About us
Since the Kremenets Shtetl CO-OP DNA project has not been in existence for very long, there are not yet sufficient participants to establish genealogical DNA patterns or to find new realtionships among the participants. However, there are some items that can be noted at present time.
mtDNA matches provide little help in finding genealogical female line relatives. Even the combined HVR1+HVR2 test giving a perfect match between two people provides only a 75% probability of their having a most recent common ancestor (MRCA) within 52 generations (1300 years). There is a 50% probability of an MRCA within the last 26 generations (650 years). The probabilities are even less with a perfect match of just the HVR1 test. The mtDNA test is most useful to trace ancient, many 10s of thousands of years ago, "clans." These are designated as your "haplogroup" in the chart below. Your haplogroup is also shown on your personal Family Tree DNA web pages along with further information about your haplogroup.
So far our group has no close Y-DNA matches at all. In fact, the most sensitive test that the majority of our partcipants are using, the 37 marker test, has produced only matches that differ by least double digits. Close matches at this level would be perfect matches or matches that differ by only one or two steps, meaning that the examination of the two sets of 37 markers provides the same results except for a slight difference at one or two markers. We even have some "matches" that differ by more than 37 steps meaning that not only does every single marker, or nearly every single marker, differ in the comparision between two people but some pairs of markers differ significantly. The two of our members who have submitted the 67 marker test have a very large number of mismatches to the extent that any common ancester they share would almost certainly have lived much more than a 1000 years ago.
So far our results show that the male line ancestries of those from the Kremenets area are quite different and the distant male line ancestors originated in a number of different places. In other words, our early results show that the Kremenets population was a mixed population with male family lines going back to quite different origins several thousand years ago. Of course, at any time we could find some close matches with and among new participants and, hopefully, discover new relatives.
As more members of our group obtain results from the new Family Finder DNA test, we hope to be able to identity up to fourth, and possibly even fifth, cousins of a member regardless of the nature of the member's ancestral chain. In other words, even if an ancestor was, for example, the member's father's mother's mother's father, we may be able to idenity a related member whose ancestor also lived in the Kremenets area, regardless of the mixed ancestral chain of that member.
(You should also note your Y-DNA haplogroup. See the discussion above about mtDNA haplogroups which discussion also applies to the Y-DNA haplogroups.)
mtDNA matches provide little help in finding genealogical female line relatives. Even the combined HVR1+HVR2 test giving a perfect match between two people provides only a 75% probability of their having a most recent common ancestor (MRCA) within 52 generations (1300 years). There is a 50% probability of an MRCA within the last 26 generations (650 years). The probabilities are even less with a perfect match of just the HVR1 test. The mtDNA test is most useful to trace ancient, many 10s of thousands of years ago, "clans." These are designated as your "haplogroup" in the chart below. Your haplogroup is also shown on your personal Family Tree DNA web pages along with further information about your haplogroup.
So far our group has no close Y-DNA matches at all. In fact, the most sensitive test that the majority of our partcipants are using, the 37 marker test, has produced only matches that differ by least double digits. Close matches at this level would be perfect matches or matches that differ by only one or two steps, meaning that the examination of the two sets of 37 markers provides the same results except for a slight difference at one or two markers. We even have some "matches" that differ by more than 37 steps meaning that not only does every single marker, or nearly every single marker, differ in the comparision between two people but some pairs of markers differ significantly. The two of our members who have submitted the 67 marker test have a very large number of mismatches to the extent that any common ancester they share would almost certainly have lived much more than a 1000 years ago.
So far our results show that the male line ancestries of those from the Kremenets area are quite different and the distant male line ancestors originated in a number of different places. In other words, our early results show that the Kremenets population was a mixed population with male family lines going back to quite different origins several thousand years ago. Of course, at any time we could find some close matches with and among new participants and, hopefully, discover new relatives.
As more members of our group obtain results from the new Family Finder DNA test, we hope to be able to identity up to fourth, and possibly even fifth, cousins of a member regardless of the nature of the member's ancestral chain. In other words, even if an ancestor was, for example, the member's father's mother's mother's father, we may be able to idenity a related member whose ancestor also lived in the Kremenets area, regardless of the mixed ancestral chain of that member.
(You should also note your Y-DNA haplogroup. See the discussion above about mtDNA haplogroups which discussion also applies to the Y-DNA haplogroups.)