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