The following information was prepared by Emily Aulicino, the administrator of a number of Surname DNA Projects. She gave me permission to publish her message to the Talley/Tally/Tolley project, to which I monitor (my g-grandmother was a Talley).
PLEASE understand that it is for ancient genealogy. You won’t be able (at this time) to contact matches and those matches could be 1,000 years or so ago. More than that, you are helping the genetic community bring ancient lines down to a more genealogical timeframe. We don’t want to give false hope nor mislead.
What is this and why is it important? He’s the short of it….
First, the Haplogroup is your twig on the World Family Tree (Phylogenetic Tree)…every species has one (plants and animals).
Second, a special marker called a Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP; pronounced SNiP) defines a haplogroup. New SNPs are being discovered all the time and if a group of people test positive (you can only test positive or negative for this marker) then a new twig on the world family tree is established.
Geno 2.0 is the National Geographic’s latest deep ancestry test. Many of you remember the previous one where they did 12 Y-markers and the lowest level of the mitochondrial test, thus getting information about our ancient migration patterns for humans using the all-male lines of your pedigree chart and the all-female lines. This is much, much bigger and tests autosomal markers (all those other markers on all lines in your pedigree chart, basically.)
Geno 2.0 for men gives you a much more detailed haplogroup. Remember the haplogroups are alternating letters and numbers such as R1b or I2b (both in our project). Well, those lines of letters and numbers have gotten rather large so the genetic community is using the first letter and then the name of the last SNP (called terminal SNP) for which you test positive. Through this test we get haplogroups more close in time to our genealogy. At some point National Genographic is predicting that we could have haplogroups within 1,000 to 2,000 years of our genealogy paper trail and start degisnating smaller areas where our haplogroup is concentrated (i.e, Germany rather than Western Europe) Granted, that is still a bit far out, but this test can still help us greatly.
At $199 a test, most of you may not be willing to test; however, not all of you have to.
Here’s the beauty of it….
If a group matches closely and one person tests Geno 2.0, then the rest (or whomever wishes) only needs to spend $29 to get the terminal SNP checked. That is the cost of one SNP test. If the person tests positive for that SNP then you know that you match the same haplogroup of the person who paid $199. Matching to the terminal SNP gives you assurance that you do match people in the group.
WHY would I say that? Don’t we already match?
Well, yes, but….
There is such a thing called CONVERGENCE. This mean by accident (given the sheer numbers of people) the marker results that you already have could have by coincidence resulted in the same set of numbers (see that list of numbers for any tester in the project) as others. A SNP test makes it 100%.
I don’t say this to scare you. It is an odd situation that does occur.
However, another nice thing coming from all this is the groups that seem to be all over the place. Group 04 and 6, for example. There’s more than the average mutations here and if someone would do the Geno 2.0 test and the rest would get the Terminal SNP done, you could be very assured that all who match on the terminal SNP are related to a common ancestor. Again, it won’t tell us who that ancestor is or when and where he lived. BUT, over time when we keep finding more and more SNPs we could discover that some of the testers in a group match each other by testing positive for a certain SNP where the others don’t. SNPs can mutate (change) at any time, just like our other markers.
Back to today and why I’m writing:
XXXXX’s test. He’s in Group 02, so no one in Group 02 needs to take the Geno 2.0 test, but of course you could if you wish. BUT, if you want to be sure your terminal SNP is the same as Burneys, you need to order a SNP test, but not yet.
XXXXX has tested positive for all these SNPs in Haplogroup I
Z77+ Z186+ Z161+ V9+ V205+ V189+ V186+ P223+ P222+ P221+ P220+ P219+ P217+ P216+ P215+ P214+ P19+ P187+ P166+ P160+ P159+ P158+ P151+ P148+ P146+ P145+ P141+ P14+ P138+ P136+ P135+ P130+ P127+ P126+ P124+ P123+ M94+ M89+ M42+ M294+ M223+ M168+ M139+ L800+ L68+ L59+ L578+ L566+ L498+ L470+ L468+ L460+ L41+ L403+ L37+ L350+ L35+ L34+ L16+ L15+ L132+ CTS9183+ CTS616+
XXXXX is an I-M223 for his Haplogroup. Notice that isn’t the first nor the last SNP. The Y-Tree needs adjusting.
SO…I am only telling you all this to get you informed. I do NOT want you to order a SNP test at this time. Wait until the Y-tree is updated and FTDNA prepares for testing all these SNPs for individuals. By then there could be more twigs for this branch or any other. I’ll let you know when.
Summary:
XXXXX has tested the Geno 2.0. Has anyone else in our group?
He now has the current terminal SNP for his Group 02, so others in Group 02 do not have to test Geno 2.0, but can if they wish.
To my knowledge no one else in other groups have done the Geno 2.0 test. Or have you?
Do NOT order a SNP test yet to compare yourself with someone who has done the Geno 2.0 test. It’s a bit early in the game.
ALSO, some Haplogroup Project managers could ask you to order a SNP. This is a different situation. They seek new SNPs and when they discover one, they ask others who are very likely to match this new SNP to test. The reason for this is that they must have so many people with the newly found SNP in order to get the SNP on the haplogroup tree. The SNPs I’m talking about with Geno 2.0 are already on the tree. SO, if you don’t mind spending the $29 for the SNP test for the Haplogroup administrators request, it would help the genetic world and genetic genealogists get a new twig on the world’s tree.
Genetic Genealogy is an exciting new field that is moving very quickly. We should all be very proud to have a part in it.
Thank you for reading all this and trying to understand.
Best wishes,
Emily
Group 01. Emily10; Don9; Guy8; John7; Mary Ellen6; Lethe Talley5; William4; Peyton3; Abraham2; John1
If you do not hear from me in a timely manner, just write again…I was buried in email. LOL
http://writingyourmemories.blogspot.com/
http://www.rootsweb.com/~orgco2/speaker/EmilyAulicino.html
http://genealem-geneticgenealogy.blogspot.com/
Northwest Regional Coordinator and Speaker for ISOGG (www.isogg.org)
Administrator for thirteen FTDNA DNA Projects
bigowl
tasteslikea9vbattery
warkworth
Grant DNA Project 