Little/Klein/Cline/Kline Y-Chromosome Project

L. David Roper (roperld@vt.edu)
(www.roperld.com)

Interesting fact: In the 1990 census the frequency of ocurrence of the Little surname was 0.046% with rank 226; of the Klein surname was 0.026% with rank 436; of the Cline surname was 0.020 with rank 595; and of the Kline surname was 0.015 with rank 770.

Contents

• Introduction
• Project Progress
• Probabilities
• Relative Mutations
• 25 Markers
• Relative Mutations for 37 Markers
• Time-Ordered Phylograms
• Haplogroups
• Y-Markers Probabilities
• Classifying Little/Kein/Cline/Kline Families According to Y-Chromosome Marker Sets
• Family Connections for Some of the Participants
• Comparison with Other Families
• Surname Breaks
• Capt. Daniel Little, Esquire, Inc. web page
• Excellent web page about Y-chromosome testing
• An excellent web site about DNA: http://www.contexo.info/DNA_Basics/

Introduction

There are at least three theories about the parents of Capt. Daniel Little:

• Johann Heinrich Klein, b 1704 Zweibrucken, Germany, d 1810 Adams, PA and Anna Margaretha Grimm, b January 1712 Kussel, Zweibrucken, Germany, d York, PA. For arguments in favor of this pair see: The Little Bit, V 19, No 2 (Fall 1996) pp. 1879-1880; The Little Bit, V 20, No 2 (Fall 1997).
• Sebastian Cline, b 1710/1715 Palatinate, France, and Elizabeth Bieber. For arguments in favor of this pair see: The Little Bit, V 20, No. 2 Spring 1997) pp. 1908-1909; Naturalization, Dan'I Klein/Cline to Dan'I Little, Capt. Daniel Little and His Contemporaries, 1753-1789, by Pauline M. Shook (1994) pp. 1-3.
• Stan Little (wb4ekd(@,aol.com) feels that the data favor Capt. Little's origin to be Irish. To find out details about his theory contact him.

There is a way to settle at least parts, and maybe all, of the question:

1. Test the Y-chromosomes for two or more male-line Littles that are certain descendants of Capt. Daniel Little.
2. Test the Y-Chromosomes for two or more male-line Kleins that are certain descendants of Johann Heinrich Klein.
3. Test the Y-Chromosomes for two or more male-line Clines that are certain descendants of Sebastian Cline.

If all of these tests yield the almost the same Y-chromosome markers, then all three lines came from a common ancestor. If the Capt. Daniel Little male-line tests are quite different from the other two, then we need to look for another set of parents for him; perhaps Irish parents.

Perhaps a more important result of testing many male-line Littles/Kleins/Cline/Klines would be that sets of Y-chromosome markers would be determined for different families and rare random mutations for branches of those families would provide identity markers for the branches. To see how this has worked out for my Roper family, see http://www.roperld.com/roperconnect.htm.

Elementary genetics teaches that a human egg becomes a female embryo when a sperm gives it an X-chromosome and a male embryo when the sperm gives it a Y-chromosome. Thus, the Y-chromosome is passed down generations only through the male line. The only change from one generation to the next is by mutations, which are rare. So one can determine male paternal lineage by comparing the DNA coding of Y-chromosomes.

There are "junk" regions on the Y-chromosome that contain repeated base-pair sets (microsatellites or Short Tandem Repeats or STR). Over time the number of repeats changes due to mutations. The number of repeats at these locations, called “markers” can be used to distinguish different male-line families. Thus, the detailed structure in terms of base-pair coding is not required; only information about certain aspects of a small part of the Y-chromosome is needed. This does not identify the individual, but only the family to which the individual belongs; determining the 12 or 25 markers (see below) is much less information than that obtained by totally sequencing the Y-chromosome. There are several labs that do such work, at a cost of about $100 per person.

If you wish to participate in the Little/Klein/Cline/Kline Y-chromosome project send me e-mail: mailto:roperld@vt.edu or go to http://www.familytreedna.com/surname_det.asp?count=8&group=Little.

Many of the testees are in the R1b1 haplogroup, the largest European haplogroup.

Project Progress.

A list of the Little/Klein/Cline/Kline Y markers alleles

The results ("alleles") so far are (DYS=DNA Y-chromosome Short Tandem Repeat) are no longer listed, because of the extreme amount of work to do so. Refer to your results on the FTDNA site.

Relative Mutations

Another view of the Little markers.

Probabilities

(See MRCA.pdf)
Number of matching markers	50% probability that the MRCA was no longer than this number of generations	90% probability that the MRCA was no longer than this number of generations	95% probability that the MRCA was no longer than this number of generations
4 of 4	43	144	187
6 of 6	29	96	125
12 of 12	14.5	48	62

See Y-Chromosome Markers Probabilities for a more detailed discussion.

Return to top of page.

25 Markers

Some of the Little/Klein/Cline/Kline participants have ordered the extra 13-markers test as shown in the results above

Another view of the Little markers.

We see that DCL & LLL differ by only one relative mutation (rm) for the 25 markers; also JDL & LLL differ by only one rm, but DCL & JDL differ by two rm. Also, LLL and JPL have the same 25 markers and their nearest common ancestor is Capt.Daniel Little. Thus, it appears that the 25 markers for Capt. Daniel Little are:

LLL and JDL are known from genealogy to be 3rd cousins and DCL is their 5th cousin 1 generation removed.

There are no other surnames that have 1 or 2 relative mutations with this Little family. Therefore, I conclude that this occurrence of the Little surname is relatively old.

We need to measure some more descendants of Capt. Daniel Little to nail down these values.

Any Little/Klein/Cline/Kline male who wants to find out if he is related to Capt. Daniel Little can have his 12 or 25 Y-chromosome markers measured to see if they are the same or differ by only 1 or 2 relative mutations from this set.

We see that JMAL ,LWL & DAL have exactly the same 25 markers. Thus, a first approximation for the 25 markers for this family are:

There are no other surnames that have 1 or 2 relative mutations with this Little family. Therefore, I conclude that this occurrence of the Little surname is relatively old.

We need to measure some more members of this family to nail down these numbers.

The 25 markers for CHL, DWL & RDL are identical, so the 25 markers for this family are:

There are no other surnames that have 1 or 2 relative mutations with this Little family. Therefore, I conclude that this occurrence of the Little surname is relatively old.

A way to compare each participant with all other participants is to record the number of mutations by which they differ (relative mutations or genetic distance) for 25 markers:

Neither of the Clines, GLC & JCC, are closely related to the Littles or to each other.

It is possible to extract 25 makers for 5 Klein/Cline/Klines from http://www.smgf.com/ysearch_input.jsp, but they are a different set than the FTDNA set of 25 markers. The set does not contain the 4 DYS464 markers and it contains the first four of the last 12 FTDNA markers. The relative mutations for this set of 25 markers is: