Abstract
The biological behavior of the Y chromosome, which is paternally inherited, implies that males sharing the same surname may also share a similar Y chromosome. However, socio-cultural factors, such as polyphyletism, non-paternity, adoption, or matrilineal surname transmission, may prevent the joint transmission of the surname and the Y chromosome. By genotyping 17 Y-STRs and 68 SNPs in ~2500 male samples that each carried one of the 50 selected Catalan surnames, we could determine sets of descendants of a common ancestor, the population of origin of the common ancestor, and the date when such a common ancestor lived. Haplotype diversity was positively correlated with surname frequency, that is, rarer surnames showed the strongest signals of coancestry. Introgression rates of Y chromosomes into a surname by non-paternity, adoption, and transmission of the maternal surname were estimated at 1.5−2.6% per generation, with some local variation. Average ages for the founders of the surnames were estimated at ~500 years, suggesting a delay between the origin of surnames (twelfth and thirteenth centuries) and the systematization of their paternal transmission. We have found that, in general, a foreign etymology for a surname does not often result in a non-indigenous origin of surname founders; however, bearers of some surnames with an Arabic etymology show an excess of North African haplotypes. Finally, we estimate that surname prediction from a Y-chromosome haplotype, which may have interesting forensic applications, has a ~60% sensitivity but a 17% false discovery rate.
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Acknowledgements
We especially thank the >2500 participants in the study for giving their samples and genealogies, and, in many cases, for providing relevant details about the history of their surnames. Cristina de Vasconcelos superbly organized the logistics of sample collection. Cristina Junyent (www.cienciaensocietat.org) put her media contact list at our disposal, which was crucial for raising awareness for the project. Osmel Companioni (Institut Català d’Oncologia) advised us about the DNA sampling and extraction protocols. Irina Badell and Isshak Mrabet collaborated in DNA extraction. Advice on study design was provided by Joan Peitaví (Université de Perpignan), August Bover (Universitat de Barcelona), Enric Guinot (Universitat de València), Jordi Lleonart (Institut de Ciències del Mar), Anna Cabré and Joana Maria Pujades (Centre d’Estudis Demogràfics, project ‘Five centuries of marriages’, ERC-2010-AdG-26976), and Albert Turull (Universitat de Lleida). Funding was provided by the Institut d’Estudis Catalans and by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Innovation (grant CGL2013-44351-P).
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Solé-Morata, N., Bertranpetit, J., Comas, D. et al. Y-chromosome diversity in Catalan surname samples: insights into surname origin and frequency. Eur J Hum Genet 23, 1549–1557 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/ejhg.2015.14
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/ejhg.2015.14
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