Cats, Genealogy and mtDNA Haplogroup group U* and H

The year 2008 will soon be over, and 2009 is rapidly approaching, and I want to get one more blog entry in before 2009. Teaching, as always, is wonderful yet totally exhausting, both emotionally and mentally. During the school year, I’m consumed with my job and my students. Luckily for the 2008-2009 school year, I am blessed, again, with a wonderful group of students. It is winter break, and time to update my poor neglected blog.

Cats at Casa de Dulce y López


"Donut Head" wearing a cone after surgery.

The world of cats at Casa de Dulce y López has been blessed with the addition of Laguna. She has managed to charm every human and cat in the house as well as being a spark that keeps life at the Casa interesting. We had expected Pojoaque to be a small cat like his brother Nambe, but he is a huge cat. We also expected Laguna to be the large cat, and at eight months, she is still very small. Unexpected outcomes can be so delightful. After years of having a Casa full of elderly cats, it is so enjoyable to lay in bed at night and hear rapid paw steps of kitties chasing each other back and forth in their favorite game of chase.


Pojoaque

The world of the feral cats at Casa de Dulce y López hasn’t been as blessed. Ildy and Clara would disappear for over a week every once in a while, and finally, they never came back. I knew that loving feral cats would have its share of broken hearts, but I didn’t expect them so soon. We still have Sophie, Nambe and Juan, plus an exact mini version of Nambe and Juan has joined the group. We’ve wondered if he was their father, yet compared to Juan, Nambe and even our Pojoaque, our new gray guy is so small. Sophie is very close to letting Jim get near her, but someone in the past broke our Sophie’s heart. Brokenhearted kitties have a hard time trusting humans again.



Genealogy Updates

In the past six months I have updated and added hundreds of new people to my genealogy web pages. In earlier posts I mentioned all the great sources I’ve used to research medieval British genealogy, but I forgot a few important ones.


Kidwelly Castle

Some Notes on Medieval English Genealogy not only has some great resources itself, but also has links and leads to others. I’ve found their Some corrections and additions to the Complete Peerage very helpful when working with Cokayne’s Complete Peerage.



Foundation for Medieval Genealogy and Charles Cawley’s Medieval Lands: Charles Cawley has very carefully checked his sources for his work, and his work is very impressive. His entries are mainly noble or royal folk.


Warwick Castle

GEN-MEDIEVAL/soc.genealogy.medieval and their archives: There have been times that the good folks who post on soc.genealogy.medieval have helped me out of deep fogs of confusion. Also, they make me question my own work, which I find always is very helpful.

mtDNA

I had both my nephew’s and my mtDNA tested recently with the Family Tree DNA group. My nephew’s, or my Lopez male’s mtDNA happens to be U*, and my or my mother’s mtDNA is H. It seems that the U mtDNA is the oldest in Europe and people with mtDNA U were in Europe at the same time Neanderthals were there. The MtDNA H is one of the youngest mtDNAs in Europe. I’m not totally sure what all this means, but there has been an interesting outcome to my adding my results to the Family Tree DNA mtDNA matching database. I’ve found a lot of Hispanic New Mexicans with the mtDNA of H. We can find shared New Mexican ancestors, but these ancestors are via my father and not my mother, who has the mtDNA H, and whose female ancestors are likely from England.

My “mother line” is incomplete, as is my “father line.” I can find New Mexican ancestors who can be traced back to Native Americans in New México and the Valley of México, as well as to Spain, Portugal, Greece and even Belgium, but my oldest Lopez ancestor was living in Villa de Alburquerque in 1750 and married there in 1726. My oldest mother was born in Medville, Crawford, Pennsylvania about 1803. Like my father’s genealogy, I can trace other ancestors back to England, and even to the Norman conquest of England, but both mother and father lines stop the present day U.S.


Alburquerque, New México

My father line:
Carlos López (NM), Ramón López (NM), Celso López(NM), Ramon López (NM), Vicente Antonio López (NM), Diego López (NM), and possibly Miguel López (?)

My mother line:
Nancy López (NM), Eleanor Blair (NE), Mabel Cecilia Atwood(NE), Stella Ann Cole (PA), Celia Walker (PA), and Sarah Ann Ross (PA)

More information:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplogroup_U_(mtDNA)

https://genographic.nationalgeographic.com/genographic/atlas.html?card=mm020

http://www.olypen.com/amelia/helena/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplogroup_H_(mtDNA)

https://genographic.nationalgeographic.com/genographic/atlas.html?card=mm024

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/37/Map-of-human-migrations.jpg