Citizen Science Helps to Rewrite the Y Chromosome Tree..

 

Yesterday the first scientific paper was published by the American Journal of Human Genetics on a very interesting discovery that I previewed back in November on this blog: http://blog.ddowell.com/2012/11/your-paternal-line-just-got-much-longer.html. This was the discovery that an African-American in South Carolina had a Y-chromosome DNA sequence that is far older than any previously documented in fossils or in living individuals in Africa. This discovery was initially stumbled into in the course of a "routine" genetic genealogy project by citizen scientist, Bonnie Schrack. It has since been verified and documented by academic scientists from a variety of disciplines.

Today CeCe Moore explains this find in her usual complete and understandable way. Be sure to check out this story on her blog post linked below:

Citizen Science Helps to Rewrite the Y Chromosome Tree and Illuminate the Ancestral Roots of African American Project Members: 

The academic paper describing the discovery of a new root of the human Y chromosome tree, An African American Paternal Lineage Adds an Extr...

 

$39 Sale Price Only Good in February

Although this was not clearly stated in the initial coverage, the price reduction of a entry level, 12 marker Y-chrome test by FTDNA is a limited time only event. It now appears that the price will only be offered through February 28th. This does not prevent you purchasing kits during the sale and using them sometime in the future. The kits have a good shelf-life. So if you have been contemplating whether or not this new offer is worth taking advantage of, you will have to decide and ACT before the end of the month. It is possible the sale will be extended; but there is no guarantee that this will be the case. To take advantage of such sales in the past, one must have ordered AND paid for kits by midnight Houston time in order to get the sale price.

Entry Level Paternal Line DNA Test Lowered Drastically

FTDNA drastically lowered the cost of it's entry level Y-chromosome DNA test today. This is a test that can be taken by men to trace their paternal surname line up their family tree. This test will allow men to determine their general haplogroup (ancient clan) but will not be specific enough to answer many family history questions. However, as Your Genetic Genealogist pointed out today, this will get samples stored for 25 years--or until it is used up by further testing. So this is a very economical way to collect samples from several members of the older generation of your family for future family research.

Also buried in the press release below is an announcement that a price reduction is likely to be in the offing for mitochondrial tests which can be taken by members of either gender to test their maternal lines:

 Toward Universal Access by Individuals to their Own Genetic Data

Date:2/20/2013 

HOUSTON, Feb. 20, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- FamilyTreeDNA.com, the genetic genealogy arm of Gene By Gene, Ltd., is dramatically lowering the price of one of its basic Y-DNA tests to $39, making it the lowest-cost DNA test available on the market, in order to take a major step toward universal access by individuals to their personal genetic data.

By dropping the price of its basic Y-DNA test by 60 percent to $39, Family Tree DNA -- the world's largest processor of Y-DNA and full mitochondrial sequences -- is working to eliminate cost as a barrier to individuals introducing themselves to the insights and knowledge to be gained from personal genetic and genomic research.

Family Tree DNA pioneered the concept of direct-to-consumer testing in the field of genetic genealogy more than a decade ago, and has processed more than 5 million discrete tests for more than 700,000 individuals and organizations since it introduced its Y-DNA test in 2000.

The test investigates specific Y-DNA locations for males that provide individuals with their haplogroup, or the deep ancestral origin of the paternal line.  In addition, it can indicate if different individuals are likely to share a common male line.


Gene By Gene is also working to lower the cost of Family Tree DNA's comparable mtDNA test, which would be applicable to both females and males and provides data on the direct maternal line.  The company expects to unveil new pricing for this test in spring 2013.

As the sponsor DNA Workshop of "Who Do You Think You Are - Live" in London this February, Family Tree DNA expects that the reduced price test will add a great number of individuals to its already large database – the largest of its kind in the world.

"We believe the first step to unearthing your personal and family history is to better understand your DNA," Gene By Gene President Bennett Greenspan said.  "That's why we are continuously investing in new technology and experienced scientists at our Genomics Research Center, enabling us to conduct tests more accurately, efficiently and at lower prices.  Our $39 Y-DNA test is just the latest example of how we are working to help individuals gain access to their genetic data."

Customer Inquiries
Individuals interested in Family Tree DNA's $39 Y-DNA test, or any of its ancestral testing products, can visit www.familytreedna.com for more information.
 
About Gene By Gene, Ltd.
Founded in 2000, Gene By Gene, Ltd. provides reliable DNA testing to a wide range of consumer and institutional customers through its four divisions focusing on ancestry, health, research and paternity.  Gene By Gene provides DNA tests through its Family Tree DNA division, which pioneered the concept of direct-to-consumer testing in the field of genetic genealogy more than a decade ago.  Gene by Gene is CLIA registered and through its clinical-health division DNA Traits offers regulated diagnostic tests. DNA DTC is the Research Use Only (RUO) division serving both direct-to-consumer and institutional clients worldwide.  Gene By Gene offers AABB certified relationship tests through its paternity testing division, DNA Findings. The privately held company is headquartered in Houston, which is also home to its state-of-the-art Genomics Research Center.

DNA and Genealogy Help Identify Richard III

The University of Leicester this morning in a press conference announced that remains dug up in a car park were beyond a reasonable doubt those of King Richard III, the last of the Plantagenet monarchs, who died in battle in 1485:

 Wealth of evidence, including radiocarbon dating, radiological evidence, DNA and bone analysis and archaeological results, confirms identity of last Plantagenet king who died over 500 years ago

DNA from skeleton matches two of Richard III's maternal line relatives. Leicester genealogist verifies living relatives of Richard III's family

For more information check the BBC site. That site is being updated frequently this morning with this breaking news.

Ann Turner just suggested this University of Leicester site with more details of the DNA that was compared.

CNN has additional details as well.
 

Red Hair and Health Tendencies

Back in September I posted to this blog an article that said red hair could only be inherited from a father who  was a member of the R1b haplogroup:  http://blog.ddowell.com/search?q=Red+hair. 

Within my own immediate family this correctly predicts both the haplogroups of my first father-in-law and me. My first wife and my daughter were both born with rich auburn hair. 

This morning my sister-in-law Michele Sanner posted a link on Facebook to an article that describes many of the health related tendencies inherited by those who have red hair:
http://health.yahoo.net/experts/dayinhealth/weird-facts-about-redheads.

It will be of interest to those of you who have or love someone who has red hair. 

AncestryDNA Beginning to Come of Age?

Ancestry.com’s autosomal DNA product is starting to come of age. Until last night I had not been impressed with what I had been able to find through it. I did make one find that was genealogically very significant for me. However, that find was rather tedious and cumbersome. Ancestry's DNA product did play an important part in that discovery by pointing me to a potential cousin. But it was still an old fashioned, grind-it-out process of going through the pedigree tree of suggested match to find a name that looked familiar.  

It also led me down a path that I have been experiencing all to much when I was directed to view another pedigree tree on my newly discovered branch:

This should be only a temporary delay in gaining access. However, in this case I have yet to see the desired tree three months later. This is in spite of several invitations from the owner of that tree and a call to customer service. Kim in customer service told me she found a mistake in the email address in my Ancestry profile. Even after that was identified, I am still not getting an invitation to that tree.There are three trees to which the owners recently have been trying to invite me. Only one of them finally has succeeded when she asked the invitation be sent to a private email address that is not associated with my Ancestry account. You can see why I was underwhelmed by Ancestry's new offering.

Then last night I decided to review my matches using the filter "Not viewed". I only chose to investigate matches who had linked their DNA results with a pedigree chart with a significant number of individuals included. I was soon in for a pleasant surprise. First there was a little spinning icon and then very briefly "Evaluating family tree information" appeared on the screen. I really didn't pay much attention until a box appeared that I had never seen. At the top appeared the familiar little green leaf and the words "Shared Ancestor Hint". The hint was that I shared my 4th great-grandfather Francis Lakey with my DNA match: 

It appears that the hint and that my suggested 4th cousin appears to be actually a 5th cousin-once removed! Wow, that was easy.

I was ready to do that again and a few minutes later lightning did strike twice. In this instance my suggested 4th cousin appears to be a 3rd cousin-once removed.

I tried many other suggested matches linked to extensive pedigree charts but found no obvious matches.

Then I returned to the match I had previously found late last year and now the "Shared Ancestor Hint appeared. In this case the hint was technically correct but it showed the limits of this computer matching software. The DNA results predicted my match was a 4th cousin. The pedigree evaluation software matched us as 5th cousins. The DNA was correct in this case. The pedigree evaluation did not match "Debora LANHAM b. abt 1815 Kentucky" with "Deborah LANHAM ABT 1785 Virginia". This does not look like a technological failure to me. It looks like "pilot error" in the pedigree chart information to me. To mix my metaphors this is a small case of "garbage in garbage out."  

So to summarize we have three predicted 4th cousins who appear actually to be:
a 5th cousin-once removed;
a 3rd cousin-once removed; and 
a 4th cousin.  

Ancestry still has much to learn about customer service. FTDNA and 23andMe notify me when I have new matches or when I receive an internal message from another customer. Ancestry waits for me to login and look for messages or new matches. Ancestry needs to be more proactive in supporting the communications process between customers..

PS:  Just as I was wrapping up this post, I noticed that there is another way to filter DNA matches "Has A Hint". I now have five more matches to investigate and they are predicted to be 5th or more distant cousins.

More later.

AncestrybyDNA is NOT Ancestry.com's DNA Service

Last night my wife forwarded me a Living Social promotion. She has been introduced to several local services and products through Living Social with which we were not previously familiar. Through Living Social we also found a very nifty bed and breakfast, in Danville, Kentucky called The Farm that both of us love. 

The introductory offer she found yesterday was to AncestrybyDNA. This company has been around for a while. However, now that Ancestry.com has developed a beta version of an autosomal DNA test, it appears that AncestrybyDNA is willing to exploit possible consumer confusion between the two products. A few comments on Yelp seem to confirm that this has been the case for some customers.

For a fuller discussion of this service, see CeCe Moore's review in her popular genetic genealogy blog, Your Genetic Genealogist. Whether or not customers are confusing these two companies, I agree with CeCe that even Ancestry.com's new autosomal test is not the gold standard in this market--at least not yet. Let the buyer beware. 

Irish Records FREE on Thursday January 24th

I have been scaling back on blog posts and some other activities since the first of the year to give more concentrated attention to a book project. However, I'll still make short posts for items that appear to be of use to readers.

One such item is the free day coming up this week for a new site for Irish documents. The web site IrishCentral.com announces:

Online "Irish History Day" launched with 21 million birth, marriage and death records released
Dublin-based Findmypast.ie announces inaugural day to celebrate launch of massive genealogy resource

Read more: http://www.irishcentral.com/news/Online-Irish-History-Day-launched-with-21-million-birth-marriage-and-death-records-released-187578211.html#ixzz2IcG0VRqa Follow us: @IrishCentral on Twitter | IrishCentral on Facebook

Many of you may be familiar with FindMyPast.com. If you are not, think of it as Ancestry.com with a British accent. It is owned by BrightSolid which also owns a number of websites of potential interest to genealogists:

• Friends Reunited

• Genes Reunited

• findmypast.co.uk

• findmypast.com.au

• findmypast.ie

• findmypast.com

• 1911census.co.uk

• 1901censusonline.com

• ancestorsonboard.com

• ScotlandsPeople.gov.uk

• British Newspaper Archive

• censusrecords.com

You may want to check out several of them. But don't forget that Thursday may be the most important day for Irish researchers until March 17th.

Mistaken Pedigree leads to Discovery of Digitized Chicago Church Records

I recently discovered a pedigree chart on Ancestry.com which listed a son for my wife’s great –grandparents that I had not seen before. It caused me to go back and review what I knew about this family. The parents had migrated to Chicago from Germany in the late 19^th century. The children that I knew about were born in Chicago in the 1880s and 1890s. Could there have been a son born earlier? After all he was living in a near north neighborhood of Chicago in the adjoining parish to that of his alleged parents.

I went back to the 1900 census and found that the mother claimed she had given birth to 8 children of whom 6 were still living. The record for her household listed 6 children none of whom were the son listed in the pedigree chart. As I reviewed more records, I became more and more convinced that Joseph PAPKE was not the granduncle of my wife.  However, I became increasingly intrigued by the names I was seeing in census, pedigree charts and other documents on Ancestry.

When I had originally researched this part of my wife’s tree, I found Catholic Church parish records were invaluable in reconstructing the history of her mother’s family. I discovered these records on microfilm while researching at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City. These records were so valuable for showing christening, confirmation, marriage and death records for all members of families. In addition, information about the origins of the parents and the names of sponsors and godparents was also instructive. I soon ordered the microfilm and renewed it twice so that it became a permanent loan to the Family History Center near my home in California. There it was available to be consulted as my research unfolded. However, a year ago Denise and I moved 2,100 miles east of the Central Coast where the microfilm is housed.

With these newly discovered possible distant family members, I wanted to consult these records again. I am planning to be in Salt Lake City in March to attend RootsTech and to spend a few days in the Family History Library. Looking forward to that trip I consulted the library online catalog to plan which rolls of microfilm I would need to consult. When I did I got a very nice surprise. These parish records have been digitized and can be consulted online! The records are a gold mine that often has much information not included in civil records for the same events. Priests often made interesting marginal comments.  Approximately 300 rolls of microfilm images of Chicago church records are now available. Most of them are Catholic parish records covering events in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries. If I had not found the mistaken pedigree, I would not have discovered that these records had been digitized. I plan to use them extensively.

I’ll leave you with one other tip for those of you researching early 20^th century Chicago ancestors. At the turn of the 20^th century Chicago streets and numbers were a ragtag unorganized mess. In 1909 and 1911, most street addresses in Chicago were changed to create the logical grid of addresses the city now enjoys.  In the process street numbers could have been changed by what would appear to be many blocks even if the occupants never moved at all. In some cases even the street names changed. You can access a resource digitized by the Newbury Library which explains these changes and gives a very thorough translation chart from old address to new address or vice versa. This and other Chicago research tools are available at under the “Tools” tab of Chicago Ancestors.org. 

A Present and Two Lumps of Coal to Stuff in Christmas Stockings

For you genetic genealogists I have a present to stuff in your Christmas stockings.

The present:

The present comes in the form of a link to a very comprehensive guide to the U.S. Census in e-book format. It was compiled by Michael Hait, an experienced genealogist, who has previously published a comprehensive guide to state resources---also in e-format. In the lead in on his blog, Planting the Seeds: Genealogy as a profession, Hait claims all content is copyrighted. That would be true for the blog and for his 23 page United States Census Path Finder. However, most of the linked materials are not subject to copyright because they were published by the U.S. Government. This Path Finder is an information rich treasure trove of links that offer a comprehensive coverage of all aspects of the U.S. Census. Genealogical researchers of all levels of expertise will find this a useful reference for background and for specific information at time of need.

The lumps of coal:

For the States of New York and Maryland I have lumps of coal for their Christmas stockings. Many of you are familiar with the myth that Santa stuffs a lump of coal into the stockings of those whose behavior make them undeserving of receiving presents. The reason for these awards are their laws which prohibit genetic tests like the one administered by 23andMe which can be considered to offer individuals information about their potential for health conditions. The restrictions are different in the two states; and I will leave the details to Judy Russell in her recent post “NY and MD limits on 23andMe” to her blog The Legal Genealogist.

After you read Judy’s post, be sure to read the comments added Kathy Johnson. Regular readers of my blog will know what my feelings are on the right of individuals to be able to access the information stored in their own bodies.

I would like to be clear that these state restrictions affect all of us in one way or another. It will complicate my effort to test family members in these states. In addition it limits the likelihood that residents of these two states will test and can be possible matches for the rest of us. However, at the moment these restrictions have not been applied to Family Tree DNA, Ancestry and the National Genographic project which go to great lengths to avoid the appearance of offering health related information. 

Happy Holidays to all. May 2013 be a fantastic year of discoveries for all of us in genetic and traditional genealogy.