User:Wobble/sandbox

Problems with the reliability of sources

These are the people claimed to belong to the haplogroup, and the sources used to justify this claim. My criticism of the sources appears in the footnotes.

William Harvey

1. His haplotype^{[unreliable source?][1]}
2. Harvey Y-DNA Genetic Project. ^{[unreliable source?][2]}
3. [2]^{[unreliable source?][3]}

The Wright Brothers

1. Double~Helix Forum^{[unreliable source?][3]}
2. Wright surname DNA Project.^{[not specific enough to verify][4]}

John C Calhoun and the old line of the Clan Colquhoun

1. "Calhoon, Calhoun, and others"(1987). ^[5]
2. "800 (EIGHT HUNDRED) YEARS OF COLQUHOUN, COLHOUN, CALHOUN, AND CAHOON FAMILY HISTORY In Ireland, Scotland, England, United States of America, Australia and Canada" published by Orval O. CALHOUN in 1976. ^[5]
3. can be found^{[not specific enough to verify][6]}
4. their DNA Project are
   E-V13.^{[not specific enough to verify][7]}

The Hatfield Family

1. 3AC8Z is a descendant.^{[unreliable source?][1]}
2. Hatfield DNA surname project. (Kit number 79827 is decended from Ephraim Hatfield.)^{[unreliable source?][8]}

The Savard Hockey Dynasty in Quebec

1. information posted^{[unreliable source?][9]}
2. E-M35 Phylogeny Project^[10]
3. Denis Savard^[11]
4. Savard DNA Project^[12]

Reliability

Most of these sources cannot be considered reliable. They come from non-peer reviewed and non-fact checked web forums or self published surname projects. Even the claims that descendants belong to a specific haplogroup are dependent on accepting that the descendant is (a) being honest and (b) really is a descendant. Mostly neither of these things have been scrutinised by a reliable second party

, with lots of assumptions on the part of the editor in question. I'm deeply worried if this is the level of reliability that Wikipedia articles should aim for.

Synthesis

There is a clear synthesis going on in the footnotes that verify these claims. These footnotes draw on several different sources to draw conclusions about member ship of the haplogroup by different individuals. In none of these sources is it explicitly claimed that any of these individuals belong to this haplogroup. That is a synthesis according to our

policy, which clearly states: "Synthesis occurs when an editor puts together multiple sources to reach a novel conclusion that is not in any of the sources. Even if published by reliable sources, material must not be connected together in such a way that it constitutes original research."

Harvey

The Harvey footnote for example uses information from five different sources to draw a conlcusion about the haplogroup that Harvey belonged to. That's a clear

Wright

The Wright footnote synthesises information from the Sorensen foundation and the Write sirname project to draw the conclusion that the Wright brothers belong to this haplogroup.

Calhoun

Footnote 47 uses the Calhoun surname project, the Sorensen foundation, and a book published in 1976 by Orval Calhoun to draw the conclusion that President Calhoun belonged to this haplogroup.

Relevance

It's difficult to see how these links are relevant to the E1b1b article in the first place. They are about genealogy, and mostly refer to STR data. Whereas STR data are very useful for determining family relatedness, Y-SNPs are not. The relevance to the haplogroup is not established. Just as it has not been established that Y-STR and family membership data are relevant to the haplogroup article, likewise it has not been established that membership of the haplogroup is useful for tracing family relatedness. The article doesn't anywhere explain how membership of this haplogroup has any utility for genealogy research. Indeed if one were to want to trace one's family relatedness, the last thing one would be advised to do would be to take a Y-SNP test because that sort of test is useless for genealogy. Furthermore how are we to establish the reliability of claiming to belong to a haplogroup when Y-SNPs have not been tested? It is of course perfectly permissible for any individual to take their Y-STR data and use Whit Athey's haplogroup predictor, [3] but does that establish membership of the haplogroup? Even if it does the predictor has been used by individuals who have simply posted their estimated haplogroup online. How many of these individuals have been SNP tested? Has this been published in a reliable source?

Footnotes