In my last Blog, I wrote about my cousin Paul’s BigY results. The BigY takes a look at a large region of YDNA looking for existing SNPs and new SNPs. SNPs are what define the Y tree going back to genetic Adam. As a refresher, YDNA looks at the father’s father’s father’s line only. So if you are a Frazer, your father is a Frazer. At some point two different Frazer lines merge into one. That merging point is the two lines’ TMRCA or Most Recent Common Ancestor. (I don’t know what the T stands for – the?) Then at some point all the Frazers tested bump into a common ancestor. For Paul and Jonathan who took the BigY test, that bumped-into Frazer would be the father of the Archibald and James Lines. However, the YDNA doesn’t stop there, it keeps going back and back and back.
Paul’s YDNA Matches
In my last Blog, I had mentioned that Paul had been designated as YP432 by FTDNA. That SNP has common ancestors, but they go back to 2800 years ago. As such, others that are YP432 will be from diverse background. I had mentioned some Norwegian and Swedish names. This makes sense as the L664 SNP which YP432 comes from is Germanic. These Germanic people moved into Scandinavia, England and apparently Scotland at some point.
FTDNA R1a Projects: L664, YP432, YP431 and YP5515
In my previous Blog, I had looked at matches at the R1a and all Subclades Project. However, FTDNA has another YDNA Project called simply the R1a Project. I find it a bit confusing that there are two R1a projects, but here is what the R1a Project has under YP432:
This shows some of the people that have tested positive for YP432. There are two branches shown here. The larger branch looks to mostly have ancestors from Norway and Sweden and is the YP431 Branch of YP432. The Frazers are on the YP5515 Branch. The Grants are also listed under YP5515. This is likely due to STR similarities as the Grants have not had their SNPs tested – just the STRs. In my previous Blogs, I had mentioned similarities between the Grants and the Frazers in the YDNA.
This doesn’t mean that the Frazers came from Norway or Sweden. Perhaps one branch of YP432 went to Norway and Sweden (YP431) and our branch of YP5515 went to Scotland and/or England.
The Hayes that I mentioned in my previous Blog is also listed, but in a separate group. Our Frazers are called YP5515 – x and Hayes is plain YP5515. I’m not sure why.
another YP5515 Match – Patton
The YP5515 SNP Group is a very select group so far. There is Hayes and Patton. Assuming that these were the first two YP5519, then Frazer is the third. Patton shares YP5515 according to Paul’s BigY Match List:
I highlighted in gold the SNPs that Paul shares with Hayes and Patton and not the other YP432 matches. I haven’t seen Patton in the R1a Project, so he probably never joined it. Two of those SNPs have no name yet – just a position number. As far as I know, all YP5515 people share these 7 gold SNPs.
What Are the SNPs Unique to Frazer?
We will know that better when Jonathan’s BigY results come in. However, for now, I can guess. The BigY tells me the SNPs that Paul has that Hayes doesn’t have. There are 11 of these SNPs. The SNPs that Paul has that Patton doesn’t have are quite a bit more. Paul has 20 SNPs that Patton doesn’t have. What does this mean?
First, here are the 11 SNPs that Paul has that neither Hayes nor Patton has:
These would be the SNPs unique to Paul. I would expect to see some of these in Jonathan’s results.
Additional Shared SNPs With Hayes – A New Branch?
Recall that I said that Paul had additional SNPs not shared with Patton. There were 20 altogether. Here are the SNPs Paul doesn’t share with Patton that are different than the ones he doesn’t share with Hayes. I know, there are a lot of negatives here.
I have marked those 9 SNPs in blue. It turns out that those SNPs Paul doesn’t share with Patton, he does share with Hayes. To me, that means that Paul and Hayes should be in a new branch together.
In my new tree, I’ve simplified the YP431 Branch. In YP5515 there are 7 SNPs shared by Patton, Hayes and Frazer. Below that are the 9 SNPs shared by Hayes and Frazer. Below that are the 11 SNPs that Frazer has that appear to be unique. I say appear because there could be others that share at least some of these SNPs. All these SNPs together add up to 27 SNPs. I’m not sure how to date the SNPs. If these 27 SNPs were since 2800 years ago, that would be about 100 years per SNP on average. If I’m right, then that would mean around 1100 years up to the Frazer/Hayes common ancestor. That should be 900 A.D or before the time of surnames. It will be interesting to see if all my guesses are right.
Another interesting point is that Paul and Jonathan’s TMRCA was around 300 years ago. That means that there should be a few SNPs different between Paul and Jonathan. They will each have their own branch off the Frazer Tree.