FTDNA's Holiday Sale 2017

Some of you may have already noticed that the FTDNA Holiday Sale was launched yesterday afternoon. Below is the official company price list that was handed to attendees of the group project administrators conference immediately after the launch:

Those of you who have observed these sales for the last few years, have come to expect additional presents to appear on your FTDNA page each Monday during the sale which is expected to run through December.

When you click on the "Holiday Reward" icon, a discount code is revealed which is good through the following Sunday night Houston time. For example this week my coupon is good for an additional $20 off the sale price of a y67 marker test. If you manage multiple accounts, be sure to check each of them each week to maximize you chances to find the best discounts.

A secondary marketplace has already grown up to regift these "Reward" codes. If you received a y67 discount code as I did but instead need a mtDNA test, you can deposit your unneeded code(s) at locations like this site and "shop" for discounts on the tests you need. Check back often as the bigger discounts will be posted at any time during the week as more people log into their accounts for the first time that week or they decide they cannot use a particular test. There can be some strategy involved as you decide whether to take advantage of a small discount or wait a week or so as you hope to locate a larger discount.

Happy Holiday shopping to all of us as we cooperate to build our cousin matching databases to benefit us all!

With Great Haste We Make Slow Progress

FTDNA has been "evolving" our BIG Y results for a couple of months now. As a part of that process we were regressed back to the most recent ySNP for which we had tested positive separate from BIG Y. In my case that was back a little over four thousand years ago (R-DF13). 

This morning the evolution of my results has progressed to the point that my trail brings me down into the genealogical era again. It is good to be back. This process is not complete. The numbers in the right column will continue to increment as the results of others are "evolved" as well. It appears that about half of the results have now completed that process.  

My BIG Y Matching results are of November 7th

The three individuals with whom I am now showing matches on the bottom two steps share my surname and are also descendants through three different sons of my 6th great-grandfather who died in southern Maryland in 1733 -- clearly in the genealogical era. 

Another man who does not share my surname is expected to join the 3 matches on the second level when the processing of his results are upgraded in the near future. His family and mine were associated with each other in both Maryland and North Carolina. He was my earliest close STR match (an exact 12/12) when I first tested in 2004 and he is a 109/111 STR match today. I am eager for his results to be migrated so that I can further explore which of the three sons of my 6th great-grandfather his genome seems to be most closely associated with. Prior to Big Y testing, documents seemed to indicate that he was likely to be associated with the third son -- from whom I descend. In the first round of BIG Y testing he seemed genetically to be more similar with a descendant of the second son who's line never left Maryland. If that is the case, one of our biological paternal lines may have been rerouted around 1700 or before. I hope the new tools we are being given by FTDNA will help me sort this out.

I will be all ears and full of questions when I get to the 13th International Conference on Genetic Genealogy this weekend in Houston.