An approach to FTDNA's Big Y test

Over the coming week, I'll be contacting many of you to see if we can pool our resources within our Lineages so we can get a couple people in each Lineage to take the new Big Y test from Family Tree DNA.

If you've read any of my notes, website posts, or listened to our Blog Talk Radio shows then you know I'm obsessed by SNPs. These are the definitive way to prove relationships back before the credible use of genealogical records.

Any claims made before the 1500s in records research are highly suspect, yet people keep making them. SNPs can provide certainty, but many of us are stuck with our SNPs. I've been stuck with L193 for several years. L193 dates to about 800 to 1,000 years ago, so it's been useful. But it would certainly be helpful to break apart my L193 Group A1 into sub groups roughly correlated to a more recent time frame. L193 Group A1 is a group that was deduced using, first, L193 and then using STR markers to make an educated guess at subgroups.

Rather than test for static, known SNPs, FTDNA's Big Y test will identify new ones that are more recent.

The new test will provide results on 10,000,000 base-pairs and approximately 25,000 SNPs on the Y chromosome.

The price of the test is reduced through the end of November to $495. It's normally $695.

No new swab is required as long as the sample in storage is in good shape.

Bennett Greenspan, Chairman of FTDNA says, “If the WTY (Walk the Y) was the moon shot, then this is the mission to Mars.”

WHY SNP TESTING?

Several of our lineages have "cracked open" thanks to SNP testing. Now we know that the S21 Lineage is actually several groups - Argyle, Caithness, and our Z9 participant. We have used a SNP to confirm our Herdmanston Lineage and it has several extraordinary name matches. We've identified our Exeter New Hampshire Lineage and it has some extremely interesting name matches. All of this is thanks to the willingness of our participants to use SNP testing.

With this SNP testing, we will finally get progress on our Argyle Z2 Lineage, our E1b Lineage, and many others.

In a radio interview a couple years ago, Bennett Greenspan told me we're very close to connecting the branches of the DNA tree to the leaves. You and I are the leaves. The branches are our ancestors in the middle ages.

I hope many of you will join this important chapter in our DNA study.

Steve