Honoring Jean Manco ~ She took me on my Ancestral Journey

Update February 20, 2022: To this day, I and so many still treasure the pages of Jean Manco where she collected data from archaeological sites. For all the people who are just getting to know about haplogroups and y-DNA and mt-DNA, her pages are the thrill of a lifetime to see others from history who shared your or your family member’s DNA SNPs.

Jean, thank you so much. If you love her pages and have found an ancient relative, be sure to post your haplogroup if you like. And tell us if you are ‘still sequencing’.

Delightfully UPDATED – the page is saved! Not being updated, but saved – These first paragraphs are as I wrote them when I first discovered the pages were gone and Jean had passed. I tired emailing her address when I could not find the pages and the box was full as the email in-box is still full. I knew from my own writing, contacting the publisher can be a fast way to reach someone so I suggested this. From this article being read by some of her fans, I learned the site was preserved on archive.org, that she had a new book coming out soon, and I learned from the reception of my blog note she has many, many fans – many. Her family members also found this note and have updated me to the status of books and pages. Below you will find the links to the archived pages for DNA for genealogy of sequenced ancient haplogroups in easy to read charts, which are irreplaceable, and to her new book and the website to accompany the new book which are still available sharing her research.

To her saved data on Archive:

Please tell all and go to her saved pages and see all the wonderful information she has. The short instructions are:

>>>>>>>> This below is page one and see on the left side a list of time periods. Go to any era and use the find feature in your browser window and search for your haplogroup. Often the ancient skeletons are not refined very far down stream so search for yourself with your root haplogroup. (Example my husband is a G2a but he is refined to G-PF3148 – but the page will not have his downstream SNP – so look for the G2 and G2a)

THIS link is to her page with Haplogroup groups – many people use her pages still every week!

https://web.archive.org/web/20170831001206/http://www.ancestraljourneys.org/ancientdna.shtml

My Original blog.

Her site was gone. I searched for other links. It was like her light had been turned off, like her work vanished into cyberspace. Shall we burn her books also? I have just learned of author, historian, educator, Jean Manco’s sad passing. A loss for our history and for our future. But of course she is not ours, she does not belong to her fans. She belongs to her grieving family who knew her as many roles in their lives and we extend the deepest sympathies to them and know they miss her for much more important reason then us her followers.

I began looking for her because her (one of her websites) website ancestraljourneys is gone. For ages I have shared her site and told folks about how wonderful it is for their own lives. For anyone who has sequenced their haplogroup(s) they could go to her site and find where ancient relatives lived and died. Her site made DNA for genealogy and genetic anthropology come to life. She organized the info by era and then had charts naming the archaeological site, the haplogroup and info about the site, the age, place and more.

I have noted her work on my own blog posts in the past and told people in my DNA projects about her work. People who have limited knowledge of their ancestors, learning about the haplogroups can sometimes be all a person will be able to learn of their family history.

For those who might have been adopted or whose ancestry has limited records, genealogy can be terribly disappointing, but we carry our haplogroup(s) within us. We have the haplogroups in our DNA and Jean shared information about many of our haplogroups on her site and in her works.

I was startled when I read she had passed and then thinking of the loss of her website. Gone, just gone – like she and it never existed. I thought of her books and wondered if we should begin to just throw them away or burn them to make them disappear like the webpage. Was it about money? her wishes? How could that be? It could not.

I am older myself and survived one Cancer and in truth we (my better half and I) can’t really afford the annual payment to have this blog for me, but there is a free part and if it is not too large byte wise, I think I should be able to move it to a free section for posterity – for my kids, and theirs, for my family and friends. All the years of research of my own and my recording the research of others so it is not lost.

But to think she was deleted and I would be deleted myself, made me cry for Jean Manco and myself.

I wonder what her mt-DNA haplogroup is? I hope someone will turn her light back on. I feel like I might loose my way without her to follow also.

I am keeping a counter on this link to her pages, to show to the publishers that if they are going to continue to sell her book – they also might like to keep the companion website AND update it.

Please tell all and go to her site and see all the wonderful information she has. The short instructions are:

THIS link is to her page with Haplogroup groups – so very many people use this link every week!

https://web.archive.org/web/20170831001206/http://www.ancestraljourneys.org/ancientdna.shtml

Her books, wonderful. Her website(s) wonderful.

I place this link for my favorite website of hers and hope it will magically return. It is like calling my mother’s old phone number. This link is no longer working – this is just to share her OLD webaddress: http://www.ancestraljourneys.org/

Memorials to and Mentions of Jean on our favorite bloggers sites:

https://www.eupedia.com/forum/threads/35790-Jean-Manco-passed-away

http://bellbeakerblogger.blogspot.com/2018/03/jean-manco-in-memorium.html

https://anthrogenica.com/showthread.php?13911-Jean-Manco

Her publisher – hopefully they will make sure her work including her websites are revived and not thrown to cyber oblivion.

https://thamesandhudson.com/?SID=cctrl4tp2hnlhm9n75reb88a72

Jean Manco’s book

https://www.thamesandhudsonusa.com/books/ancestral-journeys-the-peopling-of-europe-from-the-first-venturers-to-the-vikings-softcover-revised-and-updated-edition

sites still found – maintained by family

http://www.buildinghistory.org/jean/

some of her books

https://www.thamesandhudsonusa.com/books/blood-of-the-celts-the-new-ancestral-story-hardcover