monarch Gediminas, ruler of Lithuanians and Belarusians, was first of his
family in historical sense: his parentage is not clearly attested in any
near-contem****ary sources.
according to Stryjkovski chronicle, early rulers of Lithuanians spoke the
Lithuanian language. Which is known to be an Indoeuropean language, with
much surfatial similarities to Latin ?and also with sanskrit?...
Anyway, their language was that Baltic Indoeuropean language.
There has been a somewhat later invention, do***ented then in heraldic
books about some Gediminaite princely lineages, that Gediminas descended
from princes of Polatsk, the proto-Belarusian state already extant around
the year 1000.
The princes of Polatsk, in turn, have been grafted into Rurikid family
tree as descending from the eldest son of Vladimir, the ruler of Kiev who
converted to christianity - but there have long existed those genealogists
and historians who have suspected that the said son was actually son of
Rogneda of Polatsk, Vladimir's early wife, by an earlier spouse of hers
who had been a Viking chieftain. And that Vladimir's paternity was
actually a step-fatherhood combined with him treating the boy as one of
his own.
This descent of Gediminas from the Polatsk and Rurikids has been dismissed
by research already some time, as historically unattested, as typical
wishful thinking, as a typical grafting of an elevated ancestry to be the
root of a later mighty dynasty...
Now, the intriguing project
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~mozhayski/teksty/ydna.html
has manageed to secure a few possible or believed Gediminaite male-line
samples.
The results vary. In a most mind-boggling way. Two alternatives, which
cannot be both true as to y-DNA of Gediminas.
The samples are (yet) few, thus even one sample more may alter conclusions
drastically.
One sample, of a male of a well-attested Gediminaite lineage (Trubetzkoy)
belongs to the haplotype R1a1. Which is, in light of demographic studies,
one of usual haplotypes present in Indo-european Baltic peoples.
This one sample would thus mean that Gediminas -if he were its patrilineal
ancestor- was a typical Balt as to his y DNA.
But, one sample is a precarious proof. Had anything fatal happened during
those more than six centuries to break that lineage, the one sample would
then prove nothing as to Gediminas.
It would not be any wonder, if a break had happened, that had infused a
typical Baltic y-DNA. There were genetic Balts all around the family
throughout these centuries, so that sort of DNA was well available.
Thus, a final conclusion must be refrained from.
Two other samples, of two males both possibly of Gediminaite lineage but
with an almost non-existent or a fatally faulty evidence to sup****t the
existence of a direct male line from Gediminas, both show to be of the
same male lineage, branched at least half a millennium ago and highly
probably no more than a millennium ago. The time window when Gediminas and
his sons lived.
Their essentially shared y-DNA belongs to the haplogroup I1a. Which is, in
light of demographic studies, one of usual haplotypes present in Viking (=
Varangian) populations.
These two samples would thus mean that Gediminas -if he were their
patrilineal ancestor- was a genetical Viking.
At least these two samples mean that they both descend in patriline from a
Viking, a Varyag, Varangian. Which is highly plausible: those coastal areas
and river routes, from where the patriline of both said samples could well
come, were travelling routes, occasional colonization spots, and robbing
targets, of Varangians a millennium ago.
One such Viking, a Varyag, however was the guy who was first spouse of
Rogneda of Polatsk, and the possible father of the prince who founded the
Polatsk line of (quasi-)Rurikid stem. [It cannot be ruled out that the
said Varangian guy were an ancestor of these two samples. However, to
positively conclude that he were their ancestor, would require a plausible
chain of historical evidence to sup****t the pedigree, not solely DNA
findings. There's almost no such evidence known now.]
All in all, this alternative suffers from the lack of historical
attestation of the male-line pedigree of these samples from Gediminas.
Without such attestations, these two samples cannot be concluded to inform
anything on Gediminas' y DNA.
The question of Gediminid origin, on basis of y DNA, needs certain lot of
further research.
M.Sjöström
Finland
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