Haplogroup W in Britain

[Tomoboy092]

Does anyone else have haplogroup W and can trace maternal ancestry back to the British isles? And what subclade do you have? I’m haplogroup W5 from the east of England.

[Vestri]

I'm W1g and my maternal line goes to the Midlands.

W5 I think could be a Germanic subclade that was brought to the Isles,

Here's Mark Wade's website on MtDNA W/W5.


http://thecid.com/#w5

[moonsugar]

My maternal line traces back to England. I am haplogroup W1 but am missing the 15884 defining marker for W for some reason.

[Mina]

I'm a North-Eastern French W3a1, and I have a dozen or so Full sequence matches in the British Isles (incl. Ireland and Scotland).

[Geborgenheit]

Interesting, I have always thought W is more common for Eastern Europe than Western Europe.

[Mina]

Interesting, I have always thought W is more common for Eastern Europe than Western Europe.

It's most probably more common there (I do have quite a few matches in E. Europe), but it still pops up here and there across Europe (incl. Scandinavia). W is described as widely distributed across Eurasia (and even as far as SE Asia), but at very low frequencies (W as a whole representing like 1-2% of the world population).

[Vestri]

It's a big question as to how some of the W subclades actually got into Western Europe and into Britain.

I'm W1g, and my two W1g matches are actualy from Hungary/Slovakia. How did my W1g get into Britain?

Here's information on W1g from thecid website by Mark Wade.


W1 is defined by the 7864 mutation. The Finnish-Nordic branches of this subgroup account for a large portion of northern European W's. W1 began differentiating into subgroups around 15,000 years ago. The descendant lineages went both into Europe and Scandinavia via Russia, and the Middle East via Iran, but each lineage with very different routes and timings.

W1g, defined by the 16320 mutation in HVR1. This extends from the Ukraine through Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Germany, and France to Portugal. This arose 4,500 years ago and the timing and the distribution suggest the lineage was brought into Europe by the Yamnaya culture from the steppes between the Caspian and Black Seas.

So W1g is found across Europe but migrated from East to West from the Yamnaya. Many W1g's most likely stopped at Eastern & Central Europe but a few of them further migrated as far West as Portugal. But why?

Why did they keep going? Trade? Slaves? Later Germanic Migration period from Central/North Europe?

I'm thinking maybe the Bell Beaker culture, considering it's extending over France into Spain.

However over at the W Project at FTDNA Mark Wade had mentioned that...


A massive survey of ancient DNA from Britain provided seven new W ancient DNA sequences. Three of these are from Great Britain, and they are all W1+119. This may indicate that the first W's were of this type, with later W types in Britain being part of later arrivals (Scandinavians, Romans, Saxons...)

Arrival of Beaker folk changed Britain forever, ancient DNA study shows. At least 90% of the ancestry of Britons was replaced by a wave of migrants, who arrived about 4,500 years ago, say researchers

Popular summary: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/feb/21/arrival-of-beaker-folk-changed-britain-forever-ancient-dna-study-shows

The scientific paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature25738

New sequences:
mtDNA haplogroup Colloquial ID Genetic Sex Date (95% CI) Label Country mtdna rcrs mtdna private mutations mtdna missing mutations
W HUNG847, grave 1 F 3400–3000 BCE Hungary_LCA Hungary 73G 189G 263G 709A 750G 1243C 1438G 2706G 3505G 4769G 5046A 5460A 7028T 8860G 8994A 11674T 11719A 11947G 12414C 12705T 14766T 15326G 16093C 16223T 16519C 195C 204C 207A 8251A 15884C 16292T
W1+119 896 F 1600–1300 BCE England_MBA Great Britain 73G 119C 195C 204C 207A 263G 709A 750G 1243C 1438G 2706G 3505G 4769G 5046A 5460A 7028T 7864T 8251A 8860G 8994A 11674T 11719A 11947G 12414C 12705T 14766T 15326G 15884C 16223T 16292T 16519C 189A! 3921A 16320T
W1+119 GENSCOT26 M 3951–3780 calBCE (5052±30 BP, SUERC-68701) Scotland_N Great Britain 73G 119C 189G 195C 204C 207A 263G 709A 750G 1243C 1438G 2706G 3505G 4769G 5046A 5460A 7028T 7864T 8251A 8860G 8994A 11674T 11719A 11947G 12414C 12705T 14766T 15326G 15884C 16223T 16292T 16519C 207A
W1+119 1238 (Companion) M 2457–2147 calBCE (3829±38 BP, OxA-13562) Beaker Britain Great Britain 73G 119C 189G 195C 263G 709A 750G 1243C 1438G 2706G 3505G 4769G 5046A 5460A 7028T 7864T 8251A 8860G 8994A 11674T 11719A 11947G 12414C 12705T 14766T 15326G 15884C 16223T 16292T 16519C 204C 207A
W3a1 Obj. 335, grave 7 M 2350–2250 BCE Beaker Central Europe Germany 73G 189G 263G 709A 750G 1243C 1406C 1438G 2706G 3505G 4769G 5046A 5460A 7028T 8251A 8860G 8994A 11674T 11719A 11947G 12414C 12705T 13263G 14766T 15326G 15784C 15884C 16223T 16292T 16519C 16294T 194T 195C 204C 207A
W5 RISE927 F 2500–2000 BCE Beaker Central Europe Germany 73G 189G 194T 195C 207A 263G 709A 750G 1243C 1438G 2706G 3505G 4769G 5046A 5460A 6528T 7028T 8251A 8860G 8994A 11674T 11719A 11947G 12414C 12705T 14766T 15326G 15775G 15884C 16223T 16292T 16519C 6855A 204C
W5a Grave 78 M 2900–2200 BCE Corded_Ware_Czech Czech Republic 73G 189G 194T 195C 204C 207A 263G 709A 750G 1243C 1438G 2706G 3505G 4769G 5046A 5460A 6528T 7028T 8251A 8860G 8994A 10097G 11674T 11719A 11947G 12414C 12705T 14766T 15326G 15775G 15884C 16223T 16292T 16362C 16519C 207A


Actually the earliest British sequence is from North Scotland, 3800 BCE, and therefore pre-Beaker. So it looks like the first W's in Britain were W+119s from Scandinavia or the Baltic, and they were there before the Beaker folk arrived...

One thing I noticed regarding these results was this particular one.
"W1+119 896 F 1600–1300 BCE England_MBA Great Britain 73G 119C 195C 204C 207A 263G 709A 750G 1243C 1438G 2706G 3505G 4769G 5046A 5460A 7028T 7864T 8251A 8860G 8994A 11674T 11719A 11947G 12414C 12705T 14766T 15326G 15884C 16223T 16292T 16519C 189A! 3921A 16320T"

This sample carries 16320 which is a defining mutation for W1g. So maybe they were an early W1g?
If so, the 1600-1300BCE date suggests the Bronze age when some migrations were occuring into Britain from the continent.

[macmegmat]

My father-in-law tested and he is W1. His maternal line goes back to the Isle of Man.

[mangumheel]

Paternal great grandmother is W1 from England.