DKF,
I am very impressed with the work you have done. I went to your website and it is absolutely amazing... Haven't had a chance to read most of it but I will be comming back to it later...I admit I know nothing about the X chromosome but I am willing to learn. I intend to monitor this site every day...I am happy to be a part of the X-files! Hope you or someone else can help me out! Have a great day!
Maria
Hello Maria, the only reason I have made as much progress as I have is thanks to the assistance of so many people with the same interests. I made a big change in the website last night to include the analysis of autosomes to complement what had been done with the X. Once we are through with the X (of course that will never happen) we will want to turn our attention to what is written on the autosomes. I have found in reading the literature that other than the unique inheritance pattern of the X, the same basic principles apply such as linkage disequilibrium (SNPs that hitchhike along together for untold generations and are unlikely to be separated by a recombination event).
It is mind boggling that only two months ago I had never seriously considered that the X chromosome might have any particular ancestral significance. It is like a light went on and now it is evident that there is an overwhelming amount of ancestral data written on it - it just needs decoding. I hadn't even ordered any of the X STR markers from FTDNA - just a few autosomal markers. That has all changed.
Perhaps the most important aspect that I have learned recently is that the output of both decodeme and 23andme is virtually useless unless you are from Utah, a member of the Yourba tribe in Africa, or Japanese. The depth of the analysis offered to customers is at the amateur level, but worse, could be very misleading. Not having Japanese ancestors, and there being little evidence that Japanese match Native Americans in genetic structure, it is now clear that there are serious gaps, ones that could be misleading. I have tried to show in my analysis that unless one matches groups known via other sources to have the same ancestors as Native Americans (i.e., the Yakut of Siberia) then a match to say a Japanese is likely noise. I am going to see if decodeme and 23andme are open to the creation of better tools for customers. Right now we only see mist that may or may not have substance.
What is really needed Maria is enthusiasm and a dog with a bone attitude. At this point in time the testing companies can offer little more than the data to work with. We need to club together to understand some of the basic principles and then how to apply concepts such as centriMorgan to our own work. Concering the latter we need to find out the rate of recombination in a particular region of the X before we can fully interpret out findings. This is all far removed from Y and mtDNA work, but I find that actually seeing a series of say three million nuceotide bases, and being able to link this pattern to a specific ancestor and region of the world, as something entirely unique. There is something very special about this sort of work, and we haven't even seen the tip of the tip of the iceberg yet. What a great ride this is going to be for genetic genealogists.
I do hope everyone realizes that we are all rather new to this and that there will be a lot of head scratching and gnashing of teeth over the terms and concepts; but at least there are no seasoned veterans at this point, just a few who got an early start, and we can assist each other in the learning process.
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