With two new Big-Y test kits we have some updates along the Hartley branch of our tree. There were previously two Harley haplogroups - A11132 with two Hartleys and below it was FT225247 with two Hartleys. A new Mawdsley Big-Y has broken up the A11132 block so Mawdsley retains that SNP block alone with a new, smaller A11134 block below it. A new Hartley joins the two previous A11132 Hartleys at A11134. This means the Mawdsley ancestor predates the common ancestor for the 5 Hartleys with their common ancestor being estimated around 1400-1500AD. It's possible that we may have some other refinements on these blocks when FTDNA does their manual analysis within a few weeks. Thank you Joel for spearheading the efforts on this branch! Joel has written about these updates at http://www.jmhartley.com/HBlog/ I've updated the SNP tree - http://dna.smithplanet.com/snp with these new results. This includes updated and recalibrated dates for these and related haplogroups. The spreadsheet for these calculations is at http://dna.smithplanet.com/media/Z16357-Aging.xlsx I've also updated the STR spreadsheet at http://dna.smithplanet.com/media/Z16357-STRs.xlsx You'll note that a Hartley STR "modal" signature is emerging that differentiates this branch from the rest of us. Cheers, Jared Smith Z16357 Y-DNA Project Administrator

As promised, I took a stab at aging the SNP blocks under Z16357. You can view the updated SNP chart with ages at http://dna.smithplanet.com/snp (you may need to hit Refresh to see the updates). These are very rough estimates. The first date listed for each block is an estimate of the "formed date" - when the first SNP in that block was formed. The second date is a Time of Most Recent Common Ancestor (TMRCA) date - meaning when the last SNP in that block was formed, or the nearest date that two testers in child branches might expect to share a common ancestor in that block. We can't know which SNP in the block is oldest and which is newest or where within that date range common ancestors are actually shared (at least without additional documentation or testing). Z16357 has several TMRCA estimates. YFull and SNP Tracker estimate it as 3900 years ago, Ytree (based on Iain McDonald's work) has it as 3300 years ago, and Dave Vance (one of the L513 administrators) has it as 2885 years ago. So that's 1000+ years difference between estimates. For broader range estimates, it's better to assume an older age. Our 28 known testers have an average of 55 variants at or below Z16357 - a high of 67 and low of 45 (st. dev. of 5.7). Much of this variability is due to higher variant count coverage/possibilities for Big-Y 700 testers vs. Big-Y 500 testers - I didn't provide any factoring/weighting for the different test types (I'm not certain who has which test type anyway). I also did not consider STR differences - which could provide some insight into larger blocks. For example, if an SNP block spans hundreds of years, STR differences could give insight into whether the MRCA is at the beginning or end of that time span. I did, however, make some minor adjustments in time spans for the few known common ancestors we have across testers. With a formed age estimate of 3900 years ago, this comes out to 71 years per SNP - well faster than the generally-accepted 83.3 value used on many aging calculations. I'm using FTDNA's average aggregated private variants for each terminal block (rather than exact private variant values). With this 71 years value, I then stepped backward from 1950AD to 1950BC (the 3900 year span) to assign date estimates for each block. You can review my spreadsheet for the calculations at http://dna.smithplanet.com/media/Z16357-Aging.xlsx The spreadsheet also provides TMRCA estimates if Z16357 instead has formed dates of 3500 years ago (63.7 years per SNP) or 3000 years ago (54.6 years per SNP). These differences are relatively minor for more recent haplogroups, but become quite significant for older haplogroups. One item of note is the significant time distance between the two sides of the Z16357 tree - Z16343 and BY19970 split probably 3000+ years ago and then each had 2000+ years with no (yet) known branches - which is primarily why most of my research analyzes these in isolation from each other. I'd be VERY happy to have feedback or criticism on my methodologies or the dates estimated. I'll update these estimates any time we have a notable update to the tree. Cheers, Jared

Hello R-Z16357 cousins! This list has been inactive for some time, but I'm diving back into research on our tree and have several exciting updates to share. SNP Tree Updates I've published an updated SNP Tree for Z16357 and descendents. Please review and make sure that everything is accurate. The time estimates on the chart are VERY rough "eyeball" estimates - these will be updated in the near future after more extensive data analysis. Notable updates from the last year or two: We are now at 27 testers with Big-Y! All but one have tested to Y-111 or higher. Our tree now has 21 distinct SNP blocks. The SNP chart highlights the 4 major branches: Z16357 > BY19970 (Smith X 4, Mustapha, Meacham, McBee X 2) Z16357 > Z16343 > Z16854 (Pillsbury X 2, Hays X 2) Z16357 > Z16343 > Z17911 > FT94840 (Williams, Davis, Thomas X 2, Martin, Laurie, Phillips X 2, Bennett, McCullers) Z16357 > Z16343 > Z17911 > A11138 (Smith, Hartley X 4) There are 5 new testers on BY19970. The Smith branch is now much better defined, with two McBees forming a new parallel branch. Mustapha likely connects at a very early age (his STRs are rather dissimilar from the Smiths) and is of North African descent. This is of particular interest to tracking our ancestral migration paths! The FT94840 branch is the best defined on our tree and has several new branches. This branch also has the most candidates for future testing (see below), expansion, and surname groupings. Joel Hartley has done incredible work refining his part of the A11138 branch, having recruited several cousins for testing. Joel writes extensively about his findings on his blog. Robert Casey Z16343 Analysis Robert Casey has conducted an in-depth STR, SNP, aging, and prediction analysis on Z16343 (one of the two major children of Z16357). You can read his report at http://www.rcasey.net/DNA/Temp/Z16343_Analysis_20211222A.pdf It's quite technical, but the short version is that the Z16343 branch works well for this type of Binary Logistic Regression Model analysis for accurately predicting likely SNP matches. Robert's automated haplogroup chart is at http://www.rcasey.net/DNA/Temp/Z16343_SAPP_20211222A.png This uses both STRs and SNPs to estimate connections and time to most recent common ancestors (TMRCA). STR Spreadsheet Update I've updated the STR Spreadsheet based on Robert Casey's work. This is a work in progress! There are two primary tabs, one for Z16343 and one for BY19970. The sheet lists many testers that are very likely to fall within Z16357 that would be great candidates for Big-Y. The Z16343 sheet provides kit match reliability values based on Robert's regression methodology. Unfortunately BY19970 does not qualify for this type of complex analysis, though other types of STR analysis are underway. Web Site Updates I made several other web site updates, including details on the history of Z16357 - http://dna.smithplanet.com/ Feedback, corrections, and updates are always welcome! Future Work I will be spending notable time in the coming weeks adding new potential Big-Y testers to the STR sheet and refining the logistical model for comparisons. I'm hopeful that you will help with contacting and recruiting new testers to expand and better define our tree. I will also be conducting an in-depth, updated aging analysis for our branches to give us a better indication of when our Most Recent Common Ancestors (MRCA) lived. I'd be happy to hear any news any of you have on the DNA genealogy front. Feel free to invite any others to this mailing list that may be interested, especially any Y-DNA or Big-Y matches. Happy holidays and happy new year! Jared Smith R-Z16357 DNA Project Administrator http://dna.smithplanet.com/

Here is an interesting article on how to leverage the new FtDNA tools. Of course, I will need to read it multiple time for it to sink in at all. :) James

Iain McDonald has just published a new project analyzing all of the P312 Big-Y results. P312 is much older than our Z16357. The general heredity is P312 > L21/Z290 > L513 > S5668 > Z16357. He places the 95% reliability date of Z16357 being formed 2528BC — 1177BC with a central date of 1873BC. This is quite a bit older than the estimates I've been using. I generally run two sets - one at 1000BC and one at 500BC. He places Z17911 as formed 310BC — 713AD with a central date of 252AD. This is also quite a bit older than the 1000AD date I've calculated. As for our more recent haplogroups, his estimates are only slightly older than mine. Of note is that he did not include our recent Smith BY19970 data. If he had, I think this would have pushed his dates a bit more recent. Does this mean that his estimates are right and mine wrong? We all perform mathematical analysis within certain constraints and assumptions. And the variability is notable. He certainly applies a strong methodology. You can check out Iain's excellent work at http://www.jb.man.ac.uk/~mcdonald/genetics.html Jared

We have a new, significant branching under Z16357. Up to this point Sylvia Smith was the only person truly at Z16357 - meaning that her kit had tested positive for Z16357, but for no shared SNPs downstream from there. If we think of Z16357 as the trunk or base of our part of the tree, there has thus far been only one branch (Z16343) coming from that trunk, which then split into two sub-branches (Z17911 and Z16854), which split into the various sub-sub-branches below them. The Big-Y results for Lenita's brother (Leonard Ellwin Smith) are in and they create a 2nd major branch from the Z16357 trunk for Lenita and Sylvia. This Smith branch is VERY long - extending from a common (yet unknown) Smith ancestor that lived a few hundred years ago all the way back to Z16357 (probably 2500 years ago or so). It's pretty incredible to think that nobody else on this family line has done DNA testing to this level yet. To avoid potential confusion, while my surname is Smith, it's only coincidental - this new Smith line and my Smith line below Z17911 are very distant - connecting at Z16357 around 2500 years ago. I've updated my charts at http://dna.smithplanet.com/snp so you can see the new branching. Lenita and Sylvia share 24 SNPs/variants. This represents around 2000 years of their family line with no known branching. This new branch has yet to be named - but I suspect that FTDNA will submit these 24 shared SNPs for naming - and one of them will be chosen as the designator for this branch of the tree. Sylvia has the following 4 novel variants (meaning mutations that are unique to her, so they occurred more recently than Lenita's and Sylvia's common ancestor): 14703381-T-A 21734697-A-G 22102505-G-T 23817871-G-A Lenita has the following 3 novel variants: 7676708-T-A 15315228-G-A 19139648-C-T If I apply my aging methodology, this would suggest that their common Smith ancestor was born between 333 and 383 years ago (sometime in the mid- to late-1600s). However, these two Smiths have fewer variants/mutations (28 and 27) than is the average for our group (35.2), so this might suggest that their common ancestor is a bit more distant than this. But these are just VERY rough estimates, so their ancestor could also be more recent. As we get more Smith testers, this will be refined. This is a very notable addition to our tree! Thank you Sylvia and Lenita for investing in Big-Y! We're trying to identify other distant Smith cousins to take Big-Y to help us better define this new Smith branch. Thanks, Jared Smith

I'm happy to welcome Rachel to the list. She administers the C. Pillsbury Big-Y test that is a new close match to us. She shares a relative with Fran Pillsbury dating to 1605. They both fall onto the BY13850 haplogroup of our tree. This is below the Z16854 block on the tree that represents their common Hays/Pillsbury ancestry (see http://dna.smithplanet.com/snp). The two Pillsbury men share the following "good" variants: 18770840-C-T (BY13850) 9496274-C-A (BY13851) 14811392-G-T These are solid SNPs that indicate their shared Pillsbury ancestry AFTER the Hays/Pillsbury ancestor, but before their Pillsbury lines split in the 1600s. This does not change my SNP chart at all - http://dna.smithplanet.com/snp (with the exception of adding the 3rd SNP above to the Pillsbury block). I've only been able to identify one good novel variant for the C. Pillsbury line: 18839503-C-A A novel variant is a mutation not shared with anyone else that has tested. This also leaves Fran's Pillsbury line with only 1 good novel variant (and I'm being a bit liberal with that one because it's a bit questionable). This is a bit peculiar, because the 12 of us under Z16357 average around 75 years per variant - and the Pillsburys have only one identified in almost 400 years. This highlights the difficulty with few testers in each haplogroup/block. Michael, Alex, and YFull have better mechanisms for identifying "good" novel variants, so they might find some I'm missing. One problem with so few novel variants is that it makes it more difficult to generate a basic Y-DNA test for people to determine which side of the Pillsbury line they fall on. Another is that it throws a bit of a wrench into my age estimations. With only 1 novel variant each, this would suggest that the most recent shared ancestor for the Pillsbury's was born 2-3 generations ago - but we know he was instead born over 400 years ago. This likely sways my age estimates to be more recent that is reality for that part of the tree. My math puts the common Hays/Pillsbury ancestor being born 626-734 years ago. Overall, this impacts my aging estimates for the entire tree very negligibly - only .5 years more per variant. The more testers we get, the more accurate this value becomes. We'll have some other big news for our part of the tree soon! Jared

Hi again, John Hartley just notified me of the following: "I have received my YSEQ results and the summary is A11132 T+ and Z17912 C+." Joel Hartley

I hope everyone is doing well. We haven't had any new tests on our branch of the tree lately, but now is the optimal time for us to recruit new Big-Y testers. Big-Y is on sale for only $450 through Thursday of this week. If everyone on this list would send just a couple e-mails to some of their close Y-DNA matches, we likely could recruit several new testers. Someone asked for some positive messaging to help recruit Big-Y testers, so I wrote the following, in case you'd like to use or modify it: ***** Big-Y testing maps the genetic tree of humanity. We're slowly mapping every Y-DNA mutation to particular ancestors - some known by name and some too ancient to be known. Even for very old common ancestors, these markers provide a unique identifier for them - a way to identify family tree connections that could not possibly be made using genealogical records. Traditional genealogy works from modern day and builds the tree backward from us to our ancestors. Y-DNA genealogy works in reverse - we've identified mutations in our ancient ancestors and are identifying new cousin relationships, new branches, and more defined family timelines with each new Big-Y test. For many family lines, we're still very much in the early days of this research, but each new test provides better clarity. On our own Z16357 part of the Y-DNA tree (http://dna.smithplanet.com/), we are getting much better defined branches. We're getting closer to knowing geographies of some of our ancestors - where and when they lived in the British Isles in the last few thousand years. As we define and verify the individual mutations that form new branches on our tree, we are paving the path for others to eventually take very inexpensive DNA tests to see how their direct male line connects with the rest of humanity. This future is only possible if we pave the way by investing in Big-Y! ***** Thanks, Jared Smith

Hey Jared, I was looking for something online in addtion to dna-explained.com to send to an autosomal DNA match of mine for explanation of the possibilities of the match and I found the following nice page of yours: http://smithplanet.com/stuff/gedmatch.htm I recommend it to others here looking to understand autosomal matches. Thanks, Charles Thomas

Aging our ancestors using Y-DNA data is far from an exact science. I'd be happy to have you poke holes in any of this. An analysis of the 11 Z16357 people who have taken Big-Y results in the following number of 'good', unique/novel variants/mutations: C. Hays 4 R. Hays 3 Pillsbury 5 Merrick 11 Thomas 6 Phillips 7 Bennett 9 M. Hartley 5 J. Hartley 5 J. Smith 12 Smith 27 These are variants that each person has that are not shared with anyone else who has tested. The higher the number of novel variants, the further back one would expect to be related to someone else listed. I use the same metric for a 'good' variant as Alex does on his Big Tree. This is a bit more aggressive than what YFull uses. There are, however, some inconsistencies with this. Merrick, for example, has nearly twice as many novel variants as Thomas, even though Merrick connects lower/later on the tree than Thomas - one would thus expect Merrick to have fewer novel variants. This is primarily a factor of test coverage, but this is all we have to work with, so we partially account for this variability by averaging. This is why each new Big-Y test gives us increased accuracy. When I add the novel variants above to the number of 'good' SNPs in each block or haplogroup of our tree and average the results, I end up with the following average number of variants downstream from each listed SNP block: ZS349 - 3.5 Z16854 - 9.3 BY15420 - 8.0 BY15419 - 9.7 Y29969 - 9.5 A11132 - 5 Z17911 - 10.9 Z16343 - 13 Z16357 - 36.1 This means, for example, that there's an average of 3.5 variants that were formed after the most recent ZS349 ancestor that the two Hays men share. For Z17911, we average 10.9 variants downstream (more recent than) our most recent common Z17911 ancestor. Altogether, we average 36.1 SNPs downstream of Z16357. To use these variant numbers to help us in aging, we need to calculate a "years per SNP" value. YFull has our last Z16357 ancestor at around 3300 years ago (though they've acknowledged this is probably too high). Other recent estimates put it as young as 2300 years ago. Until someone digs up some Z16357 remains or we get enough DNA testers to give us better data, we have to use our best informed estimate. I'll assume our most recent Z16357 ancestor lived a minimum of 2500 and maximum of 3000 years ago. If we divide these age estimates by 36.1 SNPs (on average), this is a minimum of 69.3 years per SNP and a maximum of 83.1 years per SNP. We can then use these values to assign age estimates to notable branchings as follows: ZS349 - 327-376 years before present Z16854 - 732-861 BY15420 - 639-750 BY15419 - 755-889 Y29969 - 743-875 A11132 - 431-501 Z17911 - 837-987 Z16343 - 986-1166 Z16357 - 2585-3085 The values are years before present, and include an additional 35 years (one generation?) to account for the age of the last ancestor that had this SNP - and also adds 50 years as a guessed average of how old the 11 Z16357 people are. So this estimates that the common ZS349 ancestor for Hays was born 347-376 years ago. We know this ancestor was George Hays who was born in 1655 - 362 years ago, so these numbers align perfectly! This places our Z17911 ancestor being born between 837 and 987 years ago. It places the Hartley common ancestor between 431 and 501 years ago, the Bennett/Phillips ancestor 639-750 years ago, etc. Do keep in mind that accuracy is more variable near the end of the branches (closer to present day), especially with data from only 2 or 3 people. And SNPs are not always formed at a consistent rate. So this all a bit rough, but should give us fairly reasonable estimations. Jared

The S5668 SNP pack results are in for Chuck Martin and they confirm a new Thomas/Martin branch of the tree. First, I had indicated Chuck's kit # previously as 161394. That was incorrect. His actual kit # is 495859. One of Thomas' (previously) unique SNPs is FGC33966. FTDNA included this SNP in the S5668 SNP Pack. Chuck Martin is positive for FGC33966 (and also BY11573), thus verifying this new branch! I've updated my charts at http://dna.smithplanet.com/snp to reflect the new branching (you may need to hit Refresh). You'll notice that we currently don't have anyone left right at S59969/BY11573 - they've all moved to downstream blocks in just the last few weeks due to new test results. This places the common Thomas/Martin ancestor at probably 500-700 years ago. It's likely that Thomas and Martin also share some of Thomas' other 'unique' SNPs - such as FGC33968 and FGC33967 - see http://www.ytree.net/SNPinfoForPerson.php?personID=413 Each new SNP match would move your common ancestor 100+ years closer to present day. But you are GD=6 at Y67, so this does suggest that your common ancestor is still probably at least a few hundred years back, and that we got lucky and hit gold with your FGC33966 SNP match. In other news, I see that FTDNA has updated their tree with some of our recent changes (I'll request that FGC33966 be added). If I'm reading it correctly, the new terminal SNP for Bennett and Phillips (I currently have as ??? on my charts) is labelled BY15420. They also list BY15419 upstream of this and BY11565, but I'm not sure what this SNP is. I'll try to figure it out. Discovering new branches is what this project is about, and new ones always make my day! Thanks, Jared PS - Chuck, I don't see you in the Martin project. Maybe try re-joining - or maybe something odd is happening there.

Hi Jared and everyone, I have a new 34/37 match. Surname is Dean who may be related to my previous match of that name. I invited him to check out the L513 project. Charles Thomas

This post should (hopefully) make a lot more sense... A few of us have been doing some analysis to try to figure out how long ago our common ancestors may have lived. We have come up with much more recent estimates than previously determined. SNP age calculations are always rough estimates. YFull uses 144.41 years per SNP to try to establish a formal baseline. The problem is that if you calculate the number of SNPs that some people have that are downstream of SNPs for which YFull has time estimates, and multiply that number by 144 years per SNP, this duration often does not align eve closely with YFull's time estimates. This simply proves that SNPs do not always occur at 144 years per SNP. This is certainly the case with the people on our branch of the tree - the 10 Big-Y testers on the Z16357 branch have A LOT more SNPs than is typical. Based on generally accepted age estimates for older SNPs, we all average around 75 years per SNP. Our mutations occur nearly twice as fast on average as YFull's baseline - meaning that our common ancestors likely lived much more recently than YFull has estimated. Daryl estimated that the time to our most recent common ancestor (TMRCA) that had the Z16357 SNP as being 2422 years ago. Below Z16357 is the large Z16343 block which he estimated ends at 900 years ago. Below it is Z17911 which he estimated at 706 years ago - much more recent than YFull's estimate of 1550 years ago. My own analysis closely aligned with Daryl's - though mine are bit older (I have Z17911 at around 800 years old). We use a methodology that is based on assumed dates for very old SNP mutations, but that also considers the number of SNPs both upstream and downstream from a known SNP to establish a more reasonable estimation of time. This approach gets more difficult as we get to the ends of the branches because we have fewer people that share those newer SNPs to analyze and average. But if we accept Z17911 as being ~800 years old, we can rough estimate the Bennett/Phillips ancestor as living ~550 years ago, for example. I've updated the SNP chart at http://dna.smithplanet.com/snp with these refined estimates. As we get additional testers, especially those with known shared ancestors with other testers, then we'll be able to refine these estimates. Jared Smith

I've again updated the charts at http://dna.smithplanet.com/snp These now include the proper positioning for everyone. I removed the speculative branches that do not have available SNP tests. All of us have our own speculative branches, so it didn't make sense to only show some of them. You'll notice a new BY15419 block above the Bennett/Phillips block and the Merrick/Goff block. Even though Merrick's results don't show this SNP, FTDNA has him below this block, so they must have analyzed his BAM file to find him positive for it. These small blocks provide a measurable "anchor SNP" for that common ancestor (within a few generations) and define the split in family lines. This portion of the tree is likely where many of the potential testers I've identified will land (particularly Vaughan, Watkins, Griffin, Lewis, Evans, etc.), if our STRs are a good indication (which they often aren't). With several good branches now defined, our project needs additional testers to verify and extend those branches. I have identified 80 or so good potential testers as found in the STR and GD spreadsheets - http://dna.smithplanet.com/str Please invite your Y37+ matches to participate with us! I can only contact people that are Y-DNA matches to me, so please send them e-mails and encourage them to check out the site and join this discussion list. I think most of them would be thrilled to know that your SNP testing has helped them know where they fit on the Y-DNA tree. Most have only tested L21 or M269, which are 4500 years old. Your tests prove a much more recent location for them on the tree. Feel free to send them my e-mail address if they have questions (copying me on the e-mail will be helpful). Or you can send me their names/emails to me and I'd be happy to contact them. Other items of note: - Michael Hartley has ordered Big-Y. This should define a long Hartley SNP branch. Though Michael and Joel have not identified a known common ancestor, this will at least bring this branch into surname times. - We have another Phillips tester that has or will soon be ordering Big-Y. This should create a well-defined Phillips branch below BY15420. - We're *still* awaiting the Z16357 SNP test results for Lenita. Once confirmed there, she may consider Big-Y to help redefine our oldest "Smith" line where Sylvia is currently located. - I will be compiling and requesting some of our recently discovered SNPs to (hopefully) be added to the S5668 SNP Pack. This will provide a less expensive way for some of our Y-DNA matches to discover their location on our branches. If desired, I can also request single SNP tests at YSEQ ($17.50 each) so people can easily test any of our known SNPs. Thanks, Jared Smith

I have uploaded a new spreadsheet to http://dna.smithplanet.com/media/Z16357-Variants.xlsx This likely has limited utility for anyone other than me, but I thought I'd share it. This file is used for analyzing Y-DNA mutation variants (SNPs, insertions/deletions, etc.) that us Z16357 people have. It's a very large spreadsheet with complex calculations - minor changes like sorting can take a long time to calculate. The Variants tab includes all 68,355 unique variants that we have. These were collected from Big-Y VCF files. You can use the Lookup tab to query specific DNA position numbers to see the values each of us have at that position. The Shared Variants tab shows all known variants ***AT OR BELOW Z16357*** that at least 2 of us have. This allows easy analysis of the consistency of SNPs and determination of their position on our branches. A "+" indicates a positive test for that variant. A "***" indicates the variant was identified, but the test quality is questionable. A blank box indicates EITHER a negative result OR no test coverage (be careful - you can't assume too much from a blank box without analyzing the BED file for read coverage). The Unique Variants tab lists most of the variants that are unique to only one of us. I'd be happy to add any new ones from YFull, if any of you who have tested there would like to e-mail them to me. Note that some Insertions/Deletions (these are kinda like hiccups in your DNA) show "Count" as 0 because Big Tree calculates the position info for INDELs a bit differently than the VCF file. These are retained for reference. The primary function of this spreadsheet is to easily add VCF data to Variants for new Big-Y testers, then immediately determine which existing SNPs from our branch they have, and which Unique Variants are then no longer unique and need to be moved to Shared Variants. Jared

The Big-Y results for Brent Phillips are in. He is confirmed R-Y29969 with Bennett and Thomas. This is phylogenetically equivalent to BY11573. You'll notice FTDNA has changed the terminal SNP for Bennett and Thomas to Y29969 - it's a more reliable SNP to check. Beyond this, there's also a new tentative Bennett/Phillips branch. They both share the following markers (and perhaps some others that are yet to be discovered): 7488239-G-A 22486193-A-T 25311291-T-C These are in rather poor read areas for the Y-DNA test, but I believe at least the first one should hold up under further analysis to create this new branch. I had thought that Bennett and Phillips would share more good SNPs (i.e., they had a more recent common ancestor), but this proves that their lines split after Y29969. But both of them have around 10 good unique SNPs that would provide distinct Bennett and Phillips branches with additional cousin testers. Another good discover with the Phillips and my Smith Big-Y is validation of 5 or 6 other SNP markers that those of us on the Z17911 block share. This means that Z17911 is a bigger/longer block than we had previously thought, thus moving our more recent ancestor in that block closer to modern day. My own VERY rough estimate based on what we know now is that our most recent Z17911 lived probably around 1200 years ago, with the Bennett/Phillips/Thomas/Merrick/Goff Y29969/BY11573 ancestor living around 800 years ago. Brent's results add some very useful information to our project! Jared