Category: Genetics

Three Ancestral Tribes

Three Ancestral Tribes

by Justin Durand

Everywhere you look these days the population genetics folks are talking about three populations. Wait, what? I must have missed something. I thought there were only two populations in Europe. The older hunter gatherers who were the original population from the Paleolithic, or Old Stone Age, and the newer invaders who overran them in the Neolithic, or New Stone Age. 

But no. It’s more complicated than that. Or it is now, anyway.

“First came the hunters. Then the farmers. Ancient DNA is now revealing how a very different group joined them from the east to lay Europe’s foundations.“

One thing about DNA research, if you’re going to bet on an answer always bet that it’s more complicated than we thought.

From an upcoming paper on genetics. This should be headline news:

From an upcoming paper on genetics. This should be headline news:

by Justin Durand

From an upcoming paper on genetics. This should be headline news:

“[A] large wave of German immigrants are known to have settled in Pennsylvania before 1780-1810, and tended not to move once they settled there. We detect not one but three distinct subgroups that settled in slightly different parts of Pennsylvania. We can trace their ancestry from different parts of Germany and Switzerland at that time and confirm it through aggregating estimates of their ancestry based on their genomes and common surnames found in their pedigrees.”

They’ve identified other American ethnic groups too. We’ll have to wait for the paper to be presented (early October) to see what they have.

https://hbdchick.wordpress.com/2015/09/18/the-genetics-of-the-american-nations///cdn.embedly.com/widgets/platform.js

Genome Mate

Genome Mate

by Justin Durand

This seems promising, but it’s a lot of work. I keep wondering what benefit I think I’m getting, exactly. 

“When tracing your family tree, whether through traditional genealogy or by making use of DNA testing, ongoing success will rely on a few simple factors: patience, luck, and good organizational skills.  You may not be able to control your luck, and you may struggle with patience, but you absolutely can take charge of your records and results.  Whether your FTDNA Family Finder results yield 10 matches or 10,000, one free third party tool you want to take advantage of to help keep track of and understand the significance of your results is Genome Mate.“

Revised to update link.