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KINNEY, McKINNEY & VARIATIONS    
LENHART & VARIATIONS 
ENGLISH & VARIATIONS
DNA Project Notes

Common Haplotypes, etc.
See also, Understanding Matches at Family Tree DNA

Revised 14 December 2006

 

Matches With Other Surnames
Convergence
Common Haplotypes
Atlantic Modal Haplotype (AMH)
Western Atlantic Modal Haplotype (WAMF)
Super Atlantic Modal Haplotype

 Matches With Other Surnames. If you match someone with a different surname it could be that you are related and there was a false paternal event in one of the lines. However, this is not common and is usually difficult to prove. But it did happen in the Kinney/McK*nney project (see Smith). The more likely reason for your match is convergence (coincidence) or because you share a common haplotype. Convergence. Mutation is a random process and over thousands of years can occur in different lines so that by coincidence different "lines" end up with "matching" haplotypes. This accidental agreement is called convergence. (The more markers that are tested, the less likely it is that convergence will be observed.)

Common Haplotypes. If you have a common haplotype, this will be very obvious to you, because you will have many close matches with many different surnames. Some of these may be matches due to convergence but most of them match because you shared a common ancestor thousands of years ago. This would be an ancient ancestor, long before surnames were in existence, whose male descendant lines branched out over thousands of years and acquired different surnames. This is certainly interesting but obviously not helpful in furthering your contemporary research.

This is a frustrating group to be in because you may also have matches with people in the project (people with a variation of your surname). If you share a paper trail, this is not a problem. But if you do not, you don't know if the match is due to a shared recent common ancestor or because you share an ancient common haplotype. Sometimes upgrading to more markers clears up the problem - sometimes it does not. The best you can do after 1) comparing paper trails is to 2) upgrade to all the markers you can afford and 3) encourage your participant matches to do the same, and 4) continue tracing and documenting your lines. And 5) be patient - a new participant could join the project and provide the breakthrough you need.

=========================

Atlantic Modal Haplotype (AMH)
Western Atlantic Modal Haplotype (WAMF)

Many, but not all, common haplotypes fall into a group called the Atlantic Modal Haplotype (AMH) or an expanded version called the Western Atlantic Modal Haplotype (WAMF). These haplotypes are the most common in Europe (and, of course, are in Europe's most common haplogroup - R1b. Haplogroups refer to deep ancestry, see Haplogroups). From FTDNA:

The Western Atlantic Modal Haplotype

The Western Atlantic Modal Haplotype is the most common Y-DNA signature of Europe's most common Haplogroup, R1b. Simply put your ancestors have experienced a dramatic population explosion over the past 10,000 years, probably since the end of the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM-that's Anthropology-speak for the last Ice Age) that covered most of Europe beginning 20,000 years ago and lasting for 10,000 long cold winters.

R1b, and its most common Haplotype (yours), exists in high or very high frequencies in all of Western Europe from Spain in the south to the British Isles and western Scandinavia in the north. It appears that approximately 2.5% in Western European males share this most common genetic 12 marker signature and because of its very high frequency we always suggest that for genealogy purposes people in this group should only use our 25 or 37 marker test for their genealogy.

Anthropologists have been describing for many years that only a select % of all the males in past societies did the vast majority of fathering, while other males lost the opportunity to pass on their Y-Chromosomal genes.

On a lighter note it's clear that R1b's Western Atlantic Modal Haplotype has contributed much more than its 'fair share' in populating Western Europe.

http://www.familytreedna.com/MatchWAMH.html [Sept 2004]
http://www.familytreedna.com/MatchWAMHv1.html

 

 

 

DYS#

Kit

Name

*
H
a
p
l
o

3
9
3

3
9
0

1
9

3
9
1

3
8
5
a

3
8
5
b

4
2
6

3
8
8

4
3
9

3
8
9
|
1

3
9
2

3
8
9
|
2

4
5
8

4
5
9
a

4
5
9
b

4
5
5

4
5
4

4
4
7

4
3
7

4
4
8

4
4
9

4
6
4
a

4
6
4
b

4
6
4
c

4
6
4
d

4
6
0

G
A
T
A

H
4

Y
C
A

I
I

a

Y
C
A

I
I

b

4
5
6

6
0
7

5
7
6

5
7
0

C
D
Y

a

C
D
Y

b

4
4
2

4
3
8

 

 

 

 

AMH (Wilson)

 

13

24

14

11

 

 

 

12

 

 

13

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

WAMH (FTDNA)

 

13

24

14

11

11

14

12

12

12

13

13

29

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Super WAMH (Athey)

 

13

24

14

11

11

14

12

12

12

13

13

29

17

9

10

 11

 11

 25

 15

 19

 29

 15

 15

 17

 17

 11

 11

 19

 23

 16

 15

 18

 17

 37

 38

 12

 12

 

 

 

 

Atlantic Modal Haplotype - AMH [6 markers]
First described in paper by Wilson, W. et al
Genetic evidence for different male and female roles during cultural transitions in the British Isles
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/98/9/5078

Western Atlantic Modal Haplotype - WAMH - [12 markers]
Later FTDNA expanded the AMH to 12 markers (source?)
Here's their description - but markers are not listed:
http://www.familytreedna.com/matchwamh.html
The markers apparently are those near the bottom of the chart at this link:
http://www.familytreedna.com/faq2.html

Super Western Atlantic Modal Haplotype - SWAMH
SWAMH was expanded by Whit Athey (see RootsWeb Discussion list):
http://worldfamilies.net/Super%20Western%20Atlantic%20Modal%20Haplotype.htm

See also:
Whit Athey's Y-Haplogroup Predictor
https://home.comcast.net/~whitathey/predictorinstr.htm
https://home.comcast.net/~whitathey/hapest5/

=======================

"The unconstrained TMRCA calculations we do assume no knowledge whatsoever about the two people being compared. Therefore, they apply to any two people chosen at random, regardless of surname. For a 25/25 match, the 95% confidence interval extends from 0 to 32 generations in the past. 32 generations in most cases goes back to a time before surnames. Thus, it is very likely that you are related to any 25/25 match, but it is not necessarily of any genealogical value. This is true whether you are AMH or not. The distinction made by a shared surname is a bit subtle. What it does is shift the probabilities toward a more recent connection. More importantly, though, from a genealogical standpoint, it makes it much more likely that you will find the documentation if there is any, and it also greatly improves the chances that the documentation does exist."
                   John Chandler [email protected]
                   November 18, 2004
                   Subject: Re: [DNA] Close matches at 25 markers?

=======================

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DNA Project Notes

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