Hi Carol, This is very exciting. I think that test results from one of your cousins would probably help you, John, Robert, and Kathy establish more of Guien's probable haplotype, since your cousins would probably match John or Robert on at least some of the mismatched markers. John and Robert don't have any close matches right now, but having a better idea of Guien's haplotype should be very helpful to them when they compare their results with the distant matches that they have right now and closer matches who join the project in the future. Sharing results from your McConnell family would also be of great benefit to other genealogists using DNA who have a high mutation rate in their families. This applies to all genetic genealogists, not just those in the Clan Donald DNA project. Knowledge about the variation of mutation rates within different families is quite limited. There are probably a number of other genealogists out there whose test results have or will have borderline matches or nearly matched mismatches with relatives who are much closer than calculations based on average mutation rates suggest. For those researchers, understanding that advanced paternal age or other unknown factors may have caused a higher than average mutation rate within their families is very important. I shared some of the results for John and Robert on the DNA Genealogy list, and they attracted the attention of Charles Kerchner. He is a longtime genealogist and genetic genealogist who runs several genealogy projects. Charles was extremely interested in the example of your family because it is provides such a good example of a higher than average mutation rate. He has a special project to collect information from such families on their observed mutation rates.* The data from John and Robert alone is not sufficient to calculate a mutation rate for the family because it is not enough to establish an ancestral haplotype for all 37 markers tested, but adding data from one of your cousins might make that possible, and would certainly give us a better idea of the approximate mutation rate within your family that could be shared with others on forums like the DNA Genealogy list. Because I think that this information from your cousins would be so helpful to other DNA genealogists, I would be interested in making a nominal contribution (at least $20) toward testing one of your cousins. I'd actually contribute more if I wasn't still recruiting members of my McConnell and other families to test. I think that John has been watching this list and probably has seen your post, but I don't know about Kathy. I will make sure that she knows of your interest. I hope to hear more from you about this soon. Best regards, Kirsten Saxe * Charles Kerchner's project examining variation in mutation rates is for members of Haplogroup R1b only. Most members of the Clan Donald project, including John and Robert, are members of this haplogroup and so would be eligible to join so long as they had enough family DNA results to establish their ancestral haplotype and calculate their observed mutation rate. Although the same sort of family mutation rate study probably does not exist for other haplogroups, there are haplogroup projects that members of other haplogroups can join to help them further explore their haplogroups. Charles Kerchner does also run such a project that is open to all R1b men. It is not necessary to have results from mutiple family members to join that project. On Sun, 28 Oct 2007 10:34:05 EDT, CEVaughan412 wrote > Hi My name is Carol. > My mother was Betty McConnell. > Here is how we descend from Guian: > > Guien McConnell 1725 - 19 Aug 1807 > -John McConnell Abt. 1789 - Jun 1859 > -Guian McConnell 1808 - 12 Sep 1895 > -Marcus McConnell Abt. 1841 - ? > -Mark Albertus McConnell 05 Sep 1862 - 02 Aug 1924 > -Charles Marcus McConnell 08 Aug 1892 - 22 Mar 1954 > -Betty Louise McConnell 22 Dec 1934 - 17 Mar 2004 > > My mom was an only child, but she had 2 male cousins, who also > happened to be "double cousins". Those two males had male > offspring so, I might be able to contact them about DNA if it would > help anyone in the project. > > "If you can't find a paper trail, go for the blood!" > > Carol > > ************************************** See what's new at http://www.aol.com > > ********* > Visit the threaded archives of this list: http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/index/MCCONNELL > ********* > Messages posted to the RootsWeb/Ancestry MCCONNELL Message Board are > gatewayed to this Mailing List. Remember that the author of > gatewayed messages may not be a list subscriber so please reply to > gatewayed messages by clicking on the link and replying on the > board. ************ > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to MCCONNELL- > request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes > in the subject and the body of the message -- Open WebMail Project (http://openwebmail.org)

Earlier today, I mistakenly wrote that Charles Kerchner's Y DNA mutation rate study is for R1b men only.This is WRONG! Members of all haplogroups are eligible for the mutation rate study. Of course, joining any general project for members of your haplogroup is also recommended. Sorry for any confusion caused. You can explore the mutation rate study at http://www.kerchner.com/cgi-kerchner/ystrmutationrate.cgi. Kirsten Saxe > > * Charles Kerchner's project examining variation in mutation rates > is for members of Haplogroup R1b only. Most members of the Clan > Donald project, including John and Robert, are members of this > haplogroup and so would be eligible to join so long as they had > enough family DNA results to establish their ancestral haplotype and > calculate their observed mutation rate. Although the same sort of > family mutation rate study probably does not exist for other > haplogroups, there are haplogroup projects that members of other haplogroups > can join to help them further explore their haplogroups. Charles > Kerchner does also run such a project that is open to all R1b men. > It is not necessary to have results from mutiple family members to > join that project. >