According to tradition, the first Horne in America was Dutch. His father died in London, his pregnant mother made the rest of the trip to America alone, and delivered her baby in Baltimore. I have not been able to identify this unknown ancestor. The earliest proven ancestor of this family was John Horne (1736-1840), a…
Author: Justin Durand
mtDNA Testing
Mitochondrial DNA is long, circular strand of DNA. (Bacterial DNA is also circular.) It is composed of 16,569 smaller units, called base pairs. Each base pair is composed of two nucleotides. There are only four possible nucleotides — adenine (A), thymine (T), cytosine (C) and guanine (G). Each nucleotide has a complementary nucleotide. So, along…
mtDNA Haplogroups
Each of us has inherited mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), along with the mutations that have accumulated in our individual family lines. Geneticists can test for these accumulated mutations. Individual test results are called a haplotype or mitotype. People with the same cluster of mutations belong to the same haplogroup, and are descended from the same female…
Hourie Family in Scotland
The Scottish Horries and Houries (Hauries, Howries) bear a similar name to the Swiss Hauris, but a relationship is unlikely. The Scottish family apparently takes its name from a farm named Horrie in the Toab district of St. Andrews parish on Orkney Mainland. The farm was part of the earldom estate. It appears in records…
American Indian Lore
The Mandans and Minnitarees looked to an Old Woman Who Never Dies as the force behind growing crops. She lived in the south and sent migratory birds as her emissaries. Each type of bird represented a particular crop — the swan for gourds, the goose for maize, and the duck for beans. When each type…