This utility is free for your use. You are welcome to use this utility and it's output as you see fit.
No non-numeric characters other than whitespace are allowed after the first
column of allele data.
Some DNA tables have multiple lines of data in one cell. This is not supported, even when pasting from Excel. You must have only a single line of data in any cell.
Normally generated tables of data will copy correctly, but if you are copying from a manually created table where there may be extra whitespace between allele values this utility may not parse the data correctly. You can either edit the data so that no more than one blank space exists between allele values (or three blank spaces for a missing value), or you can copy the data first to an Excel spreadsheet then copy from Excel and paste into this utility. Data copied from an Excel spreadsheet is tab-delimited, and this utility should be able to parse it without problem.
For an example of the output, please refer to: McGee Network Phylogenetic Diagrams
There is a 2MB Flash movie of the phylogenetic network creation process: McGee Network Creation Demonstration
Please notify me if you find any inconsistencies between the genetic distances calculated here and those provided by Ysearch or FTDNA.
The close distances are highlighted for easier visualization of possible family relationships by the following:
The TMRCA calculations use the average mutation rate for all the markers common between the pair of haplotypes being compared.
There are three selections for how the mutation rate is determined.
By default the values determined by Doug McDonald as derived from the Sorenson database are used. Markers not included in the Sorenson database are derived by Doug through other means. Tabular values and additional information can be found on the World Families Network Marker Mutation Rate page.
The second mutation rate selection uses the FTDNA derived mutation rates. This includes a rate of 0.00399 for the first 12 markers, 0.00481 for markers 13 through 25, and 0.00748 for the markers 26 through 37. For markers outside the 37 used by FTDNA the values determined by Doug McDonald from the Sorenson database are used but scaled by 1.43 to make the basis consistent between the two sets of rates.
The first option for mutation rate calculation uses a constant mutation rate for all markers. This constant mutation rate can be changed in the box provided. The default mutation rate is 0.0024 mutations/allele/generation which represents the 60 total mutations during 24870 total allele meioses as given in Y-Chromosomal Microsatellite Mutation Rates: Differences in Mutation Rate Between and Within Loci by B.Myhre Dupuy, M.Stenerson, T.Egeland, and B.Olaisen; Human Mutation 23:117-124 (2004). Note that this rate does not include rates of some of the newer fast-mutating alleles that are currently being used.
The close distances are highlighted for easier visualization of possible family relationships by the following:
The FTDNATiPTM mutation rates are derived by Doug McDonald. The algorithm used by FTDNA is somewhat different than that used by this Utility, but the final values are close in most cases. There may be a larger discrepancy for larger genetic distances.
McGee Surname DNA Project
McGee Surname DNA Project Results
Last Modified: August 26, 2006