Haplogroup K: Your Branch on the Tree
Ancestral line: "Eve" > L1/L0 > L2 > L3 > N > R > K
We finally arrive at your own clan, a group of individuals who descend from a woman in the R branch of the tree. Because of the great genetic diversity found in haplogroup K, it is likely that she lived around 50,000 years ago.
Interestingly, her descendants gave rise to several different subgroups, some of which exhibit very specific geographic homelands. The very old age of these subgroups has led to a wide distribution; today they harbor specific European, northern African, and Indian components, and are found in Arabia, the northern Caucasus Mountains, and throughout the Near East.
While some members of your haplogroup headed north into Scandinavia, or south into North Africa, most members of your haplogroup K stem from a group of individuals who moved northward out of the Near East. These women crossed the rugged Caucasus Mountains in southern Russia, and moved on to the steppes of the Black Sea.
Interestingly, your haplogroup is also very significant because some specific lineages within this group constitute three of the four major Ashkenazi Jewish founding lineages. In fact, around one third of all Ashkenazi Jews trace their mitochondrial lineage back to one of four women, three of which lie within haplogroup K. Haplogroup K is found in 30 percent of Ashkenazi samples and in 6 to 7 percent of non-Jewish Europeans. While this lineage is found at a smaller frequency in non-Ashkenazi Jews, the specific three K lineages that helped found the Ashkenazi population are seldom found in other populations. It is therefore likely the case that individuals bearing one of these three lineages are Ashkenazi. However, individuals within haplogroup K that do not bear one of these three lineages are unlikely to have an Ashkenazi background. To learn more about your specific lineage within haplogroup K, you can opt-in with Family Tree DNA at the bottom of your results page where it reads, Learn More.
The term "Ashkenazi" refers to Jews of mainly central and eastern European ancestry. Most historical records indicate that the founding of Ashkenazi Jewry took place in the Rhine Basin where it subsequently underwent vast population expansions. In more recent times, the Ashkenazi population was estimated at approximately 25,000 individuals around 1300 A.D., whereas that number had increased to about 8,500,000 individuals by the turn of the twentieth century.
Around half of all Ashkenazi Jews trace their mitochondrial lineage back to one of four women, and your haplogroup K represents a lineage that gave rise to three of them. While this lineage is found at a smaller frequency in non-Ashkenazi Jews, the three K lineages that helped found the Ashkenazi population are seldom found in other populations. While virtually absent in Europeans, they appear at frequencies of three percent or higher in groups from the Levant, Arabia, and Egypt. This indicates a strong genetic role in the Ashkenazi founder event, which likely occurred in the Near East.
Today, K has given rise to three of the four most common haplogroups in Ashkenazi Jews and is currently shared by over 3,000,000 people.
Momo is our little Shiba Inu. She will be 11 years old this September. That is like 77 in human years! She is a very spry 77 year old. We walk her every night but frankly, even after nearly 3 years of Cesar's method, she still walks robustly on lead. We decided to get her a pack so she could have a job! We put a one pound weight in each pouch and she is ready to go. She loved it immediately. You can see the pride in her walk as she wears it. It is as if she says-"look at me, I'm working!" The Shiba Inu is not a working dog, but she acts like she is. She has way more energy than the Siberian Huskies we owned. (and sorry all you Sibe owners, but she is way nicer) She even carries her own "poo" baggies just in need of emergency!.JPG)
