"Dance me to the children who are asking to be born"

“Migration” is a central concept in both population genetics and archaeology, but its meaning has evolved in divergent ways in the course of the development of these disciplines.  Population geneticists use “migration” to refer to any movement of genetic material from one region to another which would see even low-level symmetrical exchanges of mates between adjacent communities as representing migration, while archaeologists restrict its use to processes that result in significant demographic change due to permanent translocation of people from one region to another. In European archaeology, discussions of prehistoric migrations have become fraught due to the ways in which theories of migration were exploited politically in the early-mid twentieth century, when movement of large numbers of people over short times was sometimes argued to be a primary mechanism for the spread of ethnic groups and archaeological reconstructions of such events were used to justify claims on territory."  taken from here

A Christmas thought:  Betsey Louisa who was my biological mother.

A couple of months ago I mentioned that I was a 'war baby' and then whilst my granddaughter was sifting through her respective ancestors she had put  the name of my birth mother on the tree.  It resulted in a surprised query from a member of another family - how can that be?

Correspondent followed,  and it worked out that my mother had been staying with her sister in Wolverhampton at the time of my birth, facts merged and my notional half brother informed me that there were seven siblings I had never met, I had been accepted.

I was as a baby adopted by my patriarchal grandfather and his Belgium wife Catherine, my father never actually acknowledging me had married someone else after my birth.  Those were the times. I wrote to B and he sent me photos of the family, but we had decided not to pursue the relationship so late on in life.

So surprise yesterday when he sent a Christmas message, and another one this morning, in answer back, it sent me thinking.  Apparently I have my mother's eyes and dimples and she at Xmas always collected great quantities of food (similar in this house).

Betsey Louisa

DNA is the in thing on these Ancestry sites, and as a present my daughter has received a kit for Xmas. I have little time for chasing my own history, we have arrived, nothing can alter the facts.  There is general teasing as to what this kit will find out.  I know I only had two children, after all I was born in a time when babies were taken from their mothers and back street abortionists existed - you were careful!

What is more interesting is the waves of immigration that happened over the centuries and the information that is coming out.  From Lucy's time we evolved according to the records but the Brexiteers never accounted for immigration, this makes me laugh.  Our bloodlines are from that continent next door.

I know my mother was Irish, she made the journey across the sea just like those prehistoric persons I imagined trekking across the Preseli Hills.  There is enormous movement of people around the world, at the moment, climate change, economic difficulties and as always war.  They don't really want to be on the move, they want a democratic home country and a home to live in with their families.

Anecdotal story; Listening to the radio the other day and this story came up.  Again someone had sent off their DNA to learn of their genes.  One other person also popped up as well, so the woman got in touch with the man, who really wasn't interested but what had turned up in the test was that their was a Jewish element in the blood test, which he denied as ridiculous.  And so began, by the woman, a tracing of history as to why this particular gene had appeared.  Well both people were born after the war, and their fathers had come back, physically ill and obviously not able to produce fertile sperm.  So the mothers had gone to a Mayfair clinic and had artificial sperm injected.  But, and this where it gets interesting, the donor was the doctor's husband.  The study eventually revealed that there was somewhere between 50 and 60 siblings born of this man and they have now formed a whatsapp group.  Remember the bible - and Adam begat ...........................................

Cheddar Man.   Born 10,000 years ago, he may come as a surprise!  Read about him here.

World's oldest family tree revealed

Science unknots so much fascinating information, humans are intensely curious but perhaps Darwin started a train of thought that will lead us to true understanding and hopefully compassion when we look on those helpless people wandering the world at the moment.