The FTDNA DNA Day Sale has started! Sale prices last until April 26.
Here are the sale prices for new tests:
For members who already have taken Y-111, the upgrade price to Big Y-700 is $229.
Upgrades from Y-37, Y-67, Big Y-500 to Big Y-700 is $209.
If you are a PSHG member interested in taking advantage of the sale please contact the administrator.
Happy DNA Day!
In a recent blog post (https://blog.familytreedna.com/2019-review-of-big-y/), FTDNA touted the success of their Big Y-700 test by summarizing the results. Big Y-700 is a NGS test that identifies high quality Y-SNPs, which results in building out the Block Tree (a graphical representation combining Y-SNP mutations from ancient times to the present together with membership groupings who share those SNPs).
According to the blog, the test in 2019 resulted in:
The PSHG contributed to the data with 4 Full Members and 4 Associate Members ordering tests. Thanks to the test results, we have identified our fourth Y-SNP unique to the PSHG Full Members, a new Haplogroup for an Associate Member Branch, and several Private Variant or Direct Paternal Lineage SNPs.
Coming off the success of the new product, FTNDA announced that the 2019 Holiday pricing was becoming the new regular prices.
It is not yet clear whether these regular prices will get slashed again during their normal sales periods, historically:
National DNA Day in April
Father’s Day in June
Summer in August/September
Thanksgiving in November
Holiday in December
If you are a PSHG Full Member who has taken Y-111, the $239 price upgrade to Big Y cannot be beat. One way FTDNA was able to reduce the price was to make the data-packed raw file sold separately. Contact an Admin if you’re interested in joining the Big Y wave in 2020.
National DNA Day is celebrated on Thursday, April 25 and FTDNA is celebrating with a Sale!
If you are a PSHG member interested in taking advantage of the sale please contact and administrator.
The Sale lasts until Thursday, April 25, 2019.
While this website is primarily focused on the Goals of the Peter Staple Heritage Group, sometimes we get distracted. A necessary component of Genetic Genealogy is of course Genealogy, where it’s easy to spend time diving down the other (non-paternal) branches of the family tree. In fact, many people may get their first interest in genealogy by that Ancestry.com commercial or the hand written scroll given to you by your uncle.
Side Study blog posts will serve as general information related to genealogy – not specifically to the study of Y-DNA. They may be personal lessons learned along the way, methods to push us to acting more like professional genealogists, or interesting discoveries.
In the end, genetic genealogy teaches us that it’s all related. There are things to learn in the practice of genealogy that will be helpful when studying genetic genealogy.
Have you come across something interesting that could help others? Want to contribute your own Side Study? Comment below!
FTDNA’s Holiday Sale is in full swing with savings up to 40% on some products. The Y-111 test (needed for full PSHG membership) is currently only $219 USD (a savings of $140). For those interested in deepening their understanding of SNPs, including Direct Paternal Lineage SNPs, Big Y-500 is on sale for $499 USD.
Upgrades from Y-111 to Big Y-500 are $349!
FTDNA’s autosomal test, Family Finder, is also on sale at $49 USD. By comparison, AncestryDNA is on sale for $59 USD. Sales are ending later this month. If you are interested in a FTDNA purchase, contact an Administrator and ask about special pricing and holiday coupon codes.
Father’s Day Sales arrived last week:
You may be aware that a new European Union Regulation related to General Data Protection (referred to as GDPR) goes into affect on Friday, May 25, 2018. I have done my best to analyze the PSHG Group Administrative functions with respect to GDPR and presented the findings, along with some changes that have already taken place, and some more changes that will come to the PSHG Membership.
In general, I believe the PSHG’s risk level of being non-compliant or facing any kind of penalty for non-compliance is very, very low. The EU has aimed GDPR directly at big companies like Facebook, Google, etc. to comply or face financial risk. However, companies like Ancestry and FTDNA must also comply since they service European Union Citizens (and for the sake of this topic, the UK has it’s own similar legislation and is so far covered under the EU). The protections offered by GDPR are manageable for a small group like ours and make common sense. For example, you have a right to know what personal information is held by group administrators and you have a right to be forgotten (data removed). While most of the membership are American Citizens (and not directly impacted by GDPR), we do have, and continue to seek and welcome EU/UK potential cousins in order to further the goals of the PSHG. Therefore, it makes perfect sense that we make some minor adjustments and do our best to comply with GDPR.
The report sent to PSHG Members included more information about GDPR and what the PSHG has done and will do to prepare:
Please visit our Goals & Membership page to see our new privacy statement.
Please contact the Group Administrator if you have any questions related to GDPR and the PSHG.
References:
In conjunction with the National DNA Day Sales, FamilyTreeDNA.com announced the Big Y test is now called Big Y-500 and will include approximately 500 Y-STR results in addition to the SNPs that were traditional reported via the Big Y.
Everyone who has already taken a Big Y will receive updated results showing a 6th Panel of results with markers 111 through 561! The additional panel was made possible by the recent Build 38 of the Human Genome.
According to the release notes to Group Administrators, “Customers who purchase a Big Y-500 will also have to purchase or upgrade to the Y-DNA111 test. However, customers do not have to have a Y-STR test already before purchasing the Big Y-500 since it contains the Y-111. Big Y without STRs will no longer be available.”
For PSHG members (or prospective PSHG members), where Y-111 is required for full membership, we can order the Y-111 test at a non-sale cost of $339 (normally $359). The Y-111 to Big Y-500 Upgrade is normally $449 (which does not reflect sale prices). This totals $788 for those wanting full PSHG membership + access to their “Singleton” or Direct Paternal Lineage SNPs. Since the Big Y-500 stand alone test is $799, there’s currently no benefit to recommend skipping an initial Y-111 test to go directly to ordering a Big Y-500. This could change in the future if FTNDA offers a Group Discount for Big Y-500.
It is not yet clear how useful these additional results will be from a genetic genealogical point of view. Support groups like the R1b-U106 project are not yet able to offer specific insight; however, Dr. Iain McDonald has made some speculations, as written in a forum post:
“- The new STRs are shorter and their mutation rates lower. Very, very preliminary(!) work based on STR variances suggests the mutation rate in the new sample is around one mutation per 14 generations. This contrasts with one per 3.4 generations for the original Y-111, and suggests an overall Y-STR mutation rate over the Y-500 STR set of once per 2.8 generations…
– There are some clearly useful, slow STR mutations in there that will define useful family branches in some cases where SNPs have not. There are also some faster markers that appear to flip back and forth between two or more states.
– On the basis of this information, we should be able to use these results in several aspects of U106 research, including the layering of family trees and more precise computation of ages…Proper research on this will take many months…”
As usual with DNA research, time & research reveals new types of analysis and new results to consider. The continued sharing of DNA information will enable researchers to continue their work to explain what it all means.
Wednesday, April 25, 2018 is National DNA Day! Details about the recognition of the day can be found on the NIH’s National Human Genome Research Institute website.
FamilyTreeDNA.com is celebrating by offering sales on several products.
The Y-111 test, a requirement for full PSHG membership, is on sale for $289 USD (normally $359 retail / $339 through project order).
PSHG Members who have already taken the Y111 STR test can upgrade to the Big Y-500 for only $349 USD (normally $449)! This is a great price for those interested in finding their Direct Paternal Lineage (DPL) SNPs below FGC-13609.
FTDNA has announced a new product called Big Y-500 which is a combination test of the traditional Big Y + Y111 for $649 USD (normally $799). We’ll explore the Big Y-500 test and the changes from the traditional Big Y test in a future Blog post.
Details for the sale can be found on their sale website (https://www.familytreedna.com/sale/dna-day); however, PSHG members (or prospective members) should contact an admin before ordering. FTDNA sales end 4/28/2018.
Other non-Y DNA tests are also on sale including mtFull Sequence and Family Finder (autosomal DNA). Not to be outdone, Ancestry.com’s autosomal DNA test is at it’s lowest price of $59 USD until 4/29/2018.
Happy testing!
A new page is launched under our Results > Technical Data section – PSHG Haplotype Technical Data.
In the last post we talked about the Y-SNP Haplotree and how we organize clades by branching SNPs. Today we return to the other method of analyzing Y-DNA, Y-STRs. Refer to the following blog posts if you need a refresher on the concepts of Y-STRs and Genetic Distance: Mutating DNA; Partner Profiles – FTDNA.
The International Society of Genetic Genealogists defines a Y-DNA Haplotype as, “the marker (allele) values obtained from a Y-STR (short tandem repeart) test. The result for each marker is expressed as a number.”
Let’s look at the first few markers and values of the PSHG Modal Haplotype:
Example: At Marker #1, named DYS393 by FTDNA, the PSHG Modal Haplotype has a value of 13.
Each person with Y-STR results has their own haplotype. Patterns emerge when comparing groups of related Y-STR111 test results, even if those group members are related at 8th cousins! While individual values may differ, if there are enough member test results, a Modal Haplotypes can be established.
Genetic Distance is a way to measure and compare how closely (or far) one haplotype is to another. Our Haplotype Technical Data page shows a comparison of the PSHG Modal Haplotype compared to those at R1b-FGC13595 and further upstream at R1b-U106.
Visit the PSHG Haplotype Technical Data page to see this detail and to understand how the Genetic Distance compares to other upstream haplotypes.
References:
Peter Staple Heritage Group (PSHG) 