I regularly check this site and the FTDNA block tree hoping to find new additions to my branch of the tree (S668 > BY11548 and subclades). Is this unnecessary in the sense that the info on this site basically comes from FTDNA, or am I likely to eventually find non-FTDNA additions to my branch?
Also: soon after I did the Big Y, a few other testers were placed alongside me in BY11548 > A10680, but after that early surge I have waited years between shared results. It doesn't make sense to me why the initial feast would be followed by an extended famine. Is it possible that there was some change in the processing of samples, or in the science behind the allocation process, so that some of those early results were misplaced??? I have no idea if that is a real possibility ... just thought I'd mention it.
Geoff
Source/s of data for this website
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Geoff Melloy
- Maccfuirmid Senchada
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- Location: Brisbane Australia
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Re: Source/s of data for this website
Geoff,
We use all known public sources, which include FTD, The Big Tree, and YFull. Whether checking both the FTD Block Tree and our Cladogram is useful is your call. I will say we try to be more thorough.
In terms of new data, it is just the luck of the draw. Overall, the amount of Y-DNA testing we have seen has dropped significantly since the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 AD. IDK if this is temporary or a general burnout on Y-DNA testing and genetic genealogy in general. Almost all of the AT-DNA testing companies like 23andMe, Ancestry, etc. have moved their chip design away from genealogically useful regions to medically relevant regions. They learned there is far more money to be made from medically oriented testing. I believe the current Australian parent company of FTD is oriented towards medically relevant genetic testing. This does not bode well for genetic genealogy.
So yes, it is just a waiting game. I had to wait from 2010 AD to 2017 AD before there was any significant new data related to my father's results. Unless mandatory global DNA testing becomes international law, and God forbid that should ever happen, even at an individual national level, we are at the whim of individuals who choose to test.
I do hope that when T2T gapless testing becomes commercially viable we will see a resurgence in genealogical interest. It is my gut feeling that T2T gapless testing MAY get us down to individual generations, when there are generations with more than one son. Otherwise, we can only have the larger phylogenetic nodes that are indicative of either several generations of only one son per generation or where some branches either died or daughtered out.
Re current matching technology with current sequencing technology, please understand that NO TWO TEST RESULTS ARE IDENTICAL. The sequencing covers the same general regions, but not every location is sequenced and those that are skipped (which happens randomly in an uncontrollable fashion) vary from test to test - even for the same individual. This is just the limitation of the current technology. T2T gapless testing will eliminate this ambiguity. But as it stands now, there are assumptions made that a man has all the Y chromosome mutations that lead to his terminal clade. Unfortunately, some of the locations for the mutations are skipped, i.e., no-called, in any given test.
We use all known public sources, which include FTD, The Big Tree, and YFull. Whether checking both the FTD Block Tree and our Cladogram is useful is your call. I will say we try to be more thorough.
In terms of new data, it is just the luck of the draw. Overall, the amount of Y-DNA testing we have seen has dropped significantly since the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 AD. IDK if this is temporary or a general burnout on Y-DNA testing and genetic genealogy in general. Almost all of the AT-DNA testing companies like 23andMe, Ancestry, etc. have moved their chip design away from genealogically useful regions to medically relevant regions. They learned there is far more money to be made from medically oriented testing. I believe the current Australian parent company of FTD is oriented towards medically relevant genetic testing. This does not bode well for genetic genealogy.
So yes, it is just a waiting game. I had to wait from 2010 AD to 2017 AD before there was any significant new data related to my father's results. Unless mandatory global DNA testing becomes international law, and God forbid that should ever happen, even at an individual national level, we are at the whim of individuals who choose to test.
I do hope that when T2T gapless testing becomes commercially viable we will see a resurgence in genealogical interest. It is my gut feeling that T2T gapless testing MAY get us down to individual generations, when there are generations with more than one son. Otherwise, we can only have the larger phylogenetic nodes that are indicative of either several generations of only one son per generation or where some branches either died or daughtered out.
Re current matching technology with current sequencing technology, please understand that NO TWO TEST RESULTS ARE IDENTICAL. The sequencing covers the same general regions, but not every location is sequenced and those that are skipped (which happens randomly in an uncontrollable fashion) vary from test to test - even for the same individual. This is just the limitation of the current technology. T2T gapless testing will eliminate this ambiguity. But as it stands now, there are assumptions made that a man has all the Y chromosome mutations that lead to his terminal clade. Unfortunately, some of the locations for the mutations are skipped, i.e., no-called, in any given test.
