About us
Please join the Facebook discussion group for more details and Q and A: https://www.facebook.com/groups/R1b.YDNA/
Jan 03, 2024: The project has 30,980 members. The R1b tree has 30,123 branches consisting of 211,434 variants and 108,868 individuals. The average variants per branch is 7.02. R1b has 40.1% of the total Haplotree
Jan 03, 2023: The project has 30,187 members. The R1b tree has 25,000 branches consisting of 146,081 variants and 88,971 individuals. The average variants per branch is 5.84.
Dec 31, 2021: The project has 28,103 members. There are 20,094 branches on the R1b Y haplotree.
Dec 18, 2021: The R1b haplotree has broken the 20,000 branch barrier and now has 20,005 subclades.
Sep 01, 2021: The project has 27,516 members. There are 18,660 branches consisting of 136,928 variants on the R1b Y haplotree. The average variants per branch is 7.34.
May 18, 2021: The project has 26,888 members. There are 17,007 branches on the R1b Y haplotree.
Feb 11, 2021: The project has 26,332 members. There are 15,641 branches on the R1b Y haplotree.
Jan 01, 2021: The project has 26,187 members. There are 15,287 branches on the R1b Y haplotree. R1b's branching is 40.7% of the total haplotree.
Nov 04, 2020: The project has over 26,000 members. There are 14,782 branches consisting of 107,610 variants on the R1b Y haplotree.
Mar 24, 2020: The project has over 25,200 members. There are 12,099 branches on the R1b Y haplotree.
Feb 22, 2020: The project has over 25,000 members. There are 11,740 branches on the R1b Y haplotree.
Jan 27, 2020: The project has over 24,700 members. There are 11,519 branches on the R1b Y haplotree.
Jan 10, 2020: The project has over 22,800 members. There are 11,161 branches on the R1b Y haplotree.
Oct 19, 2019: Yahoo Groups has announced another round of feature removal so we are moving the official communications to Facebook's R1b Y DNA project forum at https://www.facebook.com/groups/R1b.YDNA/ This project's Activity Feed is still available and will be supported by project administrators so that is an alternative.
Jun 23, 2019: The project has over 22,000 members.
Jun 10, 2019: The haplotree has crossed over the 9,000 mark with 9,017 distinct branches discovered and documented on the R1b-M343 haplotree. Big Y700 results are starting to come in. They are proven to have expanded coverage of the Y chromosome. This should yield more SNPs which will support more branching. A public version of the tree is at https://www.familytreedna.com/public/y-dna-haplotree/R;name=R-M343
Jan 25, 2019: The project has hit a new milestone with 21,000 members. FTDNA added a new function for Big Y testers, called the Block Tree Diagram. It is available from your FTDNA account dashboard. This is the first time we have a tool that cross-analyzes Family Finder autosomal DNA results with Y haplogroups.
Jan 03, 2019: The project has 20,715 members. There have been large numbers of people upgrading to Big Y500 and Y111. This has resulted in tremendous growth of the FTDNA R1b haplotree and it has now reached 7,797 branches. A public version is at https://www.familytreedna.com/public/y-dna-haplotree/R;name=R-M343
Nov 08, 2018: The project has 20,055 members. FTDNA sent out an invitation to non-members last week to join so we've seen a couple of thousand people added.
July 24, 2018: The project has over 17,260 members.
July 15, 2018: The R1b-Haplotypes file is now available again. To participate you must join this project, opt in to sharing and be either SNP tested to a major subclade level or have Y111 STRs. Please see the R1b About/Results web page. The file will be taken off-line and recreated periodically to ensure compliance with FTDNA's EU GDPR guidelines.
May 24 2018: FTDNA has updated their privacy policies and settings to comply with new European Union guidelines (EU GDPR). The project welcome email has been updated slightly to accomodate this. It is important that you have your Y DNA privacy settings open so that anyone can see them and that you give each project administrator "advanced access" or at a minimum "limited access". This does not release your personal contact information publicly but you should check with the FTDNA policies and guidelines on this. We also had to pull back the R1b-Haplotypes file until we can ensure we are complying with all of FTDNA's terms and the European regulations. European members are definitely welcome here.
Jan 01 2018: Project broke the 16,000 mark in December.. There are now 16,055 members of which 6,305 have Y111 STRs. 3,548 of the members have Big Y. These are now core products of serious Y DNA testing as they reach down into the genealogical timeframe. We have a set a course of discovering and documenting the giant tree of mankind's paternal lineages. Since every woman has a father this pertains to directly to lineages across the every family tree. Y DNA has much greater granularity than mitochondrial DNA providing a high resolution tree that is genealogically pertinent. At the same time Y DNA reaches back with high resolution all the way to the genetic Adam where as autosomal DNA washes out by a handful of generations back.
Oct 10 2017: FTDNA announced a major migration of Big Y results from the Hg19 to the H38 reference model. This will mean a pause in new Big Y results and some strange results while this is going on. There are no up charges or services fees for this and it might shows a few more SNPs because it is a better mapping of the Y chromosome. There are also new Big Y Chromosome Browser and Big Y Matching SNP Terminal Guide tools.
Aug 29 2017: Project reaches 15,000 members.
Jul 06 2017: The early or basal subclades now have excellent support with FTDNA SNP Packs. A new product, R1b-M343 xM269 SNP Pack, is now available to support the early branches of R1b-PH155, R1b-V88, R1b-V1636, and R1b-M73. This is for M269- people.
Jun 28 2017: Version 2 of the popular R1b-M343 & M269 Backbone SNP Pack is released. It has an updated Traffic Director function to point to the downstream more specialized SNP Packs. Also good support for the early branch of R-PF7562 is now included.
May 19 2017: Project reaches 14,000 members.
Sep 16 2016: Project reaches 12,000 participants.
Aug 18 2016: Project reaches 11,000 participants. We have over 7,300 67 STR haplotypes in the project so 67 STRs is the standard. We've also got over 4,200 111 STR haplotypes in the R1b_Haplotypes spreadsheet so 111 STRs is beneficial. I estimate there about 20,000 R1b people with 111 STRs in the FTDNA database. There are now over 2,200 distinct branches of R1b (R-M343) on the FTDNA haplotree.
Apr 06 2016: Project reaches 10,000 participants. This breaks a threshold and new record for project size at FTDNA. A lot of people are very interested in Y DNA testing, and for good reasons. Y DNA has great attributes in terms of resolution (opportunity for mutation), precision in tree branch positioning (with stable SNPs) and association with genealogical records and surnames in most occasions.
Jan 01 2016: Project reaches 8,777 participants. It was a busy December.
Dec 11 2015: Project reaches 8,500 participants. This is unprecedented growth with 614 new people in the last week or two. I think this growth is in conjunction with an increase in Y STR upgrades to 111 STRs. (There is a promotion on this for December.)
Dec 05 2015: Project reaches 8,000 participants.
Nov 13 2015: Project reaches 7,800 participants. I think we'll quit keeping track of the hundred interval milestones and just track every new thousand.
Oct 22 2015: Project reaches 7,700 participants.
Oct 05 2015: FTDNA has update the R1b-M343 Backbone SNP Pack. It eliminated some problematic SNPs, substituted for some and has added DF27, which is large group. It tests about 135 SNPs for under $100. They lowered the price back down to $79 for the re-introduction sale.
Oct 04 2015: Project reaches 7,600 participants.
Aug 27 2015: Project reaches 7,400 participants. Over 500 new members have joined since May 15th.
Aug 21 2015: Results from the R1b-M343 Backbone SNP Pack have started coming in. There have been a large number of people who have ordered this test.
July 28 2015: FTDNA has released a new offering called the R1b-M343 Backbone SNP Pack. It tests over 130 SNPs for under $100 and is designed specifically for this project to help people discern, in single test, what major subclades of R1b they fit into. It is an ideal test for someone is listed as R-M269, R-P25 or R-M343.
May 31 2015: Project reaches 7,000 participants. The project has more than doubled in size since its five year mark back in 2011. This is real testament to the genetic genealogy community and to all of you committed R1b testers. Great work!
May 15 2015: Project reaches 6,900 participants.
May 13 2015: We posted about the Rules of Conduct on the Activity Feed. Please be sure to read this. The intent of this message forum is to help and educate on R1b, not for complaints or general DNA or for advertising. Our Activity Feed is specific to the R1b project. We should respect this an FTDNA hosted web site.
May 08 2015: A new project co-administrator, Gail Riddell, has been added. Thank you to her for her willingness to volunteer her time on our behalf. Your project administrators are volunteers and do not work for or otherwise receive financial benefits from FTDNA. We are just customers too.
Mar 23 2015: The R1b_Haplotypes spreadsheet has been updated with all 67 STR or longer haplotypes in the R1b project. There is a plethora of statistics about R1b STRs built-in including variance, modes, means, counts by STR for all of R1b or selected subsets. Genetic Distances can be calculated to any individual in the file or to the file modal haplotype.
Mar 03 2015: A major clean-up and re-categorization of individuals by subgroupings has commenced. There is now a one for one correspondence of major SNP validated subgroupings to major subclade of R1b projects.
Mar 01 2014: FTDNA has started to delivery Big Y results.
Mar 01 2014: Additional simplification of the subgroupings has been introduced. We are trying to align subgroupings to major subclade of R1b projects.
Nov 09 2013: FTDNA announces a new product, Big Y. It is a Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) offering that scans millions of locations of the Y chromosome to discover new SNPs as well as test for known SNPs. This is the preferred Y SNP testing route as it has the ability to identify SNPs that are useful into the genetic genealogy timeframe - the last several hundred years.
Oct 23 2013: An enhanced version of the R1b-All-67STR_Haplotypes spreadsheet has been updated and posted in the Files section.
Mar 05 2013: The R1b-All-67STR_Haplotypes spreadsheet is posted as an aid for comparing Genetic Distances across R1b haplotypes and viewing SNP results side by side.
Dec 09 2012: The joining (addition) of deep clade tested members to the major subclade projects has commenced. R1b members will remain in the R1b project, however, so this is just an addition to the subclade projects.
Nov 27 2012: A bulk email went out to all of the current project members that described the project changes and referenced the project's web pages for more details. The new "gateway" service where R1b project administrators will add deeply tested people to the correct major/high level subclade projects is a part of this update. This does NOT remove existing members from the R1b project. They are still welcome. There is an exception to honor an existing agreement. L1+ people and U198+ people will not be added to the R1b-U106 subclade project. Note: The project administrators followed through with the "captcha/reply/send" processes for those members that have spam control filtering in place so every member who wants email updates should have received them.
Nov 2012: The National Genographic Project is reporting Geno2.0 results. The results can be transferred to FTDNA accounts.
Nov 2012: Project reaches 4,000 participants. Over 2300 have tested to at least 67 STR markers. Over 500 have tested to 111 STR markers.
Nov 08 2012: The project has gone through a comprehensive restructuring. The project web pages have been completely replaced, except the News archive information (parts of this web page.) There is a new "gateway" service where R1b project administrators will add SNP tested people in the correct major/high level subclade projects. This is an integral part of the restructuring.
Oct 2012: "Tiger" Mike Walsh joins project as a co-administrator.
Jul 2012: National Genographic Project and FTDNA announce Geno 2.0 SNP test package, which will effectively replace the FTDNA deep clade test package.
Apr 2012: FTDNA deep clade test upgrade, due to the high number of SNPs tested, price goes up to 139 USD
Dec 2011: Project reaches 3,500 participants.
Jun 2011: Vincent Tilroe joins project as co-administrator.
Apr 2010: Project re-groupings completed by Tibor Fehér, co-administrator.
Feb 2010: Project reaches 2,300 participants.
Aug 2009: Project reaches 2,000 participants.
Jul 2009: Project reaches 1,800 participants.
Mar 2009: Project reaches 1,700 participants.
Dec 2008: Project reaches 1,651 participants.
Nov 2008: Project reaches 1,600 participants.
Sep 2008: Project reaches 1,500 participants.
Mar 2008: FTDNA announces it is now taking orders for the newR1b SNP P312 (rs34276300, aka S116).
Mar 2008: Project reaches 1,400 participants
Feb 2008: R1b-U152 Haplogroup Subclade Project Launched by Charles Kerchner
Jan 2008: Project reaches 1,300 participants.
Feb 2008: New U Series of Y SNPs launched. FTDNA announced today that they now have several new U Series Y SNP tests available. U152 is identical to S28. U106 is identical to S21. These are just different names (synonyms) for the same mutations.
Sep 2007: Project reaches 1,200 participants.
Jun 2007: Project reaches 1,100 participants.
Apr 2007: Project reaches 1,000 participants.
Feb 2007: Project reaches 900 participants.
Dec 2006: Project reaches 800 participants.
Oct 2006: Project reaches 700 participants.
Sep 2006: Project reaches 600 participants.
Jul 2006: Project reaches 500 participants.
Jun 2006: Initial statistics published for Min, Mode, Max and other stats for initial test results for the new 38-67 marker upgrade panel offered by FTDNA.
May 2006: Project reaches 300 participants.
Apr 2006: R1b Project Modal Haplotype added to Ysearch.org database and link to comparison and genetic distance calculations tools addedto project results page.
Mar 2006: Project hits 200 participants mark.
Jan 2006: Project hits 100 participants mark.
Dec 2005: R1b Y DNA Haplogroup FamilyTree DNA (FTDNA) Project launched by Charles F. Kerchner, Jr, P.E.
Thank you to Dr. Kerchner for initiating and guiding this project through its early years. The original Background, Goals and Results have been replaced as of November, 2012. The News page still contains pre-2011 information from Dr. Kerchner. The original Background, Goals, Results and News were Copyrighted (c) 2005-2010, Charles F. Kerchner, Jr. All Rights Reserved.