This page was begun 14 January 2004 ... rak.
The detailed studies of virtually all of those who are shown by their DNA signatures to be our nearest relatives, indicate that the Casebolts belong to the R Haplogroup (for more background information on that see Ancient History), specifically the R1b sub group. This subgroup is huge and may include about half of all males of European ancestry. Consequently, we will have to do more detailed testing to isolate our truly near relatives. As it stands now there are hundreds of families that have the same DNA signature we Casebolts do -- based on the first 12 loci tested. By testing more loci, we will get a better fix on who are our truly near relatives among other families and among those who bear the Casbolt/Casebolt names.
The deep family history is covered in considerable detail in my Kraus pages. Suffice it to say here, that our Casebolt roots began in East Africa some 150,000 years ago with one male whose DNA we males all now carry. Then we moved to the area now occupied by the Sahara and then on into the mid-East. Then the direct ancestors of the Casebolts kept moving north and east until they reached the edge of huge icecaps which then covered much of the northern hemisphere.
Today it would be easy for us to imagine that not much good could happen for humans there. But it turns out that tropical and temperate climates were then populated very sparsely by other animal species. True there were lots of species but not many representatives of each -- just like humans in the same environments. However, in the tundra/grasslands that edged the ice-caps animal life was as much as 9 times more dense than in the tropics and temperate zones. Huge herds of huge animals moved back and forth with the seasons -- prime targets for human hunters. So long as they could keep warm, humans had enough food supply to multiply -- which they did. They moved east and west from central Asia, spreading in numbers into Asia and then the Americas as well as into Europe.
The large numbers of stone-age hunters were the R folk who moved into Europe. And we Casebolts are part of this very big crowd!
To return to the list of Casebolt participants, click on them.