Date: Wed, 18 Nov 2015 14:06:47 -0330 (NST)
From: David Pike 
To: pike-dna-l@rootsweb.com
Subject: Pike project news



Hi everybody.

With this message I'm going to get a bit closer to catching up on the new 
results in our project.  I'm also going to share some info from the 
conference hosted by Family Tree DNA in Houston this past weekend.


I'll start with the 37-marker results for Gordon (kit 398544) which match 
the members of our "Group 6" on as many as 36 markers.  Genealogically, 
Gordon's line traces back to Massachusetts and in particular to James & 
Naomi Pike.  Based on the genealogy, Gordon's closest relative within our 
project is Russell (83604) - they are 5th cousins once removed, and match 
each other on 36 of the 37 markers that they've both tested.  So there is 
good consistency with Gordon's DNA results and the paper trail for his 
genealogy.


Next up is Rodney (kit 399984) who tested 111 markers.  Genealogically, 
Rodney's line goes back to Timothy & Patience Pike who settled at Channel 
on the southwest coast of Newfoundland in the early 1840s.  Prior to their 
arrival at Channel, Timothy & Patience resided at Carbonear in eastern 
Newfoundland's Conception Bay, and where many of the members of our "Group 
2" have their roots.  Even earlier, the Pikes of Carbonear were resident 
at Poole in Dorset in the 1600s.

As yet it is not clear who Timothy's parents were.  Likely he was born in 
the late 1700s or very early 1800s (given that his son John was born in 
1821), but there are very few church records from the area prior to about 
1815.  So just how Timothy might be related to the many other Pikes in the 
area is not clear.

But thanks to DNA testing, we do now have evidence to confirm that Timothy 
is indeed related to them.  Rodney is the first inheritor of Timothy's 
Y-DNA to have his Y-DNA tested.  And at 111 markers, his closest matches 
at Family Tree DNA are with me (David, 23996) and Albert (357821).  So far 
Albert and I are the only other members of our "Group 2" to test 111 
markers and we each have 8 differences in comparison with Rodney, which is 
more than I would have expected for a genealogically relevant match at 111 
markers.  For comparison, Albert and I differ by only 2 out of the 111 
markers.  But with us all having Pike ancestry from the same small town in 
Newfoundland, and then having similar DNA (that at 25 or more markers has 
no non-Pike matches), there is no doubt in my mind that there is a 
connection.

What I am wondering though is just how close (or distant) that connection 
might be.  At 111 markers, I've already noted that Rodney's closest 
matches are 8 differences away.  At 67 markers his closest matches differ 
by 7 markers (again, this seems to be on the high side) and at 37 markers 
the closest matches are off by 4.  Based on these differences, FTDNA 
estimates that there is only a 55% probability that Rodney shares a common 
Pike ancestor with me or Albert within the past 12 generations (or about 
300 years).  So what I'm thinking is that although Rodney's ancestor 
Timothy is definitely part of the Pike genetic clan at Carbonear, it looks 
like it might be several more generations further back in time before we 
get to a common Pike forefather for both Timothy and the other Pikes of 
the area.

A number of the members of "Group 2" have not yet tested beyond 37 
markers.  Indeed, there are several who have only tested the first 25 
markers.  Although 25 or 37 markers are generally enough to reliably 
confirm membership in our "Group 2" cluster, it would be interesting to 
see what distinctive mutations might be discovered if people were to test 
additional markers beyond those that have already been tested.


I'll finish this message with some news from Family Tree DNA's annual 
conference for project administrators, which I had the pleasure of 
attending in Houston this past weekend.  As always, it provided a 
wonderful opportunity for administrators to come together, share ideas and 
experiences with one another, and also to interact with the people who rum 
Family Tree DNA.  And yes, there were also some excellent presentations 
given by speakers that had been lined up.

A number of the talks this year showed how the "Big Y" test that was 
introduced two years ago is being used to help make new discoveries. 
Peter Sjolund, who is an administrator for the Swedish DNA Project, gave a 
lecture about the Bure family, some lines of which can be traced back to 
medieval times in Sweden.  Other branches of the family have now been able 
to be positioned within the family tree, thanks in large part to DNA 
testing (and especially the "Big Y" test).

Maurice Gleeson, who has been very active in promoting genetic genealogy 
in Ireland and the UK, gave an outstanding presentation about the work 
that's been done regarding the Gleeson surname in Ireland.  Genealogical 
records prior to about 1800 are exceedingly scarce in Ireland, so Maurice 
and his co-administrators face a challenge that is similar to ours:  we 
have multiple family branches that can be traced back a few generations 
but then the paper trail goes cold before we're able to find the common 
ancestor.  And so we have several twigs and branches that we don't know 
how to fit into the overall family tree.  Several of the members of the 
Gleeson project have tested 111 of the traditional markers and have also 
done the "Big Y" test, and by working with their collective results 
Maurice was able to determine the structure of their family tree.  That 
is, he was able to figure out what the mystery portion of the tree prior 
to 1800 looks like, and how the twigs most likely attach to it, even 
though the names of the pre-1800 ancestors remain unknown.

Maurice also spoke about some of the challenges of the process, one of 
which is the lack of easy-to-use tools for analysing the results from 
people's "Big Y" tests.  Thankfully, this is something that appears likely 
to improve in the coming months.  When Michael Davila (FTDNA's director of 
product management) addressed the conference delegates, he announced that 
in the coming months FTDNA will be focussing on developing tools to enable 
people to better analyse and understand their DNA results.

Nearly all of the presentations at the conference were recorded.  If and 
when they are made available, I will let you know.  In the meantime 
though, here are links to some blog posts that summarise some of the 
presentations:

http://www.ancestorcentral.com/11th-international-conference-on-genetic-genealogy/
http://www.ancestorcentral.com/11th-international-conference-on-genetic-genealogy-sunday/

In a move that has now become a standard feature, during the conference's 
closing remarks FTDNA's President Bennett Greenspan announced the launch 
of their year-end sales promotion.  Effective immediately and lasting 
until December 31st, prices on most (if not all) of FTDNA's standard tests 
have been marked down.  And in addition to these mark-downs, FTDNA is 
going to provide a "mystery reward" to each existing customer every Monday 
for the rest of the year.  These rewards come in the form of coupon codes 
that can be used to further reduce the cost of upgrades as well as new 
kits.

There are a few things that I would like to ask everybody to do.  The 
first is to upgrade your test results to the extent that you are able. 
Even if an upgrade might not advance your own genealogy right away, the 
results from additional markers and "Big Y" tests will put our project in 
a better position to move forward and to determine how our branches fit 
together into their respective trees.  To order an upgrade, you can login 
to the FTDNA website, click on the "Upgrade" button near the top-right of 
the screen, and then proceed from there.

My second request:  let's help others to upgrade and/or join our project. 
The mystery reward coupons that are going to be issued each week for the 
rest of the year can be shared.  So if you have a coupon that you won't be 
making use of, then post it to our project's discussion page at 
https://www.familytreedna.com/groups/pike/activity-feed
especially if it is more lucrative than a mere five or ten dollars.  Each 
coupon code can only be used once, but if we post our coupons each week 
then we'll be able help each other to make the most of them.  When you 
post them, please include the value of the coupon and the type of test 
that it is valid for, along with the coupon code itself.  A point of 
caution:  please post the codes to the discussion board at 
https://www.familytreedna.com/groups/pike/activity-feed
and **NOT** to our email mailing list (because there's no need to fill 
everybody's mailboxes with these coupon codes).

Thanks,

- David.