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Archiver > GENEALOGY-DNA > 2005-11 > 1133196407


From: Doug McDonald <>
Subject: Re: [DNA] New J haplogroup nomenclature
Date: Mon, 28 Nov 2005 10:46:47 -0600
References: <438B272B.9040309@comcast.net> <003901c5f436$7bbbe550$71509045@Ken1>
In-Reply-To: <003901c5f436$7bbbe550$71509045@Ken1>


Ken Nordtvedt wrote:
> If the hobbyist pressure continues to grow to know the whole truth and
> nothing but the latest truth about the most downstream divisions of the
> genetic population, and new SNPs continue to trickle in at the rate they
> are now, and commercial testing of them stays available, then the Tree
> is going to change too frequently for a YCC "consensus" to remain
> practical as a timely statement of the situation. Can you imagine these
> important academics getting together as frequently as they would need to
> in order to accomplish this? I even see out-moded Trees prolonged on
> the web by testing companies. We may as well keep Trees for the various
> groups updated ourselves.
>
>


It is obviously worse than that. I think that we should stop talking
about any divisions lower than the major letters in the number-letter-
number-letter format, and just talk about the major letter and
farthest downstream marker actually typed, like R-M17. If there is
an SNP that causes a disaster upstream of R, we would have to fix
it like the mtDNA was fixed, with an "HV" and a "pre-HV" stuck in.

Alternatively, we could cast some prominent groups downstream of
the major letters, like R1a, R1b, C3, Q3, J2, in concrete and
use the same idea as mtDNA if a new level was found upstream
of these. For example there might be an R1ab or a Q1-3 (the minus
indicating that a marker was found upstream of both Q1 and Q3,
but not Q2, and avoiding calling it Q12 (Q-twelve).

I think that this is a case where some hobbyist group like the ISOGG
could step in and keep a concensus tree up to date on their web site,
since the pros in the YCC have stepped down.

Doug McDonald

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