Background

  Only about 36 persons have *ever* known to be tested at this rare low DYS19 STR marker value of 9 (or less), which is is the focus of this Project. 

  These rare persons have nationalities including Italy, Switzerland, U.S.A., England, Ireland, and Germany. 

  14 have known Italian ancestry; eight of these are not yet Project members. 

  Nine project members have Swiss ancestry. One of those has the unique DYS19 marker value of 8 (!!). All of these are, also, members of the FamilyTreeDNA French-Swiss project.  These Swiss-ancestry members of this cluster have all been proven to be related by official records, with common ancestry circa AD 1300. This provides an excellent opportunity to examine mutation rates and characteristics. Since this group all exhibit DYS19<=9, yet in most cases their common ancestors are many centuries back, then the mutation rate of DYS19 must be quite slow.

   In view of the foregoing fact, we believe that a strong possibility exists that the various persons with DYS19 <= 9 are related. This theory is bolstered by our recent discovery of probable Italian family history links for the French-Swiss members of this set, linking to northern Italy (possibly Lucca) circa 13th century. And thus, Italy might be a common source for the 36.