Z18 Panel Results and Nostalgia

As per usual, while I wait, I write. Lucky for me there are lots of great new things over at the R-Z18 and Subgroups project. One of these is the recent returns from the Family Tree DNA Z18 panel. As the news says, there are some SNPs that didn't get coverage and a few that had issues, but there are some that are pretty interesting as well.

Z18 Panel/Big Y Conglomerate

The Z18 group site has the panel results split out from the big Y results. I decided to do a DF95 mashup of the different results pages.

Once you figure out how you're all alike, the next thing you want to know is how you're different. Everyone who has tested big Y so far is in the 458.2 side of the house...or incommunicado.  So the Z18 panel has offered us a way to see some of the results from the normal 458 side of things (at a price that is pretty affordable in the Y testing world).

The problem with our 458.2 plus or minus groups is that 458.2 is not really an SNP. It acts somewhat like an SNP, but it's really a STR mutation..one that seems to stick. So my reference to 458.2 is not one you'll see in the big Y or Z18 panel results pages. At some point down the road, I expect it will become just one of many branches and categories a Cumberland cluster person will fit in and as STRs become a thing of the past, and SNP testing becomes cheaper, 458.2 will cease to be a category at all.

Anyway, on with it.

As per usual, if you want official information and good use of the scientific method, see the Z18 group or the U106 group.

Here is a horizontal table of SNPs across the top (along with DYS458.2) and testers on the left. I've got the Big Y testers, hopefully in position based on their SNP matches.  I have them filling in at the bottom with yellow names to differentiate them from the panel testers at the top. I also shaded DF95, which has been our defining SNP.

What you'll see here is that everyone is pretty much the same. White squares are basically, untested. The red ones are positive and the green ones are negative. You can see that Edwards there has an issue with Z369. I'm guessing that is a "false negative".

So that is the Cumberland world, generations and generations of common ancestors that inevitably come down to one single person that all of us are related to. Call him Mr, S4022...or further back Mr. DF95...or Mr Z370...etc. When contemplating the vast expanse of time boiling down over and over again to one man who is the father of all of us, it helps to remember that we're the descendants that lived to this point, and tested. That man had uncles and brothers, but they just might not have made it over the long haul or we haven't tested them yet.

Here is a second table where things start to break up some more. Again, white blocks were intended to be tested, but for one reason or another there are no results. I've thrown in a black vertical bar to separate the SNPs that are currently in the panel (on the left) from those in big Y (on the right). I'm using the Z18 project names for these SNPs but it's good to remember they have multiple names. For instance, ZP129 is also called A2277 at YSEQ and ZP121 is called Y15995 at the U106 project (I'm guessing named by Y-Full).

In this last one, we start to show our stripes.

ZP84 has some issues, it seems to be unstable in the big Y results, sometimes dividing people who are more closely related..seemingly at random.

ZP85 is down right exciting. ZP85 is so pervasive that you have to wonder if Corson's negative is a false negative. If it's a real negative result, then that would put the Corson(Jansen) men on an older branch than anyone else.

Here I threw in DYS458.2. It seemed to me that it's not tied to ZP85 because some men who are 458.2 negative have ZP85, so if 458.2 is really that stable, then it's younger than ZP85.

Mind the gap. There were several DF95 related SNPs that didn't get reported in this round. You can see that several of the Yellowish big Y testers have them and they are pretty common among them, but there just isn't that information for the panel people. It makes it hard to place them, since we would now be watching Corson to see how these came out for him and the other 458.2 negatives.

I shaded S8387. Again here it's very common in all the big Y testers (as is S8388), but it was only positive in Emery from the Z18 panel. So there is a clear divider there as both 458.2 negative and 458.2 positive men are S8387 negative. It comes after the 458.2 break up.

The panel ends, kind of at the last match point for Lund and Ovens who form the oldest branches of the Cumberland big Y men. If those S8387 results are stable and correct, then it seems like Olds, Edwards and Burghgraeve are now on  the oldest branch of 458.2 men though. They can, in turn, look back at Wright and Little. Everyone here would have to look back at Corson.

Beyond the big black bar is only Big Y land (for the time being) where we have a few more branches (explored and misused a bit more here on a broad scale and here in the nearer term) .

Update 2015-09-05

I was browsing out at the Z18 Project site and noted that a new result came in that has some bearing on ZP85. Schmidt came back ZP85 negative as well. Very interesting to see the layers coming out. I still have my fingers crossed that we'll get one of the Cumberland A people a big Y test so they can start seeing their own branches of our family tree.

Nostalgia

What made me smile about this group of men in the Z18 panel and Big Y conglomerate is that I see a few familiar names from my years writing this blog and speculating.

Back in 2010 I was scouring Y databases searching for matches and patterns. What makes us alike and what makes us different see?

So for fun here are some references to different matches I found and my attempts to place them on maps and in the context of my own weird results.

The Knowltons. Really the first big family of matches I could identify and my longest running research partners. Without their family tree work and testing, you wouldn't see the results we have today: http://thompsonhunt.blogspot.com/2010/10/16-slow-markers-map.html

Winne (murdered to Winnie...Sometimes Winner) and Corson/Jansen:  http://thompsonhunt.blogspot.com/2010/11/migrations-3-other-databases.html

And from 2012, Mr Emery who has helped me out immeasurably: http://thompsonhunt.blogspot.com/2012/08/z14-it-is.html

Unfortunately, I cannot show a link for Mr. Burghgraeve although, it seems like he is a node on one of my maps holding down the fort in Belgium.

Of course the Elmers who I totally disregarded in the early days at SMGF. Luckily Mr. Emery made me take another look at them: http://thompsonhunt.blogspot.com/2011/05/while-im-waitingyet-another-map.html

It's funny how it always boils down to the people who help you out or give you a new direction or a fresh look at an old direction. This list cannot possibly contain all the people who have been resources for me over the years, although I wish it did because I'm so curious about the Coens, the Edwardsons, the Hudsons and the Steiners...it goes on and on.