OK, ftDNA has put together a really fun feature for y-DNA

I love it. It has the giggle-while-the-hair-stands-up-on-the-back-of-your-head genealogy rush of fun.

And it does not stop there.

These readings of a man’s y-DNA haplogroup provide fun facts and are understood to be fun facts, only. As with all the bells and whistles of the genetic genealogy that we love to bits, I always say, “If you have five dollars and this info, then you have enough to buy a coffee at Starbucks.”

All who know my blog know that I am a haplogroup girl. I fell in love with DNA for genetic genealogy years before there was such a thing as autosomal DNA. I still cry to the universe: Why on earth was admixture/ethnicity introduced without mega-centiMorgans of disclaimers? And all the while autosomal DNA is under-used in identifying extended families. Search through my blog index and more, below, for many more haplogroup stories, and also my favorite genetic genealogists. They include great information on Haplogroups and on using DNA for genealogy and fun.

I love getting a man’s y-DNA and learning his haplogroup and seeing who he matched when and how. I made my own families of men’s haplogroup trees. Of course there are so many SNPs in the genetic ancestry of a guy that we cannot put them all in a tree for a family line. But we can add the major mutation points and see the genetic ancestry. NOW, with Family Tree DNA’s new feature, we can have fun facts to go with all those DNA ancestor milestones, about all these guys.

Go to all your guys’ y-DNA results and make sure you have each man’s correct assigned haplogroup! You will find this on the dashboard page and on the y-DNA pages. (You can also use the assigned y-DNA haplogroups of your males who were sequenced with 23andme. They can often be upstream or downstream of the results that were sequenced on ftDNA, depending on the depth of the test.)

Enter the haplogroup into the search engine of this new feature, click the orange button – “Show my report!” – and presto! It will tell you all about the age and the places of your genetic ancestor.

The results tell bits and pieces about your haplogroup

My Dai’s haplogroup is G-BY186486. He is rare in the genetic genealogy world of haplogroups and he is also in real life. His grandfather was born in Wales and the research has his ancestors in Wales as far back as the records go (we traced it to John, son of John). His y-DNA has confirmed a connection to two brothers/cousins who took different surnames through the patrionymic naming system of the Welsh. Dai is a Jones and his matching y-DNA cousin, with autosomal, has the surname Jenkins. One family, one y-DNA line and two surnames.

Now ft-DNA has a wonderful feature showing ancient connections. With some people, you might share a common ancestor a few hundred or thousand years ago, and with others you may have an ancestor in common tens of thousands of years ago. These results will compare your y-DNA haplogroup to those of ancient peoples who were sequenced from archaeological sites. On my blog below, you can also see the data compiled by the great writer and researcher, Jean Manco, and on her pages saved on archive.org. There you can see even more connections of your ancestors that were sequenced from skeletons in ancient history and herstory. Jean Manco has mt-DNA haplogroups as well.

The new ftDNA feature has migration maps showing the footsteps through the ages of all the ancestors of any haplogroup. They suggest projects to join for your connections, and the story of the famous connections is just wonderful. One of my favorites is Albert Perry. It was thought that all the really old y-DNA was long gone from the modern population. And then a wonderful African American family from the Carolinas tested their male relative and the DNA world got a surprise. Mr. Perry’s DNA has survived from 100s of thousands of years ago. We can see in our men’s y-DNA how long ago it was that he shared a common ancestor with Albert Perry. And many other famous and sort-of-famous earlier and modern men!

Who will your guys have a connection to?

This is an exciting reason to have your guys’ haplogroups refined downstream. Ordering a SNP pack or additional y testing in your family group can give more downstream information to all your men.

This is my late father’s results for his haplogroup I-Y5673. I-Y5673 was the descendant of I-M223. So using this same tool we can learn about the much earlier ancestor father. You could consider additional testing to identify your men’s most recent mutation. You can look for near male cousins who might have already tested “downstream,” into the more recent past, and you can learn vicariously through their testing.

These are the results for the haplogroup I-M223, in the new feature. This is the “ancestor” of my late father. This is an early and presumed haplogroup for his y-DNA. His sample took us downstream, into the recent past to I-Y5673. This was the extent of the testing at the time of his test. His sample could not have more testing, but his matching cousin did test, and his results took us into the more recent past to I-FT341035. And it is very exciting to see the history over time of these men and their y-DNA genetic signatures.

This is the result on the Ancient Connections feature for one of our R1a Haplogroup relatives. It is so exciting to see all the Norse relatives. I believe we must appreciate the haplogroups of many of our ancestral lines to understand all haplogroups and where ours fit into the human family.

For years and years we have been able to learn from the writings and research of these genetic genealogists:

One of my favorite researchers and writers, Rebekah Canada, has given us the great website haplogroup.org. This remains the go-to site! Ms. Canada has built over many years so much for us, when no one else had any easy-to-understand information. Haplogroup.org also has info for mt-DNA, maternal, mitochondrial DNA haplogroups. I have followed the work of Ms. Canada, must be 2004? 2005? maybe? The place to start, and check back into.

To understand genetic genealogy you must read and hopefully get to take classes or seminars with, The Genetic Genealogist, Blaine Bettinger. Another go-to guy for understanding all things DNA for genealogy. https://thegeneticgenealogist.com/13-2/

Another long established genealogist who has shared his work since the inception of the industry is Randy Sever and his blog, Genea-Musings with connections to all the world of genealogy. Genea-Musings https://www.geneamusings.com/

And the all time great list to find anything – almost anything is https://www.cyndislist.com/

More of my stories about researching our Haplogroups

Honoring Jean Manco ~ She took me on my Ancestral Journey

Jean Manco compiled a list of DNA sequenced from archaeological digs around the world. This remains relevant and many of the famous people’s skeletons from Jean Manco’s list are also here in the ftDNA new feature. They are the same people we all look to for our ancient ancestry from archaeology.