For what it’s worth, I see that out of 423 Haplogroup A users in mitosearch, only 2 match Kwaday Dän Ts’inchi’s haplotype exactly (using his partial sequence, of course). Additionally, only 1 record in the SMGF database matches exactly, compared to 729 records that are off by one or two markers. So this haplotype might be relatively rare (which would help support their conclusion).

Here is the entry for it: “Homo sapiens isolate Kwaday Dan Ts’inchi mitochondrial control.” Accession number: AF502945.

I dunno if this 360bp fragment is HVS-1. Didn’t bother to check, but you are right — if Chief Diane Strand, Karen Mooder and Sheila Greer only used this fragment for comparison, it maybe too small to build a really complete geneaology.

Kambiz

“By PCR analysis, we have demonstrated the presence of Helicobacter pylori DNA in the stomach tissue of Kwäday Dän Ts’ìnchi. We also present a preliminary assessment of the connection between H. pylori DNA sequence variation and possible population migration.

I wonder what the preliminary assessment was?

Also, the list of abstracts also confirm that Chief Diane Strand, Karen Mooder and Sheila Greer were the authors behind the genealogy study. They did do a mtDNA analysis, with a pool of 240 individuals.

“Mitochondrial DNA analysis was also seen as appropriate since the Champagne and Aishihik people, as well as neighbouring tribes and First Nations, are clan (or moiety) based matrilineal societies. Initiated in 2000, the Community DNA study saw 240 citizens/members of Tribes and First Nations from the surrounding Yukon, northwest British Columbia and southeast Alaska region coming forward to provide samples of their own DNA. These were sequenced and then compared to the sequence obtained from the Kwäday Dän Ts’inchi individual.”

The abstract confirms that the First Nations are organized by matrilines, so mtDNA maybe good enough considering their society see a person belonging to the mother’s lineage.

Kambiz

Thanks for the clarification. I didn’t look for other news sources carrying more information, just the one I linked too. I totally agree with you on the mtDNA criticism… more tests may have been done but mtDNA won’t clearly identify descendants, especially if Wolf Clan social system was based on or tracing descent through the male line… “a patrilineal society.”

Does anyone know if Wolf Clan society was patrolinear?

Kambiz

” ‘The blood sample proved it that through the mitochondrial DNA that the long-ago person and myself and my sister, … we’re related. It was very moving [and] overwhelming,’ Callaghan said Friday.”

The use of mtDNA was one of the reasons I was bothered by all the headlines that said “descendants” rather than relatives.

I’m also not positive about the work, but I see that the presenters of that portion of the symposium were Diane Strand (Chief of the Nation), Karen Mooder (a Ph.D. student at the University of Alberta), and Sheila Greer (an “Edmonton-based anthropologist”). The program is at http://www.kdtsymposium.bc.ca.

Prior research has shown that Kwaday Dan Ts’inchi’s mtDNA belong’s to Haplogroup A.