Monday, September 14, 2009

We Have Started Our New VICK DNA 23andMe Project

We have started our new VICK DNA project at 23andMe. We probably should have called it VICK and Allied Lines DNA Project. The idea of a surname project is new to 23andMe, and we may be their first (I have not heard anyone discuss another one). That could be great because they may need a “large” group with pedigrees to help them figure out how to link people together through shared DNA.

We have people in our project who are descended from four of Joseph of Isle of Wight County, Virginia’s five sons – Richard, John, Robert, and William. So in that clan we are just missing Joseph2’s line. So far none of the other VICK clans have joined.

Eighteen or nineteen kits have been ordered (that includes five kits for spouses or mothers who do not have a known VICK line). We have seven members who are part of our Y-DNA project, so they should be very helpful. One nice thing is we have two men and five women who have VICK lines but could not test in our VICK Y-DNA project. So we are extending our reach into VICK DNA.

We are also trying to interest STRICKLANDs and HOLLANDs in joining our project. Any allied lines would be helpful.

2 comments:

Ben said...

Hi Larry, Ben Moscia here.
I just wanted to ask, is the surname project at 23andme's website? I would be interested in seeing how it's being done.
Thanks,
Ben

James Larry Vick said...

Ben,

That is a great question. While our participants will test at 23andMe we will manage the project as a closed group. We have a Y-DNA project in which members test at more than one lab, and we use a World Families site to consolidate and report results. This project will not (at least initially) be on a public site. We intend to integrate what we have learned from our Y-DNA project using short tandem repeats for patrilineal male descendants with what we learn at 23andMe.

Project members will use share requests to link together at 23andMe. Eventually we will use 23andMe's beta feature Ancestry Finder to see if we can find new cousins in any of our lines.

Regards,

Larry