Ansela van de Caap, b2 SM - Timor link disproved by genetic evidence.

That is very interesting thank you ! Could she be KHOI SAN ?

L0d and L0k (a different branch of L0)- are the haplogroups usually associated with Khoisan ancestry. It's more likely that her mother was one of the VOC slaves from Angola brought to the Cape on the Amersfoort ....or a slave from East Africa in private ownership. L0a is the most prevalent haplogroup in East African populations (25%). It dwindles down to only 1-5% in West Africa.

But almost all Southern African populations have Khoisan genetic admixture -so most likely a component somewhere in her ancestry.

unless she was from ANGOLA ??

So fascinating. Thank you for posting.
Delia Robertson & Private User will be interested.

Pleased you find this so interesting -I find it a fascinating example of the important contribution DNA can make. Delia and Mansell do both know about the genetic findings...and I see that FFY no longer proposes the van Timors as parent candidates for Ansela. The genetic evidence does not of course discount some other sort of connection between Ansela and the Timorese family....as indicated by Mansell's wonderful research...perhaps close friendship or some other tie.

DNA research adds such an exciting new side to genealogy. I've updated the project: changed her name, and added this Discussion.
I see lots of people have been adding their mtDNA progenitors to that project. So great. Go guys! :-)

Tracking the DNA of SA slaves to their geographic origins is a huge research project / book just waiting to happen, in my opinion.

Okay - Trying to figure out where to put Ansela on the DNA mapping of the Slave Route Project: http://www.geni.com/projects/DNA-Mapping-of-the-Slave-Routes-to-Sou...

Presuming the paper trail is correct (are we sure?) - is she a slave from Zanzibar, or a local woman - who marries the political exile, Amsoebe from Timor?

This is the present Geni paper trail line from Ansela/Inabe to Anna van de Swaan (whose genetics appear to have been highly African)

Anna Putter, b1 Agnitie Antonette Campher Ansela van de Caap, SM/PROG

Is the trail wrong or Is Ansela not from Timor?

The genealogical link between Anna van der Swaan and Ansela (Campher) van de Caap seems fairly secure. It's supported by marriage and muster roll entries.
What does not seem secure is the idea that Ansela van de Caap and Baauw van Timor were the same person. This theory was proposed by Mansell Upham in his "Pai Timor" paper... based on names, familial links and other circumstantial findings. Although the evidence was compelling, he expressed misgivings over a few incompatible facts.

In the same paper Mansell also proposed that Catharina de Beer was the daughter of Iba van Timor and therefore niece of Baauw/Ansela. But the differing mtDNA haplogroups of Ansela and Catherina's descendants indicates that they could not have been aunt and niece...the proposed family tree and DNA tree don't match.

As the DNA evidence stands, either Ansela wasn't Baauw....or Catharina wasn't Iba's daughter. Haplogroup N for Catharina's descendant seems to suggest that Mansell was right about Catharina being the daughter of Iba......but wrong about Ansela being Baauw.

A second mtDNA line from Catharina confirming N haplogroup would eliminate the last possible but unlikely explanation: that there's a mistake somewhere in the genealogy of the person claiming to be Catharina's descendant.

But until a second tested line emerges I think Geni should follow FFY's lead and disconnect Ansela from Amsoeboe and Inabe van Timor.

Thankyou Private User. I agree with you. I'm at the beach at the mo, so my connectivity comes and goes. This is on my to do list to fix this weekend.

Okay, I've disconnected her. Now to decide if she fits on the http://www.geni.com/projects/DNA-Mapping-of-the-Slave-Routes-to-Sou...

Private User says "Not only is Ansela's haplogroup of L0a consistent with African ancestry (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplogroup_L0_(mtDNA))
but the Wits University HGDDRU lab reported that one of her descendant's results yielded identical matches to:
"1 African American individual
1 individual from the Democratic Republic of Congo
4 Zanzibaris
2 South African Coloureds
1 South African Indian individual
1 White South African
67 South African Bantu-speakers".

These matches suggest that Ansela's maternal ancestry was of Southern African origin."

But Wikipedia says "Haplogroup L0a is most prevalent in South-East African populations (25% in Mozambique).[3] Among Guineans, it has a frequency between 1% and 5%, with the Balanta group showing increased frequency of about 11%. Haplogroup L0a has a Paleolithic time depth of about 33,000 years and likely reached Guinea between 10,000 and 4,000 years ago. It also is often seen in the Mbuti [Bantu speakers in the Congo - Sharon] and Biaka-pygmies. L0a is found in almost 25% in Hadramawt (Yemen).[9]"

I think the '67 SA Bantu Speakers' is misleading, because many of these will have been the SA descendants of Mozambican slaves; so I'm inclined to think that this specific variant of the LO Haplogroup is quite (very?) likely to mean she was a Mozambican slave?

Thoughts?

The fact that she was owned by the VOC also suggests to me that she wasn't part of the indigenous population in SA.

Do we have the names (Geni profiles) of the two female-line descendants of Ansela van de Caap who have now been identified as belonging to mtDNA haplogroup L0a1?

Private User, yes - look at the project. We actually have three, but are waiting for permission to make the third person public.

See this entry for Ansela van de Caap.

Name Martinus Van De Caap (Baptize as a slave child of Cornelis Brau.)
Event Type Baptism
Event Date 20 Aug 1719
Event Place Cape Town, Cape of Good Hope, South Africa
Father's Name Jacob Van De Caap
Mother's Name Ansela Van De Caap
(https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:VRL9-GN6

Yes, sorry Ian. I was adding stuff piecemeal to that post (I'm at the coast, and my signal just damn disappears all the time) - so it actually sounds like a premise where the second part discounts the fist part, rather than the musing it actually was - where the second part develops the first.

I'm trying to figure out where to provisionally locate her on the project:.http://www.geni.com/projects/DNA-Mapping-of-the-Slave-Routes-to-Sou...

So, I used the Wits lab result you give (obviously of modern people who had been tested); and crossed off the outliers - (some of whom - like the American person, or the white person - obviously tell us squat about the original location) and added the wikipedia info into that.

This suggested (to me in my amateurity :-)) that, while L0 is found most predominantly in the Khoisan - the particular mutation L0a is found most predominantly in the Mozambicans, with a smaller proportion from Guinea and the Congo.

My quick and dirty assumption from that is that, given the fact that we know that a large number of VOC SA slaves came from Mozambique (a much smaller number of slaves came from Guinea), many of the "67 South African Bantu-speakers" are likely to be the descendants of Mozambican (and Guinean) slaves.

Given that Ansela is owned by the VOC, it seems most likely that she was the daughter of a Mozambican slave (less likely, but still a relatively good chance, she was the daughter of a slave from Guinea or Zanzibar).

I'm not bonded to this assumption - I'm just putting it up as an initial thesis as to where to initially locate her on the project. It will be very important to discuss this, and also to keep it open for future info to narrow down the location possibilities.

Marie - I think it might be a different Ansela to this one - who has children with Lourens Campher

Could the Zanzibar matches be the same population group?

Marie Vermeulen-Boshoff found an interesting additional snippet of info for us here. She points to Scipio Van Madagaskar and Scipio Van Bombase possibly being the same person: "the interchangeability of toponyms is interesting & confirms perhaps that the Malagasy slave trade - more often than not - included slaves from the East & Southern African mainland ..."
Probably obvious, but useful for me to be reminded that this must apply to the so-called Mozambican slave trade too.

I've moved her to be under a subheading 'Africa'

According to Dr Helena Sheffler Ansela van die Kaap's mother was from Guinea which is in agreement with the above-mentioned DNA results as outlined by Ian - see http://www.voc-kaap.org/Documents/muratie.pdf

Dr Sheffler researched and wrote a book "The history of Muratie" with CJD Harvey. If someone is able to read and share all the details it may contain it will be wonderful. I imagine it should be very useful reading in terms of Ansela's early history and her life on "De Driesprong" as the farm was originally known with Lorenz/Lourens Campher and their 3 children. I believe UCT has a copy.

She also did a podcast (in Afrikaans) around 2010 together with Dr Hans Heese discussing Angela van die Kaap and Lourens Campher's relationship and life before and on this farm. It was really interesting and really made their endearing story come to life. If I manage to find a copy of the podcast I will share it.

I have managed to get a copy of the Ansela van die Kaap podcast I mentioned above, but when I tried to upload it to Ansela's profile at Ansela van de Caap, SM/PROG it did not look as if one can upload an audio file (mp3, wav or xspf) to sources or media.
Is there a way to upload audio files or not?

Em, I don't think so.

Hi Em,
If you use Google Drive, you can always put the audio file there, and create a link to it. This link can then be posted here.
Would be wonderful.

I'll move Ansela back under Guinea on the Mapping Slave DNA Project - seems to me there's enough evidence pointing in that direction at the mo.

Johann I have not used Google Drive before, I have emailed you a copy of the audio file of the discussion with Dr Sheffler and Dr Heese about Ansela van die Kaap. If you can please put it up for us and link to it, it will be really great. It really did bring the story to life for me.

Sharon I have done a bit more 'digging'...☺

Ansela’s mother likely arrived with one of two ships bringing slaves from west Africa to the Cape (the Amersvoort arrived on 28 March 1658 from Angola and the Hasselt arrived on 6 May1658 from Guinea).

Sixty of these west African Slaves were allocated to the slave lodge (likely including Ansela's mother!), 172 slaves were sent on to Batavia, 79 were sold to company officials and 51 to vryburgers. [W Blommaert, Het invoeren van de slavernij aan de Kaap, argief jaarboek vir Suid-Afrikaanse geskiedenis, 1938]

I have researched west African mt-DNA a bit and found that the parent haplogroup L0 originated in east Africa but spread to west Africa. L0a reached Guinea 4000-10000 years ago [http://familypedia.wikia.com/wiki/Haplogroup_L0_(mtDNA) ].

Haplogroup L0a1 (as per Ansela's descendants) is found in low frequencies in west Africa [http://bmcevolbiol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1471-2148-9-80 ].

L0a1 is thus found in both Angola and Guinea - unsure if the spread to Angola was concurrent or after the spread to Guinea. Nevertheless, genetically Ansela's mother could have been from either Angola or Guinea.

However in Dr Sheffler's Muratie article she indicated that Ansela's mother was from Guinea. Presumably she found some evidence to convince her of this. It will be great to to confirm this....a work in progress... ☺

Here is the link to the audio (.wav) file that Em Lo mentioned earlier:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BzAhoixqlfwNUEVKbjYzN1M5WEVRM0ZfV...

(I hope this will work...)