Date: Wed, 30 Nov 2016 20:59:41 -0330 (NST)
From: David Pike 
To: pike-dna-l@rootsweb.com
Subject: Pike Project News



Hi everybody.

It's been about a year since I was last able to send out an update on the 
developments within our DNA project.  Although I may not have had the time 
to provide regular news, things have been happening behind the scenes 
where I've mostly been helping the people directly involved with the new 
developments.

As for test results of newcomers to our project, there are 11 to mention, 
which is also to say that over the past year new members have joined our 
project at the rate almost one per month.  That is, new members who have 
been able to test the Y-DNA of a male Pike/Pyke.  Our project also has 
several other new members who aren't male Pikes themselves, but who have 
Pike ancestry and who have done the autosomal "Family Finder" test.  In 
this email message though I will focus on the Y-DNA results from male 
Pikes.


Let me begin with those who do not have genetic matches within our 
project.  In each of these cases there may be any number of reasons for 
the lack of genetic matches with other Pike/Pyke men.  In our project's 
experience, one of the most common reasons is that a male child born to an 
unwed Pike mother took the mother's surname, and thereafter the child 
passed his Y-DNA to his sons along with his Pike surname.  Another reason 
may simply be that those Pikes who are genetic matches just haven't yet 
had their DNA tested; when they do, and the match is discovered, that's 
when we create a new numbered group in our project (we have an example of 
this in the text that follows later in this email message).


Kits 412927, 435969 and 506451 are each anonymous on our project's public 
webpages.  None of these three match with other members of our project and 
so are listed in the collection of "Ungrouped Test Results" on our webpage 
for Y-DNA test results: 
http://www.math.mun.ca/~dapike/family_history/pike/DNA/index.php?content=results.html 
Because of their anonymity, about all that can be said is that kits 412927 
and 506451 belong to haplogroup R1b (which is a major European haplogroup) 
whereas kit 435969 belongs to haplogroup E (which is often reflective of 
African heritage).

There are three other new DNA results for anonymous project members, but 
in these cases they do match with other members of our project. Kit B72776 
fits into our project's "Group 19" genetic cluster, for which the other 
group members trace their Pike roots back to the parishes of Eggesford and 
Salcombe Regis in Devon.  Indeed, kit B72776 matches with one of them 
perfectly at all 67 markers that he tested.

Meanwhile, kit 514583 fits nicely into our project's "Group 6" which so 
far consists entirely of descendants of James Pike who settled in 
Massachusetts in the early 17th century.  However, where James was born 
currently remains unknown.  In time we are hoping that a good genetic 
match may help to solve the mystery of his origin.

Kit 350507 belongs to our project's "Group 1" family.  Group 1 is the 
largest single group within the Pike DNA Project, single-handedly 
accounting for about a quarter of all of our project members.  This group 
appears to have its origins in the region around Berkshire and Hampshire 
in southern England.  It also includes a line of Pikes at Cork in Ireland 
as well as a large number of Pikes in the USA, thanks to settlers such as 
John Pike who emigrated to Massachusetts in 1635 and Samuel Pike who 
settled in North Carolina in or about the 1690s.


The five other new results that I want to mention in this message have 
provided some identifying details which will help to put their results 
into context.  As it happens, all five of these results match other 
project members.

New to our "Group 1" cluster is Kenneth (kit B8533) who tested 67 Y-DNA 
markers.  He has also taken Family Tree DNA's autosomal "Family Finder" 
test.  When comparing Kenneth's 67 Y-DNA markers with those of other 
project members, his closest match is with John (24697) with whom 66 
markers are identically shared.  John's Pike line traces back to another 
John Pike who was born in North Carolina about 1765 and later settled in 
Tennessee.  Kenneth's line goes back to a Joseph Pike who was born about 
1818 in Virginia and then the genealogical trail goes cold.  It is 
noteworthy that both Kenneth and John fit into the portion of our "Group 
1" that consists of people having a value of 24 for the second of the 
Y-DNA markers.  We have also seen that this marker value is shared by 
descendants of Samuel Pike who settled at Pasquotank County, North 
Carolina sometime around the 1690s, so it may be that Kenneth descends 
from this Samuel.


Turning next to our project's "Group 2", we have two new members whose DNA 
results put them into this group: Bob (454806) who tested 111 Y-DNA 
markers and Patrick (504580) who tested 67 markers.  Bob's closest genetic 
matches when comparing at 111 markers are with me (23996) and Albert 
(357821), both of whom have 4 differences with Bob's results.  There is 
only one other member of "Group 2" who has tested 111 markers, namely 
Rodney (399984) for whom there are 8 differences with Bob's results. 
From a genealogical standpoint though, Bob's closest relative within our 
project is most likely to be an anonymous project member (with kit number 
98146) who has only tested 25 markers (all of which match Bob's first 25 
markers).  But more than that, participant 98146 has provided lineage 
details that reveal that he and Bob are actually first cousins (their 
fathers were brothers).  Their common Pike line traces back to a John Pike 
who was a prominent merchant from Carbonear, Newfoundland.  The historical 
records that I've seen show that this John died about 1788.  As yet I have 
not been able to determine with certainty where and when he was born, 
although the Pikes of Carbonear are known to have come from Poole in 
Dorset in earlier generations.

The other new member of "Group 2" is Patrick (504580).  His closest 
67-marker result is with Bob (454806) mentioned above, with whom there is 
only one difference.  The next closest matches involve two differences; 
these are with me (23996), Albert (357821) and Percival (95077) all of 
whom have Pike origins at Carbonear, Newfoundland.  Pedigree details have 
not yet been provided by Patrick, but the genetic evidence strongly 
suggests that he too has a connection to Carbonear.

Looking at the results from Patrick, Bob and the other members of "Group 
2", it is interesting to see that of the seven who have now tested at 
least 67 markers, three of them share a value of 23 on the 58th marker, 
whereas the other four all have a value of 22.  Possibly this might 
represent a split in the Pike family tree.  That is, it looks like a son 
was born with a mutation at this marker at some time in the past, and his 
descendants now carry the marker value that he was born with whereas the 
other branches of the family carry the original marker value.  Blooger 
Roberta Estes describes such marker values as "line marker mutations" in 
this blog post that she wrote earlier this year: 
https://dna-explained.com/2016/04/14/concepts-y-dna-matching-and-connecting-with-your-paternal-ancestor/ 
As she notes, markers like this one (and also those of the Big Y test that 
I'll mention later) can help to reconstruct the structure of a family tree 
and how the branches of it relate to one another, even in the absence of 
historical records.



Next is Tom (502682) who tested 37 markers and matched on 36 of them with 
Peter (161522) and Tom (61284) in our "Group 17".  A large proportion of 
the members of "Group 17" hail from the Burin Peninsula on the south coast 
of Newfoundland, although it also includes some Pikes who have been able 
to trace their Pike ancestry back to Devon, Bristol, Wales and also 
London.  This group's latest member (i.e., Tom) gives us another point of 
origin in England.  While Tom himself lives in Thailand, his Pike ancestry 
traces back to a John Pike who was born about 1794 in the village of Rode 
in Somerset.  Moreover, there is reason to believe that Tom's line may go 
back even further to the parish of Dowlish Wake, also in Somerset and only 
twelve miles away from Yarcombe in Devonshire where another member of 
"Group 17" (namely Dan, 219938) has traced his Pike ancestry.  In between 
the two of them is the village of Combe St Nicholas, which has some 
Pike/Pyke monuments in its graveyard dating from the 1700s... photos of 
these monuments can be viewed here: 
http://www.math.mun.ca/~dapike/family_history/pike/CemPix/England/



The last of the new results that I'll discuss in this message is for a 
relative of Doreen (513198) who tested 37 markers.  Project member Rex 
(96341) was reported as the closest match, involving two differences. 
Nobody else within our project was even within FTDNA's reporting distance 
for Doreen's relative.  As for Rex, he tested his DNA back in 2007 and has 
since been listed among our project's "ungrouped" results.  That is, until 
now.  The match between Rex and Doreen has given rise to our newest 
numbered group, namely "Group 21".  Rex, who lives in New Zealand, has 
Pike ancestry that traces back to the parish of Lilstock in Somerset.  As 
yet we do not have lineages details that we can share about Doreen's Pike 
ancestry, but it is nevertheless exciting to be able to establish a new 
group within our project.




That now concludes the review of the new results that have arisen within 
our project over the past year.  But I nevertheless want to take a moment 
and point out that Family Tree DNA is having a year-end sale.  In addition 
to having marked down the cost of several of their DNA tests, they are 
also issuing coupon codes each week that can be used to further reduce the 
cost of some of their tests.  To view your coupons, you can login to your 
personal page at www.familytreedna.com and then click on the prominent 
"Holiday Reward" link.  If a coupon that has been issued to you is not one 
that you plan to use, then you can help other people by sharing its coupon 
code.  One option is to post it to our project's discussion page at 
https://www.familytreedna.com/groups/pike/activity-feed
Alternatively, there is a Google doc spreadsheet at 
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1CgXRKz2TySvRqSInveSIYoslO7yexAc9d-BzpNhaY1c/edit?usp=sharing 
where you can enter the details of your coupon code.  If you're looking 
for a particular coupon, this is also a place where you might find one 
that you can use.  Remember that new coupons are being issued each week 
until the promotion ends on Dec 31st, so please check each week to share 
coupons issued to you but which you won't likely use.

This sale is also a great opportunity for people to upgrade their test 
results.  Although there may not be immediate genealogical benefits, 
discovering distinctive marker values (such as the one that I mentioned 
for the 58th marker in our "Group 2") can help with collective goals such 
as genetically deducing how our various branches fit into a larger family 
tree.

The markers of Family Tree DNA's "Big Y" test can also help with these 
goals.  The "Big Y" test looks at a different type of marker (namely SNPs; 
Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms) that mutates VERY rarely.  Of the eleven 
million SNP locations on the Y chromosome that are analysed by the "Big Y" 
test, it is anticipated that perhaps as few as one of them mutates over 
the course of two or three generations... I'm being a bit vague in this 
assessment though, in large part because we do not yet have enough results 
from "Big Y" tests to really know how often these mutations typically 
arise.  To help get a better sense of what to expect though, in the coming 
weeks I plan to do the "Big Y" test on my father's DNA sample and then 
compare his results against my own "Big Y" test results.

In the meantime, here's a recent blog post by Roberta Estes, in which she 
describes the "Big Y" test: 
https://dna-explained.com/2016/11/28/new-family-tree-dna-holiday-coupons-and-why-the-big-y/

One last thing to mention is that there is a new book that has recently 
been published on the topic of genealogical DNA testing.  Specifically, it 
is "The Family Tree Guide to DNA Testing and Genetic Genealogy" by Blaine 
Bettinger.  Blaine is the writer behind "The Genetic Genealogist" blog, 
where you see his announcement of the book at 
http://thegeneticgenealogist.com/2016/10/14/announcing-the-family-tree-guide-to-dna-testing-and-genetic-genealogy/

- David.