Tara

     
     Tara (Gaelic for rocky hill) "lived" in Tuscany about 17,000 years ago. She is one of the 7 matriarchs posited by Bryan Sykes in 'The Seven Daughters of Eve' as the clan mothers from whom most Europeans can claim descent. At the time, Europe was in the grip of the last Ice Age and the only parts of the continent where life was possible were the lands bordering the Mediterranean. Then, the Tuscan hills were a very different place. No vines grew; no Bougainvillaea decorated the hiillside farms. Instead, they were thickly forested with pine and birch. The streams held small trout and crayfish, which hepled Tara to raise her family and held the pangs of hunger at bay when the men folk failed to kill a deer or wild boar. As the Ice Age loosened its grip, Tara's descendants moved round the coast into France and joined the great band of hunters following the big game across the tundra that then covered Northern Europe. Eventually, Tara's descendants walked across the dry land that was to become the English Channel and moved right across to Ireland from which Celtic kingdom the clan takes its name.² Tara and Lorna Henderson are related as Tara is the direct maternal ancestor of Lorna, proven by a mitochondrial DNA test. Lorna's proven maternal ancestral line goes: Lorna (NZ), Alice Henderson nee Andrews (NZ); Honor Andrews nee Rowe (NZ); Emma Rowe nee Austin (Australia to NZ); Emma Gibson/Austin nee Clinton (London to Australia to NZ); Jemima Clinton nee Parker (Essex to London to Australia to NZ) with a further possible generation to Charlotte Parker nee Parkinson (Essex) and an awful lot more women who will obviously remain completely undocumented back from the 1760s to 15000 BC.
I see that Oxford Ancestors has one, and only one, direct match for my mDNA on their database although there are many other Tara descendants, including a lady in Auckland whose forbears lived in Essex and moved to London, just like mine, about the same time. Unfortunately, the direct match one hasn't chosen to share her contact details.^1,3
     DNA testing revealed Lorna Henderson and Tara as "distant" genetic match(es); Kit M5210.¹