Family Lore vs. YDNA, Please Advise

[bartarl260]

Most 37 marker matches are no longer a Y67 or Y111 match when they have had a Y111 test which means that the most distant common ancestor in the direct paternal line is from many thousands of years ago. The only way you can know if the common ancestor is from less than 2,000 years ago is if you were to convince your match to upgrade or if you paid for his upgrade. If he is a match at Y111 then you can get with a haplogroup admin to help get a better estimate on when the common ancestor likely lived.

Since the thread is active. My take on TiP reports at 37 markers or less is you use it to check for very low probability results on MRCA. If its 0 or in the 20th percentile by 24 generations, that's a line you can probably safely ignore. That TiP can let you check STR marker levels higher than what you match at also makes it very useful, as you can have SNP matches who fail to fall within the matching criteria for Y25+. So being able to do a 67/111 marker TiP report on a 25 marker match is much more useful than just looking at the 25 marker GD data.

[bartarl260]

Update:

A person that FTDNA identified as a close male relative, with a similar surname at 111, and I have encouraged two others with closely similar name and genetic distances of 2 and 3 at 67 to take the 111 test. We have found that both of these people are at distance 3 at 111. One lives in Switzerland, one in Alsace. We all signed up for the Big Y500 Test in late December and were pleased to be informed by FTDNA that we were being upgraded, free of charge, to the new Big Y 700, since our results have not yet come in. So 4 of us, with close genetic distances at 111 and similar last names, only a letter or two apart, are awaiting what the 700 test will provide. To be continued .....

Great news for your family, and your more distant cousins it looks like on this one. Hopefully BigY helps shed more light on the connections involved.

[Hersey33]

Update: All 5 of us have now completed the Big Y 700. In the Block Tree Diagram, two of the other 3 are shown directly in my Branch with Private Variants of 3. The other two , who know they share a common AMERICAN ancestor that the others don't share, sit in a block directly beside us and also have Private Variants of 3. Their group is shown as R-BY98354. My group is shown as R-BY62958. On the website known as " The Big Tree: R-DF99/S11987", Alex does not list my 62958 on his block. Two of us believe that we share a common ancestor that was born in 1590, which would be 11 generations ago, in Switzerland. Any analysis from people who understand all of this would be greatly appreciated. All of our names are cognates, Hirschi in Switzerland, Hirschy in France, Hershey and Hersey in America.

[georgian1950]

Hersey33, thanks for the update. Looks like you are making great progress.

Do you have a name which you can share for that potential common ancestor born in 1590?

Good luck with future findings.

Jack

[Hersey33]

georgian 1950, One of the moderators of the Big Y results has just told us he would study our results and give us his views. Our research, through the Mennonite Census records, and those friends in Switzerland today helping with research have currently settled on Andreas or Andres Hirschi, born April 26, 1590. His first wife was Christini Danner, born 1590 or 1592. They married in Signau Church, near Bern, on October 22, 1610. Christini would die by 1620 and Andres would remarry. We have found records indicating that my ancestor was the son of Andres' first wife, another of our group traces his heritage to Andres' second wife Anna Rehs or Räss. Many records were destroyed in the religious wars, we are very fortunate that these were preserved. We can only hope this is accurate and keep investigating. Thanks for your interest!