Date: Fri, 2 Dec 2011 11:19:13 -0330 (NST)
From: David Pike 
To: pike-dna-l@rootsweb.com
Subject: three new results and some other news



Hi everybody.

This promises to be another lengthy email bulletin, so I'm going to start 
with a Table of Contents:

1.  Family Tree DNA is having a sale
2.  News from the FTDNA Conference
3.  A new 12-marker result
4.  Two new 67-marker results
5.  A new book about genetic genealogy


***


1.  Family Tree DNA is having a sale

Family Tree DNA has once again chosen to have a year-end sale. Unlike 
several previous sales that only applied to newly-ordered DNA tests, this 
time their sale also applies to several types of upgrades. So people who 
have already done some DNA testing and have been contemplating ordering 
additional markers may find this to be a good opportunity to do so.  In 
addition to Y-DNA tests, the sale also applies to the "Family Finder" test 
for autosomal DNA, and to mitochondrial DNA tests too.  This promotion 
will last until December 31st.


***


2.  News from the FTDNA Conference

Early in November, Family Tree DNA hosted a conference in Houston for DNA 
project administrators.  In the past I have found this to be beneficial 
and informative, and this year's conference was again rewarding.  One of 
the things that is in the offing for us is a re-design of our personal 
pages at www.familytreedna.com.  The new layout is currently being beta 
tested and should be rolled out in the coming months.  In addition to the 
new layout are some new features.  For example, people who have done 
multiple DNA tests (i.e., two or more of Y-DNA, Family Finder and mtDNA) 
will be able to use a new "Advanced Matching" tool to easily see which of 
their matches are actually matches on multiple of these tests.

FTDNA has recently partnered with www.archives.com, who appear to be 
positioning themselves to compete with ancestry.com.  All of the 
conference attendees were provided with a trial membership to 
www.archives.com, which I anticipate I will put to good use (especially 
once the 1940 US census becomes available in April).

Spencer Wells, the lead investigator for National Geographic's Genographic 
Project, gave a very good presentation.  A flurry of research papers will 
be getting published in the coming months, after which FTDNA is 
anticipated to update their Y-DNA Haplogroup charts as well as their "deep 
clade" haplogroup test.  Dr. Wells also told everybody to stay tuned for a 
big announcement about the Genographic Project in the new year.  My 
personal speculation is that this might have to do with the start of a 
second phase of the project that might use even more genetic information 
than the initial phase that started in 2005.

For some other insight into the conference, a few of the attendees have 
posted summaries online:

http://www.yourgeneticgenealogist.com/2011/11/family-tree-dnas-7th-international.html

http://www.yourgeneticgenealogist.com/2011/11/family-tree-dnas-7th-international_09.html

http://genealem-geneticgenealogy.blogspot.com/2011/11/7th-annuall-ftdna-international.html

http://genealem-geneticgenealogy.blogspot.com/2011/11/family-tree-dna-international.html

http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/GENEALOGY-DNA/2011-11/1320736727

http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/GENEALOGY-DNA/2011-11/1320737176


***


3.  A new 12-marker result

Back in August the 12-marker results for an anonymous member of our 
project with kit number 208764 were reported.  He has three perfect 
12-marker matches with other Pikes, namely with Brad (85494), Dwayne 
(40227) and Scott (207535) as well as seven close matches that score 
11/12.  But we cannot yet say which, if any, of our Pike family subgroups 
kit 208764 might belong to.  For instance, Brad is in our Group 9 whereas 
Dwayne and Scott are in Group 20; these groups share the same initial 12 
markers, but are distinguished by differences that are found on subsequent 
markers.


***


4.  Two new 67-marker results

Back in June I received an intriguing email message with this question: 
can genetic testing determine whether incest has occurred in a family 
line? My answer was to say that it depends on several factors, depending 
on who is available to be tested and how they are related to child of the 
suspected incest. As you'll read in the following paragraphs, in this case 
we were indeed able to answer the question.

To elaborate on some of the details, it was Michael (kit 208808) who had 
posed this question to me.  His paternal grandfather John Pritchard PYKE 
was born in March 1897 and baptised in August 1897 at All Saints Church, 
Battersea Park on the south side of the River Thames in London.  At first 
glance, the baptismal register appears to state that his parents were 
Henry John Mobrey and Lucy Fanny PYKE of 38 Arthur Street. What 
immediately picques our curiosity is that Michael's great grandmother Lucy 
Fanny PYKE had a brother named Henry Mowbray PYKE.

Referring to the birth certificate for Michael's grandfather John PYKE, it 
states that he was born at 40 Arthur Street to parents "John Edward 
Pritchard PYKE" and "Lucy Fanny PYKE (formerly PYKE)" [except that the 
capitalisation of PYKE is due to me]. Both the baptismal record and the 
birth certificate say that the father was a carpenter, but they appear to 
disagree regarding his name. So who then was the biological father of 
Michael's grandfather?

Since Michael carries the Y-DNA of his grandfather John Pritchard PYKE, it 
was a straightforward matter to test Michael's Y-DNA and then compare it 
with other Pikes and Pykes in our DNA project.  Michael tested 67 markers 
and in August received his results.  At 12 markers his closest matches 
within our project have a score of 10/12.  At 25 markers his closest match 
has 7 differing markers, and at 37 markers the best match has 15 
differences. In short, Michael's Y-DNA does not closely match with that of 
any of our project members. While this might point towards John Pritchard 
PYKE's biological father having not been a Pyke, it might alternatively be 
that this Pyke family is one that we simply had not previously 
encountered.

The tale does not end here though.  Michael had researched his Pyke 
ancestry and found that his grandfather's uncle Henry Mowbray PYKE had 
immigrated from England to Australia where he married twice and had 
several children and grandchildren, including a grandson Bruce PYKE who 
has since tested 67 markers as well (kit number 209717).  Bruce's results 
were a bit delayed and were finally completed about three weeks ago.  His 
Y-DNA results are nowhere close to matching with Michael's.  Moreover, 
Bruce is in Haplogroup R1a whereas Michael belongs to Haplogroup R1b.

We now have evidence that shows that Bruce's grandfather Henry Mowbray 
PYKE was not Michael's grandfather's father, and so we can rule out the 
suspicion that Michael's grandfather might have been the product of 
incest. Just how Henry Mowbray PYKE ended up having a mis-spelled version 
of his name recorded in the church's baptismal records is a bit of a 
mystery, although perhaps he was simply accompanying his sister when she 
had her young son baptised.  On closer inspection, it is intersting to 
observe that although the baptismal entry looks like it says "Henry John 
Mobrey" for the father's Christian name, it actually has a single stroke 
mark through "Henry" as well as a single stroke mark through "Mobrey". And 
with "Mobrey" being written on the line below "Henry John", it's possible 
that what happened is that "Henry Mobrey" was first written with each word 
on a separate line, then it got crossed out when the clergyman realised 
that Henry Mowbray was not the father, and then "John" could have been 
written into the space that still remained after the crossed-out "Henry". 
If so, then this would actually suggest that the parents were named John 
and Lucy Fanny PYKE, which would be consistent with the details on 
Michael's grandfather's birth certificate.

It now appears that Lucy might have both been born a PYKE and married a 
PYKE, but the 1901 census lists her as a single woman as a visitor in the 
home of her sister Florence and Florence's husband William ELLIS. So at 
this point it seems that Michael's grandfather was probably illegitimate, 
but the identity of Michael's great grandfather remains unclear. We do 
have a few genetic clues among Michael's close non-Pyke matches, including 
some NICKERSONs that score 60/67 and some CRAIGs that score 33/37.

Another theory is that John Pritchard PYKE's father might actually have 
been named John Edward PRITCHARD (instead of John Edward Pritchard PYKE as 
was written on John Pritchard PYKE's birth certificate).  Trying to find a 
likely candidate with this name has revealed a death record for a John 
Edward PRITCHARD who died at age 24 in 1898 in the Fulham registration 
district, which is located immediately opposite the River Thames from 
Battersea.  Determining whether this is the father of John Pritchard PYKE 
will take further investigation.

Meanwhile, there are some interesting things that we can say about the 
results of Bruce's DNA test.  Unlike Michael, Bruce does have close 
matches within our project, and these show that he belongs to our 
project's Group 1 family cluster.  However, Bruce carries a few mutations 
that make his overall profile a little bit distinctive within this 
cluster.  My suspicion is that Bruce is from a different branch of the 
Group 1 cluster than most of the other members already in our project's 
Group 1, and that Bruce's branch has acquired a few mutations since the 
time when it split apart from the rest of the pack.

As for what we currently know about Bruce's ancestry, it can be reliably 
traced back to a Paul Oakley PYKE who was born in 1815 at Melbourne, 
Derbyshire and who died in 1873 in Kent.  His parents were John PYKE (born 
about 1790 at Baslow, Derbyshire) and Mary MIDDLETON.  Prior to this we 
are currently stalled.  But given the newfound knowledge that Bruce 
belongs to our Group 1, we can at least theorise that his lineage will 
eventually trace back to the region around Wiltshire and Hampshire where 
several other members of our Group 1 can trace their lineages.


***


5.  A new book about genetic genealogy

A new book entitled "DNA and Social Networking: A Guide to Genealogy in 
the 21st Century" by Debbie Kennett has recently been published by The 
History Press in the UK.  A review of the book can be found here: 
http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/GENEALOGY-DNA/2011-11/1322555503

A more concise description of the book can be found on the publisher's 
website: http://www.thehistorypress.co.uk/products/Family-history-dna.aspx



- David.