Gypsy DNA

[vraatyah]

I suspect some entries like this one were published before FT has run mt-multiplex which must have a marker for C. Now their classification seems to be somewhat improved particularly due to redundant SNPs.

[vraatyah]

whether the scientific world needs to treat M* as another Native American mtDNA haplogroup or not. Consider MitoSearch M* entries like
CFM66

take a look at this SWGDAN entry, particularly at HVS2:

051-126-188-223-298-311-325
73-185-249d-263-290d-291d-315.1C
(16024-16365; 73-340)
Navajo


That's a clear C1. Without 188 we have much more.


SWGDAM Hispanic:

051-086N-223-262-298-311-325-327
73-146-194-249d-263-290d-291d-315.1C

051-223-298-311-325-327
73-194-249d-263-290d-291d-315.1C-489-523d-524d

Barbosa 2006, Alagoas, Northeastern Brazil:

051-184-223-287-298-311-325-327-357
073-146-194-249d-263-290d-291d-309.1C-315.1C

051-184-223-287-298-311-325-327
073-146-194-249d-263-290d-291d-315.1C

051-184-223-287-298-311-325-327
073-146-194-249d-263-290d-291d-309.1C-315.1C

051-223-298-311-325-327
073-194-249d-263-290d-291d-309.1C-315.1C

[lgmayka]

Family Tree DNA explained that their confusion between M* and the Native American C haplogroup is that some people don't have the mutation that turns M* into CZ but they do have the mutation that turns CZ into C. So they're not sure if it's that there's a missing mutation in C or an unfamiliar mutation in M*. That's why they're not sure which group to place these people in, either M* or C.

The consequent question, then, is whether the scientific world needs to treat M* as another Native American mtDNA haplogroup or not. Consider MitoSearch M* entries like

CFM66

[Andrew M]

I'd like to know how that would affect the "Recent Ancestral Origins" section if someone is made a C who was really an M*.

I added a 223 (common mutation for M1 that she is lacking) into the YHRD search and came up with no matches. The mutations that showed up on the "low resolution" made the trend quite clear--Spain & (non-native) Brazil. On ftDNA she had Portugal, Azores, Spain and France. Leah W suggested that Gypsy origin (I guess M5) would be seen by having some eastern Eropean countries show up on the RAO.

[haplogroupc]

Family Tree DNA explained that their confusion between M* and the Native American C haplogroup is that some people don't have the mutation that turns M* into CZ but they do have the mutation that turns CZ into C. So they're not sure if it's that there's a missing mutation in C or an unfamiliar mutation in M*. That's why they're not sure which group to place these people in, either M* or C.

[Andrew M]

Interestingly, I have just communicated with a lady today who got her results back and wanted to see if I could make head or tails of it. She was given only one number--16519c and assigned to Haplogroup H. On the list of letters, a lonely red t showed up on the second to last place on 520. Your comments greatly helped me understand her situation (and my wife's too).

[cacio]

Andrew:

I did not recognize you under your new name.

I think both of the papers cited above only test until 16365, so 16519 would not appear. In any case, 16159 seems to pop up in thousands of individuals in many haplogroups, so it's probably a common and uninformative mutation.

cacio

[Andrew M]

Thanks, I was able to read everything. More of the familiar numbers came up. The mention of Europe came with:

M1a can be found together with M1* lineages in populations from the Near East, the Caucasus, and in Europe at marginally low frequencies (Corte-Real et al. 1996; Macaulay et al. 1999; Richards et al. 2000).

While looking at the results on the tree, I saw no 519c, which my wife carries. I wonder how common it is and if anyone else has it.

By the way, I am the "marttinen" who mentioned his wife's M* classification in the previous discussion. I recently re-entered this forum using a different name because of log-in problems (I forgot my password and the automated e-mail system to send it didn't seem to work).

[cacio]

Andrew:
if you click on either icon above the title, you'll get to the full article (which you can also download as pdf if you prefer). Towards the bottom, there is a section called "Haplogroup M Lineages in Ethiopians and Yemenis". (The beginning of the article is mostly about haplogroup L, which is the most frequent in Africa)

As for 223, I think I remember the M1 case discussed in this thread is in the same situation, ie his wife seems not to have a mutation at 223 (or may be it's simply a mistake in the test). For some reason, FTDNA does not assign people to M1 if they don't see 223, even though I seem to recall that one of the previous posts says that M1 sequences without 223 have been documented. Which means that 223 is not essential for M1. As usual, the defining mutations for the haplogroup are in the control region, but that is expensive to test.

cacio

[Andrew M]

cacio,

The first link was quite useful. It becomes clearer looking at the numbers that my wife should be an M1. The only thing she seems to lack is the 223, and Leah Wark said that it could show up in a complicated test that brings out back-mutations.

I got lost in the second link area with all of those studies about topics like "humans." When I typed in M1 for a search, I couldn't find any matches to that topic. I'll keep searching through it though--hopefully I'll see a tree in the big forest.

[cacio]

Andrew:
in the (old) motifs proposed by Richards et al

http://www.stats.gla.ac.uk/~vincent/founder2000/motif.html

M1 should have a motif similar to: 16129 16189 16223 16249 16311

Another paper that talks about M1 is:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&dopt=Citation&list_uids=15457403

(do a search for M1, there is a tree at some point). The paper focuses on Ethiopia though, so there's little about the European variety.

So you and your wife seem to match! Though E3b's seem to have been far more successful in Europe.

cacio

[Andrew M]

Great info.

Thanks, cacio, for the follow-up and information. It gives me a clearer understanding about the M*'s and M1's relation to Europe. I put my wife's results on the YHRD search recently and got match results from Spain and Brazil. This also confirms what the Leah Wark mentioned, in that she would expect to see more Eastern European matches if my wife's DNA was Roma.

I especially appreciated the charts on the scientific report. When I saw you had written M5 is identified by 16129A I was on alert, because my wife has that number in her sequence. The report showed that 16129 was in line with M1 also--and most of her other numbers were closer to M1 than any of the other M's. Thanks again for the info.

[cacio]

Marttinen:

I was looking at a paper for other purposes and came across a discussion of haplogroup M in the Mediterranean, which may be of interest regarding your wife's mtdna results:
Joining the Pillars of Hercules: mtDNA Sequences Show Multidirectional Gene Flow in the Western Mediterranean

http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1046/j.1469-1809.2003.00039.x

Citing the paper:
"The M sequences found in the analysed populations can be sorted into two different phylogenetic groups: haplogroups M1 and M5. It has been suggested that haplogroup M1 originated in eastern Africa (Quintanta-Murci et al. 1999), and it is almost absent in the European samples analysed. Nevertheless, it has been found at high frequencies in Algerians, and at a lower frequency in Tunisians, Mozabites and Moroccan Arabs, showing a slight east-west cline. On the contrary, haplogroup M5, defined by 16129A (Bamshad et al. 2001), which accounts for 97.3% of the M lineages in Gypsies (also known as Roma; Gresham et al. 2001), has only been found in Andalusians and Central Spaniards, which is not surprising given that Spain is one of the European countries where the Gypsy community is more numerous (~500,000 people; Liegeois, 1994)."

So, anyway, from the previous discussions, your wife seems to fall into the M1 group rather than the M5, which suggests a Southern Italian/Iberian connection, at least in the past.

cacio

[Marttinen]

I have back-mutated from vacation and am on this forum again.

The back-mutation of a major identifying number possibility is what I heard from ftDNA about. It would cost lots of money to go searching for it. Things are kind of complicated with my wife's being adopted and no paper trail.

Cacio:

Thanks for the link. I'll explore it further and see what the possibilities are.

[lgmayka]

Does he need to put M1-M30 on hold and follow the C, D, E & G trail, just to check Native American links in his wife's matriline?

If it is possible that FTDNA made a mistake in testing or in haplogroup computation/prediction, yes. Otherwise, no. When FTDNA says M*, it indicates that it did not find evidence of derivative haplogroups.

But it is theoretically possible that a portion of mtDNA C back-mutated to make itself look enough like M to fool FTDNA.