A possible clade upstream of L238?

[Barreldriver]

I got an interesting email from a co-admin of the P312 group leadin' me to wonder if there may be a clade upstream of L238:



I am one of the co-administrators of the FTDNA P312 & subclades project, of which you are a member. I have been following those who have tested L21-, U152-, DF27- and DF19-. So far there are only six of us, which includes you and me. I was looking through all our STR markers to see if I could see any patterns- I couldn't. However I did notice that you are a candidate for possibly getting a positive L238 result. L238 is a small subclade of P312 mainly found in Scandinavia, though a few have been found in England, probably dating to the Viking incursions. Unlike the other P312 subclades, L238 is very identifiable by STR markers. Here are their distinguishing markers.
385a/b- 11,13 modal is 11,14
439- 11 modal is 12
441- 14 modal is 13
446- 15 modal is 13
534- 17 modal is 15
You match the L238 profile at 439 and 441 (14 there is very rare in R1b). You are one off at 446, but are on the correct side of the modal- ie greater than 13. One L238 confirmed person also has 14 there. You haven't tested for 534. You have the modal at 385a/b, but so does one confirmed L238 person.
I can't guarantee you will get a positive result for L238, but I think you have at least a 50/50 chance. It's certainly worth a try.
Let me know if you have any questions.

Even though I have not tested L238 with FTDNA, I have tested with 23andMe which gives me access to me Y-DNA raw data. From my understanding L238 corresponds to S182, which is rs35199432 with a positive result being identified by a "G" in the raw data, I've got an "A" meaning that I'm negative.

I had noticed prior to the email that my Y-STR patterns matched the L238 profile in part and given that my Y-DNA origin is in South Yorkshire (former Danish Kingdom of Jorvik) it is leading me to wonder if there may be a possible ancestral clade to L238 just after P312 that's yet to be identified since I'm not L238 positive even though I have some similarities that are distinct to the L238 Y-STR pattern.

So far I am L21-, L459&Z245-, U152-, DF19-, DF27-, and presumed negative for L238 via my 23andMe results.

I heard about the Geno 2.0 test which is supposed to be the most complete Y-DNA test available, I may purchase the test for myself 'n it may be able to tell if there is a clade beyond P312 that would be ancestral of L238.

[Barreldriver]

Got a follow up to the above posted, looks like there may be something in between L238 and P312 after all but so few are looking into it atm:


"Thanks for your response, which I found very interesting.

I can confirm that L238 is rs35199432, with those positive having a G instead of an A, so it sounds as if you are L238-.

As I mentioned, I was going through the STR profiles for those half dozen individuals, which includes you and me, who have tested negative for L21, U152, DF27 and DF19. The vast majority of those who were P312* are getting positive results when they test for DF27.

While I didn't notice any pattern common to all six, I did notice you and I share some off-modal values. Like you, I match the L238 profile at 441 (14 instead of 13). The best I can tell, only about 7% of R1b have 14 there. I also match the L238 profile at 446, where I have 15 instead of 13. Only 2% of R1b have 15 there, and another 15% have 14 there like you. Those are my only matches to the L238 profile, and I tested negative for L238.

Because L238 has a very tight STR profile, most are in agreement that it is much younger than P312. There was probably a lot of time between P312 and L238 for additional SNPs to develop, and I am certain there is at least one and probably several SNPs between P312 and L238 which remain unidentified. A number of knowledgeable people agree with that. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be a lot of interest in looking for these intervening SNPs, though at least one expert is looking into it..

You and I also share some additional off-modal values. We both have 10 at 391, which isn't too rare as about 29% of R1b have it. But we both also have 12 at 389/1. This is very rare in R1b- only about 5% have it- and it is thought to be a very slow mutating marker.

My Y line dates back to the late 17th century in Nottinghamshire, though there is circumstantial evidence they came to that county from somewhere else. As you may know, Nottinghamshire is the next county south of Yorkshire, and was also part of the Danelaw, which had extensive settlement from Scandinavia.

Putting all this together, I have a reasonable suspicion that you and I will turn out to share the same subclade, and that there is good chance that it will share a common ancestry below P312 with L238."