Straight Talk

If you don't want to see this and its brethern here, you need to keep those tests and upgrades coming in so I don't have so much time on my hands.

Relationships, or not

Continuing our discussion from yesterday concerning what we might discover from the Project-wide genetic distance table comparison   -   that area comprising the Faires Berrys, Rockingham Co. Berrys, Barry/Berrys and New Jersey Berrys has always seemed almost interrelated, as illustrated here -

For the purposes of this discussion,however, I think it might clarify matters somewhat if we remove those two 12 marker haplotypes since they tend to indicate more false positives.
Well, that fairly clearly separates out the Barry/Berrys and New Jersey Berrys but still leaves the Rockingham Co. Berrys and Faires Berrys groups somewhat unsettled, probably primarily because of tbd who indicates clearly to be unrelated to Robert at a genetic distance of 9 but related to Kevin with a genetic distance of 3, Robert and Kevin being related Rockingham Co. Berrys at a genetic distance of 2 plus each having a paper trail to a common ancestor.

Anyone have a view on what might clarify these relationships?    I don't have the feeling that simply adding more markers would necessarily do it although upgrades to 37 markers by Dennis, Paul and Edward might.    They do seem to be the source of all those 'probably' blocks.    There may be some strategically selectable markers that would help but we don't have enough data to know which those might be.

What might be?

I took the occasion of the return of Johnny's, #117, results at Ancestry.com to re-examine the genetic distances between all the haplotypes for the entire Project to see what we might determine.    That genetic distance table may be examined here:

Project Genetic Distance table
You will recall that Johnny is a Swan Quarter descendant and there was some thought that that group might have some connection to our Orange Co., NC Berrys.    Instead, it would appear from this table that at least Johnny's line may be related to the Spartanburg Co., SC Berrys.I suspect that the 'possibly related' characterization of the genetic distance between Clay and Johnny is purely a function of the fact that Clay has only tested to 12 markers.

It would also appear from this survey that James, #115, is most likely a Berry Plain Berry.
James is a Genographic Project transfer who has only tested 12 markers and to date, has not chosen to share his yAncestry with us.    If any of the Berry Plain folks know James they might want to encourage his more active participation in the Project.

Here's the Berry Plain TMRCA -

Today is upgrade day

Today is 'batch shipment day'.    As I've mentioned here before, FTDNA holds their orders as they come in and ship them out in a batch on Wednesday of each week, sometime after 4:30 Mountain Time.    Philip, #10, ordered his mtHVR1toMega upgrade yesterday so now it will go right out.    Miss the deadline and your upgrade will just sit there, doing nothing, until next Wednesday.

Remember, save the week, save the world.

And another reminder  -  Whenever you get new results, be sure to upload them to ySearch or mitosearch.    It's very easy to do.    Simply click on the darkened line that says 'Click here to upload' found in your 'Matches' tab on your FTDNA personal page.

Us, too

The last piece of Charles', #116, Y-DNA37 order came in yesterday so I thought we'd give the Orange Co., NC Berry folks a chance to see what insights they might be able to draw from their data to date.


So, here's their cladogram -and their genetic distance table -My favorite -You can click this line for their yAncestrys.

and a bonus -Now, any of you guys feel like doing an analysis?

POSTED AT 1:55 PM:    Looking at this myself  -  since Wiley, #18, seems perhaps to be the ancestral haplotype, at least with the markers we have now, maybe the cladogram should look like this -
POSTED AT 11:15 AM, WEDNESDAY, MAY 21, 2008
NOTE:   Ben just pointed out to me an error I'd made in transcribing Charles' DYS442 value.    It should have been 13 rather than 14.    Sorry for the error.    I'll leave it to you all to make the necessary adjustments to the genetic distance and TMRCA tables here in your mind but I'll have those tables correctly posted on the Project website.    I will, however, post a corrected cladogram here -

Slowly but Surely

I promised a cladogram from the Augusta/Washington Co. Berry's 67 marker results.    So here it is -
and a genetic distance table -
Time to most recent common ancestor, anyone?
You can click this line for their yAncestrys.

Now, who's up to venturing an analysis?

Results, results, results

Despite our recent pipeline showing our next results weren't expected for another week or so, over the past couple of days we've gotten Charles', #116, Y-DNA1-25 markers, Richard's, #82, Y-DNA38-47 and Y-DNA61-67 markers and Victor's, #118, Y-DNA26-37 markers.    All are posted.

Charles still has his Y-DNA26-37 markers to be reported but he's definitely an Orange Co., NC Berry.    Richard is still waiting for his Y-DNA48-60 markers but Victor's order is finished.    Guess now I'll have to do a new Augusta/Washington Co. Berry 67 marker cladogram.    Six of us to compare now.    Ought to be interesting.

The Agony of 'the week'

After having waited, perhaps not so patiently, for the better part of a week for Paul's, #36, Y-Refine26-37 upgrade to be shipped to the lab it finally went out last night with batch 257, so our pipeline is now -
Remember, FTDNA gathers its orders into 'batches' which it ships off to the lab once each week on Wednesday evening.

New Participant? - or not?

Mr. Paris DeBerry Bouchard has just transferred into the FTDNA Berry group from the Genographic Project with 12 markers.    At first blush he would appear to be a Madison Co. Berry, matching seven of them at a distance of one.    (He is also a distance of one from Keith, #54, an unassigned member.)    'At first blush' because, as we know, 12 marker matches are notoriously fickle.    In order for Paris to really be considered a Madison Co. Berry he'd have to continue that close match to 37 markers.

Maybe he will, maybe he won't.

Your haplogroup may be changing

I've been busily slogging away for the past few days updating as best I can your haplogroups as shown on the website.    FTDNA and ISOGG just published new Y-Chromosome Phylogenetic Trees which change many of our positions on those trees.

What's a haplogroup?    Wikipedia defines it as a group of similar haplotypes that share a common ancestor with a single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) mutation.

If you're interested to see the new trees, you may click these links:
       ISOGG             FTDNA     (This will be a download.)

I may be a little slow for some of you who have tested with companies other than FTDNA and who have not SNP tested.    But we'll get there.

The Bloom

Very quiet on the DNA front so I'll give you all a little report on the Apple Blossom Festival held this past weekend in Winchester.    The good news is that I didn't take very many pictures (and no movies) so you'll be spared that.

Our festival actually started in Baltimore last Thursday evening when our son, Jon, gave a presentation to the visual art folks at UMBC -
The first actual festival event for us was the Fireman's Parade late Friday -
Followed by a 10K race Saturday morning.    The first guy past me -Followed by the first pack -...and the first woman -
In the early afternoon it was the Grand Feature Parade which, this year, seemed to feature an unusual number of South American dance groups -and the usual number of bands -Oops, more dancers -
Following the end of the parade, the Berry family traditionally walks down to and through the midway.    We began this when our kids were small and wanted to go to the midway themselves.    Concerned for their safety by themselves, we told them that after the parade we'd all go and they could play the games and eat the food.    Well, now it's grandkids, but we still do it.    By this time everyone's pretty tired -and hungry -

Want SNPs?

John's, #105, mtDNA results came back yesterday and you can see them posted here.    John is mitosearch 56AQS and if you click on his mitosearch ID you can search for matching or similar sequences.    Also, if you click on his haplogroup you will see his actual mutations and insertions.

A 'Heads Up' for you DNA junkies:    The Coriell Institute for Medical Research, a not-for-profit, basic biomedical research institution, located in Camden, New Jersey is seeking to enroll 10,000 participants for their "Personalized Medicine Project."    This project uses the Affymetrix 6.0 GeneChip which maps 1.8 million genetic markers, including more than 906,600 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and more than 946,000 probes for the detection of copy number variation.    They have raised funding to cover the $1000 test so there is no cost to the participant.    Take a look and see what you think.    This may be an opportunity.

May Day

I grew up in Bingen, Washington, a town of some 600 people in the Columbia Gorge almost midway between Mt. Hood and Mt. Adams.    All our streets were dirt except for the highway going thru town and the one going up the hill to White Salmon.    I don't suppose that kids do this any more, even in Bingen, but in the early 1940's we always celebrated May Day by making baskets from colored paper strips and library paste, sort of a lattice basket with a handle.    We'd make several of these each, fill them with flowers and leave them on folk's porches, shouting, "May Day", and running away.    Why don't kids still do that?

P.S. - My sister just reminded me that the reason we ran was that we got kissed if we were caught.    Guess I must have repressed that part of the memory.

Sort of a status report:

Blog usage for the month of April -
and our current pipeline -