Who gave us our Asian DNA?

We started with four sources, James, George, Tobias and May.

James’s line ended with his daughter Ellen in 1944. That left just the three lines we have today.

George Hunter had two sons. Only one, George Stanley, had children. The remaining live daughter from that line is Diana.

Tobias Hunter had two daughters. Only one, Iris Hunter produced a son, which is me, Brian Hunter Beesley.

May Hunter had three daughters and a son. All but one  produced children but most are deceased now or have not tested their DNA. One daughter, Edna had a daughter, Janetta, who also had a daughter, Miranda.

Miranda and her mother have both tested with Ancestry and Miranda went a step further and did a mitochondrial DNA test with FTDNA.

This last test traces the DNA which is passed down only from mothers to their children. Male children do not pass it down. 

In our case we are extremely fortunate that we have a direct unbroken female line. Mitochondrial DNA remains the same for many thousand of years, which means mothers are almost 100% the same as their daughters and vise versa. This enables us to work backwards up the line, from Miranda to her mother, Janetta, to her mother Edna, to May Hunter, to … Anne Hunter? Kot Choy?

We don’t have the answer to who, but the mitochondrial tells us that they are all Haplogroup C7a2 which is virtually all Asian. So we know the entry point of out Asian DNA is May’s mother.

If May’s mother is also the mother of the other three children, James, George and Tobias, then my great grandmother was at least 50% Asian. 

Miranda and her mother carry the C7a2 mitochondrial DNA as does her brother and her uncle, The latter two have not done a mitochondrial test, but it is not necessary as they will be the same as their mothers which is C7a2.