DNA Could Reveal Your Surname

DNA Could Reveal Your Surname


The Y chromosome confers maleness and is passed, like surnames, from father to son. Scientists believe that a link could exist between a man's surname and the type of Y chromosome he carries. (Credit: iStockphoto/Mark Evans)

ScienceDaily (Oct. 8, 2008) — Scientists at the Department of Genetics at the University of Leicester – where the revolutionary technique of genetic fingerprinting was invented by Professor Sir Alec Jeffreys -- are developing techniques which may one day allow police to work out someone's surname from the DNA alone.

Doctoral research by Turi King has shown that men with the same British surname are highly likely to be genetically linked. The results of her research have implications in the fields of forensics, genealogy, epidemiology and the history of surnames.

On Wednesday 8th October Dr King will present the key findings of her Ph.D. research in which she recruited over two and a half thousand men bearing over 500 different surnames to take part in the study. Carried out in Professor Mark Jobling's lab, Dr Turi King's research involved exploring this potential link between surname and Y chromosome type.

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Maybe they are just finding out the postman's surname ...

They'll never be able to do a thing with all the people who have occupational surnames. Smith, Farmer, Baker, Miller, Shoemaker ... Then there are all the people who took surnames based on their father's names back when surnames were getting established. Johnson = "John's son," etc. The users of these surnames were NEVER any more related to each other than to the rest of the population.

EDIT:

I know! I know! RTFA!

"However, in reality the link may not be so clear cut. Hereditary surnames in Britain are many hundreds of years old and each name may have had several founders. Events such as adoptions, name-changes and non-paternities would confuse any simple genetic link.

[Snip!]

She said: "The surname Smith is a good example of this as it derives from the occupation of blacksmith ...

OTOH, the surname O'Breacain and its variations has a pretty tight distribution, genetically.

I've known more than one Chinese mathmatician named Bill Chen.

The problem with using this for law enforcement is that the men who are most likely to commit crimes are also the men who are most likely to have their surnames decoupled from their Y-chromosomes. They have been sired out of wedlock and raised without fathers.

Note that I am not making any sort of racial insinuation. This argument works for any racial group. It has chiefly to do with the specific behavior of the criminals' parents, although in societies where the marriage institution has been broken for several generations, the task will be even harder.

Maybe they are just finding out the postman's surname ...

True. I think this news coverage is a mite simplistic.

The problem with using this for law enforcement is that the men who are most likely to commit crimes are also the men who are most likely to have their surnames decoupled from their Y-chromosomes. They have been sired out of wedlock and raised without fathers.

Note that I am not making any sort of racial insinuation. This argument works for any racial group. It has chiefly to do with the specific behavior of the criminals' parents, although in societies where the marriage institution has been broken for several generations, the task will be even harder.

Spread Of European DNA Haplogroups 12,000 Years Ago

The problem with using this for law enforcement is that the men who are most likely to commit crimes are also the men who are most likely to have their surnames decoupled from their Y-chromosomes. They have been sired out of wedlock and raised without fathers.

Note that I am not making any sort of racial insinuation. This argument works for any racial group. It has chiefly to do with the specific behavior of the criminals' parents, although in societies where the marriage institution has been broken for several generations, the task will be even harder.

Spread Of European DNA Haplogroups 12,000 Years Ago

Spread Of DNA Haplogroups 8,000 Years Ago