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Archiver > GENEALOGY-DNA > 2006-01 > 1137288592


From: (John Chandler)
Subject: Re: [DNA] DYS385 hi - lo?
Date: Sat, 14 Jan 2006 20:29:52 -0500 (EST)
References: <E1Ex3OY-0006vH-00@pop-tawny.atl.sa.earthlink.net> <43C68564.80705@sbcglobal.net> <001201c61798$a9522a80$b6559045@Ken1> <43C6B5BF.8050900@sbcglobal.net> <REME20060112162516@alum.mit.edu> <43C6D214.7010003@sbcglobal.net> <op.s3aesnttpqnhvj@pablo.wv.mentorg.com> <43C71B99.1010808@sbcglobal.net> <REME20060114132907@alum.mit.edu> <43C96C7E.3060608@sbcglobal.net>
In-Reply-To: <43C96C7E.3060608@sbcglobal.net> (aburto@sbcglobal.net)


Al wrote:
> They do not mention genealogy results at all. They do mention Kittler
> results and they reference his paper in the discussion of DYS385 on page
> 2 of the report (item 1 in section "2.1 Locus nomenclature").

They don't mention genealogy specifically, but they do talk about the
practice of denoting the conventional DYS385 results with the a and b
labels, which is something that only genealogists do, as far as I
know. That would seem to be an implicit reference to genealogy.
Their comment is: "don't". For forensics, their comment is right on
target, but genealogy is a different environment.

Of course, we could take the attitude of DNA Heritage (which is to
deprecate multi-copy markers for genealogical purposes). Then again,
it's too late for that -- we all know of cases where important
information is found in such places, and we wouldn't think of giving
that up, just for forensic purity.

All that being said, I have to admit there is no rule saying the
notation has to be convenient for genealogy. As numerous as we
genetic genealogists have become, we are still not in a position to
dictate policy to National Institutes and such. As it is, we do
swallow the really wretched notation for DYS389i and DYS389ii (all
except for OxAnc, that is). With sufficiently fancy tools, we could
live with the forensic notation on multi-copy markers as well.

John Chandler

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