Congrats! We just turned 19!

Only last month, email invitations were sent out by Family Tree DNA (FTDNA) on behalf of our project group to its members of Afghan and Pakistani origins. And since then, the group has seen an encouraging growth. We now have 19 members - with 17 Y-DNA and 3 mtDNA haplotypes.

Over the next couple of weeks, I hope to discuss more about the different haplogroups that we see within our project group. For now, here is a quick glance at the different members within the project group and their respective 12 marker STR haplotype.

As you can see, our current project members are spread within five different haplogroups - H, J, L, Q and R. Some of these haplogroups are further divided into smaller clusters or sub-clades.

Haplotypes (according to the definition provided by the ISOGG) is the term for the set of numbers that consist of your Y-chromosome or mitochondrial DNA results. Haplotypes are also known as signatures.

Let's take for example, our participant at the bottom of the table N89017 - who has the last name Khan, and traces his recent ancestry to Pakistan - his haplotype is the sequence of numbers 15, 22, 16, 10 and so on. Each number is a value that corresponds to a particular Y-DNA marker. In this case, 15 is the value for the first marker DYS 393.

A haplogroup (again according to the definition provided by the ISOGG) is a group of similar haplotypes that share a common ancestor with a single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) mutation.

A SNP (pronounced snip) test determines a person's deep ancestry. Two people who share the same SNP mutation share a common ancestor some thousand of years ago and are grouped together into a haplogroup. Individuals within the same haplogroup will have similar haplotypes.

A haplogroup is a major branch on either the maternal or paternal tree of humankind. Haplogroups are associated with early human migrations, and geographic regions. Therefore, the six participants in our project group with the Y-haplotype R share the same ancestor thousands of years ago.

Don't be discouraged if you don't get it initially. It will take awhile to understand these combination of numbers and letters.

Our three participants with mtDNA results are from the mtDNA haplogroups K, M and U7.