Date: Sat, 29 Jul 2006 20:01:12 -0230 (NDT)
From: dapike@math.mun.ca (David Pike)
To: PIKE-DNA-L@rootsweb.com
Subject: [PIKE-DNA] Reunion News, etc


Hi everybody.

I'm back home now, after being away for the past two weeks.
The Pike reunion in Colorado was wonderful ... it was great
to meet several people already in our DNA project and that
I had previously only been in contact with via email.

There was lots of interest in our project at the reunion, with
a dozen cheek swab kits being distributed!  Several of them were
passed out to people who will convey them to Pike relatives.
I'll update our project's participant tally as the kits are
received by FamilyTreeDNA in Houston.

Something that I did not realise until chatting with a few
people at the reunion was that not everybody knows about
their personal login pages with FamilyTreeDNA.  On the
right-hand side of
http://www.familytreedna.com
there is a "kit number" and "password" login combination
where project participants can login.  Passwords are assigned
when kits are received by FamilyTreeDNA... look inside the
email message that said that they had received your kit.
While the DNA analysis is under way, the login page will
show the progress of the analysis.  But once the results
are available, then there are several options on the login
page, such as a list of people with whom genetic matches
have been found.  Under the "Setup Preferences" you can
restrict the matches to just members of the Pike project,
or you can open up matches to anybody in the FamilyTreeDNA
database (that is, to those who have also made this selection).
There are other options too, but the one for "Matches" is
probably the most important (but let me know if there are
questions ... I'd be happy to describe some of the other
options too).  Still, I will point out that near the top
right of the page are links where you can update your
contact information (for instance, if you move or change
email addresses) as well as order additional DNA tests
(such as refinements from 25 to 37 markers, for example).

Let me now run through some of the latest news items
pertaining to our project:

1.  While I was travelling to the reunion, we had a new
member join our project via the National Geographic
Society's Genographic Project with 12 markers already
available.  This new participant (with kit number N31746)
matches Bryan (28606) on 11 out of 12 markers ... based
on their 12 marker data, FTDNA estimates the likelihood
of a common Pike forefather in the past 400 years to be
about 46%.  Participant N31746 has ordered an upgrade
to 67 markers, so in a month or so we will be able to
compare more than just 12 markers, which means that we
will have a much better idea of whether he and Bryan
are from the same Pike line or not.

2.  Until recently we had no test results from people
who descend from James & Naomi Pike who lived in
Charlestown and Reading, Massachusetts in the 1600s.
However, now we do.  Gilbert and his daughter Maureen
(kit 62731) had DNA results come back from the lab a
few weeks ago, and have since provided details of their
Pike ancestry, which begins with James.  Their DNA
results are different than any other results in our
project, establishing that James was not related to
the other early Pike families in New England that
we've been able to obtain DNA results for.  The number
of distinct Pike families so far observed in Massachusetts
alone is now up to 8!

3.  Several upgrades to 67 markers have now been completed.
In particular, we have 4 participants in "Group 1" on our
results page:
http://www.math.mun.ca/~dapike/family_history/pike/DNA/index.php?content=results.html
who upgraded to 67 markers... 2 of these 4 descend from
the John Pike who settled in Massachusetts in 1635
(one from each of John's two sons), and the other two
we're not sure about).  It is interesting to note that
between the 4 of them, not a single difference was found
among the new markers.  We're now able to calculate what
65 of John's 67 markers were most likely to have been,
meaning that we have a very firm grasp on the genetic
signature for this family line.  For Peg/John (24697)
and Roger (50318), we have even stronger evidence now
that they belong somewhere in John's extended family,
but just where remains a mystery (we still cannot tell
if they are descendants of John or cousins of John).

Getting back to the reunion for a moment now, I want
to publicly thank Stuart (kit 48191) for taking the
initiative to set out a donation box during the reunion
banquet.  The sum of $213 was raised and has now been
deposited into our project's Sponsorship Fund, which we
use to help encourage new participants to join.  We
currently offer 3 generic sponsorships, with the most
lucrative being directed towards people who have at least
8 generations of Pike genealogy but without any apparent
connection to any of the family lines already in our project.
The other two are for folks who have reliably traced their
Pike ancestry back to the British Isles or Europe, and also
for folks who do not live in North America.  Further details
can be found near the bottom of this page:
http://www.math.mun.ca/~dapike/family_history/pike/DNA/index.php?content=join.html

- David.