NPE...Now what

[Raydarnsky]

It seems as though I have found the possible reason for my brick wall at my third great grandfather. I started out 8 years ago tracing my genealogy and since retirement have slowly progressed backward in time doing it the "old fashioned way". I finally decided to get my atDNA done to see if I could locate more information. My atDNA led me to FTDNA and after milling around I found the Farrar -Farrow DNA project and suspected I had found the goose that laid the golden egg. After much discussion with William Farrar the co-administrator of the project I decided to take the BigY test and did. William felt that we would be able to determine which of the three know Farrar lineages that immigrated to the US that I came from.

Now to the crux of my question. It turns out that my BigY shows that I am not in any of the lines of DNA of the Farrar's and that more than likely Wellington Farrar was the result of a NPE. My BigY matches appear to be of the Lile, Jamieson, Thompson surnames. My confirmed haplogroup is R-Y42600 and my kit # is B913390. I joined the R_R1b all subclades project and then was invited to join the RU106 project.

My question is this, I am not in anyway DNA smart, more DNA stupified and the more I read and try to learn the less I think I know. I feel as though taking the BigY only made things more confusing than straightening things out. I see everyone talking about MRCA in the 1400 CE and that is not what I am interested in, I am looking for information only dating back to around 1800 or so. That brings me to the question, I've done all this testing now where do I go to figure out who my 4th great grandfather was on my fathers side. Any help you may be able to render would be greatly appreciated. I have convinced my brother to take an atDNA test in hopes that we may be able to triangulate some other matches, but I don't know if that will even help. Thanks in advance for your comments and suggestions.

[Jim Barrett]

Which company did your atDNA test? If it wasn't FTDNA have you uploaded your raw atDNA data to FTDNA? Have you uploaded that data to GEDmatch? Have you convinced a 2nd or 3rd cousin from the line in question to do an atDNA test at the company you used? Have you convinced a 2nd or 3rd cousin from the line in question to do a Y-DNA test?

[Raydarnsky]

Which company did your atDNA test? If it wasn't FTDNA have you uploaded your raw atDNA data to FTDNA? Have you uploaded that data to GEDmatch? Have you convinced a 2nd or 3rd cousin from the line in question to do an atDNA test at the company you used? Have you convinced a 2nd or 3rd cousin from the line in question to do a Y-DNA test?

Jim,
My at DNA was done at Ancestry.com, I have uploaded it to to FTDNA as well as GEDMatch. I do know of a first cousin once removed who has had an atDNA completed and it is on Ancestry and that person is reticent to upload to FTDNA or GEDMatch. I have yet to find any 2nd or 3rd cousins to do either an atDNA or YDNA. Still loooking... I have however convinced my brother to take an atDNA test. Thanks for all the tips.

[thompsonjfent]

The Y-DNA test may have made things more confusing but it really only showed that what you thought was true was not. It is great at ruling out possibilities but only works for identifying ancestors if other people in the line have tested. Your brother's results probably won't help at all as he is likely to have 0 or 1 changes relative to you. It can rule out NPEs in your generation but not much else. You need those 3rd, 4th etc cousins to get more info. I have a very similar issue. My brother's Y is exactly the same as mine and there are a few men with the same surname (Thompson) who hit 4 or more generations back but the atDNA does not match to link us. I have been unable to find 3rd+ male cousins who even exist so can't even ask them to test. Beyond 7 generations, all my matches are to a different surname (Little) with only speculation as to why that is the case. Y-DNA has allowed me not to waste my time on a lot of surname-matched individuals who are no more likely to be related than others with a different surname.

[John McCoy]

The Big Y results are telling you something any genealogist should find useful: where NOT to look! For me, the Big Y told me that my McCoy patrilineal ancestry was not connected to the other McCoy families that had been tested. In effect, I could ignore them completely. However, after some years, a McCoy finally appeared on the next twig over from mine on the Y haplotree, proving that my McCoy line is "real", in the sense that it predates the arrival of my ancestor in Maryland around 1790. The other sample still hasn't been connected to mine through genealogical evidence (fragmentary records, at best, in 1790's Maryland and Pennsylvania). But there is always hope that additional samples and additional records will emerge.

It is important not to get too wrapped up in the surnames that appear in your Big Y results. For very well sampled branches of the haplotree, it is sometimes possible to work out that a particular twig really does coincide with a specific family and a family name: in that case, the defining mutation must have occurred around the time the family name became stable (in some cultures and locations, stable, patrilineal surnames may not have come into use until the early 19th Century), or else any other families that already had the same mutation either died out or haven't yet been sampled. For many of us, however, we find an assortment of surnames on our local branch of the haplotree, presumably because the defining mutation occurred before stable family names came into use. But as the Big Y process gathers more data, every time someone else takes the test, the branches of the haplotree will be resolved into finer and finer branches, and more individual families will be identifiable. Big Y results that may be useful for genealogy keep coming in for years after you take the test! Genealogy, whether traditional or not, requires limitless patience and persistence: keep digging!

[JeffZ]

As noted, there would be little benefit to having your brother take a Y DNA test but his atDNA test should help with finding distant cousins. Siblings will have matches with distant cousins that you do not and vice-versa. It will also help with filtering matches on to each of your grandparent's lines.

If the first-cousin once-removed is expected to be on your paternal line, you might have him use the tool at https://cladefinder.yseq.net/ to get an approximate hablogroup. This tool looks at known SNPs that are included in the Ancestry test but not reported. It uses an old tree so the answer may not align with anything on your BigY path but it would be somewhere upstream if your paternal lines match. Look up the terminal SNP on the FTDNA Discover page to find out. The tool does not actually upload anything to the site, so there would be no privacy concerns.

[mabrams]

If there was a checklist for what to do, I would say you have checked almost all of the boxes. You have also gotten excellent advice in the posts above

You mentioned AncestryDNA, FTDNA and GEDmatch. Don't forget the last two. 23andMe and MyHeritage. You can upload to MH but must test at 23andMe. Fish in all Ponds. You might also consider LivingDNA.

As for your Y quest, focus on your Y37 to Y111 matches. Many have not taken BigY, so you really don't know, one way or the other, if they are true Y matches. Y-STR matches tend to be more recent and not from 1400 CE. The issues, with Y37 particularly, are false positives and STRs that misbehave by back mutating etc.

You can make a quick analysis of any interesting Y37 or greater matches, if they are on the R1b or U106 or some other project pages. Go to Nevgen.org. Make sure you check the R1b option in the upper left. You will get a predicted haplotype that you can compare to Y42600 .

As for BigY, keep an open mind about matches in the couple branches above you. R-FTD87052 and A7206 etc. Dont get locked into Y42600 (exactly) although its true your optimal matches will be in Y42600.

Edit: I looked at your Y111 matches on the U106 page. None of your Y111/BigY matches are close enough to be tempting. They are probably closer to the 1400 CE date than to your ggg gf.

[Jim Barrett]

As John pointed out negative results can be very helpful. There are 100's of trees naming the father of my 3rd great grandfather. Several confirmed descendants of that man have Y-DNA results at FTDNA. They are all in Haplogroup E. Confirmed descendants of my 3rd great grandfather are in Haplogroup R. We know we don't need to waste time nor money researching the other man to prove he is our 4th great grandfather.

[georgian1950]

With Big Y and other testing, I've determined my surname line is good to 1679, where it became a victim of an NPE. However, I also have determined in my patrilineal line that my ggf, and very likely my 2ggf and 3ggf were responsible for many NPE's. I always say take a StarTrek approach for finding common ancestors - look for an intersection of lines in the time-space continuum. I expect for some, you will find connections which have no paper trail.

[Raydarnsky]

Thanks to everyone for all the helpful tips and hints. I guess I thought the BigY test was the silver bullet, and it may have been it just didn't slay the werewolf as I had expected. Now to carry on, you've all given me plenty of paths to explore. Again, thanks to all who commented!

[georgian1950]

Thanks to everyone for all the helpful tips and hints. I guess I thought the BigY test was the silver bullet, and it may have been it just didn't slay the werewolf as I had expected. Now to carry on, you've all given me plenty of paths to explore. Again, thanks to all who commented!

The thing about the Big Y is that your data is out there now. Someone can come along with a new test that forms a new terminal SNP with you. If your test wasn't there, no one would know. It's all a process. I managed to get my initial question answered after a bit, but now that opens up more questions.