R1b Haplogroup May Have Jewish History

 Nadene Goldfoot                                                   

My son has tested as R-M269 in his Y haplogroup DNA, which means the male line going back from father to son. His test first at 12 alleles called it R1b1a2.  A more advanced test put him in the R-M269 category.   (Parent haplogroup: R-M269  Age: 25,000  Region: Western Europe; low frequencies in Turkey, and the Northern Fertile Crescent.)

At the 25 allele test level he matched people from Germany, Ireland but more from England and United Kingdom.  The Germany and Ireland must be from me.   FTDNA has a map and highlights the countries where genes come from  and the area from Turkey, Syria, Iraq to Iran were highlighted.  That could have been a Jewish area.   On my Origin map,  I have less than 2% Sephardi besides my Ashkenazi -Jewish genes as my map showed Spain and Portugal.                                    

 His is the Western Atlantic Model haplotype.  I've always wondered about the Henwood surname.  Hen and wood.  Hen just happens to be a family related to the Gracian family of Spain.  This surname, also using Gracia, Graciano, were a prominent Spanish family descended from Juan ben Barzilai.  The members lived chiefly at Baroeliona from the 13th through 16th centuries.  Most used the name of HEN.  Jewish Encyclopedia (JE) has 14 biographies.  So it's possible that the Spanish Inquisition of 1492 had something to do with Henwood.  It's either that or they raised chickens and used a wooden henhouse for them.  Being they have the R-M269 now makes me wonder with new information.  

             Hartley-Wintney is 8 miles east of Basingstoke in Hampshire, England

My husband had an IQ of 165 and was a Radiologist.  His parents were from England from a long line of Henwoods going back 14 generations to John Henwood born in 1538, Medstead, Hampshire,  England.  His name was listed as John Hynwod. My son's grandfather, was born at Winchfield, Hartley Wintney Row, County of Hampshire, England. Winchfield is a small village in the Hart District of Hampshire in the South-East of England. It is situated 1 mile (1.6 km) south-west of Hartley Wintney, 8 miles (13 km) east of Basingstoke, 2 miles (3.2 km) north-east of Odiham and 38 miles (61 km) west of London. It is connected to London Waterloo and Basingstoke by the South Western Main Line. Hampshire seems to be the common thread for this family.  His occupation was that of landscaping, a keeper of the grounds, knowing all about tending the plants.  After watching Downton Abbey, I can understand his interest.  My daughter has inherited it.  

Because I am Jewish, I was interested in Rachel Unkefer's article on academia.edu titled, A New Narrative for Jewish R1b:  Jewish Men in the Most Common European Y-DNA haplogroup and The FTDNA Jewish R1b Project. Academia.edu is an American for-profit social networking website for academics. It began as a free and open repository of academic journal articles and registered a .edu domain name when this was not limited to educational institutions. The site was launched in September 2008.

Twenty years ago, a haplogroup estimate of R-M343 or R-M269 was assumed to be a marker of non-Jewish paternal ancestry. With new scientific tools, we now know that, instead, it might indicate descendance from any number of known Jewish lineages, small and large, with probable ancient origins in the Middle East, western Asia, Africa, or the Mediterranean. These geographic origins are all consistent with ancient Jewish history and migration, not indications of the large-scale introduction of recent northern or eastern European Y-DNA into the modern Jewish population.

His origins, half being from me, are as follows:  European Jewish, and this is from me according to what DNA companies know was 24%, and that was all Ashkenazi.  Western Europe was 72% whereas mine was 40, so he had 32% from his father.  Ireland was 8% whereas mine was 3%, so he may have had 5% from his father.  Central Europe was 8% and I had none.  England, Wales, and Scotland was 25% and I had none, which surprised me as my maternal grandfather was a Robinson with lines going to ancient Ireland and England, we thought.  My grandfather's tale was that his family had come from Wales.  At the very end of the report, my son had a section from the Middle East and he had Anatolia, Armenia & Mesopotamia listed with less than 1%, but I had nothing.  To have this even listed means there was a fraction of 1%, meaning something.  

                                                              

Hampshire, England  is a county in South East England on the English Channel coast. The county town is Winchester, England's former capital city. Its two largest cities, Southampton and Portsmouth, are administered separately as unitary authorities and the rest of the county is governed by a combination of Hampshire County Council and non-metropolitan borough councils.

First settled about 14,000 years ago, Hampshire's history dates to Roman Britain, when its chief town was Winchester, then known as Venta Belgarum.  Historically part of Hampshire, the Isle of Wight was made a separate ceremonial county and the towns of Bournemouth and Christchurch were administered as part of the ceremonial county of Dorset.

Medstead, East Hampshire, England:   The earliest evidence of settlement in the village comes from two Tumuli burial grounds which date from 1000 BCE.  Roman pottery and coins have also been found in the area.  A chapel in the village was first mentioned in the Domesday Survey of 1086 and was soon replaced by a Norman church.  The village has six Grade II listed buildings, including the 12th century St Andrew's Church and its war memorial, a farmhouse and a Victorian wheelhouse with a working donkey wheel.

It's also possible that Jews from Judah came to England to do trading in this early Roman period as Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE (AD).  Perhaps they came and settled down, finally immersing with the people there.  

I would believe that the Hen family, if affected by the Spanish Inquisition of 1492, may have had to make the decision to convert to Christianity if they were Jewish.  Where could they go from Spain being Jews?  Nowhere, since Portugal also followed Spain's lead several years later.  So they may have wanted to go to England.  England had expulsed their Jews in 1290 and didn't allow them back in until 1655.  They had to enter as Marranos, hidden Jews that had been baptized but kept the Jewish faith anyway.  Then with marriage, the pretense finally wore off and they became Episcopalians in the end.  This is just my theory. 

I don't know what his possible connection to Sephardim in Spain could be, maybe 100:1, but it sure is interesting.  

It would be most helpful if other Henwoods have Yhaplogroup DNA tested to see what their line is.  Is it also R1b and have they tested further to become R-M269 ?

Update 6/25/15: R1a1, R1b, and R1a1a or R1a-CTS6 is the Levite haplogroup.  Read www.levitedna.org. for more information. Jeff Wexler discovered this line of Ashkenazi Levites.  Analyses posted here. R1a1 is common among Ukrainians-thought to have originated there, Russians, and Serbs (Slavic speakers in Germany, as well as among Central Asian populations with admixture possible with Ukrainians, Poles or Russians.  R, R1, R2, R1a, R1b haplogroups are believed to have originated in NW Asia between 30,000 and 35,000 years ago.

Resource:

https://www.academia.edu/41172857/A_New_Narrative_for_Jewish_R1b_Jewish_Men_in_the_Most_Common_European_Y_DNA_Haplogroup_and_The_FTDNA_Jewish_R1b_Project?email_work_card=reading-history

Finding Our Fathers by Dan Rottenberg.  Gracia, Hen

https://jewishfactsfromportland.blogspot.com/2010/01/what-haplogroup-we-be.html

"