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From: "David Ewing" <>
Subject: [DNA-R1B1C7] Ewing project STR clusters
Date: Sat, 2 Jun 2007 13:29:16 -0600


I have been beating my brains out over the last couple of weeks trying to
understand what Kevin Campbell's recent paper in the online Journal of
Genetic Genealogy can teach us about our Ewing project results. I much
appreciate his publishing this, notwithstanding the bumps on my head, but
I'm not sure I'm making progress and I invite comment from the lists. (In
this posting, I report data on the ten OGAP markers in the order they appear
in the table in Appendix A of Campbell's paper, Geographic Patterns of
Haplogroup R1b in the British Isles, a pdf of which is available at no
charge from **http://www.jogg.info/31/index31.htm<http://www.jogg.info/31/index31.htm.>;
)

Ewing is a lowland Scots surname, concentrated in Strathclyde, and
especially in the area around the southern end of Loch Lomond in what was
once was known as Lennox. Presbyterian Ewings were among those who went to
the Ulster plantations, mainly Donegal, then on to Pennsylvania and points
west and south, like so many of the Scots-Irish. Some conventional
genealogists and historians have argued that the name originated among
Brithonic Celts in Strathclyde. Others have argued that it derived from
McEwan, one of the Dal Riada clans in the so-called Anradan kindred, though
John McLaughlin has given us plenty of conventional historical and
genealogical reasons to doubt this, and so far our comparison of Ewing
haplotypes with those of others who claim descent from this kindred have not
been promising.

So far, we have fifty-eight 37-marker Ewing haplotypes. Four of them are in
Haplogroup I (though FtDNA is still "predicting" that two of these are G and
I would love to have Ken Nordtvedt's comments on these and will send them to
him off list, if he indicates his willingness to have a look), and
fifty-four are in R1b. We have one man (TD) who matches exactly OGAP8, but
he is at genetic distance 8/37 from what I have termed *the large group of
closely related Ewings.* This is a group of 40 men who are within genetic
distance 4/37 of the Ewing 37-marker modal. Two men in this group are SNP
tested M222+, so this group is plainly R1b1c7, though it does not match
OGAP8. (My 67-marker haplotype is available at YSearch as VPNY2, and it
matches the Ewing modal exactly except that where the Ewing modal for DYS576
= 18, I have 19 repeats.)

Here, I show the OGAP8 haplotype preceded by 1: because there is one Ewing
man who matches that, followed by the haplotypes of the 40 men in the *large
group of closely related Ewings,* each preceded by the number of men who
have the haplotype (we have not included the man in OGAP8 in our closely
related group because of his genetic distance on the 37 marker
panel--obviously, we would have to include him if we considered only 10
markers, or exclude the four others shown below at genetic distance 2/10
from the Ewing 10-marker modal):
OGAP8
1: 13 25 14 11 12 12 12 13 14 16
EWING
19: 13 25 15 11 12 12 13 13 14 16
9: 13 25 15 10 12 12 13 13 14 16
2: 13 25 15 11 12 12 12 13 14 16
2: 13 25 15 10 12 12 12 13 14 16
2: 13 26 15 11 12 12 13 13 14 16
2: 13 24 15 11 12 12 13 13 14 16
1: 13 25 15 12 12 12 13 13 14 16
1: 13 25 15 11 12 12 14 13 14 16
1: 13 25 15 10 12 12 14 13 14 16
1: 13 25 15 11 12 12 11 13 14 16

None of the top fifty OGAP clusters shown in Campbell's appendix A have
DYS439 = 13; indeed, all have 12 except OGAP50, which has 11. DYS19 = 15 is
a little more common; only 6 of the top 50 OGAP clusters have this value,
but all of *the large group of closely related Ewings* have it. If I search
YSearch for the 10-marker OGAP8 modal, but substitute these two values, I
get 17 hits, 6 of whom are Ewings. (Not all Ewings in the project are on
YSearch--otherwise we would have found 19 Ewings by doing this. And if I add
DYS442 = 11, which is not part of the OGAP panel, I get only Ewings.
Interestingly, DYS442 = 11 seems to be the marker most specific to *the
large group of closely related Ewings.* They all have it, as well as DYS19 =
15. The only other markers on the 37-marker panel they all share are R1b1c7
modal values.)

How about the 13 R1b Ewing men who are not R1b1c7? Here are their
haplotypes:
4: 13 24 15 11 12 12 12 12 13 16 (OGAP14 except DYS19)
1: 14 24 15 11 12 12 12 12 13 16
2: 13 24 14 11 12 12 12 13 13 16 (OGAP1; R1b modal)
2: 13 24 14 10 12 12 12 13 13 16 (OGAP2)
2: 13 24 14 11 12 12 13 13 13 16
1: 13 24 14 10 12 12 13 13 13 17 (OGAP4 except DYS439)
1: 13 25 14 11 12 12 13 13 13 17 (OGAP19 except DYS439)

I suppose it must be a case of convergence, but I can't help noticing that
the last three of these haplotypes has DYS439 = 13, an unusual value in R1b
that is characteristic of the Ewings in the *the large group of closely
related Ewings.* The last haplotype has DYS390 = 25 in addition to DYS439 =
13, but he is genetic distance 15/37 from the Ewing 37-marker modal.

So this is a report on our data, but what is my question? I guess my
question is, How in the world does one think about this? But that too vague
to be much of a question. I suppose that what is troubling me is that I want
the STR clusters to correspond with haplogroup subclades.
R1bSTR19Irish/OGAP8 is widely agreed to correspond with R1b1c7, but we have
40 presumably R1b1c7 Ewings who differ at 2 and 3 markers from the OGAP8
10-marker haplotype. Doesn't this have rather grave implications for the
robustness of STR clusters in serving as a surrogate for haplogroup
identification in population studies?

Finally, can these data be used to support one or the other of the two
proposed origins of the Ewing surname? When I first read the Ui Neill paper,
I thought we had all but proven that our progenitors traveled with the Dal
Riada to Scotland. Now, I know that is not impossible, but plainly is not
proven. But do I know anything at all?

I would welcome any comments, and would be happy to provide data on as many
individuals at as many markers as anyone might wish, in what ever format
they wish. Please contact me off list and I will send whatever data you
like.

David Neal Ewing

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