Genographics - 3 years Later

[K. Campbell]

April 13, 2008 was the third year anniversary of the Genographics Project. By some measures this 5 year project is now 60% complete.

Is anyone else frustrated that only one paper of results (Behar's June 2007 mtDNA Paper) has been published from this project?

Even accounting for the long lag time needed for peer review journals, it seems that some Y-DNA results should have been available by now.

[cacio]

I agree with you that the pace is really slow. Let's just hope that more will come.

Another paper that has come out is the Zalloua one on Lebanon, recently discussed. A couple of years ago, I attended a lecture by Wells, who mentioned a couple of studies as if they had been ready, one on Chad and one on some Negrito population in the Philippines - neither though has been seen yet. Nor another one mentioned, on Tajikistan.

cacio

[cacio]

Almost as we were speaking, here's another paper from the genographic project, on Khoisan mtdna:

http://www.ajhg.org/AJHG/abstract/S0002-9297%2808%2900255-3

cacio

[rainbow]

Saw this link on another forum

https://www3.nationalgeographic.com/genographic/dawn.html

[Jim Barrett]

Is anyone else frustrated that only one paper of results (Behar's June 2007 mtDNA Paper) has been published from this project?

Publishing information about what you have found before you find it can lead to some very bad information. If they still have two years remaining on the project I wouldn't expect to see any meaningful results for four or five more years.

I guess I don't understand the desire to rush when it so often leads to the wrong conclusion.

[Johnserrat]

I'm still concerned that the project has underestimated the number of markers needed to make viable conclusions about the population movements in question.

John

[Nagelfar]

I'm still concerned that the project has underestimated the number of markers needed to make viable conclusions about the population movements in question.

John

There's no question to me, at least with the Y haplogroups. It seems like the project started in the dark ages of genetic genealogy only three years ago.

[jdchess]

I'm still concerned that the project has underestimated the number of markers needed to make viable conclusions about the population movements in question.

John

I agree. I think this is a very valid concern.

[currie]

I'm still concerned that the project has underestimated the number of markers needed to make viable conclusions about the population movements in question.

John

My biggest knock against the Genographic Project is that despite their great emphasis on haplogroup determination, they ignore many subclades entirely. I was told that I am in Haplogroup E.

There was no way to know that by this they meant that my SNP testing indicated I was M96+, but P2-, that I was in Haplogroup E in but not in the subclade E3. And they hadn't bothered to establish whether or not I was in E1 or E2. Why would a research effort be so dismissive with regard to the subclades of E that are not E3? Granted E3a and E3b cover most of the Haplogroup, but I thought they were in the business of surveying the entire landscape, or at least at a much finer granularity than this indicates.

I finally got additional testing from FTDNA and DNA Heritage that indicated I was in Haplogroup E1 (now called E1a). Most people will never do additional testing because they won't even know that there is more that could be done.
In this case the Project could have at least informed the customer of the extent of the testing without having to beat it out of them as I did: E(xE3).

By the way my other grandfather was Haplogroup A. Subclade? Mums the word.

[Stevo]

My biggest knock against the Genographic Project is that despite their great emphasis on haplogroup determination, they ignore many subclades entirely. I was told that I am in Haplogroup E.

There was no way to know that by this they meant that my SNP testing indicated I was M96+, but P2-, that I was in Haplogroup E in but not in the subclade E3. And they hadn't bothered to establish whether or not I was in E1 or E2. Why would a research effort be so dismissive with regard to the subclades of E that are not E3? Granted E3a and E3b cover most of the Haplogroup, but I thought they were in the business of surveying the entire landscape, or at least at a much finer granularity than this indicates.

I finally got additional testing from FTDNA and DNA Heritage that indicated I was in Haplogroup E1 (now called E1a). Most people will never do additional testing because they won't even know that there is more that could be done.
In this case the Project could have at least informed the customer of the extent of the testing without having to beat it out of them as I did: E(xE3).

By the way my other grandfather was Haplogroup A. Subclade? Mums the word.

I have come to the conclusion that, believe it or not, it is genetic GENEALOGY that is on the cutting edge of this science, driving it, and also fueling it with hobbyist cash.

This is where the action is, where the discoveries are being made.

Maybe one of the greatest benefits of the Genographic Project is that they will have all those samples on hand for further testing? Another is that they are getting people in the doorway to the broader world of genetic testing.

[currie]

I have come to the conclusion that, believe it or not, it is genetic GENEALOGY that is on the cutting edge of this science, driving it, and also fueling it with hobbyist cash.

This is where the action is, where the discoveries are being made.

Maybe one of the greatest benefits of the Genographic Project is that they will have all those samples on hand for further testing? Another is that they are getting people in the doorway to the broader world of genetic testing.

Stevo,

I don't believe that they keep the samples on hand and I hear that it's only about 20% of the participants who move their samples to FTDNA for storage and possible testing in the future, even though that only requires a click or two.

I find it amazing that they establish membership in Haplogroup A by inference. They conclude that if you are M42-, then you must be M91+, because the only men who have been found (to date) to be M42- are those in Haplogroup A. In fact, I think all the testing groups/companies do it this way. But I thought the Genographic Project was supposed to be research. They would miss "Adam."

Thanks to Bennett Greenspan, who agreed to do additional testing, I now know for sure that my grandfather was M91+. The Genographic Project drew their conclusion as a result of not detecting any mutations. DNA Heritage did the same, but at least they tested for the subclades of A. My grandfather turns out to be A*.

[cacio]

currie:

both E1 and A are rather rare, even in Africa. I agree with you that these deep lineages are the ones for which we need more information, but it doesn't seem much is coming. However, there have been a few recent papers, including some from the genographic projects, about deep lineages of African mtdna.

Ethnoancestry's haploview claims to test A1, A2 and A3 (but not subgroups of A3) - presumably though if it's western Africa it's A1.

cacio

[darroll]

My biggest knock against the Genographic Project is that despite their great emphasis on haplogroup determination, they ignore many subclades entirely. I was told that I am in Haplogroup E.

There was no way to know that by this they meant that my SNP testing indicated I was M96+, but P2-, that I was in Haplogroup E in but not in the subclade E3. And they hadn't bothered to establish whether or not I was in E1 or E2. Why would a research effort be so dismissive with regard to the subclades of E that are not E3? Granted E3a and E3b cover most of the Haplogroup, but I thought they were in the business of surveying the entire landscape, or at least at a much finer granularity than this indicates.

I finally got additional testing from FTDNA and DNA Heritage that indicated I was in Haplogroup E1 (now called E1a). Most people will never do additional testing because they won't even know that there is more that could be done.
In this case the Project could have at least informed the customer of the extent of the testing without having to beat it out of them as I did: E(xE3).

By the way my other grandfather was Haplogroup A. Subclade? Mums the word.

The National Geographic project is not going to tell anyone how
they come to their conclusions, It would just be copied.
They showed me where both of my parents came from.
Best $15.00 I ever spent. They have left their competition in the dust and these big heads don't like it. Darroll

[vinnie]

My biggest knock against the Genographic Project is that despite their great emphasis on haplogroup determination, they ignore many subclades entirely. I was told that I am in Haplogroup E.

There was no way to know that by this they meant that my SNP testing indicated I was M96+, but P2-, that I was in Haplogroup E in but not in the subclade E3. And they hadn't bothered to establish whether or not I was in E1 or E2. Why would a research effort be so dismissive with regard to the subclades of E that are not E3? Granted E3a and E3b cover most of the Haplogroup, but I thought they were in the business of surveying the entire landscape, or at least at a much finer granularity than this indicates.

I finally got additional testing from FTDNA and DNA Heritage that indicated I was in Haplogroup E1 (now called E1a). Most people will never do additional testing because they won't even know that there is more that could be done.
In this case the Project could have at least informed the customer of the extent of the testing without having to beat it out of them as I did: E(xE3).

By the way my other grandfather was Haplogroup A. Subclade? Mums the word.

Currie, I posted this in another thread regarding Genographic Project:


"...they told me I was simply "J". Within seconds of uploading the results to FTDNA, I knew I was J1 because NG had in fact tested me for those snps. So NG knew I was J1 but didn't tell me that upfront, and I had to pay FTDNA to test the deep snps again in order to rule out subclades of J1, which is something that NG may have already known but didn't report."

[efgen]

"....I had to pay FTDNA to test the deep snps again in order to rule out subclades of J1, which is something that NG may have already known but didn't report."

NG does not do any deep-SNP testing at all. They only test to whatever is considered the "backbone" level of the major haplogroups. An example of the backbone levels is provided on this FTDNA page, although there have been some adjustments since the page was written (ie, FTDNA and NG now consider J1 and J2 as separate backbone haplogroups) and it has not been updated to reflect the 2008 tree yet:

http://www.familytreedna.com/snp_assurance.html

Elise