Breaking up the LSC
A quick look at the STR data for the LSC members will reveal a great diversity of haplotypes. Some of the mutations present in these haplotypes may be recent and affect only one line of a particular family. Other mutations may be much older, and identify entire branches within the LSC. In this section, we'll attempt to identify some large branches. In the Computer Analysis section we'll apply computer techniques to further break down the structure of the LSC.
Subclusters of the LSC
As can be seen from the diagrams in the Computer Analysis section, there is some stable structure present in our cluster. Several of the members do group more closely to each other, than to the other members. Below we attempt to draw some cautious conclusions about the structure of the LSC, and simply divide our cluster into several broad groups. Although it may be possible to further divide our cluster, and in the future we aim to do so, this breakdown is a conservative first step, that is likely to last should an increased number of markers be tested.
The diagram below, gives the definition of these three groups in terms of mutations. Group A is comprised of members with the ancestral values of 15, 13, and 14 for the markers DYS 534, DYS 487 and DYS 385b respectively. At some early point in our cluster's history, the value of DYS 534 mutated from 15 to 16 for the founder of group B. His descendants would pass on that mutation. Similary, Group C was founded by an individual who had both DYS 487 = 14 and DYS 385b = 15.
Group LSC1 is the primary Little Scottish Cluster.
Group LSC1* contains the majority of the members of our cluster. Although the haplotypes for some of the surnames in the group are similar to each other, it is not quite clear yet how they should be grouped together. Hopefully once more men have upgraded to 111-markers, other patterns will appear which will enable to this default group to be broken up.
Group LSC1a contains members of our cluster that "branched" off the main group approximately 800 years ago. The members of this group typically have the value 16 for DYS 534, instead of the value 15 that is present for the members of group A. They also typically have CDYa values of about 36, as compared to 37 or 38 in group A.
Group LSC1a1 is a branch Group LSC1a which originated perhaps 500 years ago. The most important mutation defining this group is the change from DYS 487 = 13 to DYS 487 = 14. They also typically have DYS385b = 15, CDYb values about 37 and DYS 458 values of about 19.
Group LSC1b contains men from just 3 surnames at present, Sloan, Wilson and Chambers. The markers that identify this branch are entirely contained in the 111-marker upgrade. From the perspective of the first 67 markers only, there is no apparent relationship between these men.
Other methods which use computers to systematically group the men using data about their haplotypes can be found in the section Computer Analysis.