Thank you for your letter.  I've taken a look at your results and agree
that there are likely two different haplogroups - although they are
properly called Haplogroup R1b and Haplogroup I (the old haplogroups 1
and 2 respectively).  Analysis cannot be made solely on the one marker
to predict a haplogroup as these markers do of course change with time,
so a comparison is made on many markers to give a clearer picture.


To answer your question regarding relatedness within different
haplogroups, no they would not be related.  They will share common
ancestors many thousands of years ago, but this will be before the
defining SNP marker occurred.   However, the test doesn't define
haplogroups and thus a count of genetic distance has to be taken.


The Sturtevant and Sturtivant tests actually differ by just three
markers.  The DYS461 alleles are the same for each individual - an
announcement to Ybase and DNA Heritage customers was made regarding the
DYS461 marker (and others) a couple of days ago but is only sent to
people who have specifically signed up to the newsletters.  Information
regarding the marker changes has also been sent out with the reports and
certificates.


A genetic distance of three is quite high but, I would say yes, the two
individuals are likely related.  It's possible you can test someone
between them and find a 'bridge' - i.e. someone with a haplotype in
between both of them and possibly deduce where the mutation may have
occurred.  We don't place too much emphasis on the time to the MRCA (as
in an estimation of when the MRCA actually lived (there are large
errors)) although MRCA estimates are useful for comparing high and
low-resolution tests.


Your other participant is indeed (and quite conclusively) unrelated to
the first two.  This maybe just the one individual that is unrelated, or
it may be the entire line.  I would not recommend you base the entire
line on solely one participant as there is of course the possibility
that a non-paternity event has occurred, but obscured by only testing
one individual.


Projects do get support in the interpretation of the results and which
people are best to test.  Larger Projects may occasionally need network
analysis too when they have many closely related individuals.  Network
analysis is best done solely with single-copy markers and only with
markers that overlap, so this is a consideration if a larger project is
envisaged.


We are working hard to bring the new website pages up together which
will hopefully help your Project along.