Steve's Genealogy Blog

At the Seventh International Family Tree DNA Conference for Group Administrators, Bennett Greenspan and those who had made presentations on the final day gathered for a Closing Panel to answer questions from the audience.

Bennett Greenspan

SOURCE:  Bennett Greenspan (Houston, Harris County, Texas); photographed by Stephen J. Danko on 06 November 2011.

Q:  Are passenger manifests in the public domain?
A:  Yes.

Q:  Has Jessica Roberts taken a DNA test?
A:  No.

Q:  Will Family Tree DNA be offering any promotions soon?
A:  Yes .  FTDNA will have a promotion good for the rest of 2011.

Q:  What surname project can adoptees join if they don’t know the surname of their biological fathers?
A:  Adoptees can join the “Adopted” surname project and qualify for discounts offered to member of surname projects.

Q:  What does FTDNA expect attendees to learn at these events (Family Tree DNA Conferences for Group Administrators)?
A:  These conferences are give and take events where FTDNA and attendees learn from each other.

Q: Â Does FTDNA plan to upgrade Y-SEARCH to incorporate 68-111 markers?
A:  It is not at the top of FTDNA’s list of priorities.

Q:  How long should an adoptee wait for a match before joining the Adopted project?
A:  The Adopted project is a point of entry.

Q:  Is anything in the works for X-DNA?
A:  Yes, but it is a matter of priorities.

Q:  Why are surname projects no longer listed in their entirety?
A:  They are .  You can’t see all names at once because competitors were harvesting surnames from FTDNA.

Q:  Does FTDNA plan to incorporate Y-DNA or mtDNA SNP data from 23 and Me?
A:  No .  Autosomal DNA is the next horizon.

Q:  What about heteroplasmy?
A:  Heteroplasmy is not genealogically relevant.

Q:  Is there information for Canadian immigration from 1820-1830?
A:  Yes.

Q:  How many hours has Steve Morse put into his One-Step Webpages?
A:  He doesn’t know.

Q:  Has Steve Morse ever given up?
A:  No.

Q:  Will someone take over Steve Morse’s website after he’s gone?
A:  Yes.

Q: Â Does FTDNA treat Recombinational Loss of Heterozygosity (RecLOH) as a single or a multistep mutation?
A:  Right now it is treated as a multistep mutation, but FTDNA will eventually change this to a single step mutation.

Q:  Can I stop notifications of 12 marker Y-DNA matches?
A:  Yes .  On the myFTDNA page, hover over “My Account” and click on “Match and Email Settings.”

Q:  Will FTDNA lock column headers on the Group Administration Page (GAP)?
A:  No .  The current version of .NET doesn’t allow that.

Q:  How much correlation is needed for a Y-DNA exact match?
A:  All STRs and SNPs must match.

Q:  How can we predict haplogroups from STRs?
A:  You need SNPs to predict most haplogroups.

Q:  How well does Family Finder work with Ashkenazi beyond the 3rd generation?
A:  If the parents are from diverse groups, Family Finder works well, but not for close, inbred families.

Thomas Krahn discussed a 4×4 sequencing run he performed the previous night .  He ran 8 samples .  The first 5 were Walk Through the Y samples, 2 were control samples from Roche, 1 was an unenriched sample, and 1 was a sample from Bennett.

The results were overexposed even though he used the recommended number of beads .  The length of the segments in the library looks good .  He tried to get lengths of 1000, but he got a median of about 600.

He was looking for places where Bennett’s DNA doesn’t match the reference .  These are the SNPs .  He is looking for high quality differences – enough to discriminate between real differences and errors.

Copyright © 2011 by Stephen J. Danko

At the Seventh International Family Tree DNA Conference for Group Administrators, Richard Hill, MBA presented a talk on “An Adoptee’s Journey to His Ancestral Surname.”

Richard Hill

SOURCE:  Richard Hill (Houston, Harris County, Texas); photographed by Stephen J. Danko on 06 November 2011.

Minnesota sealed adoption records in 1917 .  Since then, 46 more states did the same .  Alaska, Kansas, and South Dakota didn’t .  Illinois is opening the records on 15 November 2011 .  The intention of sealing the records was to protect the child from the stigma of illegitimacy.

In 1970, 175,000 children were adopted .  About 58% of people know an adopter or an adoptee .  There are 400,000 registrations for adoption searches using such utilities as Adoption.com and the International Soundex Registry .  Televisions shows such as The Locator, Find My Family, and Searching for… investigate adoption cases.

There are two categories of adoptees:  those tormented by unanswered questions and those who are content and not particularly curious.

When Dick Hill was getting ready to go to college, he had heartburn and went to the doctor .  The doctor consulted his files and asked Dick “How do you feel about being adopted?”  This was the first time Dick had ever heard that he had been adopted .  He didn’t tell his parents that he knew about the adoption.

In 1978, on his deathbed, Dick’s father told him about the adoption .  Dick’s mother was known .  She had lived with the couple and gave birth .  Dick also had a brother .  Their mother gave birth to two sons by different fathers, and then died at age 21.

Through a confidential intermediary program, Dick’s father was located, but DNA proved that the man was not Dick’s father.

Dick heard about the Y-DNA test and discovered that his DNA matched that for people with the surname Richards .  Dick discovered that his mother had worked for a man named Doug Richards .  However Doug Richards had four brothers who were living in Michigan at the time Dick was conceived and any one of them could have been Dick’s father.

Each of the five brothers had a living son who agreed to take a sibling test based on short tandem repeats (STRs) .  Based on this test, Dick learned that there was an 87.4% chance that Doug Richards, Jr. was his half-brother. The descendants of the other brothers showed a much lower probability of being Dick’s half-brother .  Dick had discovered who his birth parents were and had reconnected with his biological brother .  Dick then showed a photo of his “real” parents, the couple who raised him.

Dick maintains a website with a wealth of information about DNA testing at http://www.dna-testing-advisor.com.

Copyright © 2011 by Stephen J. Danko

At the Seventh International Family Tree DNA Conference for Group Administrators, Steve Morse presented a talk on “One Step Webpages part II: A Hodgepodge of Lesser Known Gems.”

Steve Morse

SOURCE:  Steve Morse (Houston, Harris County, Texas); photographed by Stephen J. Danko on 05 November 2011.

Steve Morse discussed more of his One-Step Webpages including:

• Finding microfilm numbers in the Family History Library
• Calculating the time between two events
• Converting Hebrew dates to Gregorian dates
• English front-end for the Israel’s Fallen database
• English front-end for the Russia’s Fallen database
• Country codes, telephone codes, decoding international phone numbers
• Updating Y-Search with FTDNA data
• Determining Y-DNA haplogroups from STR data
• Sniping on eBay
• Universal bookmarks
• Latitude and longitude: calculating the distance between two points
• Census enumeration district definitions for rural areas
• When did… Determining when some event occurred in the past

Copyright © 2011 by Stephen J. Danko

At the Seventh International Family Tree DNA Conference for Group Administrators, Peter Biggins presented a talk coauthored with Thomas Roderick on “DNA of the Three Collas.”

Peter Biggins

SOURCE:  Peter Biggins (Houston, Harris County, Texas); photographed by Stephen J. Danko on 06 November 2011.

The Clan Colla 425 Null Project was launched on 22 June 2009.

The three Collas were three brothers in Ulster:  Colla Uais, Colla da Crioch, and Colla Menn .  The descendants of Colla Uais moved to the Scottish Highlands.

Descendants of the Collas are identified at three single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs): L21+, DF21+, and DNS425 null. The null DNA425 occurred in the early part of the first millennium.

There are many surnames in Clan Colla, including Carroll, Hughes, MacDougall, McDonald, McGuire, McKenna, McMahon .  See O’Hart, John. 1892. Irish pedigrees; or, The origin and stem of the Irish nation. Dublin: James Duffy and Co., available on Google Books.

There are 259 people in the project .  Of the new FTDNA Y-DNA markers (68-111), members of Clan Colla have a value of 9 for marker DNS 505.

Copyright © 2011 by Stephen J. Danko

At the Seventh International Family Tree DNA Conference for Group Administrators, Elliott Greenspan presented a talk on “IT Roadmap 2011: The Year in Review and Looking Ahead.”

Elliott Greenspan

SOURCE:  Elliott Greenspan (Houston, Harris County, Texas); photographed by Stephen J. Danko on 06 November 2011.

The Family Tree DNA GAP (Group Administration Page) 2.0 was launched in November 2010 .  The Family Finder autosomal DNA test platform was changed from Affymetrix chips to Illumina chips in January 2011 .  Family Tree DNA has processed 2.33 PB (petabytes) of matching data for Family Finder.

The SNP (single nucleotide polymorphism) ordering tree was modified, making it easier to order SNPs .  New downstream SNPs were added and the Y-DNA test was expanded from 67 to 111 markers .  Family Tree DNA intends to release new SNPs more quickly.

Family Tree DNA acquired the DNA Heritage Y-DNA (Y chromosomal) database, but not the mtDNA (mitochondrial DNA) database because the two companies did not sequence the same region of mtDNA.

The myFTDNA 2.0 homepage will be released soon .  Project administrators will be able to try the myFTDNA before the project members .  The General Fund is easier to use, a new messaging system from FTDNA to customers has been added, and a new configurable profile for users has been added .  Privacy settings have been added to the profile .  There are specialized resources for each section of the myFTDNA page, Family Finder matches, new images, a link to the profile, and badges .  Y-DNA haplogroup matches have been expanded.

New features allow you to see matches just for a particular project .  A new power search feature has been added, allowing the user to combine the power of all three DNA types in a search .  Family Finder upgrades include new SNPs, fewer false positives, and the ability to upload data from 23andMe (v3 only).

Microalleles can be displayed on GAP charts .  Microalleles are displayed as decimals in three quarter steps: 0.1, 0.2, 0.3 (0.4 is the next higher number of repeats) .  Changes in palindromic markers are now treated as a single step mutation, rather than multiple step mutations, reflecting the number of events rather than the size of the events .  STR (short tandem repeat) values will adhere to NIST standards.

Copyright © 2011 by Stephen J. Danko

At the Seventh International Family Tree DNA Conference for Group Administrators, Michael Hammer, PhD presented a talk on “Neandertals in Our Midst: Just How Modern is Our Genome?”

Michael Hammer

SOURCE:  Michael Hammer (Houston, Harris County, Texas); photographed by Stephen J. Danko on 06 November 2011.

What did Darwin have to say about human evolution?  He avoided the subject .  It was actually Thomas Henry Huxley who discussed evidence as to man’s place in nature.

If all species of the genus Homo (Homo erectus, Homo neanderthalensis, Homo sapiens, among others) are considered humans, did modern man replace older forms or was there gene flow among species that coexisted at one time?  Did archaic forms of humans leave behind DNA evidence?

An indirect method of inferring the past uses contemporary DNA, molecular dating, and single locus phylogeography .  From this type of evidence we know that, since there is greater genetic diversity in Africa, the root of the human evolutionary tree is among Africans .  In Newsweek magazine, on 11 January 1988, the press coined the term “Mitochondrial Eve.”

A direct method of inferring the past uses ancient DNA .  Using this approach, there is no evidence for a Neandertal contribution to mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA).

Analysis of the Y chromosome (Y-DNA) by indirect approaches shows greater African diversity, an African root, with a time to the most recent common ancestor (TMRCA) of about 130 KYA.

Analysis of the X chromosome (X-DNA) by indirect approaches shows a greater Asian diversity, an Asian root, with a TMRCA of about 2 MYA.

The DNA of three Neandertals has been analyzed .  The data from this analysis shows that there was a little interbreeding of Neandertals with Eurasians, but not with Africans.

Evidence shows that after humans left Africa, they bred with Neandertals and then that population interbred with the Denisovians in Melanesia .  There is Denisovian (from the Denisova cave in Siberia) DNA on chromosome 12, a greater Melanesian diversity, and a Melanesian root.

An innate immunity gene STAT2 introgressed (moved from one species to another) from the Neandertal and is positively selected in Melanesia .  Interbreeding of modern man with Neandertals led to an advantage.

Inferring the past using an indirect method involving contemporary DNA, molecular dating, and a computational approach shows that chromosomes 4, 18, and 13 entered African DNA relatively recently, providing evidence for interbreeding of modern man with a now extinct hominid form in Africa.

DNA evidence allows us to reject the theory of recent African replacement.

Bloggers who have discussed Neandertal DNA include John Hawkes.

Copyright © 2011 by Stephen J. Danko

At the Seventh International Family Tree DNA Conference for Group Administrators, Katherine Hope Borges and Alice Fairhurst led a meeting of the Family Tree DNA Chapter of ISOGG (International Society of Genetic Genealogy).

Katherine Hope Borges and Alice Fairhurst

SOURCE:  Katherine Hope Borges and Alice Fairhurst (Houston, Harris County, Texas); photographed by Stephen J. Danko on 06 November 2011.

ISOGG was started in 2005 after the 2004 Family Tree DNA Conference for Group Administrators .  The ISOGG wiki has added the ability to create a book about anything.

There has been increased movement towards regulation of DTC (direct to consumer) DNA tests, especially medical tests.

In a 2011 survey of the ASHG (American Society of Human Genetics), 74% said that DTC tests should not be available for all purposes, 84% were in favor of DTC tests, but consumers should be aware of the limitations .  Regarding the availability of DTC ancestry tests, 60% were in favor, 20% were neutral, and 20% were against.

The ISOGG PAC (Political Action Committee) is not related to money.

California added genetic information to the list of information that people cannot be discriminated against .  The new law (SB559) becomes effective on 01 January 2012 .  This is stronger than GINA (Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008) .  GINA failed several times before it was passed.

ISOGG wanted a clearing house to name Y-DNA subclades based on new SNPs (single nucleotide polymorphisms) .  ISOGG needs the help of members to identify new SNPs .  The majority of men in ISOGG are in haplogroup R .  ISOGG prepares a Y-DNA haplogroup map and updates it when new information is available .  This map is in harmony with the YCC (Y Chromosome Consortium), but it is not identical to the Family Tree DNA Y haplogroup map because the Family Tree DNA haplogroup map is updated less frequently than is the ISOGG haplogroup map.

Copyright © 2011 by Stephen J. Danko