Hello again I hope you all have enjoyed a happy Christmas. Here is another interesting article describing how autosomal DNA technologies, similar to those used by Ancestry and FTDNA Family Finder, can be applied to analysis of ancient populations https://phys.org/news/2023-12-revealing-distant-ancient-dna-unprecedented.html Best wishes Nigel

Following my earlier note, more holiday reading - I hope this will be of interest too - https://www.aftertheplague.org/people-of-medieval-cambridge It is also worth exploring other pages on the ‘after the plague’ website. Best wishes Nigel

Greetings fellow R-S16264s I hope all is well with all of you. I continue to look out for potential new recruits to our group but little has changed over recent months and even years. However the science continues to develop, particularly ancient DNA studies of human remains recovered during archaeological excavations. The link below is a very interesting example of how much information can be recovered from just one ancient individual. I hope you enjoy reading about him. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-67755415 Best wishes to you and your families for the holiday season Nigel

Greetings S16264s Sylvain Leprovost recently asked me whether FTDNA’s Discover Tree includes DNA recovered from ancient human remains found in archaeological investigations. I thought other S16264s might be interested too so am copying and expanding on my answers below: Ancient human remains found in excavations are increasingly DNA tested if judged likely to have DNA preserved. There have also been several special research projects which have DNA tested large numbers of individuals’ remains from museum collections. These individuals’ remains will also have been carbon-14 dated so providing a latest date by which the DNA SNPs found in the individual samples occurred for the first time. FTDNA have included some ancient individuals in their Discover tree but not all. To see some of them scroll up the Discover tree on your Discover Time Tree web page using the arrow next to R-S16264 and continue scrolling until you reach the page with R-DF13. The brown trowel symbols are for ancient DNA. Scroll down that webpage to see many more. Note the branching SNP upstream of each individual is the youngest SNP found in their DNA: they may in life have carried more recent known branching SNPs but these were either not recovered from the sample or were not identified in the test. Scrolling down you will see most ancient individual’s dates are more recent than the date of the branching SNP they are descended from. Occasionally some individual’s dates appear to be older than their branching SNP (their trowel symbol is located to the left of their branch). This is of course not possible in reality but indicates that particular SNP is older than FTDNA’s estimate. However the date of the branch in the tree may still be an accurate estimate: the apparent inconsistency occurs because FTDNA have not chosen the youngest SNP in a long ‘block’ of SNPs to identify the block and hence the name of the branch. Please let me know if you have questions. Best wishes Nigel

Here are the estimated birth dates of most recent shared ancestor at each branch in S16264 tree as displayed on FTDNA’s Discover ‘Time Tree’ on 18/12/22. We have a new branch below R-L679 discovered by Edward Schultz’s BigY700 (managed by Jenny Grillet). Best wishes to all for the holiday season Nigel R-Z39589 2423 BCE R-FGC59881 2390 BCE R-S16264 2044 BCE R-FGC59879 2014 BCE R-S21225 1901 BCE R-Z16868 1804 BCE R-BY42718 658 CE R-Z16877 1623 BCE R-Z16861 201 BCE R-L679 1411 CE R- BY210472 1574 CE R-FGC36619 1765 CE R-A7314 1622 CE R-A7313 1822 CE R-FT8513 1681 CE

Larry Brett (Wendy Morse's uncle) and I are currently assigned to haplogroup R-F110. Most Y-DNA SNPs which are used to define haplogroups have occurred only once in the history of mankind and so can be used to define branches in the Y-DNA family tree without any risk of duplication. Unfortunately, F110 is not such a SNP: it is a recurrent SNP which has occurred more than once and in more than one branch of the Y-DNA tree. Until recently other occurrences were not being used for naming haplogroups but that is no longer the case - I have found there is another R-F110 in a different part of the Y-DNA tree (DF21>DSF5 .... but like S16264 also derived from L21+, DF13+). So I have sent a note to FTDNA pointing this out and suggesting our R-F110 be renamed R-FGC36619 as FGC36619 is unique to Larry's and my branch of the Y-DNA tree. Hopefully the change will happen within a week or two. Best wishes Nigel P.S. Please post anything you think might be relevant to S16264 research including news of new matches or any new learnings about your Y-DNA ancestral origins.

Greetings If you have logged on to your FTDNA account recently you may have noticed a new tab in the Y-DNA Results section of the Home page. This is the new 'Discover' tool which presents information on the branching SNPs in the Y-DNA tree including date estimates for when these branches in family lines occurred. In the attached .pdf I have extracted the data for our line of descent for the last 4,450 years: - I start with R-Z39589, 'son' of R-DF13, who lived early in the European Bronze Age. - The next branching SNP FGC59881 is new discovery since our Yahoo Group ceased to exist in late 2019. - Our S16264 is one of 3 known surviving descendants of FGC59881. - BigY testing in the last 3 years has found early branches in the S16264 family which were previously unknown - see the .pdf for details. - I will try to find more information on the people whose BigY's discovered those branches as they may provide more clues on the ancient geographic origins of S16264 (which I still believe is likely to be northwest France, in Bronze Age Armorica). - Rod Mann's line, R-Z16861, is estimated to have split from the line leading to the R-L679 family c.200 BCE i.e. in the Pre-Roman Iron Age - The R-L679 families [Turner/Hammond] and [Bond/Brett/Schultz] split c.1450 CE - The R-A7314 Turner-Hammonds split c.1650, consistent with known history - The R-F110 families Bond-Brett-Schultz split c.1800. My paternal ancestry and that of the Schultz line is unknown at this date. Larry Brett's ancestor Samuel Brett was born in Dorset, England in 1806 and by 1826 was in Newfoundland. I hope Wendy doesn't mind me asking but might both Bond and Schultz be descended from Samuel and/or one of his close relatives? - Bob Hawk's R-BY42718 line split from that leading to his closest BigY match c.650 CE. Bob - have you been able to find out more about this distant cousin? Please let me know if you have comments or questions. All the best Nigel

Hi Everyone - Have I noticed a new S16264+ kit at yfull.com, ID YF108578? I'm not sure if this a genuinely new result, or if perhaps has somebody that we already know has recently submitted their result to go on the yfull tree? (I am the "new" R-L679 - YF107964. I didn't submit results to yfull until recently.) Edward