Family Tree DNA is proud to announce a major project in the field of Genetic Genealogy.

Over the past few years we have tested a vast number of your Y-chromosomes. As results have been returned from the lab, many of you have posed a question about the mutation rates of the entire panel and of specific markers. Understanding how important this issue is for Genetic Genealogy, we have decided to embark on a project to develop much tighter mutation rate estimates on a marker-by-marker basis.

Provided that we receive your authorization, we can use the information from the Y-chromosome tests of people from your projects, and move Genetic Genealogy into a new paradigm. Better estimates of the mutation rates will allow for more accurate calculation of the number of generations between people. Three questions we commonly receive are: “I am two steps away from a person, am I related to this person? How many steps apart from a person can I be and still consider them a relative?” or “Can we establish some relationship between the number of generations and the number of mutations?” Currently these questions are difficult to answer by the scientific community. By refining the mutation rates, based upon proven family connections, we will be able to provide you with more reliable answers to these questions.

Your assistance with this project will be greatly appreciated. In fact, we will be unable to perform this project without your help and consent. As you may know, Family Tree DNA has a strict policy of ensuring that your results are not used for anything but your genealogical reconstruction without your informed consent. This project will entail your consent for the use of the Y chromosome results and information demonstrating the connection between family members. All of this information will remain entirely private, confidential and anonymous. This information will be used exclusively for tracing the inheritance of the Y chromosome in your family tree in order to calculate mutation rates. Therefore genealogical connections you provide between two people in your Surname studies are extremely useful.

We are specifically looking for classical genealogical connections rather than the DNA based connections you have discovered through our service. We are interested in relationships between the males in your family that we have tested, regardless of the simplicity or complexity, be they brothers, fathers and sons, or even more distant relations; as long as you have established a genealogical link using non-DNA based methods.

If you are interested in participating in this project, you may contact us by email, fax or by mail for any paperwork that you wish to share that demonstrates a genealogical connection. Emails with links to a web page with explanation (by kit #) may also work nicely. Please don't forget to include with your documentation the required release form specific for this project.

Below you will find examples for communicating your genealogical relationships. Once again, any help that you can provide to us will make our research more accurate, thus more valuable to you.

Thank you for your time and we look forward to receiving your family tree information between tested males in your family!

Jennifer Spangle

Address:
Jennifer Spangle
Genomic Analysis Technology Core
University of Arizona
Bio Sciences West Room 246
Tucson, AZ 85719

Re: Family Tree DNA - Mutation Rates Project

Email: spanglej@familytreedna.com
Fax: (520)626-8050    attn: Jennifer Spangle