Saturday, March 24, 2012

Sinclair DNA U106 Lineages

By Steve St Clair

Our Sinclair DNA project currently shows 4 Lineages who have tested positive for the U106 SNP or some of the downstream SNPs. As you can see from the chart below, there are lots of SNPs "downstream" of U106.

The U106* Lineage - That asterisk means that, while there are SNPs downstream to test for, the participants currently have tested negative for all available to date. We currently have 2 confirmed members of our study who show this SNP.

The Z9* Earldom Participant - This gentleman has a Burkes Peerage confirmed paper trail that supposedly connects him to our Earl of Caithness. He currently has no other matches in the entire FTDNA database, including the St. Clair famly. This makes sense if you consider this line's proclivity for having female children.

Our Z2 Argyle Lineage - We've tested 3 different Sinclair DNA study members who have very good documents back to Argyle. 8 of these members are tested out to 67-markers. Even the participants who have the greatest genetic distance (all 3 proven Z2+ via SNP testing) show up as sharing a common ancestor about 540 years ago with FTDNA's TiP Calculator.

There are 12 members of this lineage tested out to 37-markers. Again, at 37-markers, the TiP calculator still shows about 540 years to a common ancestor.

Our Z1 Northern Scotland Lineage - We currently have 7 members who have been confirmed Z1+ via SNP testing. There are currently 17 members of the Sinclair DNA study who have tested out to 67-markers. The same number shows up at the 37-marker level. Using FTDNA's TiP Calculator, those furtherest from each other in genetic distance in this Lineage show a common ancestor about 600 years ago.

Saturday, March 10, 2012

One St Clair DNA Lineage of Virginia is L193

If you're in a DNA study, these regular updates will help you understand more about your results.

SNP testing is a critical step for anyone in the Sinclair / St Clair DNA study, and every other family out there. A single-nucleotide polymorphism is a very stable mutation and, therefore, one that can be considered irrefutable. If other in the FTDNA database have the same SNP, then it is certain that you share a common ancestor with them in a particular timeframe. That timeframe depends on which SNP it is that you share.

For instance, I also show the L21 SNP. The timeframe for the common ancestor in that one is quite old. Downstream (or more recently), I show the L513 SNP. This one is believed to have a common ancestor in Southwest England. The timeframe is somewhat uncertain. The geography of these SNPs works like this -

L21 - Western Europe, about 4,000 years ago
L513 - Southwestern England - ??
L193 - Possibly in the Borders Region of Scotland - about 900-1,000 years ago.

These timings are still being debated, as are the specifics of the geography.

Learn about our approach in exploring the L193 Lineage of the Sinclair DNA study here.

More on St Clair DNA showing L193 and L21 in this video:


Specifics on the St Clair Sinclair lineage showing L193 DNA SNP at this link.

Think you might have the L193 SNP? Contact the Sinclair DNA Study here.

Sunday, March 4, 2012

St Clair Research Passed the 200 Mark in DNA tests

We've been so busy working with people to help them understand their DNA that we completely forgot to point out that we've passed a major milestone - 200 people tested.

In fact, we're out to 216 people. We're overwhelmingly a Y-DNA study, otherwise known as a one-name study. Our goal is to fully understand just one surname, and all the lineages and participants who carry it.

This blog exists to help us put out thoughts out more quickly than the main website and to keep people informed.

St Clair Research is Non-profit


All those who help with the study, with genealogy, and with data management are doing this out of our love of the family and our interest in DNA.

St Clair Research Has Learned Much


We continuously stay abreast of the latest learning in DNA for genealogy. There are several online communities that you can follow as well. DNA-forums.org is hosted by Family Tree DNA. It's divided up into sections that you can follow based on your own DNA Haplogroups, on the geography of your ancestors and on your interests.

St Clair Research is a Life-Long Hobby


We intend to continue working to help the St Clair / Sinclair / Sinceler family understand our history as long as possible. To that end, we've set up a secession plan to make sure the work continues into the next decades.