The Genetic Genealogist

I received an email from Denis Savard of the E3b Project, asking me to post the following for my readers. For the non-genetic genealogists, E3b is a Y-DNA Haplogroup (info here). The E3b Project was also ISOGG’s “DNA Project Website-of-the-Week” 14 Nov 2007.

Here’s the announcement:

Dear Readers,

The worldwide E3b Project proudly announces a new milestone: reaching the 700 member mark.

Since its launch this past June, the E3b project’s website (http://www.haplozone.net/e3b/project) has been steadily growing and is gradually being transformed into a dynamic place of learning, collaboration and research for all things related to E3b.

Here are some of the new developments from the last couple of months:

+ The new V-Series SNP tests have proven very popular among our E-M78 subclade participants and we have been very successful in further dissecting the E3b1a subclade into several distinct and finer branches. So far, about 70% of M78+ participants have also tested V13

+ (E3b1a2), which is the most prevalent European E3b subclade, and among these a single downstream M224+ (E3b1a2b) was also found. Of the remaining members that have requested the V Series test, 17.7% came back as V22+ (E3b1a3), and 11.4% came back as V12+ (E3b1a1). These and other statistics are periodically updated at the following page: http://www.haplozone.net/e3b/project/page/5

+ This last week the fall edition of the Journal of Genetic Genealogy has published the much anticipated research paper by E3b project’s collaborator Steven Bird, “Y-Haplogroup E3b-V13 as a Possible Indicator of Settlement in Roman Britain by Soldiers of Balkan Origin”. You can find and read this interesting document at this link: http://www.jogg.info/32/bird.pdf

+ Our database has recently been updated to include Elise Friedman’s extended haplotype cluster analysis, an in-house system which enables us to classify E3b haplotypes into well defined clusters based on allele similarities, which normally tend to correlate with biogeographical backgrounds. This focused analysis on individual haplotypes nicely complements the software based output from commonly used software applications that we use to create cladograms and neighbor joining diagrams, etc. Please go to the following page: http://www.haplozone.net/e3b/project/cluster

+ Another important trend in the last few months has been the inclusion of more collaborators who have volunteered to promote the project, to provide guidance to new members and take part in a collaborative effort to spread the new scientific discoveries and findings related to the origin, diffusion and phylogeny of this ancestral haplogroup.

+ Next comes our forum, the Double~Helix community (http://community.haplozone.net/), which has also proven itself as an ideal place for new E3b participants to inquire about their results or exchange their observations. Besides reading the opinions of regular participants, the team at hand will try to point out possible relationships of distinct haplotypes, predict a downstream mutation and identify a specific sub-cluster if enough markers are provided or maybe recommend specific additional testing.

If that wasn’t enough, Dr. Dirk Schweitzer is now preparing a basic guide to E3b, including subclade descriptions, geographic distributions, etc., since most online E3b reference pages currently available elsewhere are already outdated. A public link to this information will be announced here when available.

In sum, there are many exciting new things happening as we speak.

All that has been previously mentioned plus the inclusion of new haplotype data from relevant genetics population studies that enable members to match their haplotypes against a growing dataset is providing all members with new insight about their distant origins and helping us all to understand the bigger DNA picture.

Finally, we wish to thank all the Geographic and Surname Project administrators that responded to our recent request to invite their E3b participants to our haplogroup project. The response has been phenomenal and we’re sure your Project members will thank you for it. Here’s our FTDNA link: http://www.familytreedna.com/public/e3b

Best Wishes To All From The Team At The E3b Project.