COUSINS
Testing has revealed or confirmed a number of DNA connections between members. For example, the members associated with kit numbers 52669 and 136658 probably share an ancestor in their Y-chromosome line within the past 210 years. The same is true of project members 81973 and 107613, and 180345 and 136658, and 154736 and 61428. Slightly further back in time, at the 270-year level, is a match between 52669 and 180345. At the 300-year level, we see connections between 52669 and 56277; 180345 and 56277; 121978 and 134226. A number of other relationships date between five and 11 centuries ago. Email the project administrator if you’re curious.

Looking just at connection between project members in the R1b haplogroup, there is a cluster of paternal relationships between members with kit numbers 56277, N18032, 136558, 180345, 52669 and 117860. Times to most recent common ancestors among this cluster range from 210 to 930 years. There might be another somewhat more-distant cluster of kit numbers 134226, 61809, 63456, 121978 and 180227.

Within our project's complete R1b data set, the time to most recent ancestor ranges from 210 to nearly 3,000 years, based on a common set of assumptions about generation lengths and DNA mutation rates. The formula used to calculate this can only be regarded as a general indicator for those who are most unrelated, but it is safe to say that many current project members have not shared a forefather in the period during which surnames have been in existence. In several cases, it has been many dozens of generations since our most recent common ancestor -- probably since before the start of the last ice age.

HOMELANDS
Six of those who have been tested to date by FTDNA are Americans with an imprecise knowledge of where their families originated in Europe. Among those who do know their European origins:

• Six are from England, the UK or Great Britain; two of the six are Americans who believe they are from the Norfolk-London puritan corridor; one project member currently resides in Norfolk, and another in Hampshire.

• Three from Germany; one of these specifically from Dinkelsbuehl and one from Prussia.

• One has Polish origins.

• One reports Irish ancestry.

• One reports Welsh ancestry.

• One lives in Stockholm, Sweden.

There also are three Winter/Winters testees at the Sorenson Molecular Genealogy project whose results don’t appear in the current Family Tree DNA database. These are their reported European geographic origins: Netherlands, England and Germany. There also is a deWinter from Canada.

OUR GENETIC CLANS
Two-thirds of participants in the Winter/Winters DNA Project belong to the R1b1b2 haplogroup, the predominant genetic family along Europe's far-western Atlantic zone. (Family Tree DNA in most of these instances takes the classification only to the R1b1 level, but it is virtually certain all these are actually R1b1b2. Tests are available if you want to know for sure.) The greatest genetic separations apply to several of us who don’t belong to the R1b1b2 haplogroup (until recently called R1b1c), but to other European genetic families. Four of us belong to different subclades of haplogroup I; one to C3; one to J1; one to R1a; and one (probably) to J2. Someone who has been tested but has not yet joined this project belongs to haplogroup Q with an origin in Czechoslovakia. Someone else, tested by Relative Genetics, is in haplogroup I1b2a*. Another non-member, tested by Family Tree DNA for 67 markers, is R1b1b2. (These were found in Ysearch by the project administrator.) Much can be learned about these haplogroups by Googling them or looking them up on Wikipedia. The abridged descriptions below were taken from the latter source. Check for yourself for the most recently updated information. As always, take Wikipedia information as interesting guidance that may or may not be entirely accurate.

• • • •

HAPLOGROUP DETAILS
Haplogroup R1b1b2

In articles published around 2000 it was proposed that this clade been in Europe before the last Ice Age, but by 2010 more recent periods such as the European Neolithic have become the focus of proposals. A range of newer estimates for R1b1b2, or at least its dominant parts in Europe, are from 4,000 to a maximum of about 10,000 years ago, and looking in more detail is seen as suggesting a migration from Western Asia via southeastern Europe.

The Western European population of R1b1b2 (also known as R-M269) has under gone additional splits that are being defined by ongoing analysis of the relatively rare genetic mutations known as SNPs or single nucleotide polymorphisms. The two most notable of these are R-P312/S116 andR-U106/S21, which appear to spread from the western and eastern Rhine river basin respectively.

The large Western European group of R-P312 has recently been found to have a major subclade, defined by the SNP L21. R-L21 is most common in England and Ireland, but also present on the European mainland at significant levels. Research is continuing to search for additional SNPs to further split R-P312. R-P312 including R-L21 is at its highest concentration in Ireland (80percent, falling to about 60 percent in England, and a little less but still around half the male population in France, the Netherlands and Switzerland.Almost half of U.S. males of European descent belong to R-P312.

R-U106 is largely a northern European group, comprising about a quarter of the native-born population. Academic testing found its highest level in the Netherlands at 35 percent. Germany, Denmark, the Czech Republic, Switzerland and Austria are also places with high levels of R-U106.

Family Tree DNA, via optional Deep Clade testing, has confirmed that five of our project members are members of the R1b1b2 clade. Two of these are R-U106, one is R-L21, one is test-confirmed R-M269 but hasn’t tested for downstream SNPs, and one is R-P312 but negative for L21.

Research continues to look for additional splits in R-P312and R-U106, as well as in their already-known subclades. For instance,downstream of L21, the SNPs M222 and L226 differentiate some Irish and Scottish dynasties.

Within R-P312 it is strongly suspected that an as-yet undiscovered SNP will define members of a group currently known asR1b-North-South. Currently defined by a unique pattern of simple tandem repeats, this grouping was first noticed in two geographically isolated European areas — on the Iberian Peninsula and in the vicinity of what is now Denmark. This may be a male line that started out in what is now Spain and Portugal, with some members migrating north, or vice versa. Two current Winter-Winters project members are R1b-NS.

Haplogroup C3
Haplogroup C3 is a Y-chromosome DNA haplogroup mainly found in indigenous Mongolians. Haplogroup C3 is the most widespread and frequently occurring branch of the greater Haplogroup C (M130). One particular haplotype within Haplogroup C3 has received a great deal of attention for the possibility that it may represent direct patrilineal descent from Genghis Khan. Haplogroup C3 is believed to have originated approximately 20,000 years before present in eastern or central Asia. Its closest phylogenetic relatives are found in the general vicinity of South Asia, East Asia, or Oceania. Haplogroup C3 is the modal haplogroup among Mongolians and most indigenous populations of the Russian Far East, such as the Northern Tungusic peoples, Koryaks, and Nivkhs. ... Beyond this range of high-to-moderate frequency, which contains mainly the northeast quadrant of Eurasia and the northwest quadrant of North America, Haplogroup C3 continues to be found at low frequencies, and it has even been found as far afield as Northwest Europe, Turkey, Pakistan, Vietnam, the Malay Archipelago, and some aboriginal populations of Colombia and Venezuela.

Haplogroup I
Haplogroup I (the letter I, not the number 1) can be found in most present-day European populations, most commonly in Scandinavia, Sardinia, and the Slavic populations of the Western Balkans in southeastern Europe. According to current theories, Haplogroup I first arrived in Europe around 20,000-25,000 years ago from the Middle East, perhaps associated with the Gravettian culture, and just prior to the onset of the last glacial maximum (LGM). It is most closely related to Haplogroup J, as both Haplogroup I and Haplogroup J are descendants of Haplogroup IJ. The Haplogroup I Y-chromosomes found among the Scandinavians, Sardinians, and Slavs generally belong to different subclades, however, which indicates that each of the ancestral populations now dominated by a particular subclade experienced an independent population expansion, believed to reflect different migrations of people during and immediately after the ice age. Haplogroup I Y-chromosomes have also been found among some populations of the Middle East, the Caucasus, and Central Asia, but they are found at frequencies exceeding 10% only among populations of Europe and Asia Minor, particularly among Germanic, Slavic, Uralic, and Turkic peoples, as well as among the Romance-speaking populations of France, Romania, Moldova, and Sardinia, the Albanian-speaking population of Albania, and the Greek-speaking population of Greece. ... It could be said that Haplogroup I displays relatively higher frequencies among peoples who have at times been considered to be "northern barbarians". The great majority of the Y-chromosomes among even these "northern barbarians," however, are comprised of the same haplogroups (R1b in Western Europe, R1a1 in Eastern Europe, and N in Northeastern Europe) as the majority of the Y-chromosomes of the southerly, earlier civilized populations.

Haplogroup Q
Haplogroup Q is a branch of haplogroup P (M45). It is believed to have arisen in Siberia approximately 15,000 to 20,000 years ago. This haplogroup contains the patrilineal ancestors of many Siberians, Central Asians, and indigenous peoples of the Americas. Haplogroup Q Y-chromosomes are also found scattered at a low frequency throughout Eurasia. This haplogroup is surprisingly diverse despite its low frequency among most populations outside of Siberia or the Americas, and at least six primary subclades have been sampled and identified in modern populations. A migration from Asia into Alaska across the Bering Strait was done by haplogroup Q populations approximately 15,000 years ago. This founding population spread throughout the Americas. Once in the Americas, haplogroup Q underwent a mutation, producing its descendant population defined by the M3 SNP. In the Old World the Q lineage and its many branches is largely found within a huge triangle defined by Norway in the West, Iran in the South and Mongolia in the East. There is also a rough correlation between the Turkic-speaking peoples of Central Eurasia and Q. The frequency of Q in Norway and Mongolia is about 4% while in the Iranian cities of Shiraz and Esfahan, the frequency runs between 6% and 8%; Iranian samples of haplogroup Q belong almost exclusively to the M25 defined subclade. In the middle of this triangle, in Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, the frequency of Q runs between 10% and 14%. Only two groups in the Old World are majority Q groups. These are the Selkups (~70%) and Kets (~95%). They live in western and middle Siberia and are small in number, being just under 5,000 and 1,500, respectively.