The new year for our Saint Andrew’s Society of Tidewater is off to a good start. The Board of Directors has held two meetings since our new administrative year began on March 1.

John Wallace has already made arrangements to have our Burns Night celebration next year at the Officer’s Club at the Dam Neck Naval Facility. Mark your calendars: Burn’s Nicht Supper, January 24, 2004.

Our Society takes its name from the patron saint of Scotland, Saint Andrew. As you know Saint Andrew’s Day is a special day on the Scottish calendar and is celebrated on November 30th of each year. So, in honor of our namesake, the Board has decided to designate Saturday, November 22, 2003 as Scottish Heritage Day, with a full day’s event at the Central Library in Virginia Beach. We are early in the planning stage, but this event will be designed to inform us a bit about our Scottish heritage. Our keynote speaker will be the First Secretary for Scottish Affairs at the British Embassy in Washington, D.C. We will keep you informed as the plans take shape, but be sure to set aside the Saturday before Thanksgiving to help us celebrate our heritage and mark Saint Andrew’s Day 2003.

Last February our Society lost a loyal and valued member, Ernie Turnbull. Ernie was an ardent supporter of his Scottish heritage as well as a piper and a friend. On your behalf, the Society made a donation in Ernie’s memory to the Virginia Beach Rescue Squad. Recently I received the following note from Mrs. Turnbull.

Dear Friends,

Ernie’s association with the Saint Andrew’s Society was one of the joys of his life. He always looked forward to meetings and the yearly balls, picnics, etc.

Thank you for remembering him.

Sincerely,
Lois Turnbull

We shall miss Ernie and will keep Lois in our prayers.

Yours aye

Ham

Ten generations ago (about 1650), you had 1024 ancestors. If you push back to about 1400, statistically you would have in excess of 30 million ancestors, clearly more than lived at the time. Geneticists have demonstrated that we are all descended from a small group of people, perhaps just a few thousand, who lived in eastern Africa about 6,000 generations ago. So if everyone in the world were to take their family trees back 6,000 generations, all of the names on those trees would be the same.

An emerging branch of genealogical has to do with genetic research, linking ourselves to ancestors through such efforts as DNA research. A growing number of laboratories are now in the business of analyzing a subject’s DNA for a fee. DNA is short for deoxyribonucleic acid, a chemical in every cell of your body, shaped like a long, twisted ladder, that identifies your specific makeup and that can link you to those with the same “markers”. As with all such services, the buyer should beware so as not to fall into the same trap as that provided by companies offering “family coats of arms” and other perhaps interesting but nevertheless inaccurate products. Some organizations, however, have specific projects underway to create genetic databases for research. Brigham Young University is conducting one such project.

The Clan Donald USA has an ongoing “genetic project” in an attempt to determine, among other data, if the Norwegian chieftain Somerled is the progenitor claimed by numerous branches of those bearing the MacDonald name. The Historian of the society, Mark MacDonald, recently issued a “Supplemental Report” on the project in October 2002. He analyzes in detail the results of two different groups, neither sharing research data.

One study is guided by a Professor Sykes of Oxford University using the commercial laboratory of “Oxford Associates” in England while the Clan Donald USA Genetic Project employs a university laboratory at the University of Leiden in Holland, as it provides access to a Professor Peter De Knjiff, “well connected to a number of other prominent genetic researchers who maintain unpublished databases which are useful for comparative purposes.”

As the report details, “the data is extremely complex”. Until the sample grows much larger over the next few years, it cannot be assumed that a truly representative sample has been collected. Nevertheless, it is very interesting to compare the Norse character of Clan Donald as a whole with other available population data. Individuals with clan affiliation appear to be less Celtic than the Normans, about as Celtic as the English who claim to be Anglo-Saxon, but generally appear in the male lines to be predominantly Celtic, more Celtic than Scotland generally, and less Norse only than Norway, Iceland and the Orkneys in northwestern Europe. By contrast culturally, clan members were clearly the leaders of the Western Gael and sponsors of the Gaelic Renaissance in the 12th century with Somerled being an early supporter of the Gaelic Church.

Information from Archives News, the newsletter of the Friends of the Virginia State Archives

Book Donation

Nancy Miller, a Bibliographer with the Virginia Beach Public Library and St. Andrew’s Society member, reports that two books were donated to the Central Library in memory of Ernie Turnbull:

Landscapes of Scotland by Sampson Lloyd
Old and New World Highland Bagpiping by J. G. Gibson

Both books are on order and will be available soon.