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Archiver > DNA-R1B1C7 > 2007-06 > 1180874619


From: JOHN PLUMMER <>
Subject: Re: [DNA-R1B1C7] Introduction
Date: Sun, 3 Jun 2007 05:43:39 -0700 (PDT)
In-Reply-To: <466253C7.30102@roadrunner.com>


As I mentioned in an earlier post I am not a direct male line R1b1c7 although I have other ancestors who are R1b1c7. I actually found the R1b1c7 cluster independently, although I am not sure if I was the first to do so. I of course called it by a different name.

I grew up amid genealogy. My mother had done some research as a girl and started genealogy research big time in 1953 when I was 3. I started my own research at the age of 10. In 1975 my first genealogy article was published. My first genealogical article in a peer reviewed scholarly journal was in 1989.

By 1992 I had conceived a project to trace female line descendants of the daughters of an ancestor to verify that they were by different wives. I was worried about feasibility at first because the initial mitochondrial DNA study used placental tissue. I was relieved to find another study reporting that blood could be used successfully as well. Hopefully I could convince female line descendants to let blood be drawn, and find a doctor or phlebotomist to do the drawing. Getting a lab to do the test would be the tricky part because at the time there were only forensic/medical/research labs.

By now my mother was President of the Connecticut Society of Genealogists. She saw a notice for a lecture on DNA and Genealogy. We went although I expected old hat stuff like the genetic basis of hemophilia and such. However, the lecturer had the exact same ideas that I had come up with on my own. He was a professional geneticist, however, perfectly placed to carry out the research. He went on to give innumerable talks and basically to jump-start the entire field of genetic genealogy. The lecturer's name was Dr. Thomas Roderick, who should be considered the Father of Genetic Genealogy. The brilliant Robert Charles Anderson came on board by October 1992 when the genealogical publication NEXUS featured an article by Roderick, Anderson, and the geneticist Mary-Claire King.

Soon after the Jefferson Y DNA study was published in Nature in November 1998 I began lobbying heavily for Y DNA studies to be done by family associations. The major concern at the time was finding a testing facility, especially one that didn't charge inflated medical prices. Bennett Greenspan's Family Tree DNA, first company to offer DNA testing for genealogists, had not yet been started.

Soon after the publication of Brian Sykes' Seven Daughters of Eve in 2001, I attended a GenTech Convention in Boston at which Sykes spoke. He discussed the DNA of Somerled, stating that the genealogies said he descended in the male line from Irish Kings, but his DNA was Norse. If any of you were there I was the guy who said during the question and answer period, "I believe that Sir Iain Moncreiffe derives Somerled from Norse Kings in the male line." Somerled's paternal ancestors had married into R1b1c7 though.

SMGF released its first database in March 2004. I learned of it at a Genealogy Convention in Portland, Maine about April 2005. I used it and other web resources to find Somerled's genetic signature. I also decided to look for the genetic signature of the Irish Kings with whom Somerled was connected through females. I checked DNA results for the numerous families said to have male line descents from the Irish Kings in question. I was looking for a cluster including a significant number of these families. I was absolutely blown away by the huge dense cluster which I did find. In my unpublished manuscripts I call it the "Columba Cluster." Saint Columba was the great great grandson of Niall of the Nine Hostages. I'm not sure when other genealogists independently discovered this cluster. They may have come from the opposite direction as myself. I was actually looking for a cluster associated with the kindred of Saint Columba. They may have looked at the DNA and
happened to notice a cluster existed. Anyway, after we genealogists discovered it geneticists discovered it and published in a scientific journal.

John Plummer

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