Upgrading A Y Chromosome DNA Test.

[4b2]

I have a y-DNA test for my paternal line taken about 10 years ago - 67 markers. As the closer matches are all from America, with the window of a relationship likely being in the window of 1300-1500, I didn't think there was much point in upgrading.

The only useful information is that my, at least fairly deep, paternal surname is Proctor.

As my paternal line is unknown before 1882, it is somewhat useful. Particularly as there was a Proctor family living in the same village my great-grandfather was born in. There was another Proctor family living about 12 miles away, but I've been able to rule them out. Other than those families there weren't any other Proctors in a considerable distance - this being in Wales.

To investigate a possible link I believe having a higher degree of resolution to the DNA test could be helpful. At least to give me a more concrete idea of the window of relation to the US Proctors.

I was able to trace the Proctor family who lived in the village my great-grandfather was born in. It was a minor gentry family. So I was able to trace it back to about 1550 in London. The dead-end for the US Proctors is also about 1550 in London.

What are the pros and cons of upgrading to 111 and 700 markers?

[Alexander.]

More markers is generally better...but it depends if you have any close matches at 67 markers. If no real close matches at this level, say with genetic distance of 2 or less, who have also taken higher level test, probably no reason to upgrade. You should be able to see if any of your close matches have taken higher level tests. Having more markers tested may help to confirm matches and determine more precisely when the branch points are, but if you are looking to solve a relatively recent genealogical question and have no close matches at 67 markers, then upgrading your test will probably not help much.

I took a test, and had a maternal cousin take a test to research my maternal grandfather's line. In both cases I started at 37 markers, and ended up upgrading both to 111 to confirm the matches, which turned out quite helpful (particularly on my maternal grandfather's side) . Thinking about going to BigY-700, but it will only be really useful to me if I can convince my few 111 matches to also upgrade.

Alexander

[Ruskie]

I think that DNA tests, particularly Y tests are more popular in American than elsewhere so you are likely to get more American matches. Have you joined any of the group projects? They may be able to help with your Proctors, especially the US based ones.

Presumably you have also taken an autosomal DNA test? If you are trying to determine parentage due to illegitimacy within a researchable paper trial time frame, autosomal tests can sometimes be useful.

To answer your question, I would say the “con” is that Y upgrades are expensive with no guarantee of success, and the numbers who have taken these tests are low. “Pro”? You might be lucky.

[phil57]

A Y-111 or Y-700 test will only refine any matches you have at the 67 marker level, e.g. if you have say 6 matches at Y-67 you may discover that some of them are at a closer genetic distance than can be ascertained by the Y-67 test. What neither test will do is find any more matches than you have already.

As I understand it, the Y-700 test is really only necessary if you are part of a one-name project and have been asked to take it by the project manager, or they have indicated that it could be useful to you or the project to help refine lineage. If you are a member of a project, you may find that the cost of those tests can be further discounted over the FTDNA sale prices, or if you are requested to take one of them by the project administrator, there might be project funds available to help cover the costs.

I have taken the Y-111 test with FTDNA, because I got it at a good discount and thought "why not"?

I have 807 matches currently at the 12 marker level. Of those, only one matches me at 67 markers, and I have no matches at 111 markers. My 67 marker match is a 2C1R. So from that point of view, the Y111 test has given me nothing more than the Y-67 test would have achieved.

My haplogroup is RM-269 and I am told by my project manager that as I have a specific value at one marker in my test, there is a 95 percent chance that my haplogroup can be refined to R-U106. To establish that for certain with FTDNA, I would have to take (purchase) further tests. But establishing that sub-clade would currently not get me any further forward with my own research, nor at the present time does it appear that it would benefit the project. I could just file it in my "well, that's interesting" box!

But as it happens, I took an autosomal test with LivingDNA some time ago, which included an option to establish my Y-DNA and mtDNA haplogroups, although without providing me with any marker breakdown or ability to discover genetic matches. But that test confirmed that I am R-U106, so I see little point in taking that any further with FTDNA anyway.

[4b2]

Thanks for the knowledgable replies. I think I will upgrade to the 700 markers test. In the Proctor project I see there is a chart of people who have upgraded, with a tree showing roughly how they are related. I guess I’ll only get a few vague co-ordinates from it. But knowing roughly how distantly related to the US Proctors will be useful.

Yes, these tests are very US-centric (with FTDNA). When they do have more recent UK ancestry, they are often from the US. And I see that if you do take them, then you might need to end up trying to pay for a stranger to upgrade. I’ve also found Ancestry to be very Anglo-centric for autosomal. I have quite a lot of European matches on MyHeritage and almost none on Ancestry.

I am hoping the Ancestry might return to y-DNA tests, but it seems these tests are too expensive (at the moment) to be commercially viable. Ancestry has 23 million+ autosomal tests and FTDNA only has somewhere in the region of 1 million. I’ve only been able to find a handful of autosomal matches on FTDNA, maybe 20 on MyHeirtage and over 200 on Ancestry. In 2014 I downloaded the DB of FTDNA profiles and at that point they had just over 270,000 profiles. It’s not possible to do that now. But I imagine they can’t be north of 500,000.

Maybe things will change in 10-20 years and we might see 5-10 million y-DNA tests on Ancestry.

I have probably put 200 hours into working with my autosomal results. My father’s mother was born out of wedlock, so was my paternal g-grandfather and his mother. And my maternal great-grandmother was born in India and I didn’t even know her surname or anything that could narrow down an avenue for research.

I was lucky that I have a lot of close matches on the line from India – two 2nd cousins and three first cousins, so I have been able to recover that line, which is among my most interesting, with two ancestors born in the 1700 listed on Wikipedia.

All the other lines I mentioned I’ve not been able to specifically solve. I’ve just been able to triangulate marriages via finding clusters of matches. Though I did recently discover a gg-grandmother who went missing after 1881.

I have two unknown clusters on my paternal line. For one I can determine a common ancestor born in 1811. The other I need to do some heavy lifting with, in terms padding out trees that don’t go back enough generations.

There was a Proctor family living in the small village my great-grandfather was born in. There was only one other Proctor family in about a 50 mile radius, which I have ruled out. They’d actually died out in the male line by the time he was born, and the estate had passed down the female line and he changed his surname to Proctor. He did have two living uncles, but they lived in other areas of the country and had no children, at least by marriage. I’ve searched for the family in Ancestry trees and only found one with this family who is a descendant. So I am assuming living descendants are sparse. Going back another generation there is only one tree with this family in it, and that would be about the limit of what I could connect to with autosomal tests.

@Phil57 - do you Humphreys in Montgomeryshire happen to be from Mochdre?

[phil57]

@Phil57 - do you Humphreys in Montgomeryshire happen to be from Mochdre?

Not as far as I know. I have extensive information on them back to the beginning of the 19th century, when they were in the Welshpool area - Guilsfield, Meifod and Forden. Prior to that, there are too many Humphreys and Jones involved, and my knowledge of tracing Welsh ancestors is unfortunately not good enough to allow me to reliably get any further.