Hi Ewenn, This kind of analysis take some time, thanks a lot for this. Why do you think it is probably unlikely that KOS015 belong to a "pre-R-FGC17460" ? With only 2 positive SNPs out of 11 SNPs, I would tend to think it is highly probable. It is true that there is also a low rate of positive SNPs among the higher levels, FGC17465 and above, and I believe that it is generally the case with ancient DNA. Bertram Le lun., juil. 22, 2024 à 5:46, Ewenn <gwenng008@...> a écrit: Erratum: *KOS015 could possibly belong to R-FTC75933, a branch for which it only has NO reads for the 11 equivalent SNPs of this block. Le dim. 21 juil. 2024, 15:17, Ewenn via groups.io <gwenng008@...> a écrit : Hi Bertram, Shane, Yes, indeed, FTDNA should, in principle, and to my knowledge, have checked these clades / SNPs downstream of R-FGC17460. Similarly, FTDNA also checks, in principle, for a possible match with Private Variants of downstream testers. I tried to perform on my side an analysis of the KOS015’s fastQ file, in comparison with the current version of the FTDNA’s Y-DNA Haplotree (2024-07-20). I find the same result. In details: Consistent path from A-PR2921 (root) to R-L151 (including with R-PF6538, intermediate clade between R-P310 and R-L151, which only appears at Yfull). R-U106 and downstream clades : consistent path to R-FGC17460 : R-U106 : U106 no read R-FGC3861 : Z8055 1 positive read (BQ:37, mapQ:56, 55M) R-S1855 : FGC3859 1 positive read (BQ:0, mapQ :60, 46M, 2nd position from the 3’end of the aDNA’s segment) R-FGC17465 : FGC17465 1 positive read (BQ:0, mapQ:60, 51M, 5th position from the 3’end of the aDNA’s segment) FGC68717 1 positive read (BQ:23, mapQ:12, 67M) R-FGC17460 : A4654 1 positive read (BQ:37, mapQ:60, 78M) FGC17472 1 positive read (BQ:BQ:37, mapQ:29, 69M) Downstream of R-FGC17460 : only negative (37/272 SNPs) or no reads. For equivalent SNPs to the current 6 known child haplogroups of R-FGC17460 (NOTA : 2 currently unnamed branches, from England and Ireland, not taken into account): R-FTA62881 (3 negative reads / 3 SNPs) R-BY11544 (3 negative reads / 3 SNPs) R-FTC75933 (terminal haplogroup, only no reads) R-FT115916 (1 negative read / FT113203) R-BY122236 (5 negative reads / 5 SNPs) R-FGC17464 (6 negative reads / 4 SNPs) As a result, it seems to me quite likely that KOS015 does not belong to the 5 child branches for which we have negative reads. It is however not totally impossible that KOS015 could belong to an extinct or unidentified branch splitting one of these blocks of equivalent SNPs. KOS015 could possibly belong to R-FTC75933, a branch for which it only has negative reads at the 11 equivalent SNPs. Finally, KOS015 could potentially belong to an unidentified or extinct branch downstream of R-FGC17460. With 2 positive SNPs out of 11 SNPs equivalent to R-FGC17460, and only no reads for the other 9 SNPs in this haplogroup, it is however not totally impossible (but probably unlikely) that KOS015 could be a "pre-R-FGC17460". In other words, that this aDNA belongs to an unidentified or extinct branch that would potentially split the R-FGC17460 block in two. Ewenn

The family tree partnership between FamilyTreeDNA and MyHeritage has now gone live. You can now choose to transfer your FTDNA tree to MyHeritage or link to an existing MyHeritage tree. FamilyTreeDNA will retire their current tree builder on 9th September and all trees not connected to MyHeritage will become read-only. With a free MyHeritage account you are restricted to having a tree with no more than 250 people in it. I found the process of linking to my tree at MyHeritage fairly straightforward. I did, however, struggle with the process of selecting myself as the home person through my FTDNA account. You are initially presented with a list of just 25 names. In order to connect yourself as the home person you need to type your name into the search box exactly how it appears on your MyHeritage tree and your name will then appear in the list. If you want to link other DNA matches to your tree you need to do this via your match list. I’ve now linked my parents to my tree but the family matching feature seems to be very slow and I’m getting a message that it might take up to 24 hours to confirm my maternal and paternal matches. There are full instructions for using the MyHeritage tree feature in this blog post from FTDNA: https://blog.familytreedna.com/myheritage-brings-family-tree-tools-to-familytreedna/ If you don’t already have a family tree attached to your FTDNA account I would encourage you to build one using the MyHeritage tree builder at least for your direct paternal line in order to contribute to the Big Y research, as explained by FTDNA in their blog post: “FamilyTreeDNA conducts internal research using family tree data stored on our site. This research has brought new features and tools, including the Big Y Age Estimates and Globetrekker, and is being used for the upcoming mtDNA improvements with the Million Mito Project. If you choose to transfer a family tree from FamilyTreeDNA to MyHeritage, you can permit MyHeritage to periodically share updates from your tree back to FamilyTreeDNA. The default is to share this data. This enables FamilyTreeDNA to continue conducting research and developing new features and tools based on our customers’ family tree data.” Attaching a tree account is also helpful for all your DNA matches. Best wishes Debbie Kennett

Hello everyone, About a month ago, I logged into my 23andMe account and was surprised to see that they had reassigned my paternal haplogroup assignment from R-Z156 to R-M405 (aka R-U106). I reached out to them immediately to inquire about the change, and after several back-and-forth emails (and after being handed off to two supervisors), they came back with this: "Thanks for your reply. Your inquiry has been escalated to me as a supervisor. Your results changed because some variants that were performing poorly were excluded from our haplogroup caller. Our Product Science team confirmed that there is nothing wrong with the SNP and it was an edge case due to low call rate." Can anyone else who is on this list (and who is also R-Z156+) check their results at 23andMe and see if their haplogroup assignment has changed as well? I also asked them if it would be possible to choose an alternative (but closely related) SNP to use instead of Z156, but did not receive a response. Best, Greg

Currently, three of us share haplogroup FTB93230 and the most recent of us to test just got his final Y700 results. Per my BigY matches, each of the other two do not match me on three private variants, two of which are mine. The third non-matching variant, 4736883, is the same for both of them and since that is not one of mine, is it safe to assume that they are about to form a new haplogroup? BTW per YBrowse.org that variant is also known as FTE49009. Thanks, Ed

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/health/medical/ancient-dna-traces-multiple-sclerosis-origins-to-5-000-year-old-migrations/ar-AA1mVKJR Dan D

FamilyTreeDNA have advised group administrators that they have now completed the process of updating Y-DNA haplogroup assignments for everyone who tested on the current chip (the Illumina Global Screening Array). They are now working on updating haplogroups for customers tested on the old Illumina chip (the OmniExpress). FTDNA have also provided some useful information about the SNPs included on the chips. Here’s an extract from their e-mail to group admins: “We have received numerous requests for a count or list of the Y-DNA SNPs included on the Family Finder test chips(s). The exact number varies between chips. For example, the Ancestry v1 and v2 chips differ, and both differ from the MyHeritage chip. The GSA chip (the one currently used by FamilyTreeDNA) covers more than 3,250 haplotree branches (no calls for any given SNP are, of course, possible). The total number of SNPs tested is a little misleading because of several factors (validation status, tree status, duplicates, triallelics, etc.). In addition, some of the SNPs are duplicates found in multiple haplogroups and, therefore, not included in the haplotree. What's important is that as more people from rare branches test both FF and Big Y, the number of branches will expand over time.” Best wishes Debbie Kennett

An interesting article raising ethical concerns about the early days of the Human Genome Project: https://www.statnews.com/2024/07/09/human-genome-project-untold-story-how-single-volunteer-became-genetics-foundation/ Debbie Kennett

A new preprint: "Resolving the source of branch length variation in the Y chromosome phylogeny" https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.07.05.602100v1/ Debbie Kennett

Possibly of wider DNA interest to American members - DNA Study IDs Descendants of George Washington from Unmarked Remains, Findings to Aid Service Member IDs Going Back to World War II https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/03/240328111048.htm You can thank the remarkable developments in DNA anslysis, and Major Ferguson and his Light Infantry lads at Brandywine in 1777, lying in cover in long grass, who opted not to dishonourably shoot a general officer wearing an unfeasably large hat. Al

I needed a project to re-teach myself Excel. I used to be pretty good at Excel but that was 15 years ago and I have not really touched it for the last 10 years. For my re-teaching "moment".....hopefully of interest to some people...... I have captured all the STRs in the U106 project. I then calculated how many of each number for each of the 111 STRs (except the multicopy STRs). example, the first STR, DYS393 Total 7240 11 2 12 192 13 6659 14 338 15 49 There are several Basement Subgroups at the end of the Classic or Colorized results, a few of which are not very U106ish. At this point, I have kept them in the stats, as on my preliminary effort, I wanted to stay as near as possible to the original totals for each STR. btw, the totals of each level (approximately) Y12 7240 Y25 7151 Y37 7093 Y67 6187 Y111 4976 I also did a subset of the Blue groups, Z30 and Z8 (combined). Groups 65 to 99. The attached Excel files are the summaries. They do not contain the 7000 plus rows of STR data.

I did a WGS test with Nebula Genomics, re-aligned the test with T2T and uploaded it to the YFULL site. I did the FTDNA Y37 test because I couldn't find any close matches.>(I have no matches at Y25 and Y37) My ancestors were Balkan Turks living in Bulgaria. So I know that these haplogroups are very rare in my region. FTDNA R-FT395781 YFULL R-Y278111 Waiting for your recommendations thanks...

I have not seen this before and thought it might be of interest: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-024-01888-7

What have you others done when You have kits you have paid for and yours was the main email that is now disabled I have no problem if people want to take over their kits but when I save to buy a bigY and FTDNA disables my email with out a refund is not fair I am not getting what I paid for?? Jean

Hi folks, The exact details of FTDNA's TMRCA calculations are not public. There's supposed to be a White Paper on it, but they haven't got around to writing it yet. Some parts of it are based on the article I wrote following my meeting with them in 2020. If you want all the gory details of that, they're here: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4425/12/6/862 I'll try to give a beginner's guide here. SNPs are actually the only form of variant that FTDNA tracks, so their non-matching variants list is really the number of SNPs that differ between two people. A SNP is simply an error in copying - the accidental replacement of one molecule with another in the genetic sequence. We don't know if this is truly random at the quantum mechanical level, but it is close enough to random that we can treat the formation of SNPs as a random process. Many people struggle with the concept of random processes. There are many similar processes in nature. A good example for our purposes is the number of weeds growing in a square inch of garden: if you till a garden bare and wait, weeds will grow and increase in number over time. Similarly, we can take an ancestor's Y chromosome and see how it accumulates SNPs as it is passed down to different lineages. If you have an idea how fast weeds grow in your part of the world, you can tell by looking at the garden and the number of weeds in it approximately how long it's been since the soil was tilled. Let's say it normally takes two days for the first weeds to germinate, and you might have an average of seven weeds per inch after a fortnight. Similarly, you can tell the length of time it's been since two people were related (their TMRCA) by looking at the number of SNPs that differ between their Y chromosomes - provided you know how often SNPs form. We know that one SNP happens in every molecule (base pair) of DNA about every 1.25 billion years, on average. However, the number of weeds you actually get depends on the size of your garden. The more area your garden has, the more weeds will grow. Similarly, the number of SNPs you can expect depends on the size of your Y chromosome test. This varies slightly from test to test, and with how low a quality of SNP you are prepared to accept. However, a good rule of thumb is that there are about 10 million base pairs in an old BigY-500 test and about 15 million base pairs in a modern BigY-700 test. This means a BigY-500 test gets a new SNP every 125 years or so, and a BigY-700 test gets a new SNP every 83 years or so. The comparison between every pair of tests is slightly different, as no two tests cover exactly the same parts of the Y chromosome. Also, if you have a flowerpot that's only a square inch, you might not get seven weeds after a fortnight. You might have only three or you might have twelve, it just depends on how many seeds land in your tiny flowerpot. Similarly, if you are looking at two BigY tests related 290 years ago, you might expect them to have seven non-matching variants between them (290 / 83 * 2 = 7), but they might actually only have three or twelve. It really depends on luck. This means that there's no one-to-one correspondence between the number of non-matching variants that differ between two people and how long ago they are related. All we can do is compare them to the statistical average we expect, and establish some range of time during which the real date is likely to happen (the confidence interval). (The mathematics of how to estsablish confidence intervals is governed by Poisson statistics - a branch of mathematics that was originally devised to deal with another random process: the number of Prussian soldiers kicked to death by their own horses.) This gives us an inexact mapping between number of non-matching variants and actual TMRCA, which is why exact TMRCAs are impossible to calculate. How can we improve the accuracy of our TMRCAs? We somehow have to increase the size of our garden. If you take a different square-inch flowerpot, it will have a different number of weeds. If you take many square-inch flowerpots that were planted a f

I updated from Y-500 to Y-700 and now there are four "matches" appearing on my Block Tree. These are my only matches but, unlike me, they have more recent haplogroups downstream from FGC-17460. There are several other surnames that also have FGC-17460 but they are not considered matches. Is that because they have more than 30 Non-Matching Variants compared to my results? If so, do my matches mean anything of significance compared to any other male with FGC-17460? Thanks, Shane

I habitually check my group projects in hopes of new matches. A few minutes ago I checked the U106 group and noticed that my haplogroup has been moved from FGC17460 back to FGC17465. Does this have anything with my upgrading from Y500 to Y700 even though I haven't received my results yet? What does this mean? I've also paid for the Family Finder test in hopes of getting some more possible matches based on the comments around here recently. Thanks, Shane

R-FT368395 7 branches lower than I previously knew of Jason