Whitmore Surname Project - Group 5:
Thomas Wetmore Descendants - Discussion 		 
  Project Co-Administrators: Hal Whitmore  /   Dave Whitmore
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Group 5: Descendants of Thomas Wetmore (d. 1681)
Discussion of DNA test results

We now have results on nine participants who are descended from Thomas Wetmore. One is descended from his son Samuel, three from his son Izrahiah, one from his son Beriah and four from his son Joseph. Eight have been tested for 37 markers and one for 18 markers at Relative Genetics. Thomas Whitmore/Wetmore (1615-1681) was an English immigrant to the Connecticut Colony circa 1635, whose birth place in England is presently unknown. The haplogroup for this lineage is R1b1c*, determined by SNP testing of Kit # 49123. (The asterisk following the haplogroup indicates that he has been tested for all downstream SNP's which would define subclades of R1b1c without finding any. This required testing at EthnoAncestry, as FTDNA does not presently test for the full range of known R1b SNP's.)


(Clicking on the figure above will give you a slightly larger view.)

Two of the participants (Kit # 61871, descended from Izrahiah, and Kit # 48438, descended from Joseph) are an identical match on all 37 markers. Using the results from these two, we can deduce the same haplotype for the common ancestor, Thomas himself. Five participants (Kit # 75672, descended from Samuel; Kits # 60282 and 96435, descended from Izrahiah; and Kits # 60139 and T092091, descended from Joseph) have a one step mutation (a change amounting to one number) at DYS (DNA Y chromosome Segment, the "name" of the particular marker)391, CDYb and at GATA H4 respectively, or a genetic difference of one from the ancestral haplotype in each case. (These mutations are highlighted in yellow in the table.) The remaining two participants (Kit # 49123, descended from Beriah, and Kits # 61571, descended from Joseph) have two one step mutations on two different markers, or a genetic distance of two from the ancestral. All mutations are unique to the individual tested, except for two descendants of Joseph, who have the same mutation (GATA H4=12). These mutations, and the lines of descent from the common ancestor, are shown above.

The perfect match between Kit #61871 and Kit # 48438 is slightly surprising. The two men are 8th cousins, once removed. Using the 37 markers and a total of twenty transmission events with the estimated mutation rate of 0.002, the calculated number of mutations is 1.5.[1] One mutation or two mutations would have been a more probable result, but the actual result of zero mutations is certainly within a reasonable probability.

If we were to compare just the results for the two participants with two mutations from the deduced ancestral, a genetic difference of four on 37 markers, we would be unlikely to predict the relationship as close as it is (they are seventh cousins, once removed). However, if we compare them with the ancestral haplotype or with the two participants with the identical haplotypes, the results are much closer to what we would expect.

The results for the two descendants of Joseph with an identical mutation on GATA H4 (my son and my 3rd cousin) has caused me to ask FTDNA to recheck my own value on this marker. While mutations are random, and such a result is certainly possible, I'd like this to be certain.

As noted above haplogroup R1b is the most the common haplogroups among Europeans, and because of this the haplogroup itself is being thoroughly investigated for sub groupings. The deduced ancestral haplotype conforms closely to the "Super Western Atlantic" Modal Haplotype.[2] The family haplotype is thus quite common. The frequencies of each of the markers in the deduced ancestral haplotype is sown in the table in the third line from the top in red.

Notes:
[1] Ann Turner, "Mutation Calculator for Y Chromosome STR Markers," http://members.aol.com/dnacousins/MRCA.exe. See explanation on http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/read/GENEALOGY-DNA/2001-12/1008355259. (Accessed 26 May 2006.)
[2] Whit Athey, "STR Allele Frequencies for Haplogroup R1b," http://www.worldfamilies.net/Super%20Western%20Atlantic%20Modal%20Haplotype.htm (Accessed 25 May 2006.)

Suggested Next Steps:

We now have a solid base line for this family. The following long term additional steps are forseen:

  • Thomas Wetmore was the father of nine sons: John, baptized 1646; Thomas, born 1652; Samuel, born 1655; Izrahiah, born 1657; Beriah, born 1658; Nathaniel, born 1661; Joseph born 1663; Josiah, born 1668 (no record of any descendants); and Benjamin, born 1674 (no record of any descendans). Warren Wetmore, who is very familiar with many of the lines, believes that the Thomas line "daughtered out." That leaves us with Nathaniel who may have living male descendants. It would be useful to have another two descendants of both Beriah and Samuel as well as three from Nathaniel's line to round out our knowledge of this family. We ask the descendants of these lines to consider contacting their most distant cousins and asking them to test.
  • Most of the mutations on tested participants are unique to those participants, which means that they may be very descriptive of those lines. An additional participant in the Samuel and Beriah lines might help to more closely define when the mutations in the present participants occured.
  • We now have three British Whitmores to our project. One is haplogroup G2 (SNP tested) and matches no one in the project. A second is haplogroup I, and is part of the Whitmore/Whittemore family group. The third is R1b1 and matches no one in the project. In fact he has only two matches in the entire FTDNA database, which is very unusual for a haplogroup R1b with only 12 markers. (I am R1b1c and have 403 matches on 12 marker with the full database.) There is an outstanding offer (from a female descendant of Thomas) of three additional 12 marker sponsorships of English Whitmores and Wetmores who can trace their lines at least to the early 19th century. This may give us some leads on the English ancestry of Thomas. We have recently extended this to a male descendant of the Whatmores, another spelling variation of Whitmore, which probably originated as Watmough or Watmore. We believe that this connection is unlikely, but a 12 marker test could allow us to eliminate this line, as has been the case with the Whittamores of Hitchin, Herts.

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