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y-DNA Tests on Sandford Families

Latest revisions added below: SNP results added 13 May 2013. Y-25 marker result 12 July 2013. Y-37 marker result 24 July 2013.

By means of tests of the y-DNA chromosome which is passed down the male line from father to son, it is possible to trace and confirm the male line of descent. In particular one can test whether two distant male cousins living today do indeed share a common male line ancestor in the past.

There are two types of genetic mutation that may occasionally cause small random changes in the y-DNA from one generation to the next. They are tested for by looking at STR markers, and SNP markers.

STR markers (Short Transcription Repeats): These are short sequences of DNA which are repeated a number of times at a particular position on the y-DNA strand. The number of repeats, typically in the range 5 to 15 is known as the Allele value for the marker. For a particular marker, mutations happen typically once every few hundred or even a few thousand generations. When such a mutation occurs the allele for the marker increases or decreases by 1. The simplest tests commercially available measure 12 of these STR markers. If all 12 STR markers match exactly between two male line cousins they almost certainly have a common male line ancestor with in the last 1000 years or so. On the other hand if more than 1 or perhaps 2 markers do not match then it pushes back the Time to the Most Recent Common Ancestor (TMRCA). Another term used in judging matches is the Genetic Distance. One adds up the differences between the allele numbers across all the markers being tested.

For the 12 marker y-DNA test a perfect match will have all 12 markers matching and therefore the genetic distance is 0. If we have 3 markers not matching then the genetic distance will be at least 3, and would be more if there have been more than one mutation for a particular marker.

Since there are two internet based projects testing Sanford and Sandifer names and close spelling relatives including Sandford, I was interested in getting a 12 STR marker test done to compare with the results from these groups. In particular it would test their claims that some of them were descended from Gamel de Sandford and therefore would therefore be my distance cousins. In February 2013 I found 12 marker test at a significantly reduced price of $37 + postage. When the results came back 6 weeks later, I compared my Reference Values with the modes or individuals from different related groups investigated by the two projects:

The conclusion is very clear - even the best match to Sandifer group 1 only matches on 8 out of the 12 markers and the genetic difference is 8 on the 4 marker which do not match. That is average of 2 mutations in each of these 4 markers. The common male line ancestor must have lived long before Gamel de Sandford in 1175. All the other comparisons are much less related than this and our male lines could only be common in the distant most stone age.

SNP Markers A Single Nucleotide Polymorphism is permanent mutation which occurs very rarely. A single pair of bases in the y-DNA chain is changed. This change then propagates from father to son, and any further change at this particular location is considered to me so unlikely so that the mutation is in effect permanent for all male line descendants. These SNPs can map out different populations over very long times, 10's of thousands of years, and so they are used to study migratory patterns of early man. They are used to place an individual in a particular Haplogroup which is in effect a branch of the human migrationary path out of Africa to the Mid East, Asia and Europe and thence world wide.

SNP testing to exactly determine my haplogroup, could be of help in supporting conclusions from STR testing, since men of main different haplogroups do not posses common male line ancestors within historic times, most of the SNP events which are tested having occurred 1000s of years ago.

The FamilyTreeDNA were not able to identify my haplogroup with certainty from my initial 12 marker STR results so they have carried what they describe as a Backbone SNP test. This showed that I am positive for the SNP mutation M170. This places me in Haplogroup I. They also tested 3 other markers for the most common subdivisions (subclades) of haplogroup I. However the 3 tests gave negative results, i.e. M253-, P37.2-, M233- . None of the family groups in the above table can possibly match my haplogroup which convincingly proves that any common male-line ancestor would be have to be in the stone age. I am probably in the subclade which is now called I2a2b1 (the notation for this haplogroup used to be I2b2 but the notation changes as new SNPs are discovered that enable the evolution of haplogroups to be defined more precisely.) This group is known as typical of the La Tene (Celtic) culture which may have originated in the Upper Rhine region of Germany. See this I2 subclade tree. This subclade is rather rare both in England and Europe with a frequency of less than 0.5% in England, so it is a powerful discriminator to weed out unrelated lines. I am waiting for the results of a further test for the presence of the L39 SNP marker to confirm this subclade.

L39+ result received 8 July 2013. Today I got the result of the SNP test which I ordered on 13 May. As expected it confirms that I am in the haplogoup now called L39 or L38. This subclade of haplogroup I is also called I2a2b1. There is a web project for this haplogroup run by Tim Weakley and the introduction page (see highlights) mentions that it is also nicknamed the "Lichtenstein Cave haplogroup" after the cave in the german Hartz mountains where 3000 year old bones were found containing DNA which when tested was to be L38/l39. There are even facial reconstructions of these Celtic Tene skulls. They would be likely to very distant cousins many times removed to me: not my direct ancestors! The common haplogroup shows we share some still earlier ancestor say 10,000 years ago or perhaps as much as 400 generations ago, depending just when the L38 and L39 SNPs mutations occurred.

For many people, who are interested in their y-DNA, discovery of such ancient roots may be all they get out of their y-DNA testing. Many DNA testing companies trade on this potential outcome and promote their services to provide information about such very ancient roots. My quest is different. My goal is to discovering cousins in historical time who share a paper trail pointing towards my ancestral line back to Gamel de Sandford c1175. The historical records of such more recent ancestors are likely to be much richer than a few archeological artifacts. Now the L39/L38 SNP is really rather rare in the UK perhaps 1 person in 200 or 300 has it. So if you have a Sandford (or similarly spelt) surname and you test your family's DNA and it turns out to have these SNPs then it is very likely we are distant cousins - and have a common ancestor since surnames started to be adopted in England i.e. the last 800 years or so.

Y STR markers 13 to 25 received 12 July 2013. Today I got the first panel of results following the upgrade from 12 to 37 which I ordered on 13 June. This has come through 3 weeks before the 7 August expected date which myFTDA gave on their web site.. No surprises here, the STRs are exactly what one would expect for a typical sample belonging which has already been tested for SNPs and shown to belong to L39/L38 Haplogroup. In fact looking at the project page for this haplogroup, I match exactly on the first 25 markers to the mode of the 58 who are with DYS448 =19, who are grouped together as the basic group. But curiously whereas I match the mode exactly all the others differ in on or or more of the 25 markers. I am not claiming that my marker values are the exact signature of the ancient ancestors this haplogroup. I did not order this upgrade in order to study my roots before the genealogical records started. I ordered it so that when I discovered a match to someone who shares my surname or a likely spelling variation, an accrate estimate could be made about the likelihood of a common ancestor. So far with just 12 markers and my L39 SNP test I have ruled out connection to some of the Sandford families in my list.

Now that I have the results from 25 markers, it is interesting that there is no exact match to anyone in the FTDNA database which as of 14 July 2013 has 480,143 Y-DNA records in their database of which about 400,000 are 25 or more markers tests. So I can say that my 25 markers are unique at the 1 in 400,000 level. There are just 16 near matches which a genetic distance of 1, but the surnames give no indication of a genealogical match: Disney, Boucher, Houlder, Peters, Kells, Barnell, Ware, Yelle and Davis.

Y STR markers 26 to 37 received 24 July 2013. Today I got the second panel of results following the upgrade from 12 to 37 which I ordered on 13 June. This has come through 2 weeks before the 7 August expected date which myFTDA gave on their web site. There are no great surprises to report, but it is now clear that I fall into different, and more select, subclade of the I -L38/39 haplogroup. I now have only 5 matches at a genetic distance of 4 or less. One of these is the fairly close match (genetic distance of 4) to a interesting branch of the Finley family who trace their origins back to Coupar, in Angus Scotland around C16 and before that to Findlaech, a local "King" of Moray who died in 1020. I have 24 ancestors back to Gamel Sandford 1175. There seems some likelyhood that we could have shared a common male-line ancestor in Scotland or the North of england in the period somewhat before 1000AD. This was a period of Scandanavian (Viking) conquest and immigration to Scotland and Ireland, so perhaps this could be one possibility for a common origin for the ancient Finley line and my Sandford line.

The other 4 close matches are with:

• a Finley who goes back back in the USA to 1734
• a Houlder who migrated from Wales to Swedeb around 1800
• a Barnell of unknown UK origin
• a Kells of unknown origin

I am am presently studying the statistics for the Finley match in order to determine its significance and the implications, and I will report here soon.

I am also now able to consider he significance of my match at a genetic distance of 1 to 12 markers measured for the 6 individuals in the Lichtenstein Cave who have the Y1 Halotype. They lived in a Bronze Age culture about 3000 years ago or about 100 generations. The marker that is different is DYS385b. This mutates at a rate of once in 440 generations, so the probability is that I am not a direct descendant of this family group buried in the Lichtenstein Cave but that we share an ancestor a few thousand years earlier. This fact of course of absolutely no genealogical significance, and might only be of interest to those studying anthropological origins.

If your male line is spelt SANDFORD or in one of the many similar versions which I have noted, why not test and discover if you match to me - see below:

An invitation to get tested and to compare your results with mine:

If you think your own male Sandford line might possibly be connected with mine at some point in the last 840 years (24 generations) in England, Ireland, Lancashire, Yorkshire or Westmorland, then why not consider testing and comparing your y-DNA markers with mine. The 12 marker test with a company like FamilyTree DNA costs $49 plus postage. Please contact me for further information. Alternatively, if you dont mind making your test results public, you may consider it worthwhile joining the Sandford DNA Project . This has the advantage that you will be able to compare with several other families. However, if you want to keep your results private and for a start only want to check your relationship with my Sandford of Westmorland line, then I suggest you contact me first. You can always join the Sanford project later if it looks as if it might be useful to you. Indeed, I would encourage you to do so, if you find out you don't link to the Sandford of Westmorland line. As mentioned on the introduction page to this sandford-general section and explained in more detail here, there are a number of possible places which may act as independent origins for the Sandford surname being adopted by unrelated families. Perhaps DNA tests will help sort these out.

Acknowledgments:
I thank several people especially in the two DNA projects for interesting correspondence over the last four years, and helping to teach me about the value of genetic DNA tests: Joe Sanford, Beth Elliott, Henry Sanford, Dan Sanford, Robert Carter, Tarney Smith.