Below is an email I received concerning questions about our possible origins.

 

Hello Rodney,

 

I can say with confidence in your case that you are almost certainly not descended from the Anglo-Saxons or Danes.  That claim likely belongs to the other HAMMOND in the Project descended from Simon Sr. also of Scarning, c1670.  He is haplogroup I1a.

 

(note: the other HAMMOND in the Project that is a descendant of Simon Hammond Sr. is Jim Main’s cousin.  It was this DNA testing that confirmed that we are not related to Jim Mains and his cousin. - RRH)

 

Everything about your haplotype points to the eastern Mediterranean.  When looking at your YHRD matches it is important to do so in terms of frequency of occurrence in each population not the number of matches.  The attached spreadsheet (see below) shows your matches in these terms.  You will see immediately that four of the top five locations by frequency are in Sicily (western half island near Palermo).  Condensing your matches by country shows Sicily on top with a frequency of 4.2%.  I counted Sicily as its own country on purpose since it is an island.  The rest of your Italian matches are all in northern Italy.  Condensing your match further by European region shows the highest frequency of matches in the Balkans.  Most of the Balkan countries are in your top 10.  Relatively speaking, your 7-marker haplotype is very, very sparse in the rest of Europe.  If your ancestors were Anglo-Saxon or Scandinavian, western Europe (including Iberia and northwest Europe) would come out on top.

 

SMGF is some help here.  You have five reasonably close matches (4) 23/26 + (1) 22/25 in SMGF.  One is from Corinth, Greece, two from southern Italy (Calabria in the "toe" and Taranto in the "heel") and one from Alsace-Lorraine on the French/German border.  The match from Taranto, Italy is the most significant since it matches your DYS385(a,b)=(12,17), which sets you apart from the Haplogroup J2e1 (M102+) 12-marker model.  In YSearch, you have a 26/32 match from Wurttemburg in southeast Germany near the border with Alsace-Lorraine. 

 

Northwest Europe is also represented through a number of geographic projects hosted by FTDNA such as the Scandinavia, Germany, Denmark, Danish Demes, French Heritage, Benelux, and Flemish Flanders DNA Projects.  There are 36 J2's out of 1058 haplotypes (20 French, 12 German) from all these Projects combined, never mind one that looks close to yours.  2 of these 36 are confirmed J2e1's (1 French, 1 Finnish) but not close to you.

 

I believe we have a pretty good picture of your paternal ancestry up to about 2,000 years ago.  The concentration of your matches in the above database suggest your ancient ancestors settled in the Balkans from the Middle East (were J originate) before heading to southern Italy (Sicily?).  The question is how did they get from there to East Anglia?  The most likely paths I see your forefathers arriving in East Anglia along are:

 

- with the Romans circa 60 BC. - 400 A.D.

- with the Normans circa 1100 A.D.  [the Normans conquered Sicily and southern Italy by 1053]

- as an Italian Merchant circa 1100 - 1500 A.D.

 

The origins of the HAMON surname amongst the Normans may support the Norman connection.   I am personally intrigued with the Norman connection between East Anglia and Sicily.  There are other distinctive YDNA haplotypes in the Project amongst the I1a's and R1b1c's that show up in both regions.   Your family should look for paper evidence of HAMON(D)s in Sicily around the time the Normans were there.

 

Genetically speaking, Norwegians, Swedes, Geats, Danes, Jutes, Angles and Saxons are indistinguishable at present for individual genealogy research.  We can only speak in terms of populations.  There are some I1a haplotypes that are found at high frequencies in Norway, while others are concentrated in northern Germany and Denmark.  I1c is concentrated in Germany likely connected to the Saxons.  They are largely an admixture of R1b1c, I1a and I1c.  Finding such distinctive genetic markers are something of a Holy Grail for British descended genetic genealogists.  It is certainly a goal I hope the East Anglia Project can help to achieve.

 

I hope this helps.  Let me know if you have any other questions I can help with.

 

Cheers, David.

 

David Weston

Project Administrator

East Anglia Geographic DNA Project

http://www.geocities.com/thurlowons/eagdna/

 

COUNTRY

SIZE

# MATCHES

FREQUENCY

Sicily

96

4

4.17%

Belarus

30

1

3.33%

Greece

69

2

2.90%

Bosnia-Herzegovina

35

1

2.86%

Macedonia

343

9

2.62%

Albania

131

3

2.29%

Russia

176

3

1.70%

Bulgaria

122

2

1.64%

Hungary

315

5

1.59%

Romania

386

6

1.55%

Netherlands

137

2

1.46%

Italy

1188

14

1.18%

Portugal

210

2

0.95%

Austria

230

2

0.87%

UK

250

2

0.80%

Bohemia

252

2

0.79%

Spain

292

2

0.68%

Switzerland

149

1

0.67%

Croatia

150

1

0.67%

Germany

4795

31

0.65%

Slovakia

164

1

0.61%

Slovenia

180

1

0.56%

Poland

2346

12

0.51%

Sweden

442

2

0.45%

Norway

870

2

0.23%

 

 

 

 

REGION

SIZE

# MATCHES

FREQUENCY

Southeastern Europe (Balkans)

802

17

2.12%

Italian Peninsula

137

2

1.46%

Eastern Europe

5333

38

0.71%

Western Europe

6315

44

0.70%

Scandinavia

1312

4

0.30%