Genealogy

Genealogy has numerous aspects: cultural, social, political, and biological components play into an individual’s or family’s descent. The simplest genealogies are trees illustrating biological descent while more complex genealogies morph into family histories.

The biological aspect of genealogy has been elaborated rapidly recently: examining DNA has revolutionized our understanding of human heredity and descent. The pages here which discuss biological ancestry come to a focus on the individual members of our family, but that focus occurs only in the context of a much broader understanding of biological concepts.

An introduction to the biology of heredity is presented on this page.

John Edward Korcok inherited his mother Jessica’s MtDNA and his father Michael’s Y-chromosome DNA. John’s deep ancestry is thus partially explained by being in MtDNA Haplogroup U5 and in Y-chromosome Haplogroup I2a2.

The paternal line of descent, Y-chromosome Haplogroup I2a2, is explained more fully here.

The maternal line of descent, MtDNA Haplogroup U5, is explained more fully here.