Big Y enhancements started Oct 10th

[dtvmcdonald]

The available csv file has lacunae that make it worse than useless for some haplogroups. The new 38 VCF file is vastly better than the old, the new bed is similar to the old.
The vcf plus chromosome browser may solve many problems
that previously required the bam ... but not all.

[mwwalsh]

...
The vcf plus chromosome browser may solve many problems
that previously required the bam ... but not all.

I think the Big Y Browser is critical. The better it works, the more it is our "go to" when we can't get folks to submit raw results files for our own ad hoc work or to YFull or whatever.

My own 1200-1400 year-old subclade has only 1 of 16 Big Ys converted but it will where I'll be most motivated to struggle the new tools. I plan to make a list of requests, be they fixes or enhancements. FTDNA recognizes this is an important function so I think we can get through some stuff quickly on this.

[mwwalsh]

The available csv file has lacunae that make it worse than useless for some haplogroups. The new 38 VCF file is vastly better than the old, the new bed is similar to the old.
The vcf plus chromosome browser may solve many problems
that previously required the bam ... but not all.

I've got reports on other forums that the .CSV results are much improved in the regenerated Big Y results. I might use these for a first crack for my little subclade, then go into the Big Y Browser and re-requests on getting the VCF and BAM files

[gatty]

This technical stuff is way above my head. What I want to know is when will the upgrade be finished? Given my paucity of close matches ie only one with a snp difference of 0, who is not so at Yfull, I am not expecting to get much out of this.

[mwwalsh]

This technical stuff is way above my head. What I want to know is when will the upgrade be finished? Given my paucity of close matches ie only one with a snp difference of 0, who is not so at Yfull, I am not expecting to get much out of this.

You may not get much new out of this. The key to genetic genealogy is having people potentially related to you testing for the same things. This is team sport so recruiting and asking others to upgrade is important.

Only FTDNA can forecast when they will be finished with this conversion. Whatever they say, I think will multiply in my mind by two as they generally slow. In any case, I'm going work on Y STR comparisons and learning the new Big Y tools while the results all settle out and are worth evaluating again.

[gatty]

There is only one person with my surname who's tested at FTDNA. He's done the Y37(we are GD of 2) but attempts to get him to do Family finder or anything else have proved fruitless.

I do seem to have quite a rare subclade of E-V13-E-L17. I'm the only E-Z16664* at Yfull.(E-BY5219 at FTDNA)

[KATM]

I just got an email from FTDNA, apologizing that the Big Y changes are going to take another 7 days:

Dear Big Y Customers,

We are still recalculating your Big Y results. We apologize for the delay and appreciate your patience during this exciting update to Big Y.

We anticipate this taking approximately 7 more days. During this time, you will continue to see "Results Pending" in the Big Y section. You will be notified by email once your results are processed and ready.

Below is a refresh on the changes we are implementing. We can't wait for you to experience the new Big Y!

[mwwalsh]

I just got an email from FTDNA, apologizing that the Big Y changes are going to take another 7 days:

Somewhere below I just told someone to take their time estimates times two. I think I should have said times four so I'm NOT believing "another 7 days" yet either.

We won't be able to get the BAM file share links immediately anyway so we really are talking about some time for this to be fully migrated.

[rivergirl]

Somewhere below I just told someone to take their time estimates times two. I think I should have said times four so I'm NOT believing "another 7 days" yet either.

We won't be able to get the BAM file share links immediately anyway so we really are talking about some time for this to be fully migrated.

Yes, I'm thinking more like x 4.
A quick look at 2 of my larger surname projects, we have had only ~1/5 of results in as yet. Another smaller project has on 1 out of 11 results in.

[dtvmcdonald]

My project has 209 haplogroup R BigYs. I'm only tracking those. Exactly 2/9 (22.2%) of the R1b ones are in, 7% of the R1a ones, 18% overall. ZERO of the R1a ones that are the core of my project are in.

NONE of the large important fraction before batch 599 are in.
These are the ones that were specially selected by me and to a substantial degree paid for by me.

Edit:I may have figured something out. So far zero of the people whose bam files I have that have the mitochondria in them have arrived in 38.

[mwwalsh]

My project has 209 haplogroup R BigYs. I'm only tracking those. Exactly 2/9 (22.2%) of the R1b ones are in, 7% of the R1a ones, 18% overall. ZERO of the R1a ones that are the core of my project are in.

NONE of the large important fraction before batch 599 are in.
These are the ones that were specially selected by me and to a substantial degree paid for by me.

Edit:I may have figured something out. So far zero of the people whose bam files I have that have the mitochondria in them have arrived in 38.

The U106 guys are saying they have about 20% done. That seems to be the number.
I have only 1 of 20 in for my 1200-1500 year-old branch which is the one I'll experiment with on the Big Y Browser.

[JSW]

I have just one of the BIG-Y that I manage(about 20) and that one
now has zero matches were before it had almost 1000 Big-Y matches.
I am thinking we will need to await the processing of
100% of the database before we should use it.
I will believe x4 for the completion.

[dna]

Am I the only one who finds it confusing that the entry field for Unnamed Variants comes pre-filled as SNP Name Search ? Position Search, like in the other tab, would be a better choice.

Headers of new VCF files have line ###reference=ucsc.hg38.fasta. The old VCF files included info assembly=hg19. In both cases the included readme.txt proclaims:

The VCF file contains a list of all variants found using the build 37.3 human genome reference.

... Mr. W

[gtkingston]

I'm one of the luckier ones to have already received my upgraded Big Y results (two days ago). The "Matching" function certainly looks more user-friendly and meaningful than before. Do they intend to restrict that function to people with Big Y results, or is there any possibility that those who have ordered SNP packs or individual SNPs (but not Big Y) might also eventually be able to appear as matches?

[mwwalsh]

I'm one of the luckier ones to have already received my upgraded Big Y results (two days ago). The "Matching" function certainly looks more user-friendly and meaningful than before. Do they intend to restrict that function to people with Big Y results, or is there any possibility that those who have ordered SNP packs or individual SNPs (but not Big Y) might also eventually be able to appear as matches?

I don't know but I think this is a Big Y only function. The real intent seems to be to look for unnamed SNPs that are found to be shared.