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Archiver > GENEALOGY-DNA > 2001-01 > 0979163710


From: Doug Mumma <>
Subject: [DNA] Family Tree DNA's reporting of data
Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 13:55:10 -0800
In-Reply-To: <200101091400.f09E0Qc06867@lists5.rootsweb.com>


"Response to Bennett Greenspan's comments of 8 January regarding the
non-standard nature of the alleles reported by Family Tree DNA"

Hi Bennett,

I will add my own comments and opinions on this subject since it is near
and dear to my heart. As background information for the List readers, I
used your company to analyze the DNA obtained from 30 participants in the
MUMMA surname study. I will state that the data allowed me to answer a
number of vexing questions regrading the common ancestry of various Mumma
surname spellings.

However, as you well know from our conversations, I too am frustrated by
not receiving detailed the specific repeat values measured at all of the
loci and the identification of the loci locations. I will address my
comments relative to what you wrote.

On 8 Jan 2000, Bennett Greenspan of Family Tree DNA wrote:

>Our studies reporting of the allele results is somewhat non--standard. In
>fact there is no standard for Y chromosome testing, which I expect is some
>years away.

Hummmm. I am a bit shocked to hear you say there is "no standard for Y
chromosome testing". At least it is my understanding that there are
standards for performing the testing, but there is no "standard set" of
loci to be measured for genealogical purposes or a way of reporting them.


>Our company has previously released the DYS #'s for the 6 markers (of our
>12) that have been placed in the public domain by Dr. Hammer or
>others. The rest of our alleles will be released as further articles are
>published that use them, with the intent being to release all current Loci
>as we add new markers being researched now.

From you statement I interpret that Family Tree DNA will always be several
years or months behind in reporting detailed measurements - until Dr.
Hammer publishes a paper in which he identifies the loci he is using. It
is good to know this fact up front as some (many) people may want to
consider this when selecting a company to perform their DNA tests.


>Quite frankly let me posse a few questions... Given that the scientific
>world is publish or perish, would you not agree that labs doing nascent
>technological research would consider their in-house discovered loci to
>have some, perhaps great, value?

Hummm. BYU seems to be willing to identify the details of their
measurements. Maybe you don't consider them to be doing "nascent
technological research" Dr. Scott Woodward might wish to comment on this
point. I also believe that GeneTree is providing full details of the
measurements they are obtaining on their 12 markers. That was my
understanding when I last talked to Terry Carmichael, but maybe I
misunderstood him. I am still awaiting an answer from Bryan Sykes' group
at Oxford Ancestors regarding this issue.

>If so, can we smartly assume that Loci freely released for genetic
>testing, before they have been "properly promoted" by the University
>lab, has "great" or even "significant" value to science or its
>researchers? Or is the marker just another location on the Y with little
>or no diversity?

Hummmmm. Not sure I fully understand this. As you know, we found
diversity on 11 of the 12 loci measured for the MUMMA participants. It
seems like additional loci must be evaluated to determine the relevance of
other markers and I think they may be unique to particular
haplotypes. Only additional testing will help identify those that are most
promising. I will grant you that I am wanting to narrow the point of
identifying common ancestry.

Remember, people who send their data to such laboratories may be providing
them with some very interesting DNA samples where "documentary genealogies"
of the people may be known for 12 to 15 generations. That is a rather nice
gift for a university researcher to receive when wanting to evaluate repeat
diversity.


>When someone is tested on the Y by Family Tree DNA we currently compare
>you with our database of Western Europeans...we are willing to release the
>repeat information for the 6 loci mentioned above to any customer who asks
>so they can access the ethnic calculator at:
>
>https://www.agenus.com/ClassA/ClassB/ychrome.cfm
>
>Given the above , do you want to have a certificate that reads,
>and/or talk to potential relatives by using a string of 1 digit or 2
>digit numbers. 4, 7, 5, 8, 5 or 12, 21, 12, 16, 12. That's about as non
>standard as we are.

I think you miss the point, Bennett. If you don't provide the data, people
can't begin to use the above mentioned database or several others that are
available. Most of us could care less about a "certificate" with some
number written on it. It is especially useless when the numbers written on
it are somewhat arbitrary. It is the ability to compare the results
recorded from one person with those of another that is important. I would
like to give my participants a certificate that contains data that would
mean something to another researcher or that they could use to compare with
someone else in a few years. As it is, the so called MUMMA haplotype
number of (5,9,5,6,5,8,5,4,5,5,7,5) obtained from you is practically
useless for comparison purposes with other people who have used another
testing laboratory. Yes, however, these numbers are very useful when
comparing results within my test group.

For these reasons, as you know, I am seeking other laboratories to perform
future testing for me. My understanding from Terry Carmichael is his
company will provide the full repeat values as well as the loci DYS numbers
for the 12 markers that they analyze. I am making arrangements with the
BYU to do a special study in which I will repeat the measurements of 4 of
the participants from my first phase study. BYU will provide full
information about the loci DYS numbers as well as the repeat values. This
will at least allow me to cross compare the results of 6 loci of the you
are willing to identify. We will also be testing another 9 to 12 loci
looking for allele mutations. We may or may not be successful, but at least
I will know what loci were measured and the number of repeats observed.

In closing, I will make one final comment. I am frankly a bit embarrassed
to report the detailed results from the Mumma Surname study. Since I must
report half of the data with arbitrary "scores" (instead of specific repeat
values) at some unspecified loci, the credibility of the data becomes
questionable. It certainly doesn't stand any scientific scrutiny and that
is unfortunate.

Cheers......Doug Mumma


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