Whole Genome Sequencing

[solarius]

With whole genome sequencing becoming ever more affordable, does anybody have any idea what FTDNA plans are on the subject?

I realise they that Big Y700 is not like for like when compared to many WGS, but YSEQ as one example are now offering a $399 WGS with mean depth coverage of 400X of one's ENTIRE genome which includes data, whilst I myself had Big Y700 yielding only 44.96X mean coverage which FTDNA currently sells at $449 without data.

https://www.yseq.net/product_info.php?cPath=29&products_id=175886

[John McCoy]

This is certainly the future of genetic genealogy! But it won't be widely adopted until the cost comes down a bit more. Vendors will have to be convinced of the extent and stability of the market as well as the technology, the equipment, and the analytical software. For genetic genealogy, of course, the big selling point is that segment matching algorithms will no longer have to guess what consittutes a match to the extent that they do now. However, I expect there will be new challenges that we haven't thought of yet, concerning individual structural variants and rearrangements. As the data from long reads of maternal and paternal strands accumulate, genetic genealogists will have a lot to learn!

[KATM]

I have not heard any plans about WGS testing being offered specifically for FTDNA customers. FTDNA's parent company, Gene By Gene, offers Whole Genome Testing. It requires a blood sample (not cheek scraping or saliva), and there is no analysis done, only providing raw data to the customer. It is 30x coverage average, not 400x as YSEQ's test. I didn't see any pricing on the Gene by Gene website for WGS testing.

[solarius]

I have not heard any plans about WGS testing being offered specifically for FTDNA customers. FTDNA's parent company, Gene By Gene, offers Whole Genome Testing. It requires a blood sample (not cheek scraping or saliva), and there is no analysis done, only providing raw data to the customer. It is 30x coverage average, not 400x as YSEQ's test. I didn't see any pricing on the Gene by Gene website for WGS testing.

I jumped the gun a little, mean depth according to YSEQ's own page I just posted is only 27.75X according to YFull's analysis, which is significant compared to my Big Y700 yielding 44.46X mean depth. Median depth for YSEQ according to YFull was 24X and mine was 46X. However according to Y-DNA Warehouse which was linked on the same page, Big Y700 yields about twice as many poor alignments as YSEQ WGS400.

https://ydna-warehouse.org/statistics.html

As I've already uploaded WGS data (from Dante Labs) to YFull before, I can confidently say that a mean and median depth of 11X yielded excellent data for YFull to analyse, and was actually superior to my Big Y700. My Y700 has a total of 972 no calls or ambiguous SNP results vs the 43 for my uncle's Dante Labs data. YSEQ have posted a screenshot showing only a combined total of 72 from YFull on the aforementioned page:

https://www.yseq.net/product_info.php?products_id=175886

I don't believe Big Y700 offers good value for money, I can not justify it when WGS quality and pricing offer better alternatives.