We have some important developments in the R1b-U106 that recently occurred. This e-mail is being sent to all project members to inform them of these developments.
The first new development is the launching of testing at FTDNA of a new SNP that’s downstream from U106. This SNP is known as L48 and was discovered through testing at 23andMe, another DNA testing company. Several members of the R1b-U106 Project were among those tested at 23andMe. So far of 16 R1b-U106 who are U198- and L1-, 7 have been L48+. This seems to indicate, based on a small sample, that L48 is a large subclade of U106, probably larger than U198 and L1. My guess is that it will take in at least 20-25% of members of the project and perhaps as much as 40-50%. We believe that this is an important SNP for members and the project and definitely worth testing.
Based on these results from 23andMe and their own research testing, FTDNA will begin to offer L48 on the “advanced orders” menu on Monday, Feb. 16. The normal price for a single L-series SNP on this menu is $39. After discussing this SNP and its potential with me, Bennett Greenspan agreed to offer the SNP for $29, at least initially, to encourage wide testing among project members. If you have not ordered from the “advanced orders” menu before, there will also be a one-time fee of $9.50 to transfer some of your DNA sample from the University of Arizona lab, where the basic testing for FTDNA is done, to the new FTDNA lab in Houston.
Some of you who have been members of the project for several months may remember that FTDNA placed L5 and L6 on the “advanced orders” menu as downstream of U106. They did not initially inform customers that all the evidence they had was that both these SNPs occurred very recently and are probably only found in one paternal line. As project administrators, we made sure that project members knew this important fact once we realized it. Unfortunately, there were a significant number of members who ordered L5 or L6 or both without knowing there wasn’t much chance of testing positive for either.
But L48 is definitely the “real thing.” We are sure that this is a significant SNP for those who’ve already tested U106+. We know this because we’ve been able to independently observe the results coming from 23andMe. We understand that the economic crisis has had serious effects on most people’s finances. However, if you feel that the price for this test is not a burden, we strongly encourage you to order L48. The information we get from who is L48+ and who is L48- may provide us with important evidence for the age of U106 and its possible geography of origin and migrations. It will also allow members to rule out close matches who differ with them on L48. (If you test L48+ and a close match tests L48-, then the match is not as significant as it seemed.) So a negative result is just as important as a positive result.
The second development is that we have had a reorganization of the administrator team. David Weston, who had been our administrator since the formation of the project last March, and Dan Draghici, one of the co-administrators, have exchanged positions. David wants to devote more time to the East Anglia geographic project, of which he’s the administrator. David will still provide analysis of the results in the project. Previously, he had put together tables comparing results among pairs of project members two or more times a month. Now David plans to do new comparisons about once a month. Many members are not aware of these very useful comparisons. For most members, if you go to the R-U106 Haplotype Comparison Tables and click on your kit number, you will see a comparison with almost every other member of the project in terms of genetic distance and “time to most recent common ancestor” (TMRCA). There is a similiar comparison page for members with a “null 425” result, almost 10% of the project members.
Please write back and ask, if you have any questions.
Mike Maddi
R1b-U106 Project Co-Administrator