Another "Jim Manley", Haplotypes, and Roman Heritage 1

Early in my exploration of web resources for genealogy, I found that there were an intimidating number of "Jim Manley's". In fact, I already knew of one Jim Manley who has been a kind of Doppleganger of mine since I taught in Hawaii. He taught in a private school in Manoa. When I moved to Claremont, there he was again. He was the charming Jim Manley who played the guitar. Today he lives only a few blocks away and share the same GP physician. His father, now deceased, was Felix Manley, who was a congregationalist minister. This must go back to Ira Manley, but that is another story.

Among the Jim Manley's I found on the internet was one who posed this question: "I've just had my DNA tested and it's coming up as a J2 Haplogroup, which probably means my ancient relation was most likely a Roman Legionaire garrisoned to the UK. Any other J2 Manley's out there?" It was a great question because all Manleys tended come through England, in particular, Southern England, near Dorset, or even Manley village. But the "J2" indicated a different migration patterns from the R1b's. The J2's took a more southern route, one that took them through Italy. That is easy to see on the graphic above. You can see the R1b's moving into Europe. They would continue into England. Below that black line, you see the turqoise line moving into southern France through very southern Italy, just above Sicily. The J2's are associated with the Levant and include a spectrum of ethnic, including Jewish, groups.

I immediately wrote to this Jim Manley and asked him about the J2 ancestry. He replied, "I was one of the first J2 Manleys with my results online. When I first found out my results, they triggered a difficult discussion with my mom." Indeed! But the results of that conversation were reassuring. So where did the J2 haplotype come from? He continues, "Somewhere along the way I discovered that Chester rivaled Londonium for the largest settlement in the UK. Looking closer at the geo-distribution for J2, I saw that it extended westward into southern Italy. So, putting the two pieces together, I think it quite reasonable to conject that my ancestors were legionnaires, who intermarried with the local Manleys. I cannot think of any other explanation which makes sense." And I agree. One of those J2's was in the Roman army sent off to Britannia. This would of course be in modern times about 2,000 years ago. The liason with an indigenous woman would have explained both the Manley descendancy from England and the anomalous J2 haplotype.

He concluded his note to me, "'We've made contact with other J2 Manleys and we conject but have not proven that our common ancestor dates back into the 1600s here in Virginia."