Way behind answering emails

Life is pretty hectic at the moment and I am way behind answering emails. I hope to get to some of the really outstanding ones this weekend.

Waiting patiently for Big Y Results for our Blake yDNA and they are due in mid to late March. I am fairly sure where these results will take us but nice to see the actual test results. This Blake line is quite ancient to the British Isles with the I-L1498 designation by FT DNA and the I-S2640 by Britains DNA. This is named as the "Deer Hunters" by Britains DNA. The Genetic Signature from the chromo2 chip is most interesting and with the newer testing by other companies add a number of other known common mutations to this particular line.  I had considered doing a full genetic scan of my brother but decided if I ever do do that I will do it on myself.

Other than that the days pass quickly the last six months and will continue apace for another six months. I hope to get back to writing our family story in the next few weeks but time will tell how much I get done.

I have not taken on any new projects other than looking at my DNA matches and I continue with those projects. I want to get back to my last post where I talked about match pileups and whether I can sort them into a particular grandparent phasing chart that I have produced. That is still a work in progress.

Set of matches on Chromosome 4 and Segment Search on Gedmatch

Working my way through matches on Gedmatch I discovered that I had four individuals and a family of three that were all matching me on chromosome 4 (and all matching each other). The start location varied between 83,882,518 and  93,686,575 and ending between  105,645,025 and 131,472,885. The total length in centimorgans varied between 17.5 and  30.3. This implies 3rd cousin once removed to 4th cousin but there is a much wider range in actuality. 3rd cousin once removed implies 2x great grandparents and 4th cousin we are looking at 3x great grandparents.

None of these individuals is known to me with regard to placement in my family tree. Their places of location include the British Isles, New Zealand, South Africa, and Canada. The resting spot for this particular match appears to be the Midlands of England but even that is not set in stone. Comparing these matches with my phased grandparents files leads me to my mother's side. Several of the individuals have X matches eliminating my father's father's line. I can not necessarily eliminate my father's mother's line (and do not) although I am dubious that the match lies on my father's side. The Buller family (my mother's mother's line) has settled in New Zealand, South Africa and Canada which struck me almost immediately when I looked at what I had written. But there isn't necessarily anything to connect any of these members to the Buller family.

I have a lot of information on my 3x great grandfather Christopher Buller and his wife Mary Beard.

I have collected all the information on these seven individuals into excel files. I have run Segment Matches on all of them. There is a lengthy list of matches that tends to be consistent between members. Basically another pile-up on Chromosome 4 but being on Chromosome 4 it tends to be more significant than a pile-up on Chromosome 23 the research tends to tell one. There is some overlap between matches on other chromosomes which is also interesting. I have not yet compared all of them to each other and need to do that.

The family group mentioned above has done a lot of research and are suspicious that this match is in the Birmingham area which fits well into my mother's mother's line. But one of the matches is in West Yorkshire and I have managed to trace her back to the mid 1800s and her family lines appear much deeper there. I will continue to work on her line as I know more about her because of shared information. I happen to have extensive East Riding of Yorkshire ancestry in my Gray line, My maternal grandfather's mother's father's line was from the East Riding of Yorkshire going back many generations.

I need a Research Plan to look at this material.

1. Produce a unified file for all of the matches
2. Continue researching the one member match in the West Riding of Yorkshire
3. Write to the three members, no email address for the fourth as she is part of a study by another researcher already known to me
4. Write to the manager of the family set to see if she has progressed in her research
5. Where I have an X match run the tree software on Gedmatch

H11 Newsletter, Volume 2, Issue 1

H11 Newsletter

Table of Contents

1.   FT DNA Project

2.   Project Statistics

3.   Latest release of the phylotree, Feb 2016

4.   Recent publication

5.   Future article

6.   Value of mtDNA testing

1.   FT DNA Project:

My life has become incredibly busy in a different way the past few months and my ability to keep up with my projects considerably diminished. I am hoping with the New Year that that will change and I can now complete some tasks that I set for myself with regard to the H11 project. There are now 274 members in our H11 project. Full sequence results are completed on 238 members of the group. Interestingly 189 members of this group have also done Family Finder. Unfortunately it is not possible to visually look at the Family Finder results as that would compromise the privacy of individuals. However, you can look at your matches in Family Finder. 

2.   Project Statistics (yDNA statistics removed):

Combined GEDCOMs Uploaded	47
DISTINCT mtDNA Haplogroups	16
Family Finder	189
Genographic 2.0 Transfers	18
Maternal Ancestor Information	232
mtDNA	249
mtDNA Full Sequence	238
mtDNA Plus	246
mtDNA Subgroups	22
Total Members	274
Unreturned Kits	12

3.   The latest release of the phylotree used by FT DNA was dated 18 Feb 2016:

H11 breakdown in the PhyloTree mt:

Within the study group we have members in every sub-haplogroup except H11a5 (and it can be seen in the chart above that the mutation C15040T marks this subgrouping). 

http://www.phylotree.org/tree/R0.htm *

*van Oven M, Kayser M. 2009. Updated comprehensive phylogenetic tree of global human mitochondrial DNA variation. Hum Mutat 30(2):E386-E394. http://www.phylotree.org.

doi:10.1002/humu.20921

4.   Recent publication:

Interesting information on H11 haplogroup published by Maciamo Hay (originally published in January 2014, last revised November 2016):

http://www.academia.edu/5979638/Origins_and_history_of_Haplogroup_H_mtDNA_

Haplogroup H11

H11a: found across most of northern, central, and in eastern Europe and in central Asia; found in middle Neolithic Germany and Megalithic Spain

H11b: found in Poland, Slovakia, Serbia, and England

A comment within the article: Other H subclades were also probably found among Mesolithic or later Upper Paleolithic Europeans based on their exclusive presence in Europe today. This could be the case of haplogroups H10, H11, H17, H45 as well as many minor subclades for which too little data is available at the moment, but that seem to be exclusively European. H10 and H11 have a stronger presence in Eastern and Central Europe and would have re-expanded from the Northern Black Sea Region rather than from Southwest Europe after the Last Glacial Maximum.

I did find the earlier reference to geographic location for H11a including central Asia to be a contrast to the idea expressed in the comment where H11 is said to “seem to be exclusively European.”

5.   Future article:

Hopefully, in the next issue, I will do a breakdown once again from the location material submitted by the members. It would be interesting to once again look at that with regard to the above mentioned article.

6.   Value of mtDNA testing:

The two paragraphs below discuss my own mitochondrial DNA results and the results for my husband. It is helpful for people to understand that the greatest value in mtDNA testing is knowledge about one’s deep ancestry anything else is just a luxurious happening. If anyone else has a good news story to share please send it in if you wish to have it published.

Mitochondrial DNA can be a very helpful tool to some for instance my mutations bring me to Argyllshire/Ayrshire Scotland or Ireland - thus far no exceptions in my many matches included in the project. That can be very helpful to some. However, it does not tell me the name of that distant ancestor. I am still stuck in Birmingham in the mid 1800s. I do have a possibility. That possibility in several generations does not lead me to Scotland or Ireland. Family Lore helps a little but nothing substantial from that either. My matches and my Living DNA results do point to my having a Irish/Scot connection but I do have 2 3x great grandparents with a Scot surname although rather distant back. I have no perfect matches other than my siblings and ten matches are one step away. Also having this lovely person with the surname of Taylor adds to that challenge.

My husband on the other hand has over a dozen perfect matches to his mtDNA. The only item he has learned from all of that is a match with someone in England whose line has been in England back to the 1700s at least and is a perfect match. Looking at this matching individual there is a possibility that her ancient ancestor was from Denmark/The Netherlands. My husband can trace his line back to 1654 when Margaret Carr was baptized in Newport Rhode Island but no further for sure. No one else in that particular maternal line has tested that can trace back to Margaret Carr or her sisters.

Any submissions to this newsletter can be submitted to Elizabeth Kipp (kippeeb@rogers.com).