Implications of Cousin John's Y-DNA test results - received yesterday

We recently got the results of the Y-DNA test from Cousin John in Australia – and they were NOT what we hoped for (see the Blog for the results)!  We were hoping to confirm the J-M267 haplogroup of cousin Robert, which appears to verify the stories in the “Hearthside” book of a Jewish heritage to the Vosper family.  Instead, John returned an R-M269 haplogroup, the most common in Europe.  To confuse matters further, his haplogroup matches that of Cousin James! 

 

This means one of two things: 

1)  There is a Non-Paternity Event (NPE) somewhere on the yellow line on the diagram below, or

2)  There is an error in our tree, wich would connect the line of John Elliott to that of Mary Vosper (highlighted in Orange) or

 

Here is our cousin chart, with the DNA results posted below the appropriate lines:

 

 

 

To refresh your memories, Y-DNA is passed down from father to son  with very few changes (maybe 1 every 4 or 5 generations).  In theory, if there was never an NPE, any male with the name VOSPER would have the same Haplogroup, and be a match with only a few changes (called Genetic Distance). 

 

Cousin James had his Y-DNA done, even though Mary Vosper (highlighted in orange) had several children out of wedlock, and they retained the Vosper name.  We EXPECTED his haplogroup to be different, and it was.  At first glance, it may appear significant that both John and James have the same haplogroup, R-M269, however, a closer examination shows some interesting differences:

 

James Y STR:

 

John’s Y STR, with differences from James’ results highlighted in yellow:

 

We can see from this that they have different results on 13 markers, and a total Genetic distance of 20!  (Genetic distance is calculated by taking the absolute value of the difference of the value between the same markers, and adding that to the absolute value of the difference to each of the corresponding markers).  For example, on DYS442 (next to last one), James has an 11, John has a 12, for a genetic distance of 1.  CDY, however has a greater difference.  James has 37-38, while John has 35-37, for a difference of 2 on the first, and 1 on the second.  To me, calculating the genetic difference on these multi markers is a little confusing, and the total genetic difference could be just 16, not the 20 I stated earlier – still very substantial!

 

Different markers change at different ‘speeds’, with CDY being one of the faster changing ones.  See https://phillipsdnaproject.com/faq-sections/40-fastest-mutating-markers for more info on this and calculating genetic distance…

 

I am not an expert on this, but my understanding of this means that though they share the same haplogroup, their common ancestor is probably back much further than our Vosper chart goes.  Before I investigated this I thought that maybe John’s line had descended from the aforementioned Mary, but given the substantial genetic difference  I don’t think that’s the case.  I think it’s more likely that the two gentlemen involved in fathering the children of these lines just had the same haplogroup because it’s the most common one in Europe. 

 

So, let’s talk about Non-Paternity Events a little bit.  ISOGG states:  Non-paternity event is a term used in genetic genealogy to describe any event which has caused a break in the link between an hereditary surname and the Y-chromosome resulting in a son using a different surname from that of his biological father.  Read more here.  From that article:

 

 

 

As we know, legally, the father is the person who raised the person, and NPEs exist in the best of families including the monarchy of England.   So either line is a ‘real Vosper’ in the legal sense. 

 

My primary interest in pursuing the Y-DNA has been to confirm or refute rumors of Jewish origins of the Vosper family.  To that end, the best choice to continue the testing would be to have a male Vosper relative of CAROL VOSPER do the test.  This could be a brother or uncle or nephew with the surname VOSPER.    Our next best choice would be  GRAHAM VOSPER.  Third choice would be if William Williams has any male uncles or cousins with the surname VOSPER who could test.  Fourth would be to get GENE VOSPER to test. 

 

I recall that LINDA WILSON said her brother might be willing to test, but darn if I can find her on my chart!   Hard for me to determine how important a test from him might be without that information.  Linda, could you please send me your lineage?  Thanks,

 

Hope you are all having a wonderful Christmas or Chanukah!   Happy New Year, too!

 

Cousin Teri

 

Your Y-DNA test results are in!

Hi, and Merry Christmas!

 

I got notified that John’s Y-DNA test results came in, and I wanted to share them with you as quickly as possible – I know that you have been anxiously awaiting them.  I’m going to try to explain things as I go, but will send a separate email about the implications of the results on our genealogical research.  You will see links to web sites where you can read more on any given subject.

 

Here is the first result:

 

 

A haplogroup is a genetic population group of people who share a common ancestor on the patrilineal or matrilineal line.   For more info, click here.    This R-M269 group is also referred to as R1b1a2 (there has been a recent change in nomenclature, so it is referred to both ways).   Basically, they take all the results of your testing and categorize them into this grouping for analysis on a macro level. 

 

Haplogroup R1b (R-M343) is the most frequently occurring Y-chromosome haplogroup in Western Europe and the most common haplogroup in the genetic genealogy databases. R1b1a2 (R-M269) is the dominant branch of R1b in Western Europe.  For more info, click here. 

 

Your complete Y-STR values are shown below.  You were tested at 37 markers:

 

These were the values that they categorized to come up with the R-M269 designation.  However, for matching purposes, they use your individual values for each of the markers.

 

FTDNA also provides us with a list of people who match you.  We tested John at 37 markers, and here is the result with people who match at 37 markers:

 

 

Only one match, and that 4 genetic distances away (as much as 20+ generations difference!).

 

Among people who have only tested 12 markers, there are a few more matches:

 

 

There are no matches to the Vosper name – in fact, there are no matching surnames at all.  What is really odd to me about this is that I would expect MANY MANY more matches, given this is the most common haplogroup in Europe.  I suspect that the process used by FTDNA to find matches is run periodically, has not been run over the entire population of their Y-participants since John’s was processed, and will be updated in the near future with many more matches.

 

Under ANCESTRAL ORIGINS, FTDNA produced this chart:

 

 

This is based on people with 12 marker testing.   You can see that the most matches (70) were from England with a genetic difference of ONE, and a close runner-up was Ireland (61).

 

There were no matches at the 25 or 37 marker testing levels.

 

A copy of your haplogroups tree looks like this:

 

 

To find out more detail would require more testing, which of course would be more money.  It might be interesting, but not particularly helpful for our research.

 

There is an interesting presentation about the origins of R-M269 here..   I don’t pretend to understand all of this – the document  looks like slides that went with a presentation – it has some informative maps and theories about the origins of the haplogroups, but, minus the spoken word, is a bit difficult to understand.

 

The migration map for your group (R1b)  is (you can see it originating in the mid-east and going towards France):

 

FTDNA also provides a variety of printable reports, which are attached as PDF’s.

 

There are several very important implications of these results for our Vosper genealogy study, which I’ll address in another email.   I have included the BLOG on the distribution of this email, as well as other Vosper Y-DNA participants.  I have not copied all the Vosper Cousins on it.  If you object to the specific STR results being on the blog, please let me know, and I’ll edit the post to remove that graphic. 

 

Merry Christmas,

 

Cousin Teri

Vosper Things

Hello Vosper Cousins, and Happy Holidays to everyone!

 

I just returned from a vacation in Florida where I got to meet up with Cousin Paula (Vosper), when we went out to lunch and on a boat trip looking for manatees:

 

Teri on the left, Paula on the right.   Looking very movie star-ish with those shades, don’t you think?  If you’re thinking we look alike, we are 1^st cousins…..

 

At our last condo stop on the vacation I picked up a book called “The Queen’s Fool” by Philippa Gregory, which I thought some of you might be interested in reading.  The story takes place in the 1550’s, predominantly in England.  It is the story of a young Jewish girl, whose mother was burned at the stake for heresy in Aragorn, Spain, who goes to England and gets entangled in the royal intrigues of the court of Queen Mary.   It gives good insight to the plight of Jews practicing Catholicism in order to escape the Inquisition and the religious purges of the period.  

 

This is during the time our common 11^th great grandfather, Johannes Vosper, would have been living in Liskeard, Cornwall.  For the most recent joiners of our little group, we had found this little tidbit in a book:

 

 

You can see this in context on Google Books, here.    This was our first indication that our family had any Jewish origins.  As we got in DNA testing results, we consistently found Ashkenazi heritage in low amounts (typically 2-5%), and when Robert Vosper had his Y-DNA tested, it came back with a Jewish Haplogroup, J-M267, all of which confirms that is was the Vosper lineage that contributed the Ashkenazi heritage, and confirms the heritage claimed in the book, written in 1873.

 

We don’t know when the family stopped practicing Judaism, but I am pretty sure none of the American branches ever practiced it after 1900.   Do any of our Australian or British Cousins have families that still practiced it?  In any case, the book is interesting as it gives good insight into the problems encountered and how the destruction of religious materials and heresy trials affected Jews in England and Europe.

 

On a similar note, I have Amazon Prime, and found “Rebecca” as a movie available for free to watch.  It is based on the novel by Daphne DuMaurier, and is mostly true to the book. It takes place in Cornwall, which is why I mention it.   This sounds weird, but it was made for television, and the recording includes commercials, which I guess were filmed in the 1950s.  Even the commercials, all for gas appliances, we interesting to watch!

 

On the DNA front, John Vosper in Australia has sent in his Y-DNA test for processing, and we are anxiously awaiting results.  The latest status:

 

Our hope is that his DNA will come in a close match to Robert Vosper’s, further confirming the Jewish lineage.  I plan to enroll John’s results in the FTDNA Cornwall and J1 Projects, to further improve our presence there.   In checking on the HUGE project, J1, I found they had ‘clustered’ Robert’s Y findings as follows:

 

 

VERY INTERESTING, that so many people in this grouping have the last name “Jordan”.  Could this be a clue as to our family origins? 

 

The Cornwall project is not showing much in the way of matches:

 

 

It is interesting that Thomas Dawe matches a lot of the markers that Robert has (N46809, highlighted in yellow) – I thought I recalled seeing a DAWES spouse of a Vosper at some point, but I don’t find it on my tree, now….

 

Need many more Cornish people to test their DNA!

 

In looking at FTDNA’s Country of Origin for 37 marker testing for Robert, we have, in part:

 

 

This is interesting, because in all the genetic distances less than 4, all the matches are in the UK.  At a genetic distance of -4 there is one person from Germany.  “Genetic distance” relates to how many of the 37 markers tested are different – in this case 4 are.  Generally, the Y chromosome is very stable with a variation happening sporadically -- maybe once every 4 generations or so a change will occur in one marker.  So, if this GERMAN match is significant (though 1 is hardly significant!), it would indicate that the common ancestor may have been as many as 16-20 generations back.  At least one (undocumented) source says that the Vosper family came from Silesia, which was on the border of Germany and the Czech Republic and Poland.

 

Lastly, I’ve received another book “The Lost Jews of Cornwall” but have not read it yet.  I have checked the index, but there are no Vosper, Trevosper, or Treffosper.  This will be a much tougher read than “The Queen’s Fool”.

 

Enough for now!

 

 

Cousin Teri