Strategy for BigY testing

[NatalieM]

Looking for some insight on Big Y. We have now 12 kits that all match the root haplogroup for the McClendons, without any separation between them. (Another 6 are separated into 3 subordinate haplogroups.) I got the son of one of the testers to test, and he and his father were pulled out but no other splits were made. With the son, we have 4 kits that on paper trace back to a common ancestor about 5 generations back. Then there are 3-4 more kits that probably have a common ancestor to the first 4, just one more generation back.

I had hoped that testing the son would reveal some matching variants other than his own father. I'm frustrated that we aren't getting any separation among these 12 kits. What should be our strategy for recruiting new testers? Does this reveal that there just aren't enough variants to work with among this group of people? Am I asking too much of BigY?

A little background: All McClendons in the US are very likely descended from one immigrant born about 1650 and his 3-4 sons. I am the admin for the McClendon YDNA Project at FTDNA. I understand this enough to sound like I know what I'm talking about when I talk to people who know nothing about BigY. Otherwise I'm over my head.

[mabrams]

"I understand this enough to sound like I know what I'm talking about when I talk to people who know nothing about BigY. Otherwise I'm over my head."
hmm....that sounds familiar.

I am not sure what your goal is. Are you trying to place your Dirty Dozen into Y groups that correspond to the 3-4 sons? Or is that already known from genealogical research and documents? Are you trying to shed light on some McClendon mysteries? Or is your basic goal primarily to just make some sense of the SNPs in an organizational way?

I looked at your BlockY and it seems like you have enough SNPs to work with. You have an average of 3 private SNPs per person. Plus some SNPs that may not have made it to the BlockY. That seems like enough SNPs to play around with.

Normally, testing a son does not provide additional SNPs over the father's kit. You might get some private SNPs renamed as public SNPs. An oft-quoted average for SNPs is 83 years or about 3 generations. It would not be very efficient to test 2nd cousin or closer. You need to find 3rd to 5th cousins to test.

Make sure that your kits are Y700s. Y500s lead to false positives.

[NatalieM]

mabrams, thanks for replying. We have reasonable records to trace many lines back to the Revolutionary War era, but almost nothing in the way of evidence prior to that. The genealogies are full of assumptions and wishful thinking. It's that 2-4 generations from the sons of the immigrant to our provable lines, basically the 1700s, I'm hoping to shed some light on with Big Y.

You suggest that I test 3rd to 5th cousins, but that's exactly what we've tested, with no separation in the Block tree. As for SNPs to work with, I would have no idea how to do that. I assumed FTDNA would do that if there was information that was useful in the SNPs. Can you point me to something that would explain this?

[mabrams]

"We have reasonable records to trace many lines back to the Revolutionary War era, but almost nothing in the way of evidence prior to that. The genealogies are full of assumptions and wishful thinking." A very apt description of my Y family

I apologize for my poor wording, re: "SNPS to work with". I was writing in generalities. You have an average of 3 private SNPs per 12 people. I meant that over time, there will be plenty of opportunities for a new match to link to one of those private variants. I did not mean to imply that there was a way to target those SNPs specifically in your potential new testers. If there is such a way, I would be interested as well.


I can see your puzzle. One would think that testing 12 men who are positive for your BY SNP would yield some downstream blocking.

In that way we are very different. I have only one PV and my 5th has zero. We seem to be at the end of the line for SNPs and can only look to breaking up the block above us.

I dont have any sage advice. Maybe someone else will. Just keep testing, with the emphasis on more distant cousins. 5th to 8th??

My best bit of advice. You do have several R-M269 kits in your project. Some of them also have STR mutations of interest at DYS487, DYS714 and DYS643. Those seem like good test kits to upgrade to BigY700. And upgrade any BY500s.


I sent you a private message....

[JeffZ]

Have you tried using Rob Spencer's Dendogram tool (http://scaledinnovation.com/gg/clustering.html)? This could help focus where the current R-M269 kits would help in breaking up blocks. It could also help identify the ones that are not related and should be moved to a separate group in the project.

The tool tries to group the testers based on STR mutation patterns. Of course, that also means the grouping can be suspect due to how STRs mutate. You copy everything on the DNA results page, paste that into the Data Input box, select the dataset you want to use, then select Run Analysis. Use the Option box in the upper right to change the displayed information so it shows kit numbers.

[NatalieM]

JeffZ, I looked at the website you linked to. Looks very interesting. I ran the Dendogram and it pretty much tells what I already know. I already sorted the kits about the same way, here FamilyTreeDNA - McCLENDON DNA PROJECT. Is there something I'm not understanding about this tool.

I will of course continue to try to get current kits to be upgraded. My question is about what type of relationship should I be recruiting for new testing. It was suggested 3-5 cousins, and just trying to get more. Almost all McClendons are related in that range or a little higher, so I will just keep at it. If you have any other suggestions, I'd love to hear them.

[NatalieM]

Just a follow up on this question I posted a month ago. I asked FTDNA again to look at the 13 undifferentiated kits and they decided to do a Telomere-to-Telomere analysis on them. They came up with 2 new haplogroups, pretty much how I would have expected them to be.

Now I will need to go learn about Telomere-to-Telomere analysis!
Natalie McClendon