Newsletter
- 22 September 2012
What
will an mtDNA test tell you?
Are
autosomal DNA tests the future?
Reconstructing the DNA of your ancestors
Genes
for face shape identified
DNA
may identify remains of King Richard III
Could
a child have THREE parents?
MPs
warn about scrapping census
Volunteers
to share BMD data - watch out GRO!
National
Archives - website changes
Steve
Robinson interview EXCLUSIVE
Genes
Reunited offer 15% discount
The LostCousins newsletter is
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Researching our family tree is all about
finding evidence - evidence that proves or, at least, strongly suggests that a
particular person is our ancestor. The further we go back the harder it is to
find that evidence: for example, civil registration in England & Wales
didn't commence until 1837, so before that date church records are generally
the best (and often the only) evidence that we have.
But we also know that written records,
even official certificates, can be just as unreliable as family stories that
are passed down the generations. DNA can not only fill in the gaps in our
knowledge, but also verify the evidence that we've collected from conventional
sources.
Until quite recently DNA tests were very
limited in what they could do - so some of the companies
marketing the tests invented concepts such as the 'Seven daughters of Eve' in order
to sell tests to a wider market. I was very unhappy about the claims that were
being made, and the way that tests were being marketed
- so for a long time my advice to family historians was only to buy a DNA test
in order to test a specific hypothesis.
I'm glad to say that in the past couple
of years new tests have become available that offer many more opportunities,
and in this newsletter I'm going to try to explain why these new tests are so
exciting.
Note:
in the following articles I'm going to keep the explanations simple by writing
about what normally happens, and ignore the very rare exceptions - not least
because they are still being discovered!
Humans have 46 chromosomes in the nucleus of our cells, long strands of DNA that -
even under a microscope - are only visible during cell division. We inherit 23
chromosomes from each of our parents, and we get 22 of them whether we are male
or female; they are called autosomes.
The last two chromosomes determine sex: females have two X chromosomes, one
inherited from each parent; males have one X chromosome (inherited from their
mother) and one Y chromosome (inherited from their father).
Cells also contain organelles (the word means 'little organs') called mitochondria which have their own DNA
(it's thought that mitochondria are the relics of bacteria that invaded cells
over a billion years ago); the role of mitochondria is to provide energy for
the cell. These mitochondria are passed by mothers to all of their children,
both male and female - but only the female children can pass their mitochondria,
and thus their mtDNA, to the next generation.
The following family tree illustrates
how the Y chromosome and mtDNA are passed down the
generations:
I've used colours to indicate how the Y chromosome(shades of blue)
and mtDNA (shades of red) are inherited - note
how the Y chromosome inherited by the two brothers has passed down the
left-hand edge of the tree, whilst the mtDNA
inherited by all three siblings has passed down the right-hand edge.
Typically the Y chromosome follows the
surname, although in this example James Bradford was illegitimate and so - as
usually happens in such circumstances - his surname came from his mother. By
contrast on the right-hand edge of the tree the surname changes with every
generation - this makes it more difficult to use mtDNA
to find cousins.
Y-DNA and mtDNA
tests each tell us about just one ancestor from each generation: 2 of our 4
grandparents, 2 of our 8 great-grandparents, 2 of our 16 great-great
grandparents, and so on. This means that the further we go back, the less they
tell us about our overall ancestry.
The fact that the Y chromosome passes
from father to son with only slight modifications means that Y-DNA tests can be
very useful when used in conjunction with surname studies - because surnames normally
pass from father to son - and it allows male cousins who bear the same surname
to confirm that they share a common ancestor. It's even possible to estimate
how many generations back that common ancestor lived, which is very useful.
There's also the tantalising possibility
of using a Y-DNA test to discover the identity of the father of an illegitimate
child - but only in certain circumstances. For a start, the child must be a boy
- otherwise the Y chromosome won't have been passed on - and for the same
reason the person providing the DNA sample needs to be a descendant in the
direct male line.
Let's see how this would work in
practice using the example tree above. Notice that both of Robert Bradford's
grandfathers, James Bradford and Arthur Dent, were illegitimate. Because Robert
carries the same Y chromosome that his paternal grandfather inherited, a Y-DNA
test offers the possibility of discovering who fathered Mary Bradford's child.
However, if Robert wants to use a Y-DNA
test to find out who the father of his maternal grandfather was he's got a
problem - unless Arthur Dent is still alive, or Mary Dent had a brother who
isn't shown in the diagram, there's nobody in the family who has the same Y
chromosome as Arthur and his unknown father.
Even if you can locate such a cousin you
next have to persuade them to provide a DNA sample, which won't always be easy
- and if you expect them to contribute to the cost it could be well nigh impossible! And even after the sample has been
tested there is no guarantee that there will be an immediate match.
Even if there is a match it will only
tell you what the surname of the father might have been, not precisely who they
were - and the surname could still be wrong (for example, if there's another
illegitimacy somewhere along the line). Nevertheless, it's better than nothing,
and if you're lucky there may be some circumstantial evidence that points to a
particular person - for example, there might be a neighbour, a lodger, or a
fellow servant who has the same surname.
Note:
there must have been cases when even the mother of an illegitimate child didn't
know who the father was, which makes it particularly amazing that you or I
might discover the answer 150 years later!
What will an mtDNA test tell you?
Mitochondrial DNA passes virtually
unaltered from mother to child, which means that in theory you can trace back
your ancestry on your maternal line for thousands of years. This was the logic
behind the 'Seven daughters of Eve' concept developed by Professor Bryan Sykes,
and described in his book.
Whilst it has a romantic appeal, so far as genealogy is concerned it's pretty
useless - indeed, I'd argue that it's worse than useless, because it can be
grossly misleading.
Why? Because with every generation you
go back the number of ancestors doubles, and once you
go back more than a few thousand years it's statistically likely that we all
share exactly the same ancestors. This means that identifying one person on one
line 45,000 years ago is pretty meaningless, because everyone else in the world
is also descended from that person, albeit by a different route.
Can mtDNA
tests provide any insight in cases of illegitimacy? Usually there will be no
doubt who the mother was, but there are exceptions - for example, the child may
have been a foundling, or adopted and given a new name. However, because the
surname changes with each generation, it won't be easy to interpret matches in
a meaningful way.
I haven't yet found a way in which I can
use an mtDNA test to help me with my family tree, and
if you're new to DNA testing I would suggest you look instead at the test I'm
going to write about next.....
Are autosomal DNA
tests the future?
Autosomal DNA comes from the 22 pairs of
chromosomes that are inherited by all children, male or female. Whereas Y-DNA
and mtDNA tests can only tell us about the ancestors
at the extreme edges of our family tree, an autosomal DNA test (such as the Family
Finder test from Family Tree DNA) offers the potential to make discoveries
and solve mysteries in any of our family lines.
However, before getting too excited
about the prospects it's important to understand how autosomal DNA is
inherited. You will recall from my introductory article that we inherit one
chromosome in each pair from our father and one from our mother - and that
sounds pretty simple, until you remember that each of our parents has two
copies of each autosome. What decides which one of each pair they pass to us?
In practice we get a mixture - within
each of the autosomes you inherited from your father there will be some parts
that came from his father, and some that came from his
mother. The same applies to your grandparents - they inherited a mixture from
their parents, and so on, and so on.
This means that our DNA literally does
contain a record of our ancestry, though of course, what we don't know is which
bit of autosomal DNA came from which ancestor. The companies which offer auto
tests use sophisticated statistical algorithms to determine which of their
customers may be related - and they're also able to estimate how close the
relationship is (the longer the segments of DNA that two possible cousins
share, the closer the relationship is likely to be).
One day it will be feasible for the
average family historian to have their entire genome sequenced: until then
autosomal tests are the best option for those of us who are looking for more
information about our ancestry than can be reliably ascertained using the
available records. Family Tree DNA's test uses over 700,000 pairs of locations,
which is a phenomenally large number compared to previous tests - and yet it still
represents only 0.024% (about 1/4000th) of your autosomal DNA!
Tip:
taking a Family Finder test is like completing your My Ancestors page at the
LostCousins site - it's something that you only need to do once, but you'll
continue to get matches as more and more people join the project.
Reconstructing
the DNA of your ancestors
Sequencing the first human genome cost
about $3 billion, but in the next 5 or 10 years it's perfectly feasible that
the cost will come down to under $1000.
There are some big incentives to succeed,
not least the Archon Genomics X Prize, which is worth $10 million and will be
awarded to the first team to accurately sequence 100 genomes in 30 days or less
at a cost of no more than $1000 per genome. Teams must register before the end
of May 2013, and the competition will take place in September, with the results
being announced at an Award Ceremony on 31st October.
Supposing that tests do become readily
available at $1000 apiece, will that offer the possibility of recreating the
DNA of our ancestors? Although my own DNA contains only a small fraction of the
DNA of any one of my ancestors who lived 150 years ago, perhaps if I collected
DNA samples from every known descendant it might just be possible to
reconstruct their DNA?
It's certainly an intriguing
possibility....
Tip:
LostCousins member Angeline tells me that whenever she or her children have
their hair cut she keeps a sample in an envelope which she dates and annotates
with the name of the donor. Who knows what those samples might reveal in the
future? (If you plan to follow Angeline's example I suggest you include a few
hairs in each sample which have the root attached.)
Genes for face shape
identified
A study of
10,000 people has identified 5 genes which are associated with different face
shapes, and could ultimately lead to visual reconstructions of long-dead
ancestors (results from a previous study suggest
that hair and eye colour can also be predicted from DNA).
DNA may identify
remains of King Richard III
The long-running story
of the search underneath a Leicester car park for the bones of King Richard III,
whose death at Bosworth in 1485 ended the War of the Roses and allowed Henry
Tudor to seize the throne, is nearing its conclusion. Remains have been found
which match some of the physical aspects of the King, and by the end of the
year DNA tests should prove whether or not they belong to the monarch.
The DNA sample against which the bones
will be tested has been provided by a Canadian man whose mother was in the
direct female line of descent from Anne of York, King Richard's sister - but
tracing her ancestry through 17 generations must have been quite a challenge!
You can read more about this aspect of the story here.
Note:
King Richard III isn't the only English King whose final resting place is in
doubt, as this BBC article
explains.
Could a child have
THREE parents?
A public consultation has begun into a
technique that could eliminate diseases, some of them fatal, which are
inherited through mitochondrial DNA - but it requires a third person to provide
DNA, so technically the child could be said to have three parents.
According to a BBC News report about 1 child in
200 is born with defective mitochondria, and while most show few symptoms, some
suffer from muscular weakness, blindness, or heart failure. One woman lost all 7 of her children to the
same disease, as another BBC article relates.
If the procedure is approved for use,
let's hope that it is properly documented. It's bad enough that the family
historians of the future may not be able to draw on the census as a source of
information - but imagine if the results of DNA tests couldn't be relied upon
either!
MPs warn about
scrapping census
The House of Commons Science and
Technology Committee has warned that scrapping the
ten-yearly census could cause problems - and might not save any money. However,
so far as I can see, the needs of family historians were not one of the factors
that they took into consideration.
You'll find the committee's report here.
Volunteers to share
BMD data - watch out GRO!
The volunteers who run the Staffordshire FreeREG project are planning to collect data from
birth, marriage, and death certificates for the county, and making it available
online for no charge. If you have certificates for events registered in
Staffordshire email
Jonathan Maxfield for more details.
If you want to share information from
certificates for other counties in England & Wales the best way to do this
is by adding a 'postem' to the index entry at FreeBMD. There are sites
that have been set up especially to share certificate data, but they all have
so little data that the very small chance of finding the event you're seeking
(typically 1 in 10,000) doesn't justify the effort.
National Archives -
website changes
At the end of September the Your
Archives section of the National Archives website will be closing, although
the information will continue to be available through the UK
Government Web Archive.
The Person Search
tool (beta) is also being discontinued at the end of the month - I'm not
sure why.
It's amazing how the past can catch up
with you - this week I received an email concerning a computer game I wrote in
1979, and which is going to be mentioned in an electronic book due to be
published next summer.
Has your past ever caught up with you?
I'd be interested to hear your
stories....
Steve Robinson
interview EXCLUSIVE
I've had such a positive reaction to the
recommendation in my last newsletter of In the Blood, the crime mystery featuring
genealogist Jefferson Tayte that I
decided to track him down for an exclusive interview.
'In the Blood' has been incredibly
well-received, and once I got into it I couldn't put it down. What decided you
to write a series of crime novels with a genealogical theme?
"The story of In the Blood began with something I read in a National Trust
pamphlet about the Helford ferry in 1803.
From that I had the idea for a crime set in that time period and so I
needed a way to uncover that crime.
Having a genealogist digging up the past seemed like an interesting
angle and a logical way to get to the mystery that lies at the heart of the
story. I then imagined that someone in
the present might want the past to remain buried and would try to stop the
genealogist, which added the thriller element to the present day
narrative. I suppose one thing really
led to another."
How much research have you done into
your own family tree?
I've had very little time for my own
genealogical research since I started writing full time and what time I have
has been focused on my maternal grandfather, which was the inspiration behind
my second book, To the Grave. He was an American GI during WW2. Soon after the war he went back to America
leaving a young family behind and until recently I've know very little about
him. After gathering some basic
information from my family I found his enlistment record on the NARA website
which opened the door. Then with the
help of an amateur genealogist in Maine, New England, who wrote to me about my
books, I now know his final resting place and even have a photograph of his
headstone in the military cemetery where he's buried. I also found out that I have quite an
extensive American family as he was one of nine children. I hope to continue working on my family
history when I have time and I plan to write the story of my previously unknown
American grandfather, which I will share on my website when I feel the journey
has reached its conclusion.
Was the character of Jefferson Tayte, the genealogist hero of your novels, inspired by
someone you met?
No, I've never met anyone like Jefferson
Tayte, which is a shame because I think we'd get on
really well. I like his sense of humour
and that he cares about people. He's an everyman in a non-stereotypical
action-hero body who is based on the things that I didn't see in other
fictional characters.
Is it as enjoyable writing your books as
it is reading them?
I'm never really in reading mode when I'm
reading my own work. I'm always
editing. I do enjoy that though because
it means the hard work is done. I'm just
fine tuning at the reading stage. The
writing part is something of a pleasure and pain process. You have good days and bad days but you keep
going because it's the only way to get to the end of the story and once I start
a book I really feel the need to finish it.
That has a lot to do with the characters I've created. It might sound strange but I feel I owe it to
them to keep going until their story is told.
How important is it to you that the
details in your novels are accurate?
It's extremely important. I might not always get everything exactly
right first time but I try very hard to and I think having that attitude has
helped. I always make edits whenever
anyone points something out to me, too, and one of the great things about ebooks is that changes can be made within hours. I think it's part of
the writer's job to get the facts right.
It might be fiction but it should feel real to the reader.
Who are the other authors that you most
admire, and how have they affected the way you write?
That's a difficult question for me to
answer as I don't really have any firm favourites. When I read a book that I really admire I
tend to analyse it to understand why, but there's no one author who repeatedly
does that for me. I think you find your
own style over time and I really couldn't put my finger on which authors have
influenced me.
Your second Jefferson Tayte novel, 'To
the Grave', is reckoned by many of the reviewers on Amazon to be even
better than the first. What are reviewers going to say about your third book,
and when can we expect to see it?
As I like to make each story different
to keep things fresh I never know what readers might say about a book before I
release it. I can only hope that the key
elements that readers enjoyed from the previous books are maintained and that
they enjoy the story. JT's a likeable
character by all accounts and he's not going to change, and there's always
going to be a past mystery with a present day thriller, but I try not to follow
any more of a formula than that. There's no past narrative at all in the third
book for example, but there's still plenty of genealogy and history revealed
through Tayte's research. I think as readers we all have our favourite
books in any series and it's impossible to make each book better than the last
for everyone. I'm expecting to release
the third Jefferson Tayte genealogical crime mystery
by next spring.
Are you going to kill off Jefferson Tayte at some point so that you can focus on 'serious'
writing, in the same way that Conan Doyle killed off Sherlock Holmes?
I'm not exactly sure what you mean by 'serious'. I certainly take my writing seriously. If you mean 'literary' then no, I'll leave
that to others. I write the kind of
stories I enjoy reading and hope others will too. If I had a mantra for such things it would
simply be 'a good story, well told'.
That's what I aim for. As for
killing JT off, I don't know. His
research certainly gets him into plenty of life threatening situations so he'll
have to watch out and we'll just have to wait and see.
What would your (Jefferson Tayte's?) advice be to someone researching their family
tree who is up against a 'brick wall'?
JT has certainly hit plenty of brick
walls and as I like to carry out the research he does in the book for real I've
had quite a time trying to climb them with him.
The best advice I can give is that the best way to climb a genealogical
brick wall is to find a way around it.
By which I mean that it's good to think differently about the problem
and seek another approach to it. There
is often more than one way to find what you're looking for.
Finally, as I know some LostCousins members
are thinking of publishing their own electronic book, how difficult was it to
put your book into Kindle format, and what was it like as a lone author dealing
with an
enormous company like Amazon?
Publishing an ebook
or paperback yourself and dealing with Amazon are the easy aspects of becoming
an indie author. The process is
straightforward and Amazon are the best when it comes
to helping authors get noticed.
Marketing your work is undoubtedly the hardest part in my opinion and
newsletters such as this are a great way to help with that, so thanks, Peter,
for recommending my genealogical crime series and for this interview.
And thank you, Steve, for interrupting
your vacation to answer my questions.
Note:
the highlighted links in the above interview will take you direct to the relevant
pages at Amazon.co.uk, but if you live in the US or Canada you can support
LostCousins by using the following links to Amazon.com:
Genes Reunited offer
15% discount
Between 24th September and 1st October
the code GENESPLAT12 offers a 15%
discount against Platinum subscriptions to Genes Reunited.
It's important to note that, despite the name, a Platinum subscription does not
provide access to all of the records at Genes Reunited - it's comparable with a
Foundation subscription at findmypast.
However, Platinum subscribers do have the opportunity to buy add-on
subscriptions for other record sets, one of which is the British Newspaper
Archive.
Many of my tips only work for people who
live in Britain, but I'm going to start this time with some tips that you can
use wherever you live.
Overweight? Two unconnected friends of
mine have lost at least 30lbs in weight this year, so I asked them what their
secret was. It seems there is no magic formula - they have simply been eating
less! Personally I'd go for eating a little less and exercising a little more,
but I know that whichever option you choose will be perfect for you (and do
send me an email in 6 months' time to let me know what you have achieved).
Some electronic books are more expensive
than the paper equivalents, but the Kindle versions of Steve Robinson's books
are about one-quarter of the price, which makes them an absolute bargain.
Remember, you don't need to own a Kindle, because you can get free Kindle
programs for your PC, Mac, iPad, or Android tablet. In
fact, I can even read Kindle books on my phone - it's a Samsung
Galaxy Note with a fabulous 5.3in screen which I picked up at a very
reasonable price, probably because there's a new model coming out next month
(isn't it always the way?).
Talking of phones, when I got my Galaxy
Note I wanted to be able to access the Internet directly as well as make phone
calls and use WiFi - so I got a SIM from a company with the rather strange
name of GiffGaff
which uses the O2 network. They claim to be run by their users, and certainly so
far they do seem to be more friendly than other phone
companies. There's no contract - you just buy what you want when you want it -
and for £10 you can get a month of virtually unlimited mobile Internet access
and unlimited texts, with 250 minutes of phone calls thrown in. I think that's
an unbeatable deal, but if you know of a better one, I'd like to hear about it!
LostCousins member Frances wrote in
recently to suggest that I warn members to check the tyre pressures after their
car has been serviced as, like me, she has found that they're often too low.
Low tyre pressures mean higher fuel consumption, and in an extreme case can
result in a blow-out.
On the subject of tyres, I think I mentioned
a few months ago that when I needed two new tyres the cheapest supplier I could
find on the Internet was Tyre Shopper,
a name I hadn't come across before, but which turned out to be the online arm of
one of the country's biggest and best known tyre
chains. I got exactly the same service I would have done had I gone to them
direct - the same brand-name tyres, fitted by the same mechanics, at the same depot.
The only difference was the 40%
saving!
This week I moved to a new electricity
supplier after checking the free Which? Switch website - over the course of the next year
I'll save about 8% compared to what I have been paying, which is a very welcome
saving in these hard times. Even if you checked at Which? Switch
the last time I mentioned the site in July, it's worth checking again now - in
July I was on the cheapest tariff, but by September I wasn't. By the way, you
can save on gas as well as electricity - but sadly there is no gas supply where
I live.
There are two new TV series beginning in the coming week will be of interest to
many family historians. The first series (in two parts on BBC4) is entitled "Health before the NHS"; it begins on Monday
24th September at 9pm, and if you miss it the first part will be repeated on Thursday. The second series (in three parts on BBC2)
is entitled "Servants: the True Story of Life Below Stairs"; the first part is at 9pm on Friday 28th September.
I hope you've found this newsletter
interesting, and that you now have a better understanding of how DNA tests
might be able to help you unravel some of the mysteries of your family tree.
Peter Calver
Founder, LostCousins
© Copyright 2012 Peter Calver
You
may link to this newsletter, and I have included bookmarks so you can - if you
wish - link to a specific article by copying the relevant entry in the list of
contents at the beginning of the newsletter. However, please email me first if
you would like to re-publish any part of the newsletter on your own website or
in any other format.