 We are just about to start the expert panel meeting. We are not being streamed on Facebook, because Jared is not here, over here he is coming now. So as all of the experts, and Patty Waldron, can you join us here at the top as well? So as all the experts take their seats, I will introduce them, and then we will get on with a very quick 15 minute expert panel discussion. And Jared will, whichever, if you, once you've started recording, then you could join us Jared, yes. So we have 15 minutes and then we're all going to be kicked out of here at five o'clock in the evening. So it gives me great pleasure to introduce, from the right, James Irvin, Donna Rutherford, Michelle Leonard, Catherine Borgens, Rad Larkin, Patty Waldron, and soon to join us Jared Corkin, can you please give our experts a round of applause? And the ever-naked Debbie Kent. So you're all very, very welcome to the panel. We are blessed to have the creme de la creme regent take of genetic genealogy. So we'll kick off with a couple of questions from the audience. Who has a question for the experts? Thank you all very much for coming today. Here we have a question at the front. Reference was made to S&P Pax. What are they who supply? I'll start it off. S&P Pax are a product from Banditry DNA that they started to do S&P sequencing on groups of markers that have been previously identified as being all part of the same branch of say, the Y. So where the big Y test a whole bunch of markers, but it doesn't always resolve every single one. It's next-gen sequencing, it's different technology. When they do S&P Pax, they do about 100 to 120 S&P at a time. They pre-define it and it's done with S&P sequencing. So the resolution of it is very high. But they have to study in advance to know which markers to do. So if you're trying to find a new marker that's not on there, you're not likely to find it in S&P Pax for now. In 10 years when they get all this figured out, all this tree stuff figured out, there'll be a product that has that. Right now they're still working their way down the tree. That's my answer. John? Good, good. Do you want to add anything? John has a question here. I think Brad said, of course, but I do. But S&P, Y-Safe, manufactured a set of markers, produced the same thing and they call it Y-Panel, which is a bit confusing there, but very strong set in for that thing. And the other thing is that you can't discover new SNPs with a Pax test or a panel test, but you can't discover their existence, because if you do the panel test and find, you come up, in my case, with L555 Plus, but it doesn't come up with Plus and any Sons of L555, I know I've got another SON there, but I don't know what its name is. And this has proved very valuable. That was a completely unexpected dimension there. You would have thought that there was nothing there, you didn't learn anything, but we discovered the existence of quite a few Sons of L555. We don't know who they are, we don't know their name, we just know that they're there, because everything else has proved negative. Okay. The terminology, L155, I mean, it's a mess, isn't it? Because as I understand it, it's different companies finding, or different researchers finding a particular SNP, and then it's nothing sequentially, is it? But it's, you know, is there no way in which it could be made more comprehensible to the average genealogist? I know part of it, part of the answer, but Debbie might be able to elaborate on more. So I know in the beginning when they first started naming SNPs, it's almost five. The words came from like say the S series SNP, the S for Scotland, and the P series, I've been told, I've been told this by Genesis, because I don't even know if it's written down anywhere. I was told the P's came from the word polymorphism, and so on and so forth. So it was kind of the way it came about was the person who discovered the SNP got the naming rights to the nomenclature. The L series SNPs that family tree DNA has on their tree, L came from Leo Little, because he was the first one to find a unique SNP, so they named the L series after him. So there's no standardization, and there really hasn't been, it's kind of based on the level of discovery, who discovers it, what lab, kind of just, I guess they just take meaning rights to it because that's what I can explain it, but that's what I've heard about it. I don't know that it can ever be standardized. Debbie? There's also a problem of repeating naming systems. So for instance, a lot of them on time were re-named every single SNP with their own abbreviations. FGC, they also were trying to name SNPs as well, so everyone was trying to get their initials on SNP. And also the question of what is a SNP is another problem. When you decide whether a SNP is actually worthy enough to go on a tree, and some people on FGC, I think will recall in more detail the SNPs that will recall something in SNP which family tree DNA won't treat any separate high criteria for it. But there isn't really an overall body that is in charge of this. And if you go back to the late 1990s, when people first started doing fibromesome testing, they thought there was hardly any variation in the fibromesome. They didn't think it was actually going to be very gene-logically useful at all. And when we first started out, we only had a handful of SNPs, no one ever dreamed that we would suddenly be having what we now call this SNP tsunami. So I think we still in the state of the... I think once the discovery is over, and we know all the consequences of SNPs on the tree, we may possibly get a bit further in standardisation. But it's the forensic community, the only ones who are trying to standardise it, having the very high levels of the tree. And they've got the tree, but the phylo tree, the phylo tree, the phylo tree, the phylo tree, and they've selected the preferred names from the literature. So if you get the name in the paper, that is supposed to be the preferred usage. But it not always follows. They use something else for L21. How do they use it? Where is the genetic gene actually L21 being the only forensic tree? So there is a very easy answer at the moment. James. I think we've got a lot of stop-lasting energy on this point. It's a very legitimate question. Very legitimate. It's an awful burden that we're going to have to bear forever. But there is a solution, I think, because it's been important to think. Wybrows, Thomas Karn's Wybrows site, Wybrows.org, has all the synonyms listed under the position. Unfortunately, he took up the new positions now, he's lost the old positions, but we can live with that. But most of these synonyms are listed there, and if there's a solution, why worry about the problem? Brian Larkin. Thank you. So, one thing is the names versus what they are. What the mutations actually can be identified by is the chromosome, like Y, and then the position on the chromosome according to the scientists that make the full genome. So actually it would be Y in position one, two, three, four, five. And then the position numbers change in generations of the reference DNA being regenerated. So right now the companies are using the 38th version. So the best way to be consistent is to go to the chromosome and the position and then the version number. So we have a tool on geneticomeland.com. It's a free tool. You don't have to even have an account for the DNA marker index. We try to roll up all these different nomenclatures and express them as both the 18th, 30th position and also the 18th, 19th position for Y. And we have over 129,000 now. So I think we use what Thomas does. We use what Family Tree DNA does. And we're right up there with roll them all. I think at this point we're as good as anybody because he did a lot of work on it for the last three months. So if you Google an obscure marker, you typically find the geneticomeland DNA marker index. But that will show you that all the different names are used by different companies. And the chromosome and the position in the tube. Comment from that, Jared Colman. The best tree I've seen so far is on its own. It's a big tree. It's very visual. Anyone can understand it. It includes the names and the different interpretations of names. It also links it to surnames and cluster group names. And it gives regional names associated with that. So it's very, very clear. The wife, full people, they do an automated process, okay, which standardizes the convention to a certain degree. It also gives ages for each of the snips. And I think eventually, as we get into the way into the snip tsunami and there are just too many to handle, this process should be automated. Maybe it'll be artificial intelligence, you know, which names and get humans out of the story that are just producing. It's open like a genealogist. But I think that's absolutely right. And I would only add that I think that the big tree is probably my favorite one because it is visually appealing and because it has surnames at the end of every single branch. And it also gives some idea of the country of origin, the place of origin of the surnames, which is also very, very helpful. I would like to see my optimal tree would be something like the big tree, but with the branching points dated. So we actually have dates for each of those branching points. That would be kind of bringing in what Y-Full does, but also the big tree is only dealing with next generation sequencing tests like the big Y. It doesn't deal with a lot of the other tests that are out there about the SNIP PAC tests that you can get from Family Tree DNA. It'd be great if they could be incorporated into the big tree as well. And even if you could get close SCR cousins put in there as well, that would be quite useful. And that way you get a much more comprehensive tree, lovely visual effect and dating for each of the branches, Debbie Kennes. Just a comment on that stuff will be coming, because Alex Williamson is working with Ian McDonald who has done a lot of work on the UNO6 for this age analysis. And they are trying to incorporate something now, but of course it's all held up because there's no band files and they're not going to be released until April. But they're going to incorporate the age analysis in that, which Ian has been doing, and link together UNO6 and P3 number two. So they're going to try and accommodate NGC, UNYC, Co-op, and SNIP tests as well. So that is supposed to be coming, but I don't know when. There's a group of people working on that. SNIP PACs, will they be included? I don't think SNIP PACs, no. See that's where I'd like SNIP PACs to be included, because there's a lot of information in SNIP PACs. And they're still also holding other HAP groups, which aren't included, if you're not an art. That's right. And we should also be including data from the HAP group projects, because a lot of the branches that are predicted by these unique STR patterns that people see in the HAP group projects are then turning out following SNIP analysis to be there, to be present. So they are being established. A lot of that unique STR pattern data should be included as well. Experimentally, provisionally, with question mark beside it, or some kind of pink circle around it to say don't take this as gospel. But it would be nice to have that as well, to get that kind of comprehensive information. They're coming all the time. They're coming all the time, because I've been adding them to my index. I started with kind of what Alex had, and Alex started with a real good set under P312. But then I'm looking at project member results, and using the chromosome browser. I've also gotten direct submissions of data lists from like FTDMA also. So I try to use big data lists and do this database. But then I'm also finding some that are new that I get from the chromosome browser that will give you the position and the mutation. No, I'm more looking at project member, I'm doing it by hand in this case, but I'm looking at project member results, and then they're getting classified with new SNPs. There's new BY numbers all the time. So I go in and look up, okay, that's BY123, do I have that in the chromosome browser, and it will show me the position and the mutation that I added to my index. No, I'm talking about the people who took the big line before Christmas and they were all going to get the free upgrade to 111 markers. They don't have, you talking about SDR markers? They've not rolled that out yet. That I thought was coming in the spring. I haven't seen that. No, that's what I was wondering about yet. This is going to be over the heads, I'm afraid, of 90% of us level than you. I have been watching my 25 big line results of my project members and there's a drip, drip, drip going on. Every time I look at them, across 25, when you look at 25, it's a couple new SNPs appear. Every week or so. And it's been done manually, it's not been done automatically. There's something just this week. Some of the initial upgrading still hasn't even been completed. There's SNP stuff, but big Y, hasn't been upgraded yet. So it's very much work in progress and I also had discussions with Mark of Mike Sanger, email discussions. That some of these new ones that are appearing, they're unnamed but they're disappearing out of the loop. Some of them are named but they are not named and some of them are duplicated and even though they're called icotolence, I think when we get the Band-Aid they're going to be low confidence. So there's a huge gray area. But this is all a trend. It's not nothing interesting at the trees. It's done for very low level brightness. It's a low priority. I think we're going to be living with a mess for some considerable time. At least until we get the Band-Aid we're going to work out for ourselves with a lot of effort and team work. What's solid, what isn't how we handle it. And this in turn means that we can't start aging these SNPs with a degree of reliability because at the end of things changing all the ratios are 130, 60 years of SNP. It's got to be changed as well. So it's a very evolved example. But it's at the margin. It's not affected. The basic stuff of big wire in SNPs is as Brad said, it's blue chip compared to the SPR. I think we're absolutely right. And I think the key word there is we are evolving. That is the key message. We are evolving. So when you come back next year some of us won't look like Neanderthals anymore. We actually look like we're standing more erect than we were last year. So that's the key take-home message. I have a quick that I couldn't get out of. R2D2, is it going to get a genetic signature? Time won't tell. You have to watch the next in the movie. Let me come down here to a question from the audience. Just very quickly. I'm wondering some very ancient civilizations. I'm just an ordinary person but I'm thinking, do you remember I watched the brain program on Lucid? Yeah, yeah. Now I've watched lots of YouTube stuff on the Egyptians etc. And there are other cultures. Has the DNA discovered the human part of the human and something else, a missing link? I'm just wondering. Very, very good question. And that ties in very nicely with some recent newspaper reports as well. Because one of the early humans that we found here in the while it was over in Britain, was Cheddar Man of course. Did people see that in the newspapers? Yeah. Dark skin blue eyes. So who would you like to start off answering this question? Well first it's wrong because that's not actually we work up onto two feet and then we become the animals and then we become humans. What's happened is that we share a common ancestor with primates something like 8 million years ago and then different branches to each branch evolve independently. So it's not a progression there's no missing link to find. What we're looking at is we're coalescing different branches and then they all come thousands or millions of years ago. What about Neanderthals and other hominids? So the Neanderthals are on a different branch of the human family tree. That was an ancient DNA conference last weekend and Chris Stringer was working on who was working with Cheddar Man which was talking about this concept of species which is an ever moving target and there are 33 different definitions of what a species actually is and no one can really decide for sure and the traditional explanation is that if somebody is a species there is no, if you can't integrate with the other species. So we have Neanderthals which is supposedly different species but now there's evidence of inter-reading between humans and Neanderthals there's evidence of human inter-reading with the denisophanes that they were found in a cave up in Russia and we've even now got evidence of ghost populations but we know they exist from the genetic data but there are no living specimens but they can work this out by analysing the DNA so there's no living specimen that's actually got that signature so evolution is becoming very much more complicated than the simple problem of the past four and the popular analogy is the graded stream where you've got this stream and lines going back and forth and then you've got lines going across the stream to join together and break apart again so it's a really exciting time actually and it push every month there's some major new discovery that's coming out comment here from that I was just wondering where consciousness comes into it consciousness and actually try to be a drummer and somehow say are you nuts me do you know what I mean consciousness comes into it I should say it always speaks to me I don't know, a lot of some of the primate Hayley is very human isn't he and they're even able to use tools and it's even like David Attenley he had birds I think from what episode where the birds were they knew then to cross a major road and then the road was being used to break up their stones so they could get inside the shelves so there's a lot more to the birds there's probably a genetic basis to it and we haven't figured it out yet like I said we're still involved comment from Jerry Corcoran I thought I won't go back into the deep history but if you look at some of the great inflection points in civilization so you can clearly identify them you know we're living in a modern age and before there was the iron age and the bronze age, the age of metals and the genetic genome was established in the age of metals in the bronze age that was the replacement of the previous wave which were the farmers which were the Neolithic people which came before that and the invention of agriculture allowed much larger populations the development of cities the development of civilization as we know it and before that we had the Mesolithic period and the Glacial so each of these waves brought its own characteristics and higher densities of population the interesting one from these isles was obviously we had the various migrations from the Vikings the Romans we had the Celtic mighty intrusion from Western Europe we had the Belbiker folk who we know came there about 4,000 years ago with their characteristic Belbiker people asked what was the Belbiker fault and they were very good with these things and before those the people built new grains and these great monuments they were from the Neolithic period from the ancient points of history and the great lactose tolerance which we have in Ireland the highest in the world came from the probably from these one day charters doing that do you have a question about that or does that answer your question James do you want to comment on that as well I've been troubled by this quite a bit because one of my ancestors discovered some of these Lucy-like things in Kenya 1500 years ago the way I reconciled is if we use the parallel of surnames daughtering out it's not a phrase I like or I'm comfortable with but surnames lines of surnames do die out and if we extend that parallel backwards it would seem that all the YDNA only goes back about 150 250,000 years this is a feature of YDNA I'm talking about the other lines of die-dye and the end result of die-dye half a million years ago and we're left with what we are and everybody on the world apparently on the male side shares an ancestor that was only about 250,000 years ago this is a feature of YDNA I'm talking about and the microcomputer side I think it's over when we talk about YDNA it only goes back 200,000 years we're talking about human YDNA that's the time of modern anatomically white humans but in actual fact you can construct a complete YDNA tree and have kinetics to it other species so all the Y-dives would actually coalesce to a thousand or millions of years ago microcomputer of YDNA would actually coalesce to a million years to the very origins of life because all human life that is not archaeal or bacteria actually has mitochondria the woman always has the last word Donna, you're on the share I was going to add one thing about the endotels actually we all carried out 286 the endotels were able to have various YDNA 286 was anybody surprised by the results that were published by Cheddar Man during the week I mean he's dark skinned he's blue eyes and he comes from Wales does that remind you of Tom Jones? and he likes cheese and he likes cheese he was lactose intolerant so Donna, do you have any comments on that? no no, no, I was just wondering you were holding the microphone for a long time but all these western hunter-gatherers have darts here we had Losh Broadman we had Labrana Man and they did a model of Labrana Man and he had the darts in the same piercing blue eyes what's different to this time is that the technology has advanced and there's a new branch of people to get more accurate in their predictions there's also a big paper about skin colour in Africa because a lot of the studies on skin colour have been done on Europeans and hardly anyone has done something in Africa and when you look at Africa there's a whole diverse range of skin colours from fair skin to dark skin all across the continent my camera did a very good presentation on that in Houston at the family treaty in their conference last year and it was absolutely amazing to see there's a different colour all across the African continent but also what colour skin do the primates have they would be dark skinned as well if you shave the primates they're white skin so maybe the dark skin involved something like that you would have traditionally had light skin when we had lots of fur and hair we would have been pulled to that time whatever and then if you shave a chimpanzee I think though it's going to be white yeah okay well I think on that note of shaving I think we should call it a day for Genelegy Neology Ireland 2018 at Belfast thanks to everybody for attending especially those who have stayed for most of the lectures and thanks also to our wonderful expert panel of experts