How are we all related?

Question

One way is through our direct maternal line ancestry.  Each of us (males and females) has mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) which belongs to one of the different branches of descent from one woman.   A skeleton of that descendant tree is at http://www.wikitree.com/photo/jpg/Major_Y-DNA_and_mtDNA_Haplogroups-2 . Each branch of that tree belongs to a different mtDNA Haplogroup.

Another way we are all related is through our direct paternal line ancestry.  Each of our fathers has a Y chromosome (Y-DNA) which belongs to one of the different branches of descent from one man.  A skeleton of that descendant tree is at http://www.wikitree.com/photo/jpg/Major_Y-DNA_and_mtDNA_Haplogroups-4 . Each branch of that tree belongs to a different Y chromosome haplogroup.

You can see the mtDNA and Y-DNA haplogroups of the World found in WikiTree at http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:Major_Y-DNA_and_mtDNA_Haplogroups

Each major haplogroup links to different subhaplogroups of DNA testers whose result is in a public database such as MitoSearch or YSearch.  There are over 158 different mtDNA and over 76 different Y-DNA sub-haplogroups currently found in WikiTree.

Comments

Thank you, Peter

As someone who is both struggling to understand all the DNA information and its uses; and, the son of an adopted baby born as a result of an affair between a married man and a young girl and therefore hoping to use DNA as part of my genealogy, I do appreciate your kindness and technical input.

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Hey, Peter! Both of the first two links are broken. :)

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I edited the question and think I fixed the links...

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Thanks, Darlene!

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One of the problems that I still have to deal with is new users to Genetic Genealogy is believing that DNA tests only test up the male line or female line. 

They still STRONGLY argue they are related to me by a particular parent because Family Finder, 23andme, and AncestryDNA will only match on the male line for males and female lines for females.This is not true for auDNA.

They also end up only providing one side of the family.

I think that not mentioning this only reinforces that belief.

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Hello Ken,

The way genetic genealogy is using auDNA or X-DNA matching segments is only useful within about five or 6 generations for auDNA or perhaps within 10? generations for X-DNA. So those matching segments can't show how we are all related to each other.  

However 99+% of human auDNA is the same so that is another way we could say we are all related.  GEDmatch at one time had a beautiful  3D PCA chart (it rotated in 3D space) showing how anyone with a GEDmatch ID related to different world populations and how those populations were related to each other.  I wish GEDmatch would bring back that feature.

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My point was more to address a practical problem, related to Wikitree, rather than a theoretical one, related to genetics. The theory being that we are all related because we all descend from a single male, born millions of years ago.

But when we speak of Genetic Genealogy, we mean- "A time frame within the last 500 to 1000 years since the adoption of surnames and written family records. An individual's Haplotypes are useful within this time frame and is compared to others to help identify branches within a family'  http://www.isogg.org/tree/ISOGG_Glossary.html

A daughter may have a father and mother whose common male ancestor is outside the genealogical time frame, possibly thousands of years ago. In all these types of cases, Wikitree will never be able to connect her to her father genetically on Wikitree, without auDNA.

One of the major gripes of genealogists on 23andme was that new users believed that DNA only came from the male or female line and resisted thinking otherwise.

I am not suggesting that yDNA and mtDNA are not useful, but that auDNA should not be excluded, especially intentionally. Especially when it may be the only way to show how one person is genetically related to other, such as a father and daughter.

Answer 1

And your question is?

Comments

Ummm, Dorothy -- he answered his own question.  It's just a way to provide interesting information to those of us interested!  G2G says you can 'ask a question', but sometimes we're just providing information.

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Absolutely.

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I've asked the same long time ago. "Ask a question" is wrong in many cases when we want to spread news or information.

 

But anyway, there are more important things to do than to change this minor irritance.

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Agreed, Andreas.

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There are definitely more important things to do that to change the way the "Post/ Ask Question " appears. In fact, "Post" pretty much covers all of the situations although I suppose there would be folks who would wonder where to ask questions.

One way or the other I'm quite satisfied with the formatting of Peter Roberts rhetorical question. "Asked and answered." Perfect.

Let's more on. Okay?

Answer 2

Peter,

 

I'm not sure about what structure you want to use on those mtDNA and Y-DNA pages. It will eventually get very messy when we want to list (and keep up) with all the latest findings of SNP's now that Big-Y and Full-Y NGS test ae becoming more affordable and popular.

Any idea how to solve this and what is your proposed structure for WikiTree?

Comments

Hello Andreas,

On each mtDNA haplogroup page it says the hierarchical structure is at PhyloTree.org.  On each Y haplogroup page it says the hierarchical structure is at www.isogg.org/tree

Those pages allow everyone to see examples of different subhaplogroups in alphabetical order.

There is no need to reconstruct the PhyloTree.org mtDNA tree or the ISOGG Y Tree.

Those examples each have mitotypes in MitoSearch or haplotypes in YSearch.

The Y haplogroup of only the terminal SNP (as best as can be determined) is what is supposed to be listed there.

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Sorry Peter, I should have been more precise. With structure I didn't mean the phylotrees, I meant the hierarchy of the various pages here at WikiTree. Like I said, if you see how deeply linked E-V13 is I wonder if that makes sense.

Also, as there are still constant changes and maybe some new higher SNP's are found, how's going to maintain all this hierarchy?

This is all based on my own experience with location hierarchy here on WT. This one for Y-DNA and mtDNA is a lot worse as all SNP's are the same levels, just that they links point out where to follow the phylotree to reach the terminal SNP.

Speaking of that, I do like your idea of naming only the terminal SNP!

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Hello Andreas,

I don't understand "the hierarchy of the various pages here at WikiTree. Like I said, if you see how deeply linked E-V13 is I wonder if that makes sense."

I'm using J. D. McDonald's simplified trees shown at http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:Major_Y-DNA_and_mtDNA_Haplogroups as the starting point.  There is E3b and E (which is really "E xE3b".

Can you give a detailed description of your E-V13 issue (I see it as a subhaplogroup of E3b).  Are you saying E3b is already a sub-haplogroup of E?  If so I agree, but I'm just following the McDonalds charts.

I don't expect any changes to the major haplogroups. and the only changes to the main page would be to add one of the major haplogroups not already listed (mtDNA P, E, Q etc) or for Y (F, H, P, etc).

When you get into subhaplogroups then there will be constant changes and people should enter the most downstream subhaplogroup they know their Y or mtDNA to be.

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Hi Peter,

 

I'm talking about categories, maybe that's why we don't understand each other. This is my E-V13 category: http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Category:Y-DNA_Haplogroup_E-V13

From here upwards there are many other single categories. That's the tree I mean.

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I don't recommend that we in WikiTree should try to categorize haplogroups in their hierarchy

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But that's how it was been setup apparently. Hence my question what hierarchy should the categories have

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Hello Andreas,

Sorry I still don't understand.  When you say "it" are you referring to the main page of the major haplogroups? or the subhaplogroup pages (such as haplogoup E)?

If you are referring to the main page then the structure for Y and mtDNA is McDonald's charts which reflect the structure that the scientific community ended up with.  If you are referring to each of the subhaplogroup pages then the struture is alphabetical because trying to copy the hierarchy of the ISOGG Y tree or Phylotree would be a large and continual revision on the WikiTree side.  A way to avoid that is to find the most downstream haplogroup as it is listed alphabetically on it's subhaplogroup page.  If you want to know where it fits in the hierarchical structure then click on the link to the ISOGG Y tree or Phylotree.

Sincerely, Peter