of these shared matchesis Hungarian. This is expected, as any Hungarian ancestry that I might have would be from very far back in time, and few “Hungarian” autosomal DNA segments would survive intact to the present for both me and for a person whose lineeage remained in Hungary (there will probably be more than just thse few Hungarians, but of course not all Hungarians have tested their DNA, and with MyHeritage specifically).

So the lack of Hungarian matches makes sense, but does it make sense that 6 of the 7 the matches that Nagy and I share are Scandinavians? I'll discuss that, but I also want to mention the one non-Scandinavian, who's an American named Jennison, who has a large amount of recent Scandinavian ancestry. However, Jennison also shares a match with me an American named Birchler, and Birchler is a DNA match with my Belgian DNA match de Clerck.

So the Belgian de Clerck is a match to Birchler, and Birchler is a match to Jennison, and Jennison is a match to Nagy. And who's in de Clerk's family tree? One person is Gerard III Berthout van Grimbergen (1165-1200), son of Gerard II Berthout van Grimbergen (1143-1186): Gerard III was Oda van Grimbergen's uncle, as Gerard II Berthout van Grimbergen was the father of Oda's father Arnold III, who married Oda's mother Sophie van Altena. Oda van Grimbergen, of course, was the wife of Siger van Gent, who I believe was also Seger van Broeckhuysen. Also in de Clerck's family tree is Boudewijn I van Gent, heer van Aalst (1042-10092), who was a 3x great-grandfather to Oda van Grimbergen.

Thus we have a chain of cousins and ancestors connecting me to the Hungarian Nagy to Oda van Grimbergen. Is this coincidence or is it evidence of a van Grimbergen-van Gent connection to Hungary?

Hungarian Match Nagy's 6 Scandinavian Matches

There are two possibilities for the existence of Nagy's Scandinavian matches. In the past either an ancestral line from Hungary emigrated to Scandinavia, or an ancestral line from from Scandinavia emigrated to Hungary. Is there a way to determine which scenario is more plausible?

One way is to look at ancestry. This is probably only moderately reliable, as estimated ancestry is not yet a perfected technology, With that caution in mind, it's interesting to see that MyHeritage estimates that the Hungarian Nagy has no Scandinavian ancestry, while two of her 6 share Scandinavian matches do have some (4.5%, 13.0 %) “East European” ancestry despite having no East Europeans in their family trees (of course if these two Scandinavians do have East European ancestry they must have East European ancestors, but if those ancestors lived several hundred years ago, it's no surprise that most family trees won't show them).

It thus appears more likely that the DNA traveled from Hungary to Scandinavian, rather than the other way around. However, it could be more complicated than that because Nagy and I share 2 chromosome segments rather than just one, and there are Scandinavian shared matches for the chromosome 20 segment but no shared matches at all for the chromosome 6 segment.

Since I also share a second triangulated chromosome segment with this Hungarian on chromosome 6, these 2 chromosomes obvioulsy travelled together through the ancestral line, whichever direction it moved. But with chromosome 6 we have no shared matches.

It's possible that Nagy and I are the only two people in the world who share this one chromosome segment, but a more likely explanation is that the common ancestral line moved from Hungary to Scandinavia, probably carrying both chromosome segments but definitely carrying the chromosome 20 segment with him to Scandinavia. But the history of the chromosome 6 segment may be different from that of the chromosome 20 segment. The chromosome 8 segment may not have traveled to Scandinavia at all, or died out there between then and now. Meanwhile, the chromosome 6 segment traveled from Hungary to the Netherlands or Belgium or Rhineland Germany and I inherited it through that ancestry. Nagy and I share common ancestors on the chromosome 20 segment but not on the chromosome 6 segment because I have a lot more recent Scandinavian ancestry than Hungarian or Dutch ancestry, and thus have a lot more DNA matches from Scandinavia than I do matches from Hungary or the Low Countries. Furthermore, selection bias probably plays a large role, with probably a much greater percentage of Scandinavian taking DNA tests than Hungarians (although this is an anecdotal observation rather than a fact).

We dont' actually know if the chromosome 4 Central Asian DNA came from Hungary, but I've explained that Hungarian ancestry is the most likely way that I would have such ancestry. I've also show that there are, surprisingly, several plausible pathways that Hungarian DNA could have come to me through Dutch-German ancestors. But is it plausible that Hungarian DNA found it's way into Scandinavia?

It is, because especially in the Middle Ages the noble and royal families looked far afield for suitable marital matches, as nobility from anywhere in the known world was acceptable as a marital match, while the peasant next door was completely unacceptable, regardless of personal intelligence or beauty.

Here's a line going from Hungary to Germany to Denmark to Norway to Sweden, and finally to America:

Stephen I of Hungary (969-1038) and Gisela of Bavaria (985-1065)

Hedwig Arpad

Eberhard IV von Nellenburg (975-1034) (½ Hungarian/Khazar)

Hedwig von Nellenburg (978-) (¼ Hungarian)

Siegfried I von Nellenburg (1000-1065) (1/8 Hungarian)

Engelbert I von Sponheim (1045-1096) (1/16 Hungarian)

Richardis von Sponheim (1060) (1/32 Hungarian)

Sophie of Bavaria and Saxony (1107) (1/64 Hungarian)

born Hilldesheim, 20 miles south of Hanover

Bernard of Anhalt (1140 Dresden) (1/128 Hungarian)

Albrecht I of Saxony-Wittenberg (1175 Aschersleben)

Jutta von Sachsen (1216-1261) Line moves to Denmark via marriage

Ingebjørg Eriksdatter of Denmark (1244-1287) Line moves to Norway via marriage

Håkon V Magnussen of Norway (1270-1319)

Agnes Håkonsdatter (1292 Gloppen, Norway)

Jon Halfthorsson Roos (1313-1393) Skedjuhof, Sudrheim, Norway

Brynjulf Jonsson Roos (1358-1422)

Knut Brynjulfsson Roos af Hjelmsäter (1410-1456)

Knut Knutsson Roos af Hjelmsäter (1440-1496) Line moves to Sweden

Ingel Knutsson Roos af Hjelmsäter (1495-1533)

Barbro Ingelsdotter Roos af Hjelmsäter (1530-1578)

Halsten Olofsson (1575-1634) Värmland, Sweden

NN Halstensdotter (1590) Rådom, Värmland, Sweden

Per Bondesson (1647-1711)

Jöns Persson (1667-1745)

Per Jönsson (1718-1783)

Jöns Persson (1748-1807)

Gertrud Jönsdotter (1783-1843)

Maria Sahlström (1805-1878)

Gertrud Karlsdotter Lundell (1831-1902)

Karl Johan Karlsson (1854-1945)

Inga Maria Nilsdotter (1873-1918) Line moves to America

Ella Ingeborg Johnson (1908-2003)

Carol Jensen alias Burdette (1935-2000)

Stephen Swain (1957-)

So yes, chromosme 20 could have come to me through this line, while chromosome 6 came to me through of of the lines from Germany-Low Countries I showed earlier. There's no way to prove or disprove this happened without more data from other people, but it's certainly plauible. We do know for certain that since Hungarian match Nagy does have Scandinavian DNA matches, at some time in the past either a Hungarian line moved to Scandinavia as shown above, or a Scandinavian line moved to Hungary.

Hungarian Match Cseh

Cseh and I share 62 matches, 55 of which are triangulated, meaning that we all definitely descend from a common ancestor. Ninteen of the matches are Americans, which we'll ignore because it's likely that their ancestry is too mixed to be of use in our analyis.All but one of the non-triangulated matches are Scandinavians, who must be related to be through a Scandinavian through some chromosome segment other than the chromosome 6 segment and to Cseh probably through the chromosome 6 segment and probably through the migration from northeastern Germany/Poland to Denmark and then to Sweden and/or Norway.

Clearly, however, the chromosome 6 segment is not common in Scandinavia, and it's unlikely that I inherited it from a Scadinavian.

The majority of matches have Slavic names with primarily Eastern European ancestry. There are several Germans, most or all with Eastern European ancestry, three related members of a family with Northern Italian ancestry, a Finn with Schleswig/Danish ancestry, and one Dutch match (with probably Volga German ancestry). Although Of the 5 DNA companies who've estimated my ancestry percentages, only Family Tree DNA claims that I have any Eastern European (2.7%“West Slavic”) ancestry. This company may be correct and is picking up Mecklinburg-Pomeranian ancestors that migrated into Scandinavia in the 1500's-1600's. In any case, this triangulated chromosome 6 DNA segment appears to be quite old and could very well have been from a common ancestor who was born a thousand years ago. This seems definitely to be Slavic DNA, or possibly specifically ancient Hungarian DNA.

But remember that I don't need to have Slavic ancestry to have Slavic DNA matches. The hypothesis I'm trying to prove or disprove is that I had Hungarian ancestors through my New Netherland ancestors. Specifically, these would have been from the royal Arpad line, which had intermarried with a few West European nobles. But the Arpad line also intermarried more frequently with various Eastern European lines as well, so that if the chromosome 6 DNA segment came from a Hungarian, the Hungarian preference for marrying other East Europeans can explain the greater number of triangulated matches wwhho are Eastern European than are Western European. The only Western Europeans without extensive Eastern European ancestry who have this chromosome 6 segment are a couple of Italians with anceestry from Venice and a Dutch person possibly from Gelderland. This is quite consistent with my hypothesis, especially as the Italian matches support a connection to Venice and even a possible connection to the doges of Venice.

Why Isn't Cseh a Match to Nagy?

But first I need to explore why MyHeritage says that Cseh isn't a match to Nagy, when both of them have a chromosome 6 segment with overlap at the same genomic position. Since this is true, shouldn't Nagy also be a (triangulated) A trmatch to all of the several dozen people that Cseh is a match to?

For each chromosome there are 2 pairs. Thus, for example, every person has a chromosome 6 (1) and a chromosome 6 (2). To be a triangulated match, a match has to have the same segment on the same chromosome, and on the same pair [(1) or (2)] of the same chromosome. This is the very definition of the meaning “triangulated” because it's proof that the chromosome segment came from the same ancestor. It's also possible that a person could inherit this same chromosome segment but on th other of the pair of chromosome 6, bu in that case the chromosome segments will not be a match, even though it did come from a common ancestor. At least this is what I think is possible, and what happened here.

Cseh Shared Matches Avon

The most interesting of these matches is surnamed Avon, who lives in Switzerland but who is Italian on both her paternal and maternal sides. I share 3 DNA segments with her the 11.4 cM segment on chromosome 6 shared with Cseh, a 6.7cM segment on chromosome 12 and a 6.1 segment on chrmosome 19. MyHeritage estimates her ancestry as 57.2% “North and West European,” 24.9% “Greek and South Italian,” 15.7% “Balkan” and 2.2% “Ashkenazi Jewish.”

Avon's family tree is small but indicates that Avon's paternal grandfather, born 1886, had a child born in Comelico, Italy, located a few miles south of the Austrian border. He had another child born in San Dona de Piave, 22 miles northeast of Venice. One of the earliest ancestors listed on the paternal side was born 1800 in Chioggia, 19 miles south of Venice, and died in Venich. His surname was Vendramin. When I searched the Geni.com tree for the surname Vendramin, the search results included Andrea Vendramin, 71^st doge of Venice (1400-1478). Now, DNA match Avon makes no claim in her family tree to having this particular Vendramin as an ancestor, but it would hardly be a surprise to find a person born in Venie/Chioggia in 1800 was the descendant of a Vendramin who was born in that same city 400 years earlier.

It would also be no suprise if there was a genetic connection between the doge Andrea Vendramin and the doge Pietro Otto Orseolo, because the doges were selected from the aristocracy of Venice, and these families likely intermarried over the centuries so that most or all of these families were related to each other.

So what we have here is the Hungarian DNA match Cseh to an Italian DNA match named Avon. Avon descends from a line named Vendramin that lived in Venice, and the 71^st doge of Venice was named Vendramin. If the doge Vendramin was a descendant of the doge Pietro Otto Orseolo through the intermarriage of the aristocratic Venice families, then the common ancestor shared by Cseh, Avon, and me on chromosome 6 could have been Otto Orseolo or Grimelda Arpad.

There isn't enough evidence to prove this true, but this would explain I'm connected to both Cseh and Avon, when I have no known Italian or Hungarian ancestry.

Cseh Shared Matches Manarin & Lavarini

I have a match named Manarin and 2 matches named Lavarini. The Lavarini matches are sisters, and Manarin is one of their grandfathers. Since the Lavarini sisters had to have inherited their chromosome 6 DNA segment from their grandfather, we can consider this to only be one match. That being the case, we only want to look at Manarin's ancestry since the Lavarinis' relevant ancestry comes through Manarin.

Manarin is Italian and unfortunately doen'st have a viewable family tree. MyHeritage estimates his ancestry as 47% “North and West European,” 27% “Italian” and 27% “Balkan.”

MyHeritage's Genetic Groups places Manarin in only the following groups:

Italy (Veneto and Friuli-Venezia Giulia) #2

Italy (Friulia-Venezia Giulia)

Italy (Veneto and Friuli-Venezia Giulia) #1

The following map from Wikipedia shows the regions of Veneto and Friuli-Venezia Giulia:

                                                                        Veneto

                                                        Friuli-Venezia Giulia    

These regions correspond closely to the Italian regions of the Venetian Republic as it looked at about the year 1000:

So clearly Manarin is related to Avon through their shared Venetian heritage.

Note also that the Venetian Republic also controlled much or all of the northern coast of the Balkan peninsula, down to Ragusa, which today is Dubrovnik, Croatia.

Cseh Shared Match Borisova

Borisova's small family tree indicates that all of her grandparents were probably Slavic, with the surnames Borisova, Gorelov, Filimonov. The surname of her paternal grandmother isn't given, so possibly she wasn't Slavic. MyHeritage estimates her ancestry as 43% Baltic, 37% East European, and 18 % Balkan. MyHeritage includes her in the Genetic Groups “Ukraine, Southwestern Russia, Belarus and Poland,” “Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Belarus and Azerbaijan,” “Poland and Germany #1,” “Estonia,” “Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan.”

Strangely enough, MyHeritage also includes her in the Genetic Group “Flemish in Belgium (Flanders and Brussels), Netherlands (Hulst) and in France (Nord).” This could indicate possibly that she had some “Volga German” ancestry from a Flemish ancestor who emigrated to Russia in the 1700's. Some Dutch Mennonnites had originally emigrated to Poland and later on to Ukraine or Kazakhstan, so that's possible.

However, I think it's more likely that Borisova inherited her chromosome 6 DNA segment from a Kazakh ancestor rather than a Dutch ancestor.

Cseh Shared Match van Gaal

Van Gaal appears to be a Dutch match I hadn't previously known about. She doesn't have a viewable family tree. The Geni.com family tree has a van Gaal family going back tot the 1700's in Reek, about 9 miles east of Oss in North Brabant; given this location, this could be DNA match van Gaals' line or a related line.

The Geni.com tree has another van Gaal family from Heeze in Brabant, located 27 miles NW of Swalmen.

Hungarian Match Gal

Gal is my 3^rd Hungarian match. We've just looked at the Hungarian Cseh's shared Dutch match van Gaal, and it tempting to hypothesize that the Dutch match van Gaal line might have inherited its name from a Hungarian ancestor named Gal, but there's no evidence for this although, of course, it could be true.

Gal has a small family tree that indicates that his ancestry is mostly Hungarian, although his mother's father's line appears to be German as it has the surnames Umenhoffer and Schön. MyHeritage estimates his ancestry as 27.3% 'English,” 23.5 percent “North and Wester European,” 44.4% “East European” and 1.1% “Italian.” From his family tree it's clear that Gal can't be 27.3% English, so this is probably his German ancestry (DNA companies have difficulty distinguishing English from German DNA and vice versa).

Gal and I share only 4 matches and none of them are triangulated, meaning that we share those matches through different segments of DNA. Two of those matches are American, 1 is Norwegian, and 1 is Dutch. Interestingly, MyHeritage estimates that 3 of these matches, as well as Gal, have small amounts of Italian ancestry:

Gal (Hungarian) Italian 1.1%

Badde (Nederland) Italian 0.9%

Bråten (Norway) Italian 0.9%

Baltes (American) Greek and South Italian 5.6%

Balkan 7.5%

Hefner (American): East European 6.2%

Because none of the shared matches are triangulated, I have no idea how they're related to Gal, but my guess is that Badde and Bråten are related by a triangulated segment of DNA that MyHeritage believes is Italian. Baltes and Hefner are probably related to different segments DNA. My guess is that the chromosome 12 segment that I share with Gal is probably Italian also, through a different segment from that of Badde and Bråten.

Hungarian Matches Conclusion

Hungarian matches Cseh and Gal share with me Northern Italaian matches, plausibly explained by the marriage of the Venetian Pietro Otto Orseolo (993-1031) to the Hungarian Grimelda Arpad, daughter of Geza, Grand Prince of the Hungarians (939-997). If the Geni.com tree is correct, Sizo van Beeck (1272-1314) was a descendant of Orseolo and Arpad, and if, as I speculated in the previous post, a daughter of Sizo van Beeck was the wife of Seger Vosken van Swalmen, then this could explain how I have Cseh, Avon, Manarin-Lavarini as DNA matches (assuming I'm a descendant of Seger Vosken van Swalmen).

Other Italian Matches: Manfredini & Melchiorri

I have an autosomal Italian match named Manfredini with whom I share 8.4 cM of DNA on an unknown chromosome (Manfredini chose to hide this information). I also have another Italian match named Melchiorri with whom I share 13.2 cM of DNA on two DNA segments: 7.2 cM on chromosome 4 (1.6m-4.7m) and 6.0 19.67cM on chromosome 22 (19.67m-21.9m).

The three shared chromosomes for the two matches are quite small and probably very old, despite the fact that Melchiorri and I share 2 segments with Metchiorri. The three of us don't share any segment in common, but Melchiorri's paternal grandmother was surnamed Manfredini. Given that I have few Italian matches, it's almost certain that all 3 DNA segments are “Manfredi” DNA from an unknown common ancestor the three of us share.

Manfredini

Manfredini and I share 10 matches, which is a very small number and indicates a distant relationship. Because she kept her DNA information private I don't know whether those matches are triangulated or not. The matches are:

Name              Country                  MH Italian/Balkan Ancestry     Other

Manfredini          Italy                    Italian 80.1%        Scandinavian/Finnish 0.0%

Swain (me)      USA                      Greek and Balkan (23&Me) 0.3%

Nilsson 12.7      Sweden                 none

Larson 26.9          Sweden              none

Viitanen 16.2     Finland              none

Grover                  USA              Balkan 8.7%,  Greek and South Italian 0.9%

Hill                  England              Greek and South Italian 6.5%

Gilmore              New Zealand

Schillo              Germany             Italian 22.2% (GG: Rhineland Germ, Belgium (Wallonia))

“Lou”                 France                  Italian 14.0%          Iberian 71.7%

Bredewold          Netherlands

Bluriot              Belgium                  Italian 11.5%, Greek and South Italian 6.7%, Balkan 3.9%

So these 12 matches live in 10 different countries, and all but the Swedish, Finnish and New Zealand matches have some Italian or Balkan ancestry.

Manfredini has no Scandinavian or Finnish ancestry and so the fact that she has 2 Swedish and 1 Finnish matches is puzzling. Similary, Brederwold, the one Dutch match that I share with Manfredini, also had Scandinavian matches that I share with him, although in his case he does show as having 39.0% Scandinavian ancestry, which less than the amount of Scandinavian ancestry MyHeritage estimates for me (31.5%). Bredewold's family tree is just a stump, so I can't tell whether he has any recent Scandinavian ancestry (probably not), but we share at least one of the Swedish matches (Törnqvist 19.4) with Steenbergen, another Dutch match. The Scandinavian matches are a red herring in the search for early ancestors, however, and in this context we should actually view them as Dutch matches. This is because most of the Scandinavian matches of Dutch matches occurred because of several 1500's-1600's ancestors from Liege, Limburg and Brabant emigrated to the Scandinavian countries, especially Sweden, and thus the DNA that is shared with these Scandinavian cousins originated in Liege, Limburg and Brabant rather than in Scandinavia. That Manfredini, who has no Scandinavian ancestry, is a part of this group sharing some of these same DNA matches most likely indicates that her DNA was part of that Liege/Limburg/Brabant DNA—in other words, some of this DNA that went through Liege/Limburg/Brabant and ended up in Scandinavia was actually Italian DNA!

Also whoever was the specific Liege/Brabant emigrant to Scandinavia, Bredewold and Bluriot and I ended up with that DNA so we must have shared a relatively then-recent common ancestor. Bluriot says his known ancestors came from Rabet and Neufond, which are not too far from the region where Italy meets Switzerland, so we can guess that an ancestor of the Liege/Limburg/Brabant ancestor had roots in southeastern France. I show some French DNA matches from this general region in Geneanet.com, so this possibly explains why.

Manfredini has a small tree with the names of her four grandparents and with their places of birth as “Italia” but without the specific locations within Italy. The surnames of her grandparents were Manfredini, Capponceli, Tesini, Gallerini. Myheritage says that she belongs to two “Genetic Groups”: “Northwestern Italy and Southwestern France” and “Italy (Abruzzo and Lazio). Lazio is the region Rome is within, facing the Tyrrhennian Sea, while Abruzzo is adjacent to Lazio to the east, with an Adriatic Sea coastline (facing Croatia's long coastline).

The Geni.com tree has a medieval family named Gallerani that originated in Siena: Bartolomeo Gallerani (born sometime between 1270 and 1390) “owned fiefdoms on the seaside beaches of Tuscany.” His son Sigerio had to move from Siena to Milan “to escape the snares of the Guelphs, a party he had followed but had apparently deserted.” The Guelphs in Italy were a part of the House of Welf, “A European Dynasty that that included many German and British monarchs from the 11^th to 20the century and Emperor Ivan VI of Russia in the 18^th century. The originally Franconian family from the Meuse-Moselle area was closely related to the imperial family of the Carolignians.” (Wikipedia “House of Welf”). “The (Younger) House of Welf is the older branch of the House of Este, a dynasty whose earliest known members lived in Veneto and Lombardy in the late 9^th/early 10^th century, sometimes called Welf-Este. The first member was Welf I, Duke of Bavaria. He inherited the property of the Elder House of Welf when his maternal uncle, Welf III, Duke of Carinthia and Verona, the last male Welf of the elder house, died in 1055....Welf IV was the son of Welf III's sister Kunigunde of Altdorf and her husband Alberto Azzo II, Margrave of Milan. In 1070, Welf IV became the Duke of Bavaria. Apparently the Principality of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel with Wolfenbüttel Castle was owned by a branch of the Welfs, which I mention because one of my Dutch DNA matches is named Wolfenbuttel (however, it would require a lot more research to prove that this wasn't simply a coincidence).

Welf IV married Judith of Flanders and had three children by her. One of these children was Judith, who married Leopold II of Babenberg, margrave of Austria, whose paternal grandfather Adalbert had married Frozza Orseolo (1015-1071), the daughter of Otto Orseolo, 27^th doge of Venice and Grimelda Arpad of Hungary. So here was have a connection to Hungary (and Flanders), though of course all of this depends on whether Manfredini's grandmother Gallerini was a descendant of the Gallerani family of Tuscany, and whether Gallerani was actually a Welf/Guelph.

It's also interesting that the earliest supposed ancestor of the Welf dynasty was Edeko, born in the 400's AD, supposed father of Odoacer, who became the first Germanic King of Italy 476 by deposing the Roman Emperor. Edeko was a Hun who served as Attila's deputy and ambassador to the Byzantine Empire. The Huns occupied essentially the same territory as did the later Hungarians and there was some genetic continuity between the two groups (and the intervening Avars).

All of this supposed information I've connected to Manfredini is just speculation and can't be taken too seriously. None of it is actually connected to Manfredini, and I'm just providing possible avenues for further research, although I doubt there's enough actual documentary evidence to prove anything.

Manfredini Scandinavian Matches Who are Cousins to Cousins of Dutch Matches

How do we acount for Manfredini's Scandinavian matches? Remember that I can only see Manfredini's matches that are also my matches; thus, Manfredini may have other Scaninvaian matches that are invisible to me. But why does she have any Scandinavian matches at all when MyHeritage estimates she has no Scandinavian, Finnish, or Baltic ancestry?

Assuming it's true that she has no Scandinavian ancestry, Manfredini's Scandinavian matches must have come from a common ancestor who lived in Italy or perhaps the Balkans who had at least one descendant who emigrated from Italy, some of whose descendants ended up in Scandinavia (and others in Belgium, the Netherlands, the USA, etc.). That is, that common ancestor probably didn't live in Scandinavia but rather in Italy or the Balkans.

Usually with a situation such as this, however, the DNA matches usually have one small triangulated DNA segment. This is because when the common ancestor lived 20 or more generations ago all of the longer DNA segments have been chopped into smaller segments, and many of those segments have been recombined out of existence. In most cases only one segment will remain and thus everyone who has that segment is related to each other through that segment.

What isn't speculative is that Manfredini's Scandinavian matches must have come through a common ancestor who had a descendant that emigrated to Liege/Limburg/Brabant, leaving some descendants in today's Belgium and Netherlands and other descendants in the Scandinavian countries.

Alternatively, that common ancestor could have left descedants in Scandinavia without having gone through a Belgian/Netherlands intermediary, but it's clear that this isn't what's happening here because, for example, Manfredini shares 31.9 cM of DNA with Swedish match Nilsson, which is far more than is likely if a common ancestor of all these matches had a few that had gone to Sweden. This is because the common ancestor was likely to have lived Rather, all those matches currently alive should have much smaller amounts of common DNA because none of the matches I share with Manfredini are triangulated matches that common ancestor was likely to have lived much further back in time than did the intermediary Liege/Limburg/Brabant descendant. However, if there was the intermediary Liege/Limbur/Brabant descendant,

Melchiorri

Melchiorri and I share 13.2 cM of DNA in 2 segments on chromosomes 4 and 22. MyHeritage estimates Melchiorri's ancestry as:

Scandinavian 0.0%

Finnish 0.0%

English 11.1%

Italian 45.3%

Greek and South Italian 30.8%

Iberian 9.7%

Ashkenazi Jewish 3.1%

MyHeritage placed Melchiorri in the following Genetic Groups:

Germany #2

Slovenia, Italy (Trieste), Northern Croatia and Austria

Italy (Emilia-Romagna and Tuscany)

The estimated 11.1% English ancestry probably reflects a German element that resembles the Germans who entered England after the Romans abandoned England as the Roman Empire lost its control of Western Europe.

Melchiorri's Gentic Group information is different from but consistent with Manarin's Geneti Group information that we discussed earlier in that it points in a northeastern direction, toward Slovenia and Croatia. At the same time, it's also consistent with Manfredini's possible Tuscan ancestry (consistent with Guelph/Welf ancestry)--this isn't surprising, as Melchiorri's paternal grandmother had the surname Manfredini.

Melchiorri in Geni.com

Mechiorri's family tree goes back only as far as her four grandparents, whose surnames were: Melchiorri, Manfredini, Zamboni, Panigalli.

In Geni there's a Pulcheria d'Arco whose married surname is apparently Melchiorri, the daughter of Leopold d'Arco (1682-1758) and Contessa Clara Ingram von Licberain von Thun. This would obviously place the Melchiorri family in the Italian nobility. The d'Arco line supposedly goes back to Federigo, Signore d'Arco born about 1229. No location within Italy is given for the oldest d'Arco family, but Arco is located 100 miles nortwest of Venice as an “Autonomous Province of Trento.”

There's an Adolf Zamboni von Lorberfeld born 1830 in Croatia, died 1878 in Trieste. His family tree only goes back to his father Johann, born in Montenegro (Montenegro is north of Albania and south of Croatia and Servia). There's also a Luigi Zamboni born 1772 in Bologna, a politician.

However, there's no evidence that DNA match Melchiorri is actually related to any of the people in the Geni tree, although their geographic locations are consistent with the DNA information.

Melchiorri's DNA Shared Matches

Melchiorri and I share 12 DNA matches, none of them triangulated. These are:

Name          Country         MH Italian/Balkan Ancestry                             Other

Davis          USA                 Italian 3.5%, Greek and South Italian 14.1%

Schaefer      USA                 Italian 1.3%

Hill              USA                 Italian 3.8%

Bunch          USA                                                                      Iberian 3.8%

Rumer          USA                  Iberian 16.4%, Balkan 16.0%

Johnson      USA

King          Australia                                                                  Iberian 21.2%

Lanning      ?                                                                             Iberian 0.8%

Askins I       Ireland

Reinsalu      Estonia

Lindroth      Sweden

Tesaker      Norway                  Italian 1.6%

These matches don't present a less coherent pattern than that of Manfredini, but my interpretation is that essentially the same as with Manfredini. The USA and Australian matches probably share common ancestors with Melchiorri who never left Italy until within the last century or two. However, the common ancestor of the Swedish, Norwegian and Estonian matches must have been an emigrant from Italy who ended up in Liege/Brabant whose descent(s) later emigrated to Scandinavia. This is probably the same descendant as with Manfredini, and as with my Dutch matches with Scandinavian ancestors (Estonia was controlled by Sweden from 1571-1710, and many Swedes moved there; also, Estonians and Finns share a closely related language and also are clossely related genetically). Here are a few exampes of how Mechiorri is related to her three Scandinavian matches through the same Liege/Limburg/Brabant person or persons (possibly de Besche or Richelle), which is also srong evidence, essentially proof, that Melchiorri shares ancestry not only with me but with many of my Dutch shared matches:

Nowegian match Tesaker (Tesaker 8.2) is not only a shared match with Melchiorri, but is also a shared match with Dutch match Kiers.

Estonian match Reinsalu is a shared match with Finnish match Karpakka 20.9, who is also a shared match with Dutch matches Remery, Oste, Schobbe, Slot and Exalto

Estonian match Reinsalu is a shared match with Swedish Match Oskarsson 20.9, who is also a shared match with Dutch match Weening

Estonian match Reinsalu is a shared match with Finnish match Koskela 17.4, who is also a shared match with Dutch match Schobbe

Estonian match Reinsalu is a shaed match with Finnish match Koponen 8.3, who is also a shared match with Dutch match Colijn

Swedish match Lindroth (16.1) is a shared match with Swedish match Boman1 87.0, who is a shared match with Dutch match Verstraeten

Swedish match Lindroth is a shared match with Swedish match Oskarsson 48.3, who is a shared match with Dutch match Weening

Swedish match Lindroth is a shared match with Swedish match Flodin 56.0, who is a shared match with Dutch match Swanepoel

Swedish match Lindroth is a shaed match with Swedish match Hoaglund 49.0, who is a shared match with Dutch match Kruiger

These cousin-of-cousins matches are not exhaustive as there were many matches that I didn't check, but the point is made. There is simply no other logical explanation why the Italian match Melchiorri would have Scandinvian matches who have matches with other Scandinavians who are also matches to Dutch matches except if Melchiorri and the Dutch matches had a common ancestor. Also, in the Norwegian match Tesaker Mechiorri has a Scandinavian match who is a direct match to a Dutch match (Interestingly, MH estimates that Tesaker has 1.6% Italian ancestry. Tesaker has a pretty extensive family tree, complete in all branches to the 1700's, and all the individuals in the tree have Norwegian names. It's possible that Tesaker's Italian ancestry, if MH's estimate is accurate, in fact is the DNA that connects Tessaker to Mechiorri. This is not the same DNA that connects Tesaker and Melchiorri to me as the DNA is not triangulated, so I have no idea what DNA connects Tesaker to Melchiorri and can't determine if 23&Me also designated that DNA as Italian.).

These cousin-of-cousin matches essentially proves that Manfredini and Melchiorri had a common ancestor with several of my Dutch matches and with me. This most likely means that a descendant of this common ancestor had left Italy and ended up in Liege or Limburg or Brabant. It's possible that the DNA flowed in the other direction, from Liege/Limburg/Brabant to Italy, but the fact that Swaim/den Hartog paternal DNA is Balkan and that we have proven Y-DNA matches from Italy and Hungary points to the probability that the DNA flowed from Italy to the Liege/Limburg/Brabant rather than the opposite direction. The Scandinavian matches themselves are of no importance in this regard except to prove a connection between the Italian matches and the Dutch matches (although remember that the Scandinavian matches themselves are descendants of both the Liege/Limburg/Brabant ancestor as well as of the Italian ancestor).

Summary of Italian, Hungarian and/Balkan Matches

Although I can't prove it, I have no other reason to have Itallian, Hungarian or Balkan matches except through my paternal line, which I definitely know is associated with this region through my Y-DNA SNP matches. Thus, these matches are likely the faint genetic ripples from the paternal line as it moved from Italy and/or Hungary or the Balkans, probably through Switzerland into the Liege/Limburg/Brabant region. These paternal ancestors were probably van Swalmens, van Oists, d'Oupeyes, van Gents, and so on, who were related to the de Geer, de Besche, de Richelle, Porkka, or associated emigrants to Scandinavia. By coincidence I'm descended from this group of people through my mother's Scandinavian lines as well as through my father's Dutch lines. With complete Y-DNA and autosomal DNA information combined with the available family trees of all my Dutch DNA matches, this could probably be conclusively established—however, this is very unlikely to ever happen as the effort and expense it would require would be far out of proportion to the interest of the various people involved. Even just analying my own DNA matches had taken a huge number of hours, although a lot of that was learning how to understand the DNA information I was looking at. A weakness of this will always be the incompleteness of accurate genealogies, but even without genealogies a web of relationships could be established through the available DNA information that wouldn't require any genealogical information at all.

Geni.com Family Tree Relationships

As I stated in a previous post, branches the Geni.com family tree is often wrong, usually because someone created a fictitious or speculative relationship not based on documentary evidence, but more often I think that the Geni.com is surprisingly accurate. I think it's a very useful tool, but one that has to be approached critically. It's wrong in continuing to show that Otto van Arkel was the father of Gerrit Ottens and Willem Ottens, and it's probably wrong in showing the wife of the first Seger van Broeckhuysen as an unknown daughter of van Ahr. Those are both speculative relationships and they don't belong in a crowdsource tree, or at least they need to be labeled as speculative.

So even though, again, using a crowdsource family tree is not “proper” genealogy, it can be a very useful tool when used with caution.