Ysurnames? The patrilineal Y-chromosome and surname correlation for DNA kinship research

Publication date: Available online 9 November 2019Source: Forensic Science International: GeneticsAuthor(s): Sofie Claerhout, Jennifer Roelens, Michiel Van der Haegen, Paulien Verstraete, Maarten H.D. Larmuseau, Ronny DecorteAbstractThe Y-chromosome is a widely studied and useful small part of the genome providing different applications for interdisciplinary research. In many (Western) societies, the Y-chromosome and surnames are paternally co-inherited, suggesting a corresponding Y-haplotype for every namesake. While it has already been observed that this correlation may be disrupted by a false-paternity event, adoption, anonymous sperm donor or the co-founding of surnames, extensive information on the strength of the surname match frequency (SMF) with the Y-chromosome remains rather unknown. For the first time in Belgium and the Netherlands, we were able to study this correlation using 2,401 males genotyped for 46 Y-STRs and 183 Y-SNPs. The SMF was observed to be dependent on the number of Y-STRs analyzed, their mutation rates and the number of Y-STR differences allowed for a kinship. For a perfect match, the Yfiler® Plus and our in-house YForGen kit gave a similar high SMF of 98%, but for non-perfect matches, the latter could overall be identified as the best kit. The SMF generally increased due to less mismatches when encountering (1) deep Y-subhaplogroups, (2) less frequently occurring surnames, and (3) small geographical distances between relatives. This novel informat...
Source: Forensic Science International: Genetics - Category: Forensic Medicine Source Type: research