A Question about "upgrading" deceased or inaccessible members

[clintonslayton76]

A recent Family Finder has been tested for a living male (whose results are sponsored and managed by me).
He has transferred Y results from Ancestry. If he passes away, can the Family Finder sample be used to "upgrade" his Y results so that they can be matched, etc? The "beneficiary" item on his kit is set to me.

Does anyone know if there is a problem with that?

[rivergirl]

If he has tested for FF at FTDNA and they have his DNA then that can be used for further tests.
You could order the yDNA upgrade now, and also ask FTDNA if they can send extra vials in case this person passes away, so you have extra DNA in storage.

[travers]

A recent Family Finder has been tested for a living male (whose results are sponsored and managed by me).
He has transferred Y results from Ancestry. If he passes away, can the Family Finder sample be used to "upgrade" his Y results so that they can be matched, etc? The "beneficiary" item on his kit is set to me.

Does anyone know if there is a problem with that?

Was the Family Finder a transfer from Ancestry as well? If so you would need to have him swab for FTDNA. If he actually tested for the Family Finder than as rivergirl stated that sample could be tested. That is why FTDNA keeps the samples in case you want to do further testing.

[clintonslayton76]

Thanks for replies!

If he actually tested for the Family Finder than as rivergirl stated that sample could be tested. That is why FTDNA keeps the samples in case you want to do further testing.

As stated, his Y results were xferred, but he recently did FF. Acc to my interpretation of your replies, his Y can be
upgraded from that sample. Unless I hear otherwise from an FTDNA employee, I will consider that question answered.

[The_Contemplator]

FTDNA employees don't really reply to forums, other than Darren but only some times.

But yes, as long as FTDNA has a DNA sample and not just transferred results, you are good to go.

[clintonslayton76]

Theory tested!

We requested an "upgrade" to Y results from a Family Finder swab and it was batched. So an inexpensive Family Finder does represent an entry-level sample that can be upgraded all the way to Y-111 (but not Big Y), which gives hope for those who are sponsoring upgrades for donors who are in poor health, or even deceased, if permission was established.

[prairielad]

Just to clarify, Family Finder is not used for upgrade. They used a piece of one of the swabs to run family finder test. The remaining sample goes back into storage.
Any future upgrades/tests then use that stored sample.
Once they run out of sample, no future upgrades/test can be done, if they do run out of sample,they will send out a new collection kit.
As a rule, the initial two vials submitted are more then adequate to run every test FTDNA offers unless sample is of poor quality. Sample does degrade over time.

If concerned about having enough of the sample left for future testing of an older testee you can request a new collection kit sent out under that persons account number by contacting FTDNA.

[Jim Barrett]

We requested an "upgrade" to Y results from a Family Finder swab and it was batched. So an inexpensive Family Finder does represent an entry-level sample that can be upgraded all the way to Y-111 (but not Big Y), which gives hope for those who are sponsoring upgrades for donors who are in poor health, or even deceased, if permission was established.

Once a Y-DNA test has been ordered for the sample Big Y can be added also.

[The_Contemplator]

Right, you just need to have an STR test (like Y37, etc) batched and then you can order the Big Y. So you don't even need to wait for the results. Batching takes place on Mondays and Wednesdays.

[clintonslayton76]

Thanks all

The ability to do Big Y from any other Y sample used to be a no-go, early on when considering it I was told by FTDNA CS that it required a separate swab, and they sent one for mine.

Since these postings, we have requested Y37 and Big Y from the Family Finder swab sample. This should give us a "representative" terminal SNP from among a pool of 20 related I-P37.2 men who have not wanted to spend the dough. The Haplo admin is happy!