Welcome to my new post everyone, and if your joining me on this blog for the first time, a big thank you also.

Over the next 15 weeks, I have 15 videos planned for my youtube channel which focuses on family research and genetic DNA.

I will be sharing each of the videos here on my blog, as they are released. so please check back.

Video listed below.

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Origins Episode 1 – Genetic Y DNA – R-YP417 Haplogroup – Slavic Origin

Today’s video is a little different to what I usually publish on my channel, but those of you who have kindly watched many pervious videos you will know that family history plays a big part in the videos that Yhana and I create. 

This new video is related to the research of my family history, but more importantly, genetic family history and the YDNA that exists through my paternal lineage.

 So please forgive me, if this video is a little too in-depth, as genetic DNA is a difficult subject to follow, but an incredible tool to use for genealogy.

 I have been researching my family history for 25 years and during that time I have built a tree which consists of no less then 52,000 family members and the branches of my tree date back to the Middle Ages.

 The tree also includes branches that relate to legendary, mythological and biblical lineages, which is an area I am fascinated in due to my love of how people grew to understand the world around them and their understanding of where we came from.

 Which has intrigued human kind for thousands of years.

 This video is part of a new series called ‘DNA ORIGINS’, created as a means to further my research with my ancestry, these videos in particular will become a part of my websites and blogs of which I have maintained and managed for several years.

 I have several videos planned, which I will explain further at the end of the video.

 Currently I am undergoing a project to identify as many surnames that share my paternal haplogroup which is R-YP417

 This Haplogroup is relatively young in terms of DNA and broke away from its parents line around the time of Jesus, so we are looking 0CE.

 My haplogroup group parent line is L1029 and dates back at 1200 BCE, so is Bronze Age in origin, this haplogroup is the forefather of three separate subclasses (including my own)

  One being the Lechites, which was a Bronze Age Slavic tribe that lived in Poland and Ukraine, and consists of the haplogroups R-YP444 and R-YP263

 And my own Haplogroup – R-YP417 which again is a Slavic DNA group and is shared by many men who are either Russian or Ukrainian – My DNA is dominated by Eastern Slavs and as mentioned before is aged about 2000 years.

 To break things down easier,

 R-YP417 is shared with 54% of the Russian population, 16% of the Ukrainian population, 13% of Romania, 6% of Belarus, 4% of Poland and a mixed 8% of neighbouring countries.

Now My grandfather Jan Kuta was born in 1924 in Komarno, Eastern Galicia which is an area of land created during the break up of Poland in 1769, the land was border territory and fought over by many neighbouring countries. Today it is divided between Ukraine , Poland and Slavakia.

 Komarno itself alongside nearby Lviv, also known as Lwow or Lemberg depending on where you come from now belongs to the Ukrainian people.

 The religion for this area is made up of Greek Catholic and Roman Catholic and before World War Two had a huge Jewish population. 

 My fathers Autosomal paternal DNA is divided between his English mother and his Galician father His Galician side is broken down as follows:

 42% Eastern European and his ancestral community is shared between South East Poland and North West Ukraine which is an area that incorporates both Lviv and Krakow and he also belongs to the Ukraine community and North Eastern Romania.

 The final 8% of his paternal DNA is Scandinavian as we descend from the Szweda family which pretty much means – Someone from Sweden.

 I’m going to share a few family photos from my Kuta family to add a personal touch to this video and hopefully assist in reaching out to family members that share the Male Haplogroup R-YP417

 And also share my surname and all of the variations which are known, many of these surname variations may not share the same Y-DNA, and their meaning could be very different, but they are phonetically similar. 

 These variations include:

Kuta

Kuty 

Kutowski

Kyta

Kut

Kutowo 

Kutowy 

Kula 

Kutai

Koota 

Kutas 

There maybe a lot more variations of this surname, but my goal is to see if we all share that same Male Haplogroup R-YP417 and also identify other surnames that descend from that same ancestral forefather who was born sometime in the last 2000 years.

 Our shared surname and variations has been found within Roman Catholic, Greek Catholic and Jewish families our shared tree extends across many Slavic countries and Israel, and in more recent years across Western Europe including France, Belgium, England and in the United States of America.

 The name Kuta is also locational and there are villages that share the word, there are four Kuta lakes in Poland and Kuta River that runs through Siberia.

 In ancient times it was also the name of an ancient Babylonian city that existed before  2254 BCE

 The ancient city was called Kuta or Kutha, and was part of the Mesopotamian civilisation, it was here in this city that the phrase an ‘Eye for Eye’, came into existence.

 It has also been suggested that the surname Kut is descended from King Hezekiah who was the 13th King of Judah and born 741BCE, this King belongs to the House of David.

 If correct then the surname Kut belongs to the Davidic Line and was a tribe of Judah. So Kut for instance most likely follows a very different Y DNA Haplogroup, then my own.

 My own autosomal DNA does includes Coptic Egyptian so a connection with Egypt and Israel does exist in the long forgotten past, whether this strand of DNA is paternal or maternal has not yet been established, it could be either. Maternally there is an old story through which I descend of a Byzantine Prince that was exiled to the Isle of White when his kingdom collapsed, Some of his male descendants still use the self-titled word of ‘Prince’, although Debretts for instance refuse to acknowledge the lineage in the peerage of England.

With further regard to my Y DNA HAPLOGROUP It is believed that R-YP417, Broke away from its parent line as a genetic mutation, as mentioned previously occurring about 2000 years ago, this small group of people that Male descendants of the Haplogroup R-YP417 Descend are believed to have been part of the The Zarubintsy culture which is possibly connected to the pre-Slavic ancestors of early Slavs (proto-Slavs), with possible links to the peoples of the Dnieper basin. The culture was influenced by the La Tène culture and the nomads of the steppes (the Scythians and the Sarmatians). The Scythian and Sarmatian influence is evident especially in pottery, weaponry and domestic and personal objects used by the Zarubintsy People. 

By the 3rd century AD, central late Zarubintsy sites ‘re-arranged’ into the so-called Kiev culture, whilst the westernmost areas were integrated into the Wielbark culture.

 I find these ancestral links very interesting, as it gives me precise cultures that my male ancestors most likely descended from in the last 2000 years.

 For someone like myself who has a big interest in Prehistory, these links to Bronze and Iron Age cultures is very fascinating.

 This is a DNA project and name study in order to identify connections between our families and that all important Haplogroup R-YP471, I am mostly interested in those more recent genetic DNA mutations rather then the older groups, as we all belong to the same Phylogentic Tree. 

This video is going to be published here on YouTube and shared across my websites and media pages.

 The following DNA Origin videos I have planned includes my maternal haplogroup 

• K1a1a

And the following Haplogroups that I have identified of which belong to my ancestors including –

 I-S17250 / R-CTS2509 / K1BA1A / R-M269 and I-Z138, That last one is an interesting one, as the DNA is Viking in origin.

 So if you’re interested in genetic DNA then please watch out for those forthcoming videos.

 I have included my email address is in the description of this video, so please do get in touch if you can help with this project.

 I will finish the video with the short story of Gorzkie Zale, which tells the story of how my grandfather Jan Kuta came to leave his homeland in the 1930’s.

 A big thank you for joining me, stay safe, keep well and bye for now.