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Archiver > GENEALOGY-DNA > 2006-01 > 1138222488


From: (John Chandler)
Subject: Re: [DNA] Inquiry - markers to match Irish study- Follow-on question
Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2006 15:54:48 -0500 (EST)
References: <20060125004654.83677.qmail@web60125.mail.yahoo.com>
In-Reply-To: <20060125004654.83677.qmail@web60125.mail.yahoo.com> (messagefrom ODonnell on Tue, 24 Jan 2006 16:46:54 -0800 (PST))


Gail wrote:
> So FTDNA will match up to 25 markers to this university study. What
> does that get me? Trinity researchers used many more - including 17
> 'microsatellite markers'.

Basic point of terminology -- microsatellite is just a synonym for
STR. Trinity used *only* 17 microsatellites. The other 30 markers in
the modal haplotype were deduced by looking at haplotypes in public
databases for those that matched on the set of markers tested in the
Trinity study.

> From what I have gleaned from the paper
> which is very technical for me, the extra markers are important to
> narrow the results to the medieval common ancestor. The 17 markers
> I think were used to narrow down the search of probability to one
> common ancestor, the purported Ui Niall.

That identification is clearly speculative, and the time frame of
the common ancestor is very uncertain because there is no common
descendancy chart linking the testees together. Lacking such a
chart, they must make a guess at the effective mutation rate to
derive a statistical estimate of the convergence time.

John Chandler

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