E-Y14891 and E-Y16781 are comprised of a large number of males with Jewish ancestry. Our main continuous goal is to subdivide project members into smaller groups whose members are closely related to each other and have a more recent common ancestor than the common ancestor of the entire group (about 1300 years before present). We initially group project members based on STR marker results. These initial groupings are educated guesses; we work from there to find the downstream SNPs that are used to define these subgroups. A downstream SNP is simply a SNP that descends from the “parent” SNP of the entire group: Y14891. We discover these new downstream SNPs when project members do Big Y tests. So, progress is primarily driven by the results of Big Y tests. However, due to the cost associated with that kind of testing, it is financially out of reach for many project members. Other more affordable options include strategic SNP testing and STR upgrades which can help the project as well.

Maintaining communication between the admins and project members is paramount to the success of the project as a whole. We will continue to analyze the genetic data as it in comes in and work to recruit new members as their results are reported. The best way for project members to contribute to the project outside of genetic testing is to further the genealogical research on their own patrilineal lines. Confirming countries of origin and adding earliest known paternal ancestors is a great help to project research. If any project member has reached a brick wall on their paternal line, the admins would love to help out as much as we can.