Bennett Greenspan is a Pioneer

We now have new evidence that Bennett Greenspan is a pioneer and I unwittingly contributed to it. My blog post yesterday, BIG Y: Open Letter to Bennett Greenspan, was intended to be a tongue-in-cheek piece of humor. Some of my readers took it that way and some of you did not. Could I have written it more skillfully to make my intent clearer? Probably. Am I sorry I wrote it? Not really. Am I sorry it was misinterpreted? Of course. 

Based on reader comments some of you took it for the "Ha-ha!" it was intended to be. Jim Barrett accurately paraphrased my message in three short sentences: 

"I've had recent delays in my life and you've had delays in my results.  I'm about to get mine wrapped up.  I hope you are too!"

Others took it as a criticism of the BIG Y testing program or thought that I was trying somehow to get my results moved up the queue. Nothing could be further from my intent or expectations. If either of these had been my purpose, the reader who commented that I should have kept my comments between myself and Bennett would have been correct. 

It also was not my intent to become a lightning rod for criticism of FTDNA as was the case on one list. There is a proper time and manner for criticism well as there is for praise. We appear to be closing in on one of the latter.

Three pieces of intelligence did come to the fore as a result of my post. I learned that:

• Considerably more of us jumped at the chance to be part of the BIG Y than had been expected.
• FTDNA has gone to extraordinary lengths to manage a MAJOR groundbreaking project in an area where few guideposts and benchmarks existed. These have included borrowing an additional sequencer from Illumina.
• Most of the remaining non-problematic test results may be expected back by next week.

I imperfectly recall a number of sayings I first heard in some version in the middle of the last century that seem to apply to the BIG Y project:

• The only ones who don't make mistakes are those who don't try anything challenging.

• Success is biting off more than you can chew and then chewing it.

• You can always tell the pioneers by the arrows in their back [because they are out in front of the rest of us].

Bennett, yet again, you have given us evidence that you are a true pioneer. The test data from BIG Y reports will give us something to chew on for years. I don't know of anyone else in the world who could have pulled this off for genetic genealogy. I apologize for inadvertently adding to your stress level. It may almost be time to break out the bubbly.