I had some good news recently. Rodney’s BigY500 results were in ahead of schedule.
Rodney’s Genealogy
Here is Rodney with other Frazer that have had YDNA testing. Paul, Rodney and Jonathan have taken the BigY test and Rick has taken the STR test.
Frazer SNPs
Currently, the SNP that defines this whole Frazer line is R-YP6489. This is part of the R1a group. With the addition of Rodney to BigY testing, we should be able to get a new SNP that defines the James Line Branch and more specifically, the Thomas Henry Frazer Branch. This testing is bringing us into relatively modern times.
Paul Compared to Rodney and Jonathan
When I compare my cousin Paul to Rodney and Jonathan I see this:
Paul has these Non-Matching Variants compared to Rodney and Jonathan:
- 7947875
- 8162400
- 16784516
- 20957961
- 21457649
These are likely Variants on Paul’s side (the Archibald Line) which are not on the James Line side of the Frazer tree. The problem with these Variants is that they will not be named as SNPs unless someone else tests positive for them. There are two ways that this could happen. One would be that Rick (from the Archibald Line) takes a BigY test. Or, tests could be requested for each of the variants above and Rick (or another Archibald direct line male descendant) could test for the individual SNPs once there is a test protocol.
Looking for the James Line Variant
Where is the Variant or Variants that will define the James Line? Here is what Rodney’s niece Kim sent me. This is how Rodney compares to Jonathan and Paul. The comparison is by non-matching variants which is a bit confusing. The non-match could be on Rodney’s side, Joanathan’s or Paul’s sides:
What I am looking for is where Rodney does not match Paul. I want these to not include the Variants that I have listed above representing the Archibald Line. That leaves:
- ZS3186
- 20102008
These would be potential candidates for the James Line
Here are Jonathan’s matches:
These appear to be unique to Jonathan:
- BY26998
- BY28746
- BY28749
- BY28761
- F4038
- ZS3186
- 11718822
- 11720223
I was hoping that these lists would match up better. Rodney’s results have been uploaded to YFull for analysis, but the analysis is not yet done. It could be that there is an issue on how these variants were reported. The only Variant in common is ZS3186. However, this is a named variant which would probably not be used for a new branch.
Further, Jonathan has this list of Unnamed Variants:
Here it seems we are dealing with a lot of double negatives. Jonathan’s results report Variant 11103209. As this is not on Jonathan’s list of Non-matching Variants, should I assume that Jonathan has this variant in common with Rodney and Paul? I’m confused.
Here is Paul’s list of unnamed variants:
This matches pretty well with my original list for Paul, but it does not include 20957961.
ZS3186
ZS3186 was shared by Rodney and Jonathan but not Paul. However, this is already named. The YBrowse website has this information:
This was found in 2014 but never added to a YTree. It is in the J1 Haplogroup. For this reason, this SNP may be not considered good. Or, it may be determined that the original sample was in error(?) Again, we need some help from FTDNA or YFull in figuring this one out.
Variant 20102008
I had listed this Variant above. Is this the defining James Line Variant? This is not on Paul’s list of unnamed variants. This is good as Paul is from the Archibald LIne. 20102008 is shown as a non-matching variant between Paul and Rodney, so that leads me to believe that Rodney has this variant. However, 20102008 is not a non-matching variant between Paul and Jonathan. This would lead me to believe that Jonathan does not have this variant.
Frazer Variant Summary
This left me a bit confused, so I found out Rodney’s Unnamed Variants. Here is a summary of the three tested Frazers:
Hopefully, I can explain the inconsistencies in blue. The first row is YP6489. All the Frazers have this SNP and it currently defines the project.
Variant 1103209
The second row shows that Jonathan has Variant 11103209. This is actually a double discrepancy. Rodney and Paul do not show this Variant listed on their results but neither do they show this as an non-matching variant with Jonathan. Here is what I believe happened. The results for Rodney and Paul were inconclusive. As a result, the first go at looking at this variant was not enough to list this variant for Rodney and Paul. However, due to the uncertainty, it could not be clearly said that this was a non-matching variant between Jonathan and Rodney and Jonathan and Paul. By looking at the raw test data, it may be better to come up with a better analysis. Right now, this does not look like a defining Variant for the James line if there is some question as to whether Paul has this Variant.
Variants 11718822 and 11720223
These Variants appear to be Jonathan’s private SNPs. Jonathan is positive for them, but Paul and Rodney are not. That means that these likely formed in Jonathan, his father or grandfather after the time of Rodney and Jonathan’s common ancestor Thomas Henry Frazer born 1836. Once YFull has done their analysis, they will give an estimated date of SNP formation and an estimated date of common ancestor. The SNP formation is always the older date. In this case, we know the date of the common ancestor: 1836.
More on Dating
While I’m on the subject of dating. Here is the present Frazer tree going back over 3,000 years:
Jonathan and Paul are at the bottom of this YFull YTree. Based on their BigY testing alone, it was estimated that the SNP YP6489 was formed 800 years ago and that Paul and Jonathan had a common ancestor 475 years ago. This is to illustrate that the SNP formation is before the common ancestor. Going up one step is YP6488. This was formed 1050 years ago. There was a common ancestor there 800 years ago. I assume that this date fits into the formation date of YP6489 800 years ago.
Paul’s Private Variants – The Archibald Line
Paul has four private variants. These formed in the Archibald line between the time of Archibald Frazer born around 1690. The Archibald Line needs another person to test to have some of these Variants named as defining SNPs for the Archibald Line.
Rodney’s Variants
Rodney’s first Variant 2012008 has a question mark under Jonathan. That means that there is some question on Jonathan’s read. However, the fact that Paul was negative for this Variant makes it looks like this could be the new defining Variant that gets named as the SNP for the James Line. Rodney’s second Variant is common to only him at this time. Like Jonathan, this variant formed in either Rodney, his father or grandfather.
This appears to be Rodney’s only Private Variant:
What’s Next?
Kim has uploaded Rodney’s BigY500 to YFull for further analysis. YFull will get this information onto their tree. They will give age estimations and produce 500 STRs from the results. FTDNA will also be doing further analysis on the results. In addition, the R1a administrators will take a look at the results. However, they will like be interested in seeing what FTDNA and YFull have to say.
Summary and Conclusions
- Rodney’s results show that there are some clear SNPs that could be added to define the Archibald Line. However, as Paul is the only Archibald LIne BigY500 tested person right now, these SNPs will not be named.
- The James Line results are not as clear. Interpretaion of the results are needed. It is likely that Variant 2012008 will be a new defining SNP for the James Line for the Frazer DNA Project. It appears that this SNP occured between James Frazer born about 1720 and Thomas Henry Frazer born 1836.
- We need to wait and see if FTDNA and YFull come up with further analysis.