ISOGG hosts the ISOGG Wiki, a free online encyclopedia maintained by ISOGG members which contains a wide variety of educational resources and guidance for genetic genealogy consumers and DNA project administrators.[7] The ISOGG Wiki contains ethical guidelines for DNA project administrators and ISOGG members perform peer reviews of DNA project websites of other members on request, following which the websites may display the ISOGG Peer Reviewed graphic.[8][9]
An article published in Genetics in Medicine in March 2012 provides an overview of the diverse array of tests and practices in the emerging DTC genetic genealogy industry. In the article, the authors highlight ISOGG's potential role in developing industry best practice guidelines and consumer guidance:
We call on the International Society of Genetic Genealogy (ISOGG) to take a leadership role in (i) articulating an ethical code to guide the practices of the industry it advocates and (ii) developing a consumer guide to provide prospective consumers of the DNA ancestry testing industry with a reliable means to compare products and companies for their varying consumer motivations and interests.[14]
The increasing affordability and popularity of DTC genetic genealogy testing has also raised ethical concerns about genealogists testing the DNA of others without consent.[15] The ISOGG Wiki contains a selection of external resources on ethics for genetic genealogists.[16]
ISOGG promotes the adoption of voluntary industry Y-STR nomenclature standards developed by NIST and published in the Journal of Genetic Genealogy in 2008.[10][17][18]
Citizen science
ISOGG members such as Leo Little,[19][20] Roberta Estes, Rebekah Canada and Bonnie Schrack have been involved in important citizen science discoveries regarding human phylogeny and ethnic origins.[21][22][23][24] The broader ISOGG membership participated in the Genographic Project, a genetic anthropology study that used crowdsourcing to facilitate new discoveries about human genetic history, and other genetic databases where broader and larger databases aid the identification of participants' ancestral origins.[4][25][26]
^"ISOGG 2013 Y-DNA Haplogroup Tree". ISOGG. Retrieved July 10, 2013. ISOGG (International Society of Genetic Genealogy) is not affiliated with any registered, trademarked, and/or copyrighted names of companies, websites and organizations.
^Vorhaus, Dan (22 July 2010). "The Conversation Continues: Recap from Day Two of FDA's Regulatory Meeting". Genomics Law Report. Retrieved July 8, 2013. DTC genetic testing also had its advocates, including 23andMe co-founder Anne Wojcicki and Katherine Borges, Director of the International Society of Genetic Genealogy (ISOGG), who delivered one of the most impassioned arguments for prioritizing individual access over FDA regulation. Borges sounded a familiar refrain in arguing that the FDA should not restrict consumer access to genetic information 'without credible, compelling scientific data to support' such regulation.
^Estes, Roberta J.; Jack H. Goins; Penny Ferguson; Janet Lewis Crain (2011). "Melungeons, A Multi-Ethnic Population"(PDF). Journal of Genetic Genealogy. 7 (2). Retrieved July 17, 2013.
^Loller, Travis (May 24, 2012). "Melungeon DNA Study Reveals Ancestry, Upsets 'A Whole Lot Of People'". The Huffington Post. Retrieved July 17, 2013. 'There were a whole lot of people upset by this study,' lead researcher Roberta Estes said ... Estes and her fellow researchers theorize that the various Melungeon lines may have sprung from the unions of black and white indentured servants living in Virginia in the mid-1600s, before slavery ... In order to conduct the larger DNA study, Goins and his fellow researchers – who are genealogists but not academics – had to define who was a Melungeon.
^"Family Tree DNA's Genomics Research Center Facilitates Discovery of Extremely Ancient Root to the Human Y Chromosome Phylogenetic Tree" (Press release). Gene By Gene. March 26, 2013. Retrieved July 17, 2013. Once in Family Tree DNA's database, long-time project administrator Bonnie Schrack noticed that the sample was very unique and advocated for further testing to be done. 'This whole discovery began, really, with a citizen scientist – someone very similar to our many customers who are interested in learning more about their family roots using one of our genealogy products,' said Gene By Gene President Bennett Greenspan.
^Callaway, Ewen (June 5, 2012). "Ancestry testing goes for pinpoint accuracy". Nature. 486 (7401): 17. Bibcode:2012Natur.486...17C. doi:10.1038/486017a. PMID22678260. Commercial ancestry testing, once the province of limited information of dubious accuracy, is taking advantage of whole-genome scans, sophisticated analyses and ever-deeper databases of human genetic diversity to help people to answer a simple question: where am I from?
^"ISOGG 2006 Y-DNA Haplogroup Tree". ISOGG. Retrieved July 8, 2013. An ISOGG group was formed in November 2005 to create a web-based document which could be updated to keep pace with the rapid developments in the field.
^ abAthey, Whit (2008). "Editor's Corner: A New Y-Chromosome Phylogenetic Tree"(PDF). Journal of Genetic Genealogy. 4 (1): i–ii. Archived from the original(PDF) on March 5, 2014. Retrieved July 8, 2013. ISOGG is committed to a tree with the minimum of confusion for users, so naturally, with the publication of the new tree in Karafet (2008), ISOGG will be changing several haplogroup names to conform to the choices made by Karafet ... Meanwhile, new SNPs are being announced or published almost every month. ISOGG's role will be to maintain a tree that is as up-to-date as possible, allowing us to see where each new SNP fits in.
^Van Holst Pellekaan, Sheila (2013). "Genetic evidence for the colonization of Australia". Quaternary International. 285: 44–56. Bibcode:2013QuInt.285...44V. doi:10.1016/j.quaint.2011.04.014. Classification of the mtDNA lineages is historic, following the naming of Native American haplogroups A, B, C and D (Torroni et al., 2006). This initiated a generally accepted nomenclature, whereby African lineages were called L and one of these, L3, apparently gave rise to some African and all non-African mt haplotypes (matrilines) that cluster under the 'superfamilies' or macrohaplogroups called 'M' and 'N'. There are now non-African mtDNA haplogroups named after all the other letters of the alphabet (except L) that are subdivisions of the large M and N superfamilies (van Oven and Kayser, 2010). The accepted system of naming sub-groups was set out by Richards et al. (1998) and more recently reviewed by Torroni et al. (2006). Y-chromosome studies have also resulted in an accepted nomenclature (see Karafet et al., 2008; ISOGG, 2010).
^Redmonds, George; King, Turi; Hey, David (2011). Surnames, DNA, and Family History. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 196. ISBN9780199582648. The growth of interest in genetic genealogy has inspired a group of individuals outside the academic area who are passionate about the subject and who have an impressive grasp of the research issues. Two focal points for this group are the International Society of Genetic Genealogy and the Journal of Genetic Genealogy. The ISOGG is a non-profit, non-commercial organization that provides resources and maintains a phylogenetic trees of Y chromosome haplogroups.
^Ambrosio, B.; Dugoujon, J. M.; Hernández, C.; De La Fuente, D.; González-Martín, A.; Fortes-Lima, C. A.; Novelletto, A.; Rodríguez, J. N.; Calderón, R. (2010). "The Andalusian population from Huelva reveals a high diversification of Y-DNA paternal lineages from haplogroup E: Identifying human male movements within the Mediterranean space". Annals of Human Biology. 37 (1): 86–107. doi:10.3109/03014460903229155. PMID19939195. S2CID1667431.
