GENEALOGY-DNA-L Archives

From:
Subject: Re: [DNA] Need help reading these markers [Africa]
Date: Sat, 17 Aug 2002 17:53:30 EDT

In a message dated 08/17/02 11:06:40 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
writes:


> These markers came from a relative who is the fifth generation of a slave
> born in Africa. I was hoping with this to compare these results to others
> already published in hopes of pinpointing a specific region or tribe in
> Africa. Should I be comparing the DYS# below and the Alleles for each to
> other samples that have the same alleles values for the same DYS#s? Am I
> way out in "left field" here?
>
> Here are the markers:
> LOCUS DYS# ALLELES
> 1 393 14
> 2 390 20
> 3 19 16
> 4 391 10
> 5 385a 18
> 6 385b 18
> 7 426 11
> 8 388 12
> 9 439 11
> 10 389-1 14
> 11 392 11
> 12 389-2 31
>

As Nancy has already mentioned, there isn't much in the way of databases for
Africa as a whole, much less regions within Africa. You have no exact match
in the larger European Y-STR database or the smaller US database at
http://www.ystr.org/us. However, I plugged two of your alleles (which struck
me as relatively rare) into the US database.

DYS390=20
15/599 African American
0/628 European American
0/478 Hispanic American

DYS385a,b=18,18
17/599 African American
0/628 European American
4/478 Hispanic American

So these are hints that your relative's ancestry does go back in an
uninterrupted line to an African origin.

Rick Kittles is a researcher at Howard University who received quite a bit of
publicity (some controversial) a couple of years ago about his plans to
develop a more extensive African database. However, his web site doesn't seem
to have any recent updates, so his project may be on hold.

http://fyi.cnn.com/2000/fyi/news/09/13/african.dna.testing/

For some general background, see Pardis Sabeti "DNA: An Alternative Record of
African History"

http://www.africana.com/Articles/tt_524.htm

Also there was an interesting series on MSNBC which had a sidebar on African
American research using DNA:

http://www.msnbc.com/news/exploreyourrootshidd_front.asp

Ann Turner
GENEALOGY-DNA List Administrator
http://lists.rootsweb.com/index/other/Miscellaneous/GENEALOGY-DNA.html
DNA preservation kits: http://www.dnafiler.com

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