Irish Sullivans are usually Haplo Group R1b; western Asia and eastern
Europe Sullivans are Vikings and are Haplo Group R1a - I am R1a.

If Adam was the first man why don't all males have the same DNA (with
mutations)?

If O'Suilebhain was the first Sullivan and we all descend from him,
how can Sullivans be more than one Haplo type?

Or might variations in Haplo Groups be caused by mutations?

Be gentle, I'm not very bright.

Would you be interested in educating me by phone if I called - I'd
want to develop some questions before I did. If you would, substitute
sull for Eagle in my  e-mail add and you could send your phone number
by e-mail. If not I understand.

I find a lot of reading material on internet but I need someone to
answer my questions.

Hugh

They do mostly.  The differences are caused by mutations.  

Note that you should be specific that this is Y chromosome
Haplogroups.

Several possibilities

1. The type split after him (unlikely)
2. adoption (e.g., an O'Sullivan with no sons adopted his sister's son
or his daughter's son as heir or even an unrelated male and that man
took the O'Sullivan name but the heir and his male male line
descendants would not have the Y chromosome of the initial man)
3. Adultery or rape.  Some of an O'Sullivan's sons weren't actually
his biological sons due to his wife being impregnated by another man.
4. There was more than one initial O'Suilebhain

Yes

Well it starts with four compounds
called:
*adenine (A)
*cytosine (C)
*guanine (G)
*thymine (T)

These can combine to form base pairs but adenine only matches with
thymine and guanine only with cytosine.  The base pairs in turn form a
chain of any combination of pairs

...
AT
GC
TA
AT
AT
CG
TA
TA
GC
AT
AT
GC
TA
TA
CG
GC
...

This is called DNA and it encodes the genetic information and that
with a few additional bits can make up chromosomes (a chromosome may
have a few million to hundreds of millions of these pairs).

A human has multiple chromosome pairs (23 pairs or 46 chromosomes in
total).  For all but one pair the following holds true:

1. That each partner in a pair is identical in size.

2. During the formation of an egg or sperm cell (a process known as
meiosis)

2a. Each pair exchanges pieces so if one pair was initially

aaaaaaa  and bbbbbb

afterwards they might be

aaabbb  and bbbaaa  or abbbb and baaaa

(I'm simplifying here and not actually using the base pair
nomenclature)

They 'recombine'.

The exception is the XY chromosome pair in a male human (the
equivalent XX pair in female humans does recombine).  Because the X
chromosome and the Y chromosome aren't the same size they don't really
recombine and the Y chromosome doesn't change (except by mutation).

2b. The cell divides into two cells each with one partner in each
chromosome pair (i.e., it has half the chromosomes of a normal cell);
these cells are the eggs cells in women and the sperm cells in men.
For men 50% of the sperm cells would contain an X chromosome and 50% a
Y chromosome.

In fertilization a sperm cell and an egg cell combine to form a new
cell with the correct number of chromosomes.  Assuming this new cell
develops into a full human being those that had an XY pair will become
males and those with XX females.  Note the Y chromosome is identical
(barring mutations) to that of the father.

And so the generations go on.  All the other chromosomes recombine
each generation but in the male line the Y chromosome doesn't change
(barring mutations).  

Now as to haplogroups, one can look at a Y chromosome and read its
base pair makeup and compare to another Y chromosome.  So

aaabcededagh
is similar except for one letter to
aaabcedeaagh
but quite distinct from
babbeedeaaca

(again I'm simplifying and not using the correct nomenclature)

haplogroups are just groups of similar Y chromosomes.  Note that not
all Y chromosomes in the same group will be identical but the
differences were not considered significant when defining the group.

So for instance the two groups you are concerned with, R1a and R1b,
are subsets of group R1 which is a subset of group R which is a
subgroup of group K which is a subset of group F and so on till
eventually you have a group that includes all human Y chromosomes (and
all human males).

The mutation that distinguishes between R1a and R1b are not considered
significant when defining R.  Mutations btw are when the copy of the
DNA structure isn't completely accurate for instance abcddccdb is
copied as abcddccdc.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplogroup_R_%28Y-DNA%29

has a list of which mutations are used to define which subgroups
within R.

Also see

https://www3.nationalgeographic.com/genographic/atlas.html

So going backwards

Group   Mutation/Marker When
-----------------------------
R1a     M17             ~10,000 to ~15,000 before present (BP)
R1      M173            ~30,000 BP in Central Asia
R       M207            ~30,000 BP in Central Asia
P       M45             ~35,000 to 40,000 BP in Central Asia
K       M9              ~40,000 BP in Iran/Central Asia
F       M89             ~45,000 BP in North Africa or Mid-East
        M168            31,000 to 79,000BP in Africa

Note that you have all these mutations and you share them with other
groups (for instance R1b has M173, M207... also but not M17).

I'm not sure how to explain the dating discrepancy but this is still
an area which scientists are arguing about specifics.

Also take what I say above with a grain of salt, I'm not a biologist.

Emma

ps. you might find http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6293333.stm
interesting.

pps. I assume you also got a group for your mitochondrial DNA?

--
\----
|\* |  Emma Pease                          Net Spinster
|_\/                                       Die Luft der Freiheit weht

On Mon, 12 Mar 2007 20:50:03 +0000 (UTC), Emma Pease

Pardon my top posting but it seems easier in this case. It's going to
take me a while to understand what you said. I'm too lazy to read and
comprehend - I do much better when someone makes a statement and I can
ask 8 or 10 questions. I listened in class but never studied outside
of class. I like short bursts - I don't like speeches and I don't like
sermons; I like exchanges.

Thank you, Emma.

Hugh

On Mon, 12 Mar 2007 20:50:03 +0000 (UTC), Emma Pease

So, if we all descend from one woman in Africa (and one man), and the
descendants spread north, then east and west, they could all have
started with the same y-DNA and eastern Europe could have populated
Ireland with R1b while eastern Asia came to Ireland with Ria and the
difference is because of mutation. Is that correct?

I say one woman because science seems to accept that at the moment.
But if that is true her children had to interbreed to have more
children.

Where, oh where, is my brain of 10 or more years ago?

Hugh

Actually it was multiple humans at any given time who are ancestors of
us but only one woman is the most recent common ancestor through the
maternal line of all humans and one man is the most recent common
ancestor through the paternal line.  The others also have living
descendants (e.g., son's daughter's daughter's son...) but not son's
son's son... or daughter's daughter's daughter....  Note the
Y-Chromosome 'Adam' and the mitochondrial 'Eve' weren't sexual
partners and lived at different times ('Adam' about 60,000 to 90,000
years before present and 'Eve' about 140,000 years before present).
Note that 'Adam's mother is also a female ancestor of all living
humans and one closer in time than mitochondrial 'Eve' but she isn't
the most recent common ancestor of all only through the maternal line.

The most recent common ancestor of all humans through any line is
certainly much closer in time to the present.  Estimates range as low
as to be within recorded history (less than 4,000 years BP).  My own
uneducated thought is it still ranges to the Paleolithic ~30,000 BP
but will drop drastically in the next few generations when the last of
the isolated human populations such as the Aborigines of Australia
intermarry with outsiders.

It is surprising how near a most recent common ancestor (mrca) between
two people, especially from the same ethnic group, can be.  

Emma

--
\----
|\* |  Emma Pease                          Net Spinster
|_\/                                       Die Luft der Freiheit weht

On Tue, 13 Mar 2007 20:37:05 +0000 (UTC), Emma Pease

I've read your DNA lesson a couple of times. I need to sit down an put
a pencil to it.

I've been spending 12-16 hours a day at the computer doing some
genealogy analysis. I think I linked several groups of people that
researchers for 100 years have not been able to link. I've worked on
it off and on for 10 years but I got on a roll this week.

Thank you again.

Hugh