Even though the haplotree chart below is a small partial, with just two members shown, of the Sandifer Y-DNA Project haplotree which has 30+ members, it does however, provide an insight into what our Project has accomplished in meeting some of our goals.

First, the two mention members are the two bottom branches of the tree, #189161 and #910002. All the branches above them are locations along the members Y chromosome where a mutation or variance has occurred. The M70, M253, Z17954 are names giving to a specific location on the Y Chromosome and if a member has a mutation at that location he is considered positive for that location. All these names are the result of DNA SNP testing with the exception of the two starting with I-DYS, in yellow highlight, which are the result of DNA STR testing.

There are several things we can develop from using this haplotree chart. First we were able to confirm the paper trails of those two members using the Project haplotree. Also, they had a Common Ancestor with the ancestor who first had the mutation at BY191009. We have found the Common Ancestor with proof for many of the Project members. It should be noted here that once a member or ancestor has a SNP mutation on the Y chromosome, all his descendants will have this same mutation. This is not necessarily true of STR mutations.

We have been able to develop the DNA lineage of any Project member who has taken the FTDNA Big Y test. Over half the members have taken this test. As an example, you can determine the DNA linege for member #189161 by following the haplotree branches top to bottom. His DNA Lineage then would be: M70, M253, Z17954, Z131, CTS6397, Y2698, A9979, DYS467=12/13, A9978, BY26309, BY191009, FT148114. Every descendant of member #189161 will have this same DNA lineage (unless the descendant has another mutation which would be added below FT148114).

The Common Ancestor for the all members of the Sandifer Y-DNA project is at branch I-A9979. All members who tested the SNP location at A9979 on the Y chromosome were found positive for this SNP. No other person in the FTDNA data base was positive at this location meaning this had to be the most recent Common Ancestor for all our Project members. YFULL, a DNA analyzing company estimated that this mutation (branch and Common Ancestor) was estimated to have occurred 425 ybp (years before present). 

We have found more current Common Ancestors for members as well. For instance, all descendants of Peter Sandefur were positive for A9978 and no other members were positive at this location. A similar thing occurred at I-BY26309 where only members who were descendants of William Nightingale Sandifer were positive for the SNP BY26309.

With more new members and DNA testing we can further refine our Project hapoltree and discover  more genealogical information

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