WHERE GAIL GOT HER CATHERINE THE GREAT GENES (information from Wikipedia and deduction)
Gail’s Catherine the Great genes come from the Emishi (a non-Japanese race) who intermarried into the Abe clan of Northern Japan around 1000 A.D. As evidenced from the brief history that follows there were many opportunities for Gail’s ancestors, the Oshu Fujiwara family, to get the genes of Catherine the Great from the EMISHI or AINU (a non-Japanese race, who had intermarried some Russian/German royal escapees from Siberia). I have used bold to highlight sections to show that there was ample opportunity for the genes of these German/Russian royals to get into the Oshu Fujiwara family. Gail’s mother has AINU blood, which explains why Gail does not look Japanese.
The Northern Fujiwara (奥州藤原氏 Ōshū Fujiwara-shi) were a Japanese noble family that ruled the Tōhoku region (the northeast of Honshū) of Japan from the 12th to the 13th centuries as if it were their own realm. They succeeded the semi-independent Emishi families of the 11th century who were gradually brought down by the Minamoto clan loyal to the Imperial throne based in Kyoto. Ultimately they were conquered by the Kantō samurai clans led by Minamoto no Yoritomo.
During the 12th Century, at the zenith of their rule, they attracted a number of artisans from Kyoto and created a capital city, Hiraizumi, in what is now Iwate prefecture. They ruled over an independent region that derived its wealth from gold mining, horse trading and as middlemen in the trade in luxury items from continental Asian states and from the far northern Emishi and Ainu people. They were able to keep their independence vis-a-vis Kyoto by the strength of their warrior bands until they were overwhelmed by Minamoto no Yoritomo in 1189.
Below is a family tree of the Fujiwaras who show up most frequently in historical accounts.
Tsunekiyo（経清）
┃
Kiyohira (清衡)
┣━━━━━━━━━━━┓
Koretsune(惟常) Motohira (基衡)
┃
Hidehira (秀衡)
┃
┏━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━┓
Kunihira (国衡) Yasuhira (泰衡) Tadahira (忠衡) Takahira (高衡)
Abe no Yoritoki was Gail’s ancestor, whose daughter that married Fujiwara no Tsunekiyo (Tsunekiyo was also Gail’s ancestor and the founder of the Oshu Fujiwara family) had the genes of Catherine the Great. But it was Tsunekiyo’s WIFE (daughter of Yoritoki) who had the genes of Catherine the Great, because her father Yoritoki had a wife who was an EMISHI (a non-Japanese, who had the genes of Catherine the Great).
Abe no Yoritoki (安倍頼時?) (died 28 August 1057) was the head of the Abe clan of Emishi who were allowed to rule the six Emishi districts (Iwate, Hienuki, Shiwa, Isawa, Esashi and Waga) in the Kitakami Basin from Morioka to Hiraizumi in what is now Iwate Prefecture.
The clan emerged from the Appi River basin in what is now Hachimantai City, Iwate Prefecture, early in the 9th century. They provided a number of generals and governors throughout the 9th and 10th centuries. By monopolizing the gold, iron and horse trade in northern Honshū the family became enormously wealthy. They were also innovative in designing a new type of stockade which could withstand a long siege.
Yoritoki and the Abes came into conflict with the Minamoto clan as it began to expand north into Abe territory. The Abe clan began to raid territories south of their border. In 1051 Yoritoki led an army of Emishi into northern Miyagi and defeated a government army at Onikiribe that had been sent to stop the raids. This event triggered the Former Nine Years’ War (Zenkunen War).
Minamoto no Yoriyoshi was then deputized as the new Chinjufu Shogun and sent to chastise Yoritoki in 1053. In 1056 Yoritoki’s eldest son, Sadato, began skirmishing with the Minamotos. War erupted in 1057 and Yoritoki was killed in battle by a stray arrow.[1]
Yoritoki’s sons continued fighting for a time but were finally overwhelmed by combined Minamoto and Kiyohara armies in 1062.
Yoritoki’s daughter (who was at least HALF EMISHI) married Fujiwara no Tsunekiyo. Through this daughter Yoritoki became the grandfather of Fujiwara no Kiyohira, the founder of the Northern Fujiwara dynasty or the OSHU FUJIWARA FAMILY.
Fujiwara no Tsunekiyo (藤原 経清?, died October 22, 1062) was a member of the martial Hidesato branch of the Fujiwaras and was the father of Fujiwara no Kiyohira, founder of the Northern Fujiwara dynasty in Japan. From the Japanese viewpoint he was considered a notorious traitor.
He is said to have come from the Watari District in what is now southern Miyagi Prefecture. He served for a time as a military bureaucrat at Fort Taga in modern day Tagajō, Miyagi Prefecture.
Tsunekiyo married a daughter of Abe no Yoritoki, leader of the Emishi who ruled the Kitakami basin in what is now Iwate Prefecture and moved to Iwayadō Castle. When the Zenkunen War (前九年合戦) broke out he fought with the Abes against the Central government forces led by the governor of Mutsu Province, Minamoto no Yoriyoshi. For this he was branded a traitor. After the Abe were defeated in 1062, Tsunekiyo was beheaded with a blunt sword by Yoriyoshi personally.
Kiyohira was the son of Fujiwara no Tsunekiyo and a daughter of Abe no Yoritoki whose name is not known. He was born somewhere in the Kitakami Basin in 1056. His father was of the Hidesato branch of the Fujiwara clan which was known for their fighting ability. Even so Tsunekiyo was a mid-level bureaucrat at Fort Taga in present day Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture when he married his Emishi wife, left his position and went to live with his wife’s family in present day Iwate Prefecture. Thus, Kiyohira was born in an Emishi household in Emishi territory to a father who was considered a traitor by the Japanese authorities.
Much of his early life was spent in a community at war with the Japanese central authorities. The Earlier Nine Years War (Zenkunen War, 前九年合戦) was fought on and off from 1050 to 1062 while the Latter Three Years War (Gosannen War, 後三年合戦) ran from 1083 to 1087. He lost his grandfather, Abe no Yoritoki, in battle in 1057, his uncle Sadato in 1062 and all of his mother’s brothers were deported to Kyūshū in the same year. His own father (Tsunekiyo) was personally beheaded by Minamoto no Yoriyoshi (源 頼義) with a blunt sword. These are the events which would shape his life and influence his decisions as long as he lived.
This modern building houses statues of Fujiwara no Kiyohira and his father Tsunekiyo. It is at Fort Toyota (Iwayadō Castle) in Oshu City
After he lost his father in The Earlier Nine Wars, his Emishi mother became the concubine of his enemy, Kiyohara no Takehira, who had helped Minamoto no Yoriyoshi in the last war. Kiyohira was brought up in this enemy clan as Kiyohara no Kiyohira, with his elder stepbrother Sanehira and younger half-brother Iehira. The Later Three Years War involved a struggle among the three brothers in this complex relationship. Kiyohira won the final victory in the war in 1087, with the aid of Minamoto no Yoshiie(源 義家), the son of another of his old enemies, Minamoto no Yoriyoshi. Kiyohira, however, lost his wife and son during the war, killed by his half-brother Iehira.
Victorious in the Latter Three Years War, Kiyohira returned to his home at Fort Toyota (Iwayadō Castle), in present day Esashi Ward, Ōshū City, Iwate prefecture, to plan his future. Sometime around 1090 to 1100 he built a new home on Mount Kanzan, “Barrier Mountain” in what is now Hiraizumi Town. There appear to be three main reasons for his choice of site. First was its location directly on the Frontier Way, the main highway leading south to the capital and other major cities and north to the lands he controlled. Secondly it was determined to be the center of their realm, Ōshū, as measured from theShirakawa Barrier in the south to Sotogahama in present day Aomori Prefecture in the north. Thirdly this location is on the South side of the Koromo River, in what had traditionally been Japanese territory. Previously Emishi forts were always built on the North side of East or West flowing rivers.
There is evidence that Kiyohira did not use the name Fujiwara but the name Kiyohara until 1117, when he was more than 60 years old. But he did use it and passed it on to his children. Kiyohira had several wives and consorts including a Taira wife from Kyoto who was called the mother of his six children. She seems to have tired quickly of life on the remote frontier, returned to Kyoto, married a policeman and never returned. He is also known to have had two Emishi wives, a Kiyohara and an Abe. His eldest son and rightful heir was Koretsune. His second son and eventual successor was Motohira, born about 1105, likely to one of Kiyohira’s Emishi wives.
After setting up house in Hiraizumi, Kiyohira began an ambitious Buddhist temple building program on the top of Mount Kanzan, Chūson-ji. This complex of temples, pagodas, repositories and gardens was to be his legacy, the embodiment of his vision for himself, his family and his domain for all time.
After the defeat of the Oshu Fujiwara family under Yasuhira, the remaining royal Oshu Fujiwara family members fled to the caves in the mountains, where Emishi in hiding harbored them safely from Yoritomo and the Japanese ruling nobility at that time. Because the Oshu Fujiwara were believed all dead after their defeat, they isolated themselves from mainstream Japanese society, so that they would not be found out and beheaded; thus further intermarrying into the royal German/Russian royal line or the Emishi (who were considered outcasts at this time), so that by the time Gail was born, she retained the strong German/Russian genes, and ended up with half her genetic profile that of Catherine the Great.
Though Catherine the Great was born AFTER all this happened, she came from the same GENE POOL as Gail’s Emishi and Oshu Fujiwara ancestors, which explains how Gail could end up with the genes of Catherine the Great, even though Gail is NOT descended from Catherine the Great.