If you are seeing these numbers in the genetic Distance report, then that is exactly correct! 12 step mutation is a long long time! You are looking for distance of 0, or 1 at the most! Bennett Greenspan FTDna http://www.familytreedna.com Those Smothers DNA participants should print out this information as your DNA results will include Haplogroups for you each individually. Facts & Genes from Family Tree DNA February 27, 2003 Volume 2, Issue 2 In the News: Family Tree DNA announces the Haplogroup Database Family Tree DNA is pleased to announce a new database called Haplogroup. The Haplogroup database will assist you in exploring your deep ancestral roots. It provides information about your deep ancestral paternal lineage, based on the Y chromosome. An individual's Y chromosome signature is compared to an extensive database from many studies conducted by Dr. Michael Hammer and his colleagues. Your Haplogroup is estimated based on the Haplogroup of the matches found. To access the Haplogroup database, a new selection called Haplogroup appears on your Personal Page. Your Personal Page at FamilyTreeDNA.com is where you view your results, and search the databases available from Family Tree DNA. To access your Personal Page, you log into FamilyTreeDNA.com with your kit number and password. The Haplogroup selection on your Personal Page will show the Haplogroup and the country of those whom you most closely match. A close match for this purpose can be from 1-4 mutations. The country represents the ethnic origin information supplied by Dr. Hammer's research. Note that this is different information than what you'll find in the REO database, which is supplied by Family Tree DNA's customers and Dr. Hammer's dataset. Dr. Hammer's independent study contains results for either 12 or 25 Marker Y chromosome tests for each participant, and their test results from a SNP (Single Nucleotide Polymorphism) test on the Y chromosome. The SNP test determines the participant's Haplogroup. The Y chromosome test is based on testing Short Tandem Repeats, or STR Markers. Family Tree DNA can perform a test for Haplogroup determination utilizing specific SNP Markers. The Y-DNA SNP test will determine if the estimated Haplogroup is your Haplogroup. As an example, if your estimated Haplogroup is R1b, a test could be ordered to confirm if you are indeed an R1b or not, but in case you are not, you would have to perform additional test(s) to find your Haplogroup. That is why we only recommend the test to those who really want (we mean... very badly) want to know his haplogroup. In conjunction with the new Haplogroup database, Family Tree DNA will be utilizing the standard terminology for Haplogroups presented by the Y Chromosome Consortium. This new standard terminology is defined in detail in the article below in this newsletter called: Understanding Your Genetic History: Haplogroups Identification of your Y-chromosome Haplogroup can provide an interesting glimpse into the deep ancestry of your paternal line. With this new Haplogroup database and the possibility of the Y-DNA SNP test, Family Tree DNA continues set the standard in genealogical and anthropological genetic testing. Understanding Your Genetic History: Haplogroups There have seen at least seven (7) systems in use in the scientific community for defining and naming Haplogroups. These various systems, which assigned different names to Haplogroups, often led to confusion. Depending on which system was utilized in the literature you read, Haplogroups had different names and definitions. To solve this problem, the Y Chromosome Consortium developed a new system to name Haplogroups and subgroups. The new naming system developed by the Y Chromosome Consortium was designed to easily accommodate expansion, as new Haplogroups are discovered. This new system identifies and names the current known Y Haplogroups that have been discovered. A Haplogroup is defined as all the male descendants of the single person who first showed a SNP mutation. A SNP mutation identifies a group who had a common ancestor far back in time, since SNP's rarely mutate. Each member of a Haplogroup would have the same SNP mutation as the common ancestor. These mutations are extremely rare, and identify a group of people over a period of tens of thousands of years. The Y Chromosome Consortium has defined 18 major Haplogroups, called A through R, using capital letters. Each of these major Haplogroups, which are also called clades, can have subgroups, which are called subclades. The 18 major groups at the top level, A through R, represent the major divisions of human diversity based on SNPs on the Y chromosome. Subgroups have a numeric name, which follows the Haplogroup name. For example, Haplogroup E has 3 subgroups, called E1, E2, and E3. There is also a subgroup E*, which are those that belong to Haplogroup E, but do not belong to one of the 3 defined subgroups, E1, E2, or E3. If a subgroup has subgroups, they would be labeled with a lower case alphabetic character, such as E3a or E3b. The new Haplogroup database at FamilyTreeDNA.com utilizes this new naming system developed by the Y Chromosome Consortium. On your search results page for Haplogroup, you will see the Haplogroup of those who match or are a close match to your Y chromosome test result. Depending on your Haplogroup search results, you will see Haplogroups such as I, J2, I1b, R1b. All Family Tree DNA explanations and terminology will utilize the emerging standard defined in the Y Chromosome Consortium paper. The Y Chromosome Consortium scientific paper, which describes the Haplogroup naming system, can be found at the link below: http://ycc.biosci.arizona.edu/nomenclature_system/frontpage.html For a single page graphic representation of the Y Chromosome Haplogroup tree, please see: http://www.familytreedna.com/haplotree.html Understanding Your Results: Uncovering Adoption or an Extra Marital Event A previously unknown adoption or extra marital event could be uncovered with DNA testing. As a Surname Group Administrator, you would have the responsibility of communicating with the participant. The discovery may be a complete surprise to the participant. Often, a participant who discovers an adoption or extra marital event will be interested in further DNA testing to uncover the generation where the event occurred. Once the generation is established, further research can focus on uncovering clues and additional information. To identify the generation to establish the time frame of the event, the following method can be utilized. First, for the participant who does not match, make a list of all the generations between the documented common ancestor of the participants, and the participant who does not match. The generations are given alphabetic labels, and the birth year of the husband is shown in the example below: A about 1690 Had 4 sons B about 1722 C 1750 D 1775 E 1794 F 1829 G 1853 H 1878 I 1907 J 1940 K 1965 In our example, 4 documented direct descent males from the 4 sons of A did the 25 Marker Y Chromosome test. Two of the participants match 25/25 and one of the participants match 24/25. The fourth participant is not a match. The participant who did not match rechecked his research, and is now interested in uncovering the generation for the event that introduced a different Y chromosome to his family tree. The participant who did not match is "K" in the above chart. The chart above is the direct descent tree for participant K, the participant who did not match the descendents of other sons of A. The following approach will identify the generation where the adoption or extra marital event occurred. The first step is to find a descendent from F who is from a different son of F than the son in K's direct line of descent. If F did not have other sons, or there are no direct descent males today from any of the sons, either go up to E or down to G, looking for a direct descent male from a different son. Let's assume, for our example, that there is a direct descent male for a different son of F. This person tests, and their result matches the other 3 participants, who are descendents of A. This result confirms that the adoption or extra marital event did not occur with the birth of F, and occurred in a subsequent generation. The next step would be to test a descendent of a different son of I. The methodology of the approach is to take the list of generations to be tested, and find the middle, and test a descendent of a different son. If you have a match to the descendents of A, the event occurred after the father of the son you selected. If the test results are not a match to A, then the event occurred with the father or before. Whether you are going up or down the chart, at each step you find the middle of the remaining section of the chart, and test a descendent from a different son. To find where the adoption or extra marital event occurred, in each step you find the middle of the number of generations. In the first step, generation F was selected, because it is mid point between A and K. For the next step, we want to find the midpoint between F and K, which would be Generation I. A direct descent male from a different son of I would test. The results for the different son of I also matched the initial participants who are descendents of A. Therefore, the adoption or extramarital event occurred with the son of I from which K descended or with J or the birth of K. The next step would be to test a direct descent male from a different son of J. The results from this participant match K, which identifies the event occurring with the birth of J. Once the event is identified where the adoption or extra marital event occurred, further research may uncover additional information. Let’s look at another example. In this example, the same approach is used, and the result identifies the event as occurring with H. Further research reminded the participant that H is not in the 1880 census entry for the family, and he always assumed that the birth date he had for H was just off a few years. After careful study of all the census entries in the town, he discovers a boy with the same first name as H, living with a family down the street, with their surname. This family has 9 children. A possible theory is that H was taken in by the participant’s family and assumed their surname. Further research, and finding a direct descent male from the original family for H to test, confirmed that a non-formal adoption had occurred. DNA testing can be utilized to identify the generation where an adoption or extra marital event occurred. Further research may uncover additional information. Case Studies in Genetic Genealogy In each issue of the Newsletter, we look at what Genetic Genealogy will do for your Family History research. This article is a continuation of the topic, with situations, called "Case Studies", followed by a recommendation. The objective of the case studies is to present different situations you may encounter in your family history research, and how DNA testing can be applied. Case Study The only knowledge I have about a female line is the wife's first name, Elizabeth, which showed up on the 1850 census record. Was she the mother of all the children listed for the family, or was the husband married several times and this is the only name that shows up in the census records? There are 9 children listed in the census, 4 boys, and 5 girls. Recommendation You can determine whether Elizabeth was the mother of all the children using mtDNA testing. You would want to test a direct female descendent of one of the older daughters, and a direct female descendent of one of the younger daughters. It would be preferable to test a descendent of the oldest daughter and youngest daughter. If the results match, the daughters had the same mother, or a different mother who was a sister to Elizabeth. If the results do not match, then there were clearly different mothers, indicating that the husband was married more than once. It may be beneficial to your research to know that the husband was married more than once, and to know which daughters came from which wife. mtDNA testing can be also be utilized to test a hypothesis about whether a specific woman is the maternal ancestor of two different lines of descent. _________________________________________________________________ Help STOP SPAM with the new MSN 8 and get 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail