FTDNA sale for DNA day

Family Tree DNA is having a two-day sale in celebration of  DNA Day (25th April), the anniversary of the day on which James Watson, Francis Crick, Maurice Wilkins, Rosalind Franklin and colleagues published papers in the journal Nature on the structure of DNA.

The following notice is taken from the announcement sent out to project administrators:

Nearly the entire offering will be on sale these two days, including upgrades that were not on last year's sale. The sale will begin at 6pm Thursday April 19th and will conclude at 11:59pm on Saturday April 21st.

There will be no need for a coupon - all prices will be automatically adjusted on the website.

We hope that this will give a big boost to your projects!

New Kits

	Current Group Price	SALE PRICE
Y-DNA 12	$99	$59
mtDNA	$99	$59
Y-DNA 37	$149	$129
Y-DNA 67	$238	$199
Family Finder	$289	$199
mtFullSequence (FMS)	$299	$249
Y-DNA 12 + mtDNA	$179	$118
FF + Y-DNA 12	$339	$258
FF + mtDNA	$339	$258
FF+ Y-DNA 37	$438	$328
FF + mtDNAPlus	$438	$328
Comprehensive (FF + FMS + Y-DNA 67)	$797	$657
Upgrades
Y-DNA 12	$89	$59
mtDNA add-on	$89	$59
Y-DNA 12-37 Marker	$99	$69
Y-DNA 37-67 Marker	$99	$79
Y-DNA 12-67 Marker	$199	$148
mtFullSequence upgrade (HVR1 to Mega)	$269	$199
mtFullSequence upgrade (HVR2 to Mega)	$269	$199
mtFullSequence add-on	$289	$219
Family Finder add-on	$289	$199

Note that all prices are in US dollars. The times cited are for the local time in Houston, Texas.

Major revision of the mtDNA tree

An important new paper has today been published in the American Journal of Human Genetics which proposes a major revision to the mitochondrial DNA tree. The abstract says:

Mutational events along the human mtDNA phylogeny are traditionally identified relative to the revised Cambridge Reference Sequence, a contemporary European sequence published in 1981. This historical choice is a continuous source of inconsistencies, misinterpretations, and errors in medical, forensic, and population genetic studies. Here, after having refined the human mtDNA phylogeny to an unprecedented level by adding information from 8,216 modern mitogenomes, we propose switching the reference to a Reconstructed Sapiens Reference Sequence, which was identified by considering all available mitogenomes from Homo neanderthalensis. This ''Copernican'' reassessment of the human mtDNA tree from its deepest root should resolve previous problems and will have a substantial practical and educational influence on the scientific and public perception of human evolution by clarifying the core principles of common ancestry for extant descendants.

The full paper can be read here.

Many of the sequences that were used in this paper to refine the mtDNA tree were submitted by customers of Family Tree DNA (including me!) who had taken the full mitochondrial sequence test and made their results available for research purposes. Rebekah Canada and Bill Hurst, the volunteer administrators of the haplogroup H and K projects helped with the H and K results. The authors publicly acknowledge the contribution of the genetic genealogy community in their acknowledgements: "We thank the genealogical community for donating their privately obtained complete mtDNA sequences for scientific studies and FamilyTreeDNA for compiling the data. We thank FamilyTreeDNA for supporting the establishment of the herein released website. We thank Eileen Krauss-Murphy of FamilyTreeDNA for help with assembly of the database. We thank Rebekah Canada and William R. Hurst for help with the assembly of haplogroup H and K samples, respectively."

A new mtDNA community website has been launched to accompany the paper. Anyone with full mitochondrial sequence results can upload their results to this website and get an up-to-date haplogroup assignment.

The mtDNA tree can also by seen at Phylotree which has just released Build 14 to account for the big change. Mannis Van Oven, who maintains the Phylotree website, is one of the authors of the new paper. The 4,265 mtDNA full sequence results used for this new paper, including a substantial proportion from FTDNA customers, are being added to the GenBank research database. There are already 1,237 FTDNA customer-submitted results on GenBank. Private submissions from FTDNA customers will now constitute almost half of the mtDNA sequences on GenBank.

©2012 Debbie Kennett

Tom Rutherford Cruwys now commemorated by CWGC

I wrote back in January 2009 about Tom Rutherford Cruwys who served with the British Military Forces in Mesopotamia in World War I and sadly died of malaria on 28th September 1918 at Krasnovodsk in Russia (now Turkmenistan). I also published the surviving letters that Tom wrote to his mother during his time in Russia. I was puzzled at the time by Tom's absence from the records of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, but wasn't aware that there was any way to pursue the matter with the CWGC. I subsequently learnt about the In from the Cold Project which was set up to research and identify all the service men and women missing from the official CWGC list of casualties from the First and Second World Wars. I wrote to Terry Denham from the In from the Cold Project back in February 2011 and he kindly agreed to look into Tom's case and submit the details to the CWGC. He did warn me that it might take up to a year and there was no guarantee of success. Terry has now advised me that Tom has been accepted for commemoration by the Ministry of Defence, and his name was added to the CWGC register yesterday. Tom's name will eventually be added to the Haidar Pasha Memorial in Turkey which is a memorial for those missing in southern Russia and the Caucasus. I am delighted that Tom is now finally getting official recognition for his sacrifice, and I would like to thank the In from the Cold Project for their help with Tom's case and all the wonderful work they do to ensure that all those who sacrificed their lives in both World Wars receive an official commemoration.

© Debbie Kennett 2012

Crews and Crew distribution in the USA

Howard Mathieson, one of my colleagues from the Guild of One-Name Studies in Canada, has a special interest in surname mapping and has much useful information on his Geogenealogy website. Howard has recently been working on some mapping tools for the US and has very kindly sent me the map shown below showing the distribution of the surnames Crew and Crews in the USA (click on the map to enlarge it). The main focus of my research in the USA to date has been on the surnames Cruse and Crews, and I have not had time to investigate the surname Crew. In some of the earliest records in Virginia the name Crew seems to have been more prevalent and it would appear that the names Crews and Cruse evolved from Crew in the US. Howard's maps show that the names Crew and Crews overlap to some extent in the south-eastern states but there are some unique clusters of the Crew surname in the north and north-east. The south and westward spread of the surname Crews from its US origin in Virginia can clearly be seen.

© Debbie Kennett 2012.  Map ©Howard Mathieson 2012.