Esto’s cartoons often really hit the spot. This one really reminds me of my husband and myself.
Cartoon by Esto Frigus of Geneapalooza, used by permission
When I told my 98% Ashkenazi husband that his Y-DNA haplogroup (E1a1 aka E-M44) probably originated in Timbuktu, he started dancing around the room shouting “I am black!”
The new Y tree released this past week by Family Tree DNA has dropped all those horrible long names like R1b1b1a1 and replaced them with the main Y haplogroup followed by the terminal SNP. This had long been suggested as a better nomenclature. The downside is that you have to look at a chart to see how an R-P311 might be related to an R-P312 but it is worth it for the simplification of the name. Although I think we R1b’s are used to being different from the R1a’s and I would prefer that we were R1b-P312
The new Y tree combines the research of Family Tree DNA and the Genographic project. The press release and its highlights are published on Emily Aulicino’s blog:
http://genealem-geneticgenealogy.blogspot.com/2014/04/family-tree-dna-2014-y-dna-haplogroup.html
and Debbie Kennett’s blog goes into deeper details:
http://cruwys.blogspot.com/2014/04/the-new-2014-y-dna-haplotree-has-arrived.html
But what does this mean for us R1b Munsons? Are we Scottish or Germanic? Where did our earliest known paternal line ancestor, Mons Knutson Titland 1665-1725 , who farmed a little north of Bergen, come from? Does our Y DNA tell us?
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There is a wonderful site at http://www.y-str.org with many good tools for Y DNA and autosomal DNA that run as programs on your PC plus a cool ISOGG Y tree add-on for the Chrome browser. My specific interest at the moment is figuring out which Y SNPs are already tested by 23andme so as not to test them again at FamilyTreeDNA since my Dad has kits at both places. I blogged about how to do that manually back in February, but now there is a program that will do that for you. However it took me a while to figure out how to do what I wanted from the instructions given, so I will do a step-by-step tutorial in this post in order to remember what I did.
First download your raw data from 23andme by going to the “Browse Raw Data” Page which is listed in the menu that appears under your name on the top right. Then on the raw data page click on “Download” in the second top bar on the right hand side. This takes you to a page with various warnings and requires that you reenter your password as well as the answer to your secret question before it starts the download.
Save the download file somewhere that makes sense for you. I have a folder called RawData in the folder DNA that I use. Once the raw data file is downloaded, you will need to unzip it before using it with the various tools. To unzip in windows all you need to do is open a file explorer window (a manila envelope is the icon) and then right click on the file name to get a little menu that includes “extract all” which is the one to click.
Those of us who are tested at 23andme and have also done the Y STR test at family tree DNA may wonder when some family tree DNA project manager says “Test SNP so and so” whether that SNP is already tested by 23andme. This post explains how to figure that out. If I have already lost you, then this post may just be too technical or else not your cup of tea. To better understand Y testing read this Y lesson by Kelly Wheaton.
For a good explanation of what a STR versus a SNP is, read Roberta Estes’ post – http://dna-explained.com/2014/02/10/strs-vs-snps-multiple-dna-personalities
So to figure out which SNPs my Dad has already tested, I first created the L11 subset image below of the R1b Y haplogroup SNPs from the beautiful diagram created for R1b by Mike Walsh because I need visuals:
Back to the original question. My Dad is an R1b etc and 23andme uses a four year old haplogroup designator rather than the current ISOGG R haplogroup listing. A visitor to this blog suggested that we test DF100 because that is an interesting subclade we may belong to since we have these SNPs according to 23andme: L11/PF6539/S127, L52/PF6541, P310/PF6546/S129, P311/PF6545/S128.
The diagram shows that the possible downstream SNPs for Dad are U106, DF100, and P312. So how to find out if they are tested at 23andme? Since the haplogroup at 23andme shows L52 as the last SNP can I assume the others are tested?
The direct male line descendant of Ole Monsen Titland (1702-1764) is a Y-chromosome DNA 34/37 match to my Dad, who we thought was also a descendant of Ole. Now we know he is!
Thank you so much cousin Sigmund for finding a distant cousin in direct paternal descent to test.
This story was written up a few months back in a post here but we were waiting on the DNA Y-chromosome STR test to prove our theory. Now it is proven.
Here are the deeper details of the three markers that do not match: