Bleg: Mein Irernachweis, or A Little Bit of Niall of the Nine Hostages in Me

Not a week goes by when a German reader doesn't ask: Werte Volksgenosse! How can I trust the things you say on this blog without knowing your precise racial heritage?

It's a fair question, so I had 23andme perform a complete genetic profile of me.  I found out lots of fascinating things: I have no alcohol flush response, can taste bitterness, am likely to go bald (already have), have 'wet' earwax, above average risks for thrombosis and gallstones, below average risk for Parkinson's and Alzheimer's, and my ancestry is >99% European.

The most interesting result, though, was my father's haplogroup, which 23andme explains as follows:

Haplogroup R1b1b2a1a2f2

R1b1b2a1a2f2 reaches its peak in Ireland, where the vast majority of men carry Y-chromosomes belonging to the haplogroup. Researchers have recently discovered that a large subset of men assigned to the haplogroup may be direct male descendants of an Irish king who ruled during the 4th and early 5th centuries. According to Irish history, a king named Niall of the Nine Hostages established the Ui Neill dynasty that ruled the island country for the next millennium.

Northwestern Ireland is said to have been the core of Niall's kingdom; and that is exactly where men bearing the genetic signature associated with him are most common. About 17% of men in northwestern Ireland have Y-chromosomes that are exact matches to the signature, and another few percent vary from it only slightly. In New York City, a magnet for Irish immigrants during the 19th and early 20th century, 2% of men have Y-chromosomes matching the Ui Neill signature. Genetic analysis suggests that all these men share a common ancestor who lived about 1,700 years ago. Among men living in northwestern Ireland today that date is closer to 1,000 years ago. Those dates neatly bracket the era when Niall is supposed to have reigned.

Outside Ireland, R1b1b2a1a2f2 is relatively common only along the west coast of Britain.

Now, my father's last name was Hammel, and his father's last name was Hammel, etc. Family lore, which as we all know is notoriously unreliable, has our forebears coming to America as Hessian mercenaries in the late 1800s. The Hessians were hired by the British to fight the Americans, but the Americans offered the mercenaries land if they switched sides, and apparently about 5,000 of the Hessians ended up settling in the United States.

I have no idea whether there's anything to this, but it does seem a bit odd that an American family with a last name Hammel should have a haplogroup that's so closely tied to Ireland. Does anyone have any informed guess as to how this might have occurred?

Comments

[Lutz]

It is believed that Irish missionaries came to Hesse and founded a monastery in Amöneburg, a little north of the Wetterau region.
They were pious man, some of them later became saints. Can you imagine one of them fooling around with a later Ms. Hammel?

[Tom of Finland]

Thanks for this post Andrew! Unfortunately I don't have a theory to answer your question. OTH I'm very interested in doing the 23andme thing but am worried about data security. Do you think they do a reasonable job of it? Have you found long-lost cousins and relatives?

[JG]

As was said before: Irish missionaries.
There was a lot of contact between Ireland and Germany over time. Kilian still is a common name in Franconia (although mostly because our Patron saint was Kilian). Together with some genetic drift in the centuries inbetween it's not really strange to have Irish genes show up in a family of German ancestry

[MJ]

Maybe monks of the Hiberno-Scottish mission (6th/7th century) passing through Hesse on their way to Franconia?

[dubuc]

What, if you tried to integrate some of the above explanations: An Irishman (called Hammel, although he might have acquired this name later on) settled down in a Wetterau town and married a local girl. A century or two later, one of his descendants moves to the USA and begets a new Hammel family in Texas?
Did you try to contact some of your kin in Wetterau to find out if they know more of the family (and name) origin?
regards from an amateur name researcher

[Volker]

Like Martin already said, probably one of the uncounted mercenaries who roamed Central Europe.

[Lutz]

Hammel is definitely a name that comes from Hesse. Look at this map to see the distribution in Germany: http://www.verwandt.de/karten/absolut/hammel.html
Hesse is not #1 on the map, but there is a clear hot spot around the city of Gießen and the Wetterau region in Hesse.

[Martin]

Not a week goes by when a German reader doesn't ask: Werte Volksgenosse! How can I trust the things you say on this blog without knowing your precise racial heritage?

You have to decide wether you were looking for a Irennachweis or an Irrernachweis. With this starting sentence it is probably the second. But the rest of the post hints for the first.

Whatever... ;-)

Maybe you are decedent of a wild goose

Martin

[Lorelei]

Methinks that at some point during the past 300 years a Mrs. Hammel may have met a dashing Irish lad …
That genetic profiling thing sounds interesting! Checking out prices right now.

[N]

Werter Volksgenosse!!
(Second exclamation mark added for good measure.)

Could it be, that some jolly Irishman has infiltrated your otherwise immaculate blood-line, most likely without the knowledge of the male protectors of your noble family heritage?

[xxx]

Pater semper incertus est