How accurate is the Y-DNA test ?

[Silverknight]

Hi all , I'm new around here and purchased the Y-DNA37 yesterday. I have being also tested in 23andme's project as well not having a complete satisfaction with the Y-dna results over there so therefore I came here to dig up more about it. I'm a Dominican and both my parents as well, my Y-dna results in 23andme is E1a* a very rare haplogroup found amongst Dominican men, other folks with the same results have origins from various parts of the US, some with Jewish ancestry others with African American ancestry, so my question is would my Y-dna results in here trace my paternal lineage more precise then in 23andme ?


Thanks, V S.

[darroll]

FTDNA has tested 500,000 kits.
I think they should know by now.

[efgen]

Hi V,

With your 37-marker results, you'll be able to see if you have matches to other men in a genealogical timeframe (within hundreds of years) rather than an anthropological timeframe (thousands of years). If you do have matches, you'll be able to see where they report their origins as being from, and you'll be able to contact them by email so you can share information about your ancestry and see if you can determine how your families are connected.

Have you already joined the E1a project and discussion forum? Here's the link to join:

http://www.familytreedna.com/group-j...=HaplogroupE1a

And, have you submitted your Y-DNA data from 23andMe to Adriano Squecco's spreadsheet? Visit http://daver.info/ysub for more information and instructions.

Elise

[Jim Barrett]

V,

Your Haplogroup is based on which Y SNPs you have which is what 23andMe has tested for. FTDNA's YDNA-37 test STRs and they will estimate your Haplogroup. You will have to order additional test from FTDNA if you want them to test SNPs. They will provide you with information about this on your myFTDNA website when your Y-DNA results have been reported.

To add to the confusion 23andMe and FTDNA do not use the same Haplotree so they may not report the same Halpogroup for the same SNP results.

[efgen]

To add to the confusion 23andMe and FTDNA do not use the same Haplotree so they may not report the same Halpogroup for the same SNP results.

This is not a major issue for E1a -- the backbone haplogroup is the same at both companies, and the only difference is that there are two new downstream branches (E1a3 & E1a4). If he submits his results to Adriano's spreadsheet, we'll be able to see if he's positive for E1a3. E1a4 was discovered at FTDNA, so that's the one subclade that won't show up at 23andMe.

Also, if he joins the E1a project as I recommended, there are knowledgeable people there who can help him through any potential confusion.

Elise

[Silverknight]

Thanks everybody for your great advises, I already know Currie (who is Eia* as well) , he was the one who told me about this site. he Says I have the same mutation as him E1a3 but is better to confirm it here, its origins are unknown and strange could be from anywhere in Western Africa, Mali, Morocco, S. europe, etc.., so I hope I can find it here .

[MMaddi]

Maybe my information is wrong, but I always had the impression that the Dominican Republic has many dark-skinned people. They could pass for African-American in some cases.

Since the Dominican Republic was a Spanish possession, my guess is that the Spanish brought African slaves there to work on whatever plantations there were. If that's the case, I don't see it as unlikely that some Dominican men would have an African yDNA haplogroup like E1a.

[Silverknight]

Maybe my information is wrong, but I always had the impression that the Dominican Republic has many dark-skinned people. They could pass for African-American in some cases.

Since the Dominican Republic was a Spanish possession, my guess is that the Spanish brought African slaves there to work on whatever plantations there were. If that's the case, I don't see it as unlikely that some Dominican men would have an African yDNA haplogroup like E1a.

Many Dominican males that I have shared results with have come up with E1b1 North African/S. Euro haplogroup or the common R1b Spanish, for me it's just a different case. If you don't know Mel, well he's African American, and if I come up sharing the same exact paternal linage as him it could mean that it's possible that my grandfathers linage came from slaves brought from the US into the Caribbean couple of centuries ago , or just a very distant cousin who split up in Western Africa and then headed separate ways, one to the American colonies the other to the Caribbean (Dominican Rep. .

[T E Peterman]

I think E1a is an unusual group, especially for the New World. Make sure you don't confuse it with E1b1a, which is the really large sub-Saharan group.

Check wikipedia. I seem to recall that E1a was present in the western Sahara region, which was about the only part of Africa that the Spanish colonized with great intensity.

Timothy Peterman

[Zaru]

It will be interesting to see how E1 develops. As a child of a mother who is African American, I know that our haplogroup is in the sub saharan, and therefore seemingly, the appropriate subgroup. With that being said, I live in NYC and am keenly aware of the Dominican culture that is here. The phenotypes are varied and yes, many can be easily mistaken for African ethnogroups. Oddly enough, my Dominican friends will not ever admit to this, as it is seemingly taboo to admit to African roots. But the Caribbean nations were at on time filled with slaves, so as Mike said, this would not be surprising. But some countries, Cuba in particular, also had a Moorish culture, as well as a Chinese culture. The Chinese Barrio is still in tact in Havana, minus the Chinese faces. And we cannot forget the native ethnic groups such as the Taino.

The point is that nothing would surprise me about Dominica. I would call to the forefront that these samples that are cited in the papers are limited in scope and are not fully representative of any culture at large. Some cultures that do not have much cultural mixing such as India or China will be simpler to ascertain than a more complex country such as Italy or the US.

[CWF]

To add a little world history perspective, Hispaniola is the island composed of the Dominican Republic and Haiti. It was the first island that Columbus reached in 1492 and is THE island upon which slavery was founded in the Western Hemisphere. Only 6% of the African slaves imported were brought to the United States. 94% were imported to the Caribbean and South America. Most people FALSELY believe that the United States had a large slave population, it didn't. Today's large population of African-Americans are descendants of those few hundred thousand Africans and White people. The truth is it shouldn't surprise anyone that there are African descendants in the Caribbean and South America.

As for the OP who speculates that part of his African ancestry came from U.S. African slaves, I can say that is highly unlikely. It is far more likely that it was the other way around. The African ancestors either were split up in Africa before being taken to the new world or the African ancestors were split in the Caribbean and one was taken to the U.S. as the final destination. Very few slaves left the U.S. once they arrived. They were simply too valuable to plantations once the importation of slaves to the U.S. was banned in 1810.

[Zaru]

To add a little world history perspective, Hispaniola is the island composed of the Dominican Republic and Haiti. It was the first island that Columbus reached in 1492 and is THE island upon which slavery was founded in the Western Hemisphere. Only 6% of the African slaves imported were brought to the United States. 94% were imported to the Caribbean and South America. Most people FALSELY believe that the United States had a large slave population, it didn't. Today's large population of African-Americans are descendants of those few hundred thousand Africans and White people. The truth is it shouldn't surprise anyone that there are African descendants in the Caribbean and South America.

As for the OP who speculates that part of his African ancestry came from U.S. African slaves, I can say that is highly unlikely. It is far more likely that it was the other way around. The African ancestors either were split up in Africa before being taken to the new world or the African ancestors were split in the Caribbean and one was taken to the U.S. as the final destination. Very few slaves left the U.S. once they arrived. They were simply too valuable to plantations once the importation of slaves to the U.S. was banned in 1810.

This is a true statement. Brazil was the largest benefactor of slave importation, but Hispaniola/Caribbean Isles was definitely the first stop in our hemisphere. It is a major misnomer that the US had a very large slave population. The numbers are a bit skewed as much of the North and Canada harbored runaway slaves, or they "assimilated" as domestic workers and could not be properly enumerated. My family for example, were from New England and are traceable there dating back until 1790. They would never have been enumerated as slaves (in the Post Antebellum period anyway) but it is assumed that at one point that they were, although there is a lack of evidence that supports that. Some Africans actually traversed the ocean as humans as opposed to property but it is difficult to decipher this.

The OP hopefully understands and appreciates the historical perspective contained within this thread.

[Yaffa]

To add a little world history perspective, Hispaniola is the island composed of the Dominican Republic and Haiti. It was the first island that Columbus reached in 1492 and is THE island upon which slavery was founded in the Western Hemisphere. Only 6% of the African slaves imported were brought to the United States. 94% were imported to the Caribbean and South America. Most people FALSELY believe that the United States had a large slave population, it didn't. Today's large population of African-Americans are descendants of those few hundred thousand Africans and White people. The truth is it shouldn't surprise anyone that there are African descendants in the Caribbean and South America.

As for the OP who speculates that part of his African ancestry came from U.S. African slaves, I can say that is highly unlikely. It is far more likely that it was the other way around. The African ancestors either were split up in Africa before being taken to the new world or the African ancestors were split in the Caribbean and one was taken to the U.S. as the final destination. Very few slaves left the U.S. once they arrived. They were simply too valuable to plantations once the importation of slaves to the U.S. was banned in 1810.

We were just talking about about a similar subject in the Indian Admixture thread. google " Casta Paintings" Spain had a racial class system. This included African and mixed African