As with all affiliate programs, knowledge is ultimately the greatest tool in making referrals that turn into sales. For those of you using website content or even search campaigns to promote the DNA Testing Kits that GeneTree.com offers, you need to know what it is you’re selling. However, unless your a doctor, med student or research scientist, it can be hard to follow all of the language relating to DNA testing and charting. So, the more you learn, the more you can pass along to potential customers, thus being the informative bridge they need to make a purchase, which in turn puts money in your pocket.

Today, I decided to give a little lingo lesson on the word “Haplogroup.” If you click around the GeneTree site, it won’t take long before you come across this word and find that the tests that GeneTree offers can tell you what you haplogroup is! That’s awesome! Who wouldn’t want to know what haplogroup they belong to! Wait…what’s a haplogroup again? Well, I’m about to tell you…

Haplogroup:

In the study of molecular evolution, a haplogroup (from the Greek: ??????, haploûs, “onefold, single, simple”) is a group of similar haplotypes that share a common ancestor with a single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) mutation. (via Reference.com & Wikipedia)

Yeah…if you’re anything like me, that didn’t help you at all. So, I dug a little deeper, sorted through the technical jargon and came up with a less complicated explanation of what’s involved in determining a haplogroup and what it can really tell you.

There are two different types of Haplogroups. One is determined by “patrilineal” or Y-DNA (or DNA passed from father to son), and the other by “matrilineal” or mtDNA (or DNA passed from mother to daughter/son). So by finding out the haplogroup defined by either of these lines of DNA can give perspective on where you come from. However, one thing to consider is that if you are a woman, you can ONLY find your patrilineal haplogroup from a close male relative (brother, uncle, father) taking a Y-DNA test, as the Y-chromosome from which Y-DNA comes is not present in females.

So, now we know where the haplogroups are found, but what do they tell us? After studying, probably for many years and many strands of DNA, researchers have discovered a number of groups and each one is common to specific regions of the world. There are also variations of each to indicate even the country of origin for each haplogroup. The reason they are able to do this is (especially with Y-DNA groups) is that genetic mutation in these markers are rare and limited to chance due to the fact that there is no intermixture of parental genetic material.

Above: You can even see where your haplogroup has migrated over the generations!

While this can’t tell you the name of your long lost great-great-great-great-uncle, it can really tell you a lot about your personal history and heritage, and that of your paternal and maternal lines. In discovering this information, new worlds can be opened to you as you are given new direction in searching for members of your lineage, based on the regions and country of your origin.

I hope that this has given a little more clarity on this aspect of what DNA testing can offer to genealogists out there so you can promote the tests offered by GeneTree. You can check out the whole testing line that GeneTree carries by clicking here (and you will now have a slightly better understanding of the reasons for Male/Female vs. Male Only tests).

Also, if you’re not a GeneTree affiliate, there’s no better time to sign up than right now! Click here for more info!

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 3rd, 2009 at 12:19 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.