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Archiver > GENEALOGY-DNA > 2005-07 > 1121013139


From: "Ken Nordtvedt" <>
Subject: Using Sorenson Database
Date: Sun, 10 Jul 2005 10:32:19 -0600
References: <auto-000004370035@mail1.warpdriveonline.com>


As far as getting modal haplotypes is concerned, Sorenson works well for me,
although I could suggest revisions of the site's bells and whistles which
would make it even easier. Remember, a modal is not identified by looking
at one or two haplotypes. It is a statistic or property of as large a
population of haplotypes which can be reasonably be collected. Rarely does
one see a pattern looking at an individual haplotype.

I put into Sorenson 6 fixed marker values at STRs which are generally slow
mutators and define the population. Then one by one, I pick a 7th marker
and take a census of the "exact match" count for the various repeat values.
If I am in a hurry and only want the most frequent, I search only at and
around my educated guess of the modal (obtained from previous
investigations; I hit the modal most of the time except for the happy
surprises). If I want to eventually make a variance (age) measurement for
the population, I must take census over the full range of repeat values
until I get to zero at each end (there are shortcuts to this process as
well). And if I have discovered evidence of some family flooding the
database with many haplotypes, I have to purge the multiple entries before
proceeding with variance determinations. This is the most tedious activity.
If I owned Sorenson I would have software to do this chore.

When I am done I have the entire modal haplotype for the fixed, root
haplotype put in at the beginning of the process. And furthermore, I know
which modal values are "strong" and which are "weak" by seeing the
distribution about the most common. I can also from this information detect
funny marker distributions indicating further sub-populations within this
root population. If I find more than one funny marker among all, I look for
correlations between the funny markers to see if I can map out the
beginnings of the definition for the sub-population modals.

Ken


----- Original Message -----
From: "Glen Todd" <>
To: <>
Sent: Sunday, July 10, 2005 10:10 AM
Subject: RE: [DNA] upgrading after a 25 marker test
> >
> > The complete list of allele counts. They don;t list the
> > allele count for a person who has a mismatch, just an X.
>
> That's exactly my point. It's difficult to look for modals or other
> patterns when all you have are those Xs.
>
> Glen
>
>
> ==============================
> Search the US Census Collection. Over 140 million records added in the
> last 12 months. Largest online collection in the world. Learn more:
http://www.ancestry.com/s13965/rd.ashx
>
>


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