No match big Y is useless

[bvbellomo]

Pretty upset after seeing no matches and reading that so many other people have no matches, and very disappointed ftdna restricted this from their previous product, which might have been useful or interesting.

I completely understand that showing matches likely beyond genealogical can be misleading, especially for people who have matches within genealogical time. But people who paid for BigY are advanced users unlikely to be mislead, and people who see nothing have gotten nothing for what they paid for - especially if they can't get BAM files.

[satyricon]

has FTDNA announced that they are no going to generate BAM files ?

[Armando]

The BAM files will be available in the future. It isn't known when though.

[John McCoy]

Also, at this stage, there is apparently a residuum of Big Y kits that haven't been "reprocessed" yet. Consequently, the lack of matches for some kits could simply be the result of incomplete processing, or it could really mean that there are no close matches at all! There does not seem to be any way we can tell the difference, which is a cause of considerable frustration for many of us.

For me, the lack of close matches on FTDNA even before the "reprocessing" and also on YFull has been useful. It is now clear that my McCoy family is not related to the other McCoy's who have been tested, and that I can safely ignore them in my research! But the McCoy families from Brown County, Illinois that I would really like to compare myself with haven't been tested.

[brownbagg]

i agree the big y has not produce anything, totally waste of money

[dtvmcdonald]

I have said before that the new match criteria are far better.

But no matches at all is showstopper.
They really should extend the number of tree levels back
for a given person until that person get at least 5 matches,
or some such number.

Of course, this leads to the possibility of going back level by level with zero matches, and then it hits a level with
1,000 matches. Especially in Africa.

[bvbellomo]

I have said before that the new match criteria are far better.

But no matches at all is showstopper.
They really should extend the number of tree levels back
for a given person until that person get at least 5 matches,
or some such number.

Of course, this leads to the possibility of going back level by level with zero matches, and then it hits a level with
1,000 matches. Especially in Africa.

Any match criteria, even matching to samples at random, is far better than no matches at all.

Extending this so everyone has at least 5 matches is a great idea.

Going from 0 to 1000 matches is not a problem, it could simply show the top 5, or all 1000. Showing too much irrelevant data that needs filtering is a very small problem. Showing no data at all is a gigantic problem.

[bvbellomo]

Also, at this stage, there is apparently a residuum of Big Y kits that haven't been "reprocessed" yet. Consequently, the lack of matches for some kits could simply be the result of incomplete processing, or it could really mean that there are no close matches at all! There does not seem to be any way we can tell the difference, which is a cause of considerable frustration for many of us.

I disagree, I would be no less frustrated knowing whether lack of processing was the reason for my lack of matches.

For me, the lack of close matches on FTDNA even before the "reprocessing" and also on YFull has been useful. It is now clear that my McCoy family is not related to the other McCoy's who have been tested, and that I can safely ignore them in my research! But the McCoy families from Brown County, Illinois that I would really like to compare myself with haven't been tested.

BigY is primarily promoted as a tool for those with samples that are outliers to further our knowledge of the tree of human y-genetics and provide information beyond what the cheaper test do. This is why I bought, and probably why the majority of customers did and future customers will. It greatly advances science and we all benefit every time an outlier tests. Instead of designing their software specifically for this group, they've gone ahead and designed something useless unless you are in an overrepresented branch of R1b.

If people are willing to pay for BigY for genealogical reasons and find it useful beyond the cheaper tests, that is great, but people in that situation are few and far between.

[Jim Barrett]

Any match criteria, even matching to samples at random, is far better than no matches at all.

I know you are talking about Big Y SNPS and not Y-DNA STRs, but you seem to be saying you'd rather see several Y-DNA12 matches than to see zero Y-DNA111 matches.

Put another way, reduce the matching criteria to the point it is meaningless rather than show zero matches.

[Armando]

Also, at this stage, there is apparently a residuum of Big Y kits that haven't been "reprocessed" yet. Consequently, the lack of matches for some kits could simply be the result of incomplete processing, or it could really mean that there are no close matches at all! There does not seem to be any way we can tell the difference, which is a cause of considerable frustration for many of us.

Using the current cutoff of 30 non-matching variants, most BigY tested people can tell fairly easily if they should have BigY matches simply by counting the Unnamed Variants. If there are more than 15 Unnamed Variants then it is extremely likely that most other people also have more than 15 Unnamed Variants and therefore they have more than 30 non-matching variants which is more than allowed to have a match. The exceptions to this rule are people that have some named variants downstream from their terminal SNP but aren't shared by anyone else in the database. So some people will have less than 15 unnamed variants but still not have matches. Normally those named variants won't start with BY and were named by a lab not run by FTDNA.

Most people have had their BigY kit upgraded to hg38 which is what is being called the "reprocess". Most people that did not have matches prior to the upgrade still won't have matches unless it's due to a new customer sharing more SNPs in which case your terminal SNP will change and you will have fewer unnamed variants because some will be named. The hg38 upgrade might add some new legitimate SNPs not previously identified and create a further genealogical distance.

So the less than 10% of people that haven't been upgraded to hg38 might not show as a match to others right now but if you have more than 15 unnamed variants then it is almost 100% that you won't see a match until a new customer shows up.

I have no idea what the results look like for people that haven't been upgraded yet.

Anyone with 15 unnamed variants has a terminal SNP that is at least around 2,000 years old. That's too far back for genealogy anyway.

[Armando]

But people who paid for BigY are advanced users unlikely to be mislead, and people who see nothing have gotten nothing for what they paid for - especially if they can't get BAM files.

How in the world is anyone supposed to know if a match is going to show up without them getting tested first? How do you know if you will not get a significant match in the next few years? How do you feel about telling potential matches that they should not get a BigY test which could in turn cause you to not get a match for a lot longer time from now than would occur without the complaint?

[dtvmcdonald]

BigY is primarily promoted as a tool for those with samples that are outliers to further our knowledge of the tree of human y-genetics and provide information beyond what the cheaper test do. ......

If people are willing to pay for BigY for genealogical reasons and find it useful beyond the cheaper tests, that is great, but people in that situation are few and far between.

Your first statement is true.

But you second statement above does NOT automatically follow!

Believe me, its not true.

Its especially true for people in large families,
like mine for instance ... the "Core" McDonalds. We descend from a single man in about the year 1330. Our STR haplotype is very distinctive indeed. But the STRs that distinguish us do not break us up into useful smaller family groups. In fact, there are people who differ from the known haplotype of the progenitor by only one marker in 111 (or in a few cases even more than 111).

But BigY has generated enough SNPs that most men are clustered in groups. So far we have found no man who has zero SNPs different from the common ancestor. Several
have just one reliable one.

In fact, several men, who are poor or cheapskates, have tested one SNP to see if they belong to the main group, and if they do, tested just a SNP Panel at Yseq, with excellent results.

[Alhan]

Using the current cutoff of 30 non-matching variants, most BigY tested people can tell fairly easily if they should have BigY matches simply by counting the Unnamed Variants. If there are more than 15 Unnamed Variants then it is extremely likely that most other people also have more than 15 Unnamed Variants and therefore they have more than 30 non-matching variants which is more than allowed to have a match.

Great explanations thanks. I've taken the quick road from YDNA12 to BigY in August sale, I was pretty much clueless what's been going on.

I now have 24 unnamed variants. However, I did have some matches before HG38 conversion. In fact my terminal SNP (R-FGC64132) formed after my results (my little contribution to Geneology I guess!)

From your explanations, I assume my fellow who is sharing my terminal SNP had less than 16 unnamed variants, so we were matching on BigY. (considering old 40 unnamed variants threshold)

Anyone with 15 unnamed variants has a terminal SNP that is at least around 2,000 years old. That's too far back for genealogy anyway.

I think it should be up to me to choose between 30 or 40 unnamed variant threshold. Is it so hard to put a button for this?

Currently, I have zero matches at all levels. It's now more than 3 months I am waiting for my BAM file.

I feel frustrated and disappointed. Before Armando's explanations, I was thinking my matches will come back when they're done with re-processing.

I wish I've taken R1a backbone test and stop there.

[Ric]

No match is terrible, while it is easy to filter an excess of matches. That has been said here and elsewhere. No customers is going to be happy with it.

Also, what's the point of the new features added to the BigY interface with zero match ?

Then finally, at this point people with zero Match will find more information in their group than from their BigY results, or absence thereof.
But precisely, I want to point out that many people in the groups have joined because they were contacted by their BigY matches and asked to join, or take the BigY in some case.
This is my case. I contacted one BigY match who was not part of the relevant group, and he agreed to join, and he downloaded to Alex Williamson BigTree, bringing valuable information doing so.
Having zero match now, I could not have contacted him and he may NOT have joined on his own, or perhaps he would, there is no way to know.
But the groups are not going to grow as fast now.

Remember that most FTDNA customers just do a STR test and stop there. SNPs and Big Y is way above their head and unless they are contacted by a match, they won't do anything more, not even join a group.

[similligan]

I have a family member who has 40 novel variants. I don't think I would ever want to look at the list of non-matching novel variants, but I would like to see a modified list of his matches at each level, possibly with the number of variants in parentheses or simply "more than 30". I agree with Ric that it could be important for haplogroup projects.