The Atlantean Roots of the Irish

Gee Bag

I know the fella in question is a bit of a media whore and he is trying to flog his new book, but I'm presuming that he must have some solid basis for his claims.

Dubhtach, by any chance can you recommend a good beginners guide/general introduction book for DNA type stuff, nothing too technical though.

dubhthach

Gee Bag wrote: »

I know the fella in question is a bit of a media whore and he is trying to flog his new book, but I'm presuming that he must have some solid basis for his claims.

Dubhtach, by any chance can you recommend a good beginners guide/general introduction book for DNA type stuff, nothing too technical though.

Indeed well they used test results from their studies (by Wilson) and the DNA testing company to infer results. I might actually buy it to have a read through, I see it's available on Easons in "e-book" format. They do tend to have a fair bit of media blurbs lately. For example they got a linear descendant of Charles II (via his illegmiate son) to test. This is the current Duke of Buccleuch. He came back as been L21+, L744+/ L746+, L745+ -- what's interesting here is that the final three L744+/L746+ and L745+ are connected to Stewart family. There's been a couple dozen men bearing surname Stewart with ancestry in Scotland who have tested positive for this.

The media spun this by claiming that "Bonny Prince Charlie" was really English (Cornish!) because the ancestry of Stewarts claimed they were Bretons (11th century), and they spun it that Bretons are really Cornish migrants (during migration period) ergo. "Bonny Prince Charlie" == English :rolleyes: (media for you!)

What's interesting for myself is that it turns out that L744+/L746+ (L745 is subgroup of this) is a branch of my own haplogroup DF41. (I'm L744-/L746-)

DF41 was only discovered about 6 months ago, I was the second man to test positive for it as far as I know. Anyways to get it on the ISOGG (International Society of Genetic Genealogy) Haplogroup tree I got the other branches of L21 to test for it (negative result proves location), so I sponsored a L744+/L746+ man to test DF41. Turns out he was DF41+, so basically I probably shared an ancestor with Charles II sometime between 1,500 and 2,000 years ago!

DF41+ = R1b1a2a1a1b3a9
-> L744+/L746+ = R1b1a2a1a1b3a9a
---> L745+ = R1b1a2a1a1b3a9a1

I would say one generally not to technical resource would be the basic articles on wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplogroup
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Y-chromosome_DNA_haplogroup

The tests above are just looking at a man's Y-Chromosome which only accounts for about 2% of his genome. That and it's only inherited on direct male line (so of my 4 great-grandfathers I only have the Y chromosome of one eg. the one bearing my surname)

Gee Bag

Out of curiosity were you tested through a university or through a private company? If private, who would you recommend?

dubhthach

Personally I've tested with two companies.

• FamilyTreeDNA (FTDNA) -- leaders when it comes to offering tests for Y Chromosome -- "239,485 Y-DNA records in the database"
• 23andme -- tested for 1 million markers across my Autosome DNA (44 non sex-linked chromosomes)

There are two types of testing I've done with FTDNA, these been:

• STR -- short tandem repeats (tested to 111 STR's)
• SNP's -- mark haplogroups

To use an analogy, SNP's are like the trunk/branches of a tree. STR's are like the leaves, you can use STR's to infer close relationships between men, whereas SNP's infer deeper ancestral connections.

FTDNA has a relationship with National Geographic, in 2005 Nat Geo launched the Genographic Project
https://genographic.nationalgeographic.com/
http://www.familytreedna.com/genographic-project.aspx

They actually announced recently that they were doing a Version 2.0 of this form October -- with FTDNA as testing lab.

Building on the science from the first phase of the Genographic Project, we have developed a cutting-edge new test kit, called Geno 2.0, that enables members of the public to participate in the Genographic Project while learning fascinating insights about their own ancestry. The Geno 2.0 test examines a unique collection of nearly 150,000 DNA identifiers, called “markers,” that have been specifically selected to provide unprecedented ancestry-relevant information.

With a simple and painless cheek swab, you submit a sample of your DNA to our lab. We then run a comprehensive analysis to identify thousands of genetic markers on your mitochondrial DNA, which is passed down each generation from mother to child, to reveal your direct maternal deep ancestry. In the case of men, we will also examine markers on the Y chromosome, which is passed down from father to son, to reveal your direct paternal deep ancestry. In addition, for all participants, we analyze a collection of more than 130,000 other ancestry-informative markers from across your entire genome to reveal the regional affiliations of your ancestry, offering insights into your ancestors who are not on a direct maternal or paternal line.

What's interesting about this is they plan on testing for Y-Chromosome SNP's (which define Haplgroups -- DF41 in my case) as well as Mitochondrial Haplogroup (Female lineage), as well as markers across the wider genome. I would imagine that for a total newbie it would probably be a decent introduction. Plus supposedly you can transfer the results into a FTDNA account if you want to do additional testing (STR's for example)