According to the US Snowshoe Association snowshoeing dates back to Central Asia, something like 6,000 years ago
Sounds totally crazy until you think of it in the context of the last ice age and when the ice sheet covering the Northern Coast was only just starting to mild-up and melt away, it makes total sense.
A couple thousand yeas later, some additional ice meltage and then Mongolian mass migration. Crossing the Bering strait, land bridge from Russia to Alaska and then pouring into modern day Alaska, Canada, Americas and bringing their snowshoes along with.
My grandmother used to speculate that our line of Ashkenazi Jewish maternal ancestors were once Mongols.
Theory is, that the Koshubas (named changed to Koffer to protect the idiocy of the a-linguistic dufus’ on Ellis Island who decided to change their name) and my Grandmother’s ancestors Mongolian had, over the course of time, migrated to the shetel (Yiddish word used to define a teeny tiny Jewish peasant village where people starved, walked barefoot in the snow cause they couldn’t afford shoes and got beat up by cossacks) from Central Asia, same way the Inuits had. They didn’t do this by walking across a then, land-bridge, obviously. The bearers of my maternal line XY chromosomes, however, had nevertheless, according to my immigrant Grandma, been Mongols back in the day.
Okay, so I forget the exact migratory trajectory her speculation followed. I do, however remember that she found the evidence of our lineage apparent in the way my eyes look when I smile. So, while I have no idea whether any of this Mongolian migration stuff is true or not, I love the fact that she always stood behind it and that her genealogical conjecture; citing my eyes and smile as evidence of the Genghis in us all.
Do I concur with my grandma’s stipulation? I’ve no way of knowing whether to believe it or not. My take, however, is that if the Central Asian nomads –our alleged ancestors– had managed to bring their snowshoes (which were modified stone slabs at the time) all the way across the Bering Strait (ergonomically evolving along the way, evidently, into the snow shoes vastly improved upon snowshoes worn by Inuits and by Native Americans) with snowshoes intact, then surely my own ancestors would had the sense to take them to the continent next door, when they settled into Poland. And things obviously didn’t go down that way.
With that in mind, how in the world, could these speculative ancestors of mine have gone from nomadic Mongol inventors of the snowshoe, to barefoot while migrating across the cold Ukrainian tundra over the course of time—it just doesn’t makes sense to me.
My boyfriend, Dan, (the guy snowshoeing with me in this pic, taken a few weeks ago, just outside of Steamboat Springs, CO) ordered this DNA tracing kit from National Geographic. It’s part of something called, The Genographic Project.
The Genographic Project
Once it arrives in the mail, you use it to swab your cheek, send the swab in to National Geographic and they run it through the lab and then, a month later send you a detailed breakdown of your ancestral migration. As in, National Geo will actually trace it down to the common ancestor and I’ll finally be able to find out whether or not my grandma was right about the way, way, back Mongolian lineage of our ancestors.
Hi Susanna-
Came across your site trying to figure out how my 94 year old Jewish Dad’s National Geographic DNA results came back indicating that his ancestors had crossed the Bering Straits and that he likely shared much of his genetic background with Native Americans. I’m very curious to know if your test confirmed your Grandmother’s theory. All of this is very surprising (especially to my Dad who prior to this considered himself to a nice Jewish boy from Poland) Any additional insight?
Joan
P.S.
Love your site! It reads like a multi-course feast.
Joan
Dear Joan,
Thank you so much for your lovely email and kind words about my blog. It is, in fact, exactly the sort of response, I’d hoped my post –which, according to my metrics, is one of my most popular ones– might elicit.
Unfortunately, for cashflow reasons, I have not yet had the resources to invest in a DNA analysis service to either confirm or disprove my Bubby’s theory which has actually been championed by my mom as well as by my dad.
With the increasing need for social media savvy writers, business has been picking up a lot lately. This leaves me hopeful that there will be an opportunity to reconsider pursuing this a few months down the road.
In the meantime, I’d love to hear more about your own discoveries. Did the National Geo dad actually trace your Grandfather’s lineage over the Bering Strait?
Best,
Susanna