FAQ
A. The description and map location of your kit / ancestors must be entered for the earliest paternal ancestor in your FTDNA profile.
You can change this information by logging into your profile at FTDNA and going to the Account Settings - Genealogy - Earliest Known Ancestors tab.
Then click the [Update location] link. A direct link to the page is:
https://www.familytreedna.com/my/genealogy
The geo-locating tool is a little tricky to work with, FTDNA has instructions here:
https://www.familytreedna.com/learn/user-guide/my-account/my-genealogy-page/
A. In short by having genetic matches at high resolution who also know their geographic origins to a fairly precise location.
Even if you have no matches or your current matches do not know their origin, chances are good such a match may be found in the future. The odds are greatly improved if you have a sampling effort in the most likely locations in Scotland. This presentation covers the topic in more detail and shows a practical way to springboard your own research:
Why Get the Big Y presentation
A. In the past, there was a paradigm where small sets of STRs were tested and then upgrades were recommended when new STR panels were available. Some may still recommend this incremental approach. However, this Project's manager believes that approach is outdated and the best and most economical approach is to order the Big Y-700 test.
Big Y test should provide high enough resolution for most genetic genealogy research scenarios. Once one has completed the Big Y and wants more matches, then the recommended approach is not to upgrade your results but rather to try to conduct Big Y testing on samples from potential ancestral geographies. Explaining all the reasons for this recommendation is a multi-faceted concept, but the presentation below seeks to explain the main points:
Why Get the Big Y presentation
A. Once you've returned your Y-DNA test kit to the FTDNA laboratory:
- First login to your FTDNA results.
https://www.familytreedna.com/sign-in - Then click on this link:
https://www.familytreedna.com/group-join.aspx?group=ScottishMapping
A. No
Unlike surname-based projects, the Scottish Mapping DNA Project is focused on aggregating Y-DNA SNP results for mapping, scientific analysis, and research papers on Scotland and the British Isles. We want the project participants to be a random sampling of Scottish descendants as a whole, so therefore only a single Y-DNA lineage for your family / kin group is needed. We do not want to 'recruit' your individual matches for the project unless they are born in Scotland and come from multiple geographies.
A. No. Unfortunately time, resources, and the number of participants generally prevent us from being able to provide you with personal assistance on your individual family genealogy research. We can refer you to a professional genealogist if you would like personalized research.
A. All new kits start out in this category. As this is a geographically-oriented project, we sub-group members by mid-resolution SNP markers in your FTDNA lab results rather than by surnames. This choice is based on the capabilities of the current online mapping tools so that some patterns may be discernible. The result-grouping tool (aka Member Subgrouping) is currently a very cumbersome and manual process so updates to grouping within the project are made once every month or two, so please be patient. Also note that samples which do not have a high degree of precision and certainty about their geographic origins may be assigned to the Ambiguous Geography group, regardless of Y-DNA classification - this is how we create a curated list of meaningful geographic map plots in the other groups.
A. Only for member grouping purposes
Unfortunately, there is not an import for Y-chromosome results into FTDNA's database as there is for autosomal results. Because of privacy regulations, we only share individual results through this platform - the official FTDNA Project web site. So for the most part, No we cannot incorporate your results from another lab into the data here. One exception is the member grouping - if you had a DNA test at another lab and they performed SNP analysis that is more precise than what's in your FTDNA profile, we can move your kit into the corresponding group within this project.
A. No
FTDNA sets the parameters and rules for matching and information sharing on their platform based on laws, regulations, and their experience as the first consumer genetic genealogy company in the United States. Further, the individual behind the other kit you are seeking sets their own matching and privacy settings for that kit.
So if the other participant has DNA results close enough to yours to qualify as a match and has opted-in to matching, you would already see their email contact information in your match list. If that participant is not on your match list, then the platform and/or the individual's privacy settings are such that they do not want their information disclosed. As such, the Project Administrators for this project cannot divulge information that FTDNA and the other individual have chosen not to share.
If you are new to genetic genealogy and have not taken the Big Y-700, generally the STR or SNP markers you share with the other person probably originated thousands of years ago and so your genetic relationship to that person is further back in time than you might initially imagine - and that's why the person does not appear on your match list.
A. We are learning more about where your Y-DNA lineage fits into the tree of all mankind.
A revision of your personal Terminal SNP can happen anytime, but it happens most often when
- Testing Upgrade of your results The number of markers tested in your personal results increases to reveal new SNP details and place your lineage lower down on the existing phylogenetic tree of mankind. To get the most complete upgrade on FTDNA, we urge every male get upgraded to the Big Y-700 test.
- Tree Expansion by testing other people Y-DNA researchers at FTDNA and worldwide are constantly looking for new markers and branches in the phylogenetic tree. So as others samples on or adjacent to your phylogenetic lineage get tested and prove to have SNP markers that you do not have, the process creates new tree branches.
One way to gauge how deeply your branch is defined is to count the number of Unnamed Variants in your Big-Y results. Over time, with sampling of your Y-DNA cousins, the number of your Unnamed Variants should approach zero and your Terminal SNP will then be less likely to change. Until the number is zero, however, your Terminal SNP is likely to change periodically. This is not a bad thing - it's a good thing. It means that you essentially know new 'great-grandfathers' by their genetic marker name if not their personal name.
For more explanation on understanding what your Terminal SNP means, see slides slides 21-32 in this presentation:
A. Your Y-DNA lineage is not well-represented within the FTDNA database. This situation can result if your DNA lineage is truly rare, or if your patrilineal ancestors came from a part of the world which is not well-sampled at this time.
Rare Lineages Somewhere between 2-4% of test participants come from a rare Y-DNA lineage for which there will be no (zero) Y-25 marker matches in the FTDNA database. See slide 18 of this presentation for a specific histogram of match-count distribution across multiple FTDNA samples for illustration.
Population Sampling by Country FTDNA serves customers worldwide but statistically the greatest number of customers are descended from Western Europeans, so those lineages are some of the best represented. But there have been excellent efforts in other countries as well which might surprise you (e.g. Finland and Kuwait). You can see a count of opt-in participants for each Y-DNA branch by using the Country Report on the FTDNA Public Y-DNA Haplotree at your Terminal SNP branch.
An analysis comparing sampling penetration by country is available at: