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Archiver > GENEALOGY-DNA > 2007-06 > 1180780869
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Subject: Re: [DNA] Some thoughts about Y-DNA "extinction"
Date: Sat, 2 Jun 2007 11:41:09 +0100
A study of the British (to include English, Scots, Irish and Welsh) aristocracy, including baronets, should yield interesting statistics on the survival rates of their male lines. The earliest/oldest titles would have to be discounted because they could be inherited by or via heiresses. A few later ones also passed through the female line - Marlborough and Mountbatten come to mind. I think this study may already have been done. I seem to recall that most titles are extinct within 100 years. A suitable question on the GEN-MEDIEVAL list may elicit the results.
Of course this only applies to legitimate descents. There could well be other descents, with or without the appropriate surnames, for which Y-DNA matches could apply.
Bob New
coordinator of the Surname NEW Y-DNA Project
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Message: 2
Date: Fri, 1 Jun 2007 00:40:19 -0700 (PDT)
From: Beth Long <>
Subject: [DNA] Some thoughts about Y-DNA "extinction"
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Lately, I've been ruminating about this topic, mostly after reading numerous posts to the list advocating this or that theory about the migration history of some particular culture or haplotype.
Anyway, I got to wondering how common it is for a particular Y-DNA line to survive over a large number of generations. Mostly, because more than once, I've tried to find DNA testing candidates for descendants of one particular man (say, born in the 1740s-1760s), but have been unsuccessful in finding ANY.
Since I have a compiled database of a particular population going back up to 11 generations (this would be in the case of a young man, say, in his 20's), I am able to check this out in general sort of way. It's amazing how even a man with 10 or 12 children born in the 1780's can fail to produce a single male alive today with his Y-DNA.
I know these odds can be computed in a theoretical way, but I'm really struck by how variable the different lines are in this regard.
For example, I have two =(assumed) brothers, one born in 1766 and the other in 1772. The second has over 100 direct male descendants alive today, the other has zero(!) So much for my attempt to prove that they were indeed brothers...
I seem to recall an article "We are not our ancestors?" If my experience is the case over 11 generations, we can imagine that over hundreds of generations, the present and past populations may be radically different.
I think that the majority of people using DNA testing services today just test themselves, then hope to find a (living) match or near-match. So the data set (by definition) contains only those lines that survived to the present day.
Sorry if I bored anybody Maybe I should just start a blog :-)
Beth Long
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