Y-DNA (37  +  6 additional markers) database including Rurikid and Gediminid princes and also those males who suspect that they descend either from Rurik (the 1^st Russian prince, 9^th century), or from Gedimin (The Grand Duke of Lithuania, 13^th cent.). База У-ДНК хромосомы Рюриковичей и Гедиминовичей. Baza chromosomu Y (Y-DNA) Rurykowiczów i Gedyminowiczów.

 

Rurikid Dynasty DNA Project http://www.familytreedna.com/public/rurikid/

 

Contains currently the following surnames, Rurikids : Bariatynski, Belosselsky-Belozersky, Czetwertynski, Drucki (Droutskoy), Gagarin, Gorchakov, Khilkov, Korybut-Woroniecki, Kropotkin, Kubensky, Kurbatsky (Kurbsky ?), Lobanov-Rostovsky, Lvov, Mozarowski (and variants), Mozhaysky, Myshetsky, Niewmierzycki (and variants), Obolensky, Ossowiecki, Poscharsky, Putyatin, Puzyna, Rostowsky, Rzhevsky, Shahovskoi, Solomin, Szuyski, Tolloczko, Ushakov, Vadbolsky and Volkonsky, and Gediminids : Golitsin (Galitzine), Khovanskii (Chowanski), Chartorisky (Czartoryski), Trubetskoy (Trubecki), Urban(owicz), Svistunov, Cuthie (Jakutowicz), Barteit. However, not all of them were found to be genuine descendants of Rurik or of Gedimin, respectively. Besides, it was discovered that the Volkonsky/Obolensky branch is of Slavic descent (genetic haplogroup R1a1), and most probably princes in this branch are not descended from Rurik. By all means it seems that Rurik was a historical person who was born on the Roslagen seashore (slightly north of Stockholm, Sweden). However, he was of Finno-Ugrian descent (haplogroup N1c1 (earlier described as N3a)) -  although, theoretically, it could have been the Obolensky branch which might be descended from Rurik. Prince Piotr Szuyski is also of Slavic descent (R1a1).

 

Prince Kropotkin is really descended from Rurik. However, by no means is he descended from the princes of Smolensk. His princely branch needs to be reconsidered again.

 

Gedimin, the Grand Duke of Lithuania, and Rurik the Viking chieftain and the 1^st Russian prince, were very distant cousins. They shared a common male ancestor ab. 2200 years ago. It is not clear whether the noble Urbanowicz, Jakutowicz and Svistunov (Swistun, Swistunow) families are illegitimate descendants of Gedimin, or if they rather belong to Gediminid branches that were forgotten by genealogists.

 

Prince Jerzy Czartoryski of Canada decided to have his Y-DNA tested in spite of what historians speculate(d) about the descent of his princely branch. It is believed that his G...Grandmother, the princess Izabella Czartoryska (nee Fleming) had her 1st son with the Rurikid prince Nikolai Vasilievich Repnin, while it was Armand-Louis de Gontaut-Biron, Duc de Lauzun, who fathered the 2nd son, Konstanty, from whom Prince Jerzy descends. Prince Jerzy was found to be descended from a Germanic tribe (R1b1). He can still be descended from the French, since the majority of them are of Germanic origin. What counts here is that Prince Jerzy inherited the title of Prince, as well as family tradition, from his legal ancestors, the Czartoryski princes. On the other hand, however, provided that he really is descended from the Gontaut-Birons, this duly means that he is a genetic descendant of this old French family, which has roots at least as far back as the 12th century.

 

Prince Stanislaw Antoni Czetwertynski was found to belong to the I2a2 haplogroup. By no means is he descended from Rurik. His genetic haplotype is typical for the native population of the Belarussian-Ukrainian Polissiya region. This can also mean that Prince Tur(e), who founded the dynasty of the Turov-Pinsk princes, wasn’t at all descended from Rurik.

 

It looked like the Chernigov-Kievan branch (Volkonsky, Obolensky) could have been genetically broken by one of the Polish kings, since their haplotypes belong to the “western” clade in the R1a1 haplogroup. However, the test result of Prince Massalski from Poland has shown that this is not really so. The Massalski princes are descended from Mstislav Karachevsky, the son of St. Mikhail of Chernigov. This means that St. Mikhail belonged, in fact, to the N1c1 haplogroup. And this also means that Prince Yuri Taurussky from whom the Volkonsky/Obolensky princes have descended, either wasn’t at all the son of St. Mikhail, or the wife of St. Mikhail was raped by someone, possibly by Tartars (St. Mikhail and his wife were taken POWs by the Tartars).

 

Results for people whose surnames are marked with a green background were provided by Nikita Maximov, the Scientific Editor of the Russian Newsweek Magazine. They are not to be taken away from here unless written permission from him is obtained (nmaximov@gmail.com) .

 

Other results are freely available to anyone who wishes to use them for comparative and non-commercial purposes, also provided that a link to this web site is created.

 

 

This database can be useful for many males. By using this in a simple way they can check whether they have (or haven’t) descended from Rurik. It was also believed that the Gediminid princes were descended from Rurik on the Polotsk branch. However, the preliminary results do suggest that this is not really so, although Gedimin originated from Baltic Finno-Ugrians.  Another idea would be to create the so-called modal Y-DNA pattern for Rurik, as well as for Gedimin. However, this may be possible later, when some more test results will become available. Nevertheless, the preliminary modal haplotypes for Rurik and Gedimin have been created.

 

The tests were performed with the Family Tree DNA Co. http://www.familytreedna.com/ in the group program “Rurikid Dynasty DNA Project”. 37 characteristic markers are displayed in columns 1 to 37, respectively. The larger is the number of matching markers, the closer is kinship of the two males. If the markers are not perfectly matching, just for the sake of readability they have been displayed with different colours in reference to the modal haplotypes of Rurik and of Gedimin. The more the background is becoming orange and red, the larger is the positive genetic distance, while the more the background is becoming green and blue, the larger is the negative genetic distance in each of the markers, respectively. This is shown in the label below. However, the (total) genetic distance from either the modal Rurik or Gedimin in all compared markers should not exceed a couple of units. If this is really so, it means that another tested male is their (distant) cousin. This is marked with green (Rurikids, Gediminids), or light green (Proto-Rurikids, Proto-Gediminids). The database also includes a certain number of other people, especially the Finns belonging to the N1c1 haplogroup, which are neither related by blood with Rurik, nor with Gedimin. They have been marked with light blue, and described as being “Distant cousins”. These results are kept in the project for a particular reason : no one still knows from where the ancestors of Rurik arrived in Sweden, as well as from where the ancestors of Gedimin arrived in the Baltic countries (possibly this was Povolzhe in Russia). On the basis of genetic distances, as well as on the basis of WTY (Walk Through the Y chromosome) results, one can now anticipate that the Finno-Karelian (L550-) and others (L550+) (especially those of the Rurikids and Gediminids) separated already in Siberia ab. 4500 – 6000 years ago. However, these tests are by no means completed to the point that one can make any final conclusion here.

Mutation rates in markers marked with pink background are larger (0.003 to 0.005), and those marked with violet background are extremely large (above 0.005) compared with an average mutation rate (which is something like 0.0024). However, in the so-called genetic calculator one can also use different mutation rates in each of the marker panels. Estimated more precisely by the FTDNA Co., the average mutation rates are as follows : 0.00399 (markers 1 – 12), 0.00481 (markers 13 – 25), and 0.00748 (markers 26 - 37), respectively (http://www.mymcgee.com/tools/yutility.html#MutationRate) . And this is also clear evidence that the markers 26 – 37 are most important in genetic genealogy. When comparing the markers 1 –25 one can only SUSPECT that the two tested males might be related by blood if their markers are matching. By ALL MEANS one needs to check the markers 26 – 37, and especially the fast mutating markers like CDYa, CDYb and DYS 570, to be absolutely CERTAIN that, IN FACT, he IS related by blood with another man. A lot of Y-DNA test results do appear on the Y-search.org database (http://www.ysearch.org/) when the two males are e.g. perfectly matching on their first 12 markers; a certain mismatch, however  small, can appear on the 2^nd panel (markers 13 - 25); while a considerable mismatch on the 3^rd panel (markers 26 – 37) is clear evidence that they are not related by blood at all (in historical times – 50-60 generations ago).

Thanks to this project I can verify real mutation rates, and these have been displayed below. The rates are calculated per the entire 37 markers haplotypes and per century. The time that passed by is a difference between the year in which the Y-DNA tests were performed, and the year when the common male ancestor (CMA) was born.

 

 

Surname and given name	Surname and given name	Haplogroup	Common male ancestor (CMA)	Year born	Centuries to the CMA	Genetic Distance on 37 markers		Mutation rate per 37 markers haplotype and per century**		Genetic Distance on 67 markers		Mutation rate per 67  markers haplotype and per century**
		(in blue SNP test)				FTDNA standard*	Webmaster’s standard*	FTDNA standard*	Webmaster’s standard*	FTDNA standard*	Webmaster’s standard*	FTDNA standard*	Webmaster’s standard*
RURIKIDS	N1c1	(***)	AVERAGE					0.5311	0.5293			0.8984	0.8897
Gagarin G.G.	Rzhevsky Nikolai	N1c1	Vladimir Monomakh	1053	9.55	3@	3@	0.4649@	0.4649@
Gagarin A. P.	Rzhevsky Nikolai	N1c1	Vladimir Monomakh	1053	9.55	4	4	0.4188	0.4188	8	8	0.8377	0.8377
Gagarin A. P.	Khilkov	N1c1	Andrei F. Starodubsky	Ab. 1290	7.18	4	4	0.5571	0.5571	8	8	1.1142	1.1142
Gagarin A. P.	Kropotkin	N1c1	Vladimir Monomakh	1053	9.56	8	7	0.8368	0.7322	10	9	1.0460	0.9414
Gagarin A. P.	Putiatin	N1c1	Vladimir Monomakh	1053	9.56	9	9	0.9414	0.9414	14	14	1.4644	1.4644
Gagarin A. P.	Vadbolsky	N1c1	Vsevolod Yurievich	1154	8.55	6	6	0.7018	0.7018	11	11	1.2865	1.2865
Gagarin A. P.	Puzyna Jakub	N1c1	Vladimir Monomakh	1053	9.55					15	15	1.5707	1.5707
Rzhevsky Nikolai	Khilkov	N1c1	Vladimir Monomakh	1053	9.56	4	4	0.4184	0.4184	4	4	0.4184	0.4184
Rzhevsky Nikolai	Kropotkin	N1c1	David R. Smolensky	Ab. 1130	8.79	4	4	0.4188	0.4188	6	6	0.6826	0.6826
Rzhevsky Nikolai	Putiatin	N1c1	Mstislav Vladimirovich	1076	9.33	7	7	0.7503	0.7503	8	8	0.8574	0.8574
Rzhevsky Nikolai	Vadbolsky	N1c1	Vladimir Monomakh	1053	9.56	6	6	0.6276	0.6276	7	7	0.7322	0.7322
Rzhevsky Bikolai	Puzyna Jakub	N1c1	Vladimir Monomakh	1053	9.55					11	11	1.1518	1.1518
Khilkov	Kropotkin	N1c1	Vladimir Monomakh	1053	9.56	3	3	0.3138	0.3138	4	4	0.4184	0.4184
Khilkov	Putiatin	N1c1	Vladimir Monomakh	1053	9.56	6	6	0.6276	0.6276	8	8	0.8368	0.8368
Khilkov	Vadbolsky	N1c1	Vsevolod Yurievich	1154	8.55	4	4	0.4678	0.4678	5	5	0.5850	0.5850
Khilkov	Puzyna Jakub	N1c1	Vladimir Monomakh	1053	9.55					7	7	0.7330	0.7330
Kropotkin	Putiatin	N1c1	Mstislav Vladimirovich	1076	9.33	10	10	1.0718	1.0718	12	12	1.2862	1.2862
Kropotkin	Vadbolsky	N1c1	Vladimir Monomakh	1053	9.56	5	5	0.5230	0.5230	7	7	0.7322	0.7322
Kropotkin	Puzyna Jakub	N1c1	Vladimir Monomakh	1053	9.55					9	9	0.9424	0.9424
Vadbolsky	Putiatin	N1c1	Mstislav Vladimirovich	1076	9.33	6	6	0.6431	0.6431	7	7	0.7503	0.7503
Vadbolsky	Puzyna Jakub	N1c1	Vladimir Monomakh	1053	9.55					10	10	1.0471	1.0471
RURIKIDS	R1a1
Volkonsky John	Obolensky Yuri	R1a1	Taurussky Yuri	Ab. 1220	7.88	6	6	0.7614	0.7614	11	11	1.3959	1.3959
Volkonsky John	Volkonsky O.	R1a1	Volkonsky Fedor I.	Ab. 1330	6.79	6	6	0.8837	0.8837	7	7	1.0309	1.0309
Volkonsky O.	Obolensky Yuri	R1a1	Taurussky Yuri	Ab. 1220	7.89	7	7	0.8872	0.8872	12	12	1.5209	1.5209
GEDIMINIDS	N1c1								(0.5486)			(0.8424)	(0.8424)
Khovanskii Askold	Chartorisky Alex	N1c1	Gedimin	Ab. 1270	7.38	4	4	0.5420	0.5420	5	5	0.6775	0.6775
Khovanskii Askold	Golitsin	N1c1	Patrikiy Narimuntovich	Ab. 1330	6.79	4	4	0.5891	0.5891	6	6	0.8837	0.8837
Khovanskii Askold	Trubetskoy	N1c1	Gedimin	Ab. 1270	7.39	4	4	0.5413	0.5413	6	6	0.8119	0.8119
Chartorisky Alex	Golitsin	N1c1	Gedimin	Ab. 1270	7.39	2	2	0.2706	0.2706	5	5	0.6766	0.6766
Chartorisky Alex	Trubetskoy	N1c1	Algirdas Gediminovich	Ab. 1307	7.02	4	4	0.5698	0.5698	7	7	0.9972	0.9972
Golitsin	Trubetskoy	N1c1	Gedimin	Ab. 1270	7.39	4	4	0.5413	0.5413	8	8	1.0825	1.0825
TAWAST	CLAN	(***; 3)	AVERAGE					0.4645	0.3787
Tawast Hannu	Stjerna Antti	N1c1	Tawast Henrik	Ab. 1500	5.08	4	3	0.7874	0.5906
Tawast Hannu	Tawast Veikko	N1c1	Tawast Christoffer	Ab. 1660	3.47	2@@	2@@	0.5764@@	0.5764@@
Tawast Hannu	Tawast J.	N1c1	Tawast Christoffer	Ab. 1660	3.47	3	3	0.8646	0.8646
Tawast Hannu	Tawast T.	N1c1	Tawast Alexander	1802	2.07	1@@	1@@	0.4831@@	0.4831@@
Tawast Hannu	Bergh P.	N1c1	Tawast Johan	Ab. 1590	4.17	2	2	0.4796	0.4796
Stjerna Antti	Tawast Veikko	N1c1	Tawast Henrik	Ab. 1500	5.08	2	1	0.3937	0.1969
Stjerna Antti	Tawast J.	N1c1	Tawast Henrik	Ab. 1500	5.08	3	2	0.5906	0.3937
Stjerna Antti	Tawast T.	N1c1	Tawast Henrik	Ab. 1500	5.08	3	2	0.5906	0.3937
Stjerna Antti	Bergh P.	N1c1	Tawast Henrik	Ab. 1500	5.08	2	1	0.3937	0.1969
Tawast Veikko	Tawast J.	N1c1	Tawast Frederik	1758	2.50	1	1	0.4000	0.4000
Tawast Veikko	Tawast T.	N1c1	Tawast Christoffer	Ab. 1660	3.47	1	1	0.2882	0.2882
Tawast Veikko.	Bergh P.	N1c1	Tawast Johan	Ab. 1590	4.17	0	0	0	0
Tawast T.	Tawast J.	N1c1	Tawast Christoffer	Ab. 1660	3.47	2	2	0.5764	0.5764
Tawast T.	Bergh P.	N1c1	Tawast Henrik	Ab. 1500	5.08	1	1	0.1969	0.1969
Tawast J.	Bergh P.	N1c1	Tawast Henrik	Ab. 1500	5.08	1	1	0.1969	0.1969
Vines Fred	Vines Ron	N1c1	Vines John	Ab. 1660	3.46	2@@	2@@	0.5764@@	0.5764@@
Vines Fred	Vines Paul B.	N1c1	Vines Edward	1725	2.81	1@	1@	0.5267@	0.5267@
Kosonen Roy	Kosonen Eino	N1c1	Kosoin Petteri	1713	2.94	1	1	0.3436	0.3436
Fletcher Brien	Fletcher Richard	N1c1	Fletcher John S.	1829	1.79	3	2	1.6760	1.1173
Komulainen Eero	Komulainen Jari	N1c1	Komulainen Samuel	1703	3.06	4	4	1.3071	1.3071
Hiltunen Paavo	Hiltunen Jari	N1c1	Hiltunen Matti	1718	2.91	2	2	0.6873	0.6873
Lapinski “Wzorek”	Lapinski „Bodaj”	R1a11	Lapinski Jakub	Ab. 1510	4.98	4	4	0.8032	0.8032
Lapinski „Kus”	Lapinski „Bodaj”	R1a1	Lapinski Wit	Ab. 1450	5.58	5	5	0.8961	0.8961
Lapinski „Rosman”	Lapinski „Bodaj”	R1a1	Lapinski „Lapa”	Ab. 1420	5.88	4	4	0.6803	0.6803
Lapinski „Wzorek”	Lapinski „Kus”	R1a1	Lapinski Wit	Ab. 1450	5.58	5	5	0.8961	0.8961
Lapinski „Rosman”	Lapinski „Kus”	R1a1	Lapinski „Lapa”	Ab. 1420	5.88	3	3	0.5102	0.5102
Lapinski „Rosman”	Lapinski „Wzorek“	R1a1	Lapinski „Lapa”	Ab. 1420	5.88	6	6	1.0204	1.0204
VENTER	CLAN	(***; 4)	AVERAGE					0.8991	0.8991
Venter Piet #73298	Venter #89593	R1a1	Venter (v. Dempter) Hendrik	1663	3.46	2	2	0.5780	0.5780
Venter Piet #73298	Venter #87173	R1a1	Venter (v. Dempter) Hendrik	1663	3.46	2	2	0.5780	0.5780
Venter Piet #73298	Venter #87825	R1a1	Venter (v. Dempter) Hendrik	1663	3.46	0	0	0	0
Venter Piet #73298	Venter #132347	R1a1	Venter (v. Dempter) Hendrik	1663	3.46	0	0	0