With the advances of DNA analysis, nowadays it's possible to estimate with high accuracy the distant, male only, origins of anyone. Basically the Y chromosome is passed down only from father to son, so we can go back to father, grandfather, great-grandfather and so on in order to find common ancestors with other people living now. Using this method, scientists have estimate the most recent ancestor of all humans on earth (biblical Adam) to have lived 236,000 years ago (range given between 160,00 and 300,000 years ago). Before we dig deeper, it's important to clarify a few important terms:
- Y-Haplogroup - without going into all the technical details, an Y-Haplogroup represents a node/branch in the Y-chromosome tree that share hundreds or even thousands of mutations.
- Formed date of an Haplogroup - means date on which a branch (which contain the mutation) diverged from other known branches. Typically is expressed using "ybp" or "years before present".
- Time to Most Recent Common Ancestor (TMRCA) - how much time has passed since the common ancestor of people in a haplogroup was alive. If your great-grandfather was alive in 1950, TMRCA of all his great grand-children would be ~70 years. It's important to note that TMRCA of a Haplogroup is typically tens (sometimes hundred) of years later than when the Haplogroup was formed. That's because, either other branches are not yet discovered, or because only one of descendants (son, grand-son and so on) has descendants alive today.
After getting a DNA test from Dante Labs and uploading the results to Y-full, as of now*, the Haplogroup of Tollkuci is I-Y230196* which was formed around 1,700 years ago. You'll notice a star next to its name that means there aren't yet sufficient reliable information to permit the identification of a younger (toward the present) branch of the haplogroup (subclade).
Based on Y-Full data, the parent subclade I-Y230196 has 35 people that are tested and the majority of them live in Serbia and Bulgaria. In Albania it has a frequency of around 1%, mostly in the Korca region.
According to FTDNA the most recent common ancestor of the subclade was born around 150 BC, so the estimation is around 450 years earlier than Y-Full. There are 56 people tested currently in FTDNA, with 23 of them again in Serbia and Bulgaria.
The parent haplogroup of I-Y230196 is I-Y230195 with an estimated TMRCA between 1,750 years (Y-full) and 2,350 years (FTDNA) ago. There's also a Facebook group for it, with many members from central Bulgaria. It's part of what's call Dinaric haplogroup and you can see it below within the red circle (image adapted from https://lundiak.wordpress.com/2015/01/09/i2a1b2a1-aka-i-cts10228/)
Going "up" the tree there are a few other haplogroups worth mentioning:
- I-Z17855 (known also as Din-C) formed between 2,100 and 2,400 years ago. It's a subclade of the "North Dinaric" haplogroup with majority of descendants in Bulgaria (around 7% of Bulgarian that have tested belong to this group). There are many discussions regarding its origin and arguing of Slavic origin, but it's more likely pre-Slavic and related with Thracians. In Albania it's mostly found in Korca.
- I-CTS10228 (known also as I2a1b2a1a) formed around 5,000 years ago, with TMRCA somewhere around 1,200-1,500 BC. It's a big haplogroup and is known as the main Dinaric haplogroup (because of Dinaric Alps). Highest frequency is found in Bosnia and Croatia (both 26%)
- I-L621 (known also as Dinaric) formed between 8,000 and 11,000 years ago, with TMRCA around 4,500 BC. Main subclade is I-CTS10936, but there are branches in Germany, Great Britain and Sweden.
- I-M423 (known also as I2a1b) formed around 20,000 years ago, with TMRCA between 12,000 and 17,000 BC. Highest frequency is found in Croatia (30%), followed by Bosnia (27%). In Albania it has a frequency of around 4%.
- I-P37 formed between 21,000 and 22,000 years ago, with TMRCA between 16,000 and 18,000 BC. It is a major haplogroup found throughout Europe. It reaches a maximum in Sardinia and in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and it's common throughout eastern and central Europe. It's also relatively common in Spain, Portugal and France. In Albania it has a frequency of around 6%.
It's pretty much certain that we have lived for thousand of years in the Balkan peninsula. It's likely that during the Roman Empire our distant ancestors lived somewhere in central Bulgaria and then probably because of Bulgarian invasion and later Slavic invasion mixed with them and many stayed in Bulgaria, many moved to Serbia and some in Albania. When more data will become available, we can have a better idea of what happened the last 2,000 years.
Fun fact: Martin Luther and we share a common ancestor born around 400 BC. That means when he was alive our ancestors and he were ~60th cousins (estimating around 30 years for a generation).
*) February 2023