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JOIN THE STERLING Y-CHROMOSOME DNA PROJECT
Some of you may be aware of a project underway to genetically analyze the distribution of families with names that sound like "St*rling". Several participants have now been tested and received results back from the lab, and so we have successfully identified the "genetic signature" of the Starling/Sterling line that arrived in Accomac County, Virginia in the late 1600s.
We need to recruit people from all the St*rling lines: Sterlings from the Lyme, Connecticut branch, Scottish Stirlings, Starlings in the UK and Australia. We welcome all comers, especially people with well-fleshed-out family trees.
The purposes of this effort are several:
- The written records for many of our lines go back only a few hundred years, but our Y-chromosomes are useful in tracking backwards for thousands of years. Though we may never know the details of how we are related, through Y-DNA testing we should be able to prove that some of our surname groups are--indelibly--family.
- Developing genetic signatures for various lines may show proximity, and help researchers determine where a group originated. Perhaps someone named Sterling in Australia has no idea where his forebears came from--but by having his DNA tested, he may find that his "genetic signature" matches the Soderlings of Oslo, the Starlings of Norwich or the Asteritas of Madrid. Such a boost can be of enormous help in genealogical research, as most of you probably recognize.
- It's interesting and groundbreaking. This is a revolutionary new approach to genealogy, and it's exciting just to be part of it.
- It places your genealogy research in the context of the development of the family of man. Given ongoing research in haplotypes and other genetic markers, we may be able to track the migration of our sperm-line back thousands of years. Was the first St*rling a Celt? A Goth? When did they arrive in Britain? As more and more people are tested, researchers are able to attach a probability to these things, and they become knowable. In the Accomac Starling/Sterling research, we've found that our "genetic signature" is extremely distinctive and has a fairly rare structure. While there are no closely related lines in the publicly accessible European or North American databases, we do find distant relatives (dozens if not hundreds of generations' separation) located in Eastern Austria.
The restrictions are two-fold: - Only men can submit genetic material to the project, since only men carry a Y-chromosome. There is a test women can take, the mtDNA or "mitochondrial DNA", but it tracks descent along the egg-line, not the sperm-line, so it is not useful for surname tracking. Our interest at this time is surname tracking.
- Because we're part of a surname project, we get a discount, and the test costs only $100 US. Because I've been asked before, I'll tell you that none of that money goes to me or anyone else in the project. It is the fee charged by the lab, FamilyTreeDNA, and it is the lowest-priced alternative we were able to locate.
A site has been set up with the results and additional information.
St*rling DNA Project
You can submit a request to join the project here: http://www.familytreedna.com/surname_join.asp?code=Q12782&special=True
Please consider joining! The more participants, the better the results.
Rick Stirling, St*rling DNA Project Administrator
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