R DF21 and Subclades

James, the period of Time between your Birth and that of your Most-Recent Common Male Ancestor shared with Patrick is about the same as that from Patrick's Birth to the aforementioned MRCA. So, in that Time Period, his Branch accumulated only Two Mutations while yours accumulated Five. The Average (6+2)/2 is SNPs. The estimate for Average Mutation Rate for a Single SNP from Big-Y has been stated as 118-Years, so you are looking at an MRCA who could have been born as far back as 590-Years (Maximum), but a fair estimate might be closer to 3.5 * 118 = 472-Years before your Birth. Using the same logic in reference to the amount of Time passed, and assuming that the number of accumulated Y-STR differences are about even in each Branch, your Y-STR GD=4 (for an Average of 4/2=2) could say that your MRCA was born no earlier than 2 * 454 = 908-Years before your Birth. I believe that the SNP estimate is more accurate and maybe a bit high, but it's still possible that you are still looking for an MRCA as far back as 1360a.d., despite the obvious Surname Match.

Thanks for the feedback Donald.

James, a subject that was already quite complex has been made more so with the introduction of Big Y-700. A few years ago, there was a debate about SNP frequency. The principals at YFull published a scientific paper that indicated the SNP frequency was 144.41 years, that is, along a SNP sequence a new SNP would appear once every 144.41 years. They used that in their date estimate computations. Don Ward has indicated from his research that the scientific consensus was about once in every 118 years or so. Rory Cain has said that from his own, extensive family testing, that the frequency is more like once in every 67 years. Part of the problem here is with which NGS test is being used. YFull's initial report reflected mostly Big Y and Big Y-500 (which for SNPs was the same test) and therefore had more limited coverage of the Y-chromosome than FGC's Y Elite 2.1 or YSEQ's WGS, among others. Obviously, if you test fewer places to find SNPs, you will find fewer SNPs. It was a wonderful example of not trying to compare estimates from the tests by different companies. Initially, my extended family has SNP frequencies that were more like what YFull indicated from three Big Y tests. But now with seven Big Y-700 (two replacement and five new) tests, we see something different -- 38 SNPs over a period of something like 3,150 year or so, about one every 83 years, assuming the pre-genealogical span is accurate. The problem with SNPs, which was always there, but now more so is the subjectivity involved in determining whether they are actually there or not, that is, their quality and thus acceptability. Of those 38, 14 were discovered originally by an unknown Cousin of ours who apparently took some kind of superior coverage test as a volunteer for the Harvard Medical School. In addition to those 14, another is shared with us by a large number of Early Cluster descendants of Z16294, according to FTDNA. To give you some idea of the ambiguity of this, FTDNA currently indicates this Early Cluster SNP Block is composed of four SNPs, one of which has never been called on an NGS test at FTDNA that I am aware of. YFull, on the other hand, who was the first organization to identify the Early Cluster, back in early 2016, shows three SNPs in that block, but two of those are different than the ones given by FTDNA and those other two are two other SNPs (not the one used by FTDNA) discovered on the DNA of the Cousin at Harvard Medical School. So, of all seven total SNPs, these two companies only agree on one, Y24868, discovered by YFull in early 2016. Thus, how many SNPs are actually there and which ones are they? I respectfully disagree with my Distant Genetic Cousin Don on the question of dating. Only over long periods of multiple thousands of years can SNPs be considered a superior dating tool to the traditional 111 STRs (not the Trans-111 STRs which change so slowly on average that they make SNPs look quick), as long as you have enough Y-111 Kits to construct an Apparent Ancestral Haplotype (AAH) of the two more ancestors involved. This AAH is an attempted genetic reconstruction of these ancestors and it provides you with something of an average genetic drift from them because STRs vary just as much as apparent SNPs in terms of their number. It really is nothing more than the STR allele modals created for lineages (groups, extended families) that you see in countless project results tables to indicate "who they are" genetically -- their STR genetic signature or picture. And by using the work of others, such as Dr. J. Douglas McDonald at the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana, you can provide reasonable date estimates that include a relatively small number of generations. Using an underlying Poisson Distribution and the Infinite Alleles Method, Dr. McDonald's charts and tables will show you a range of when two people (or better two wings) last share a common patrilineal ancestor, like the TiP tool here at FTDNA.

Arthur, thanks for the detailed response.

In that case it would be premature for me to place your kit anywhere right now. Best I wait for your Big Y.

My Big Y results are in. I'm R-FGC76175.

Updated to R-BY75265.

John, your haplogroup is a sub-clade of R-L513, which is mutually exclusive with R-DF21. The advice to join this group was erroneous. R-L513 is frequently found along the west coast of Ireland & Scotland and would be reasonably consistent with origins in Co Mayo. But that is about as far as we can advise, as R-L513 is not our area of expertise.

Hello Susan, welcome. Leland's kit matches a McDaniel/ McDonald/McDonnell group within the old Airghialla tribal confederation of south Ulster. Some also use the name Clan Colla. The eponymous ancestor Colla may have been real or may have been a fabrication. Therefore I prefer the name Airghialla myself. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airg%C3%ADalla

Hello Susan, I suggest that you check out the following website as I think that you might find it very informative on your father's SNP results. All the best, Lawrence Corcoran. DNA of the Three Collas-PetersPioneers

Hello, Lawrence. I joined the Clan Colla Project quite a while ago. I have been in contact with the administrators about my dad's Big Y results and have seen the Peters Pioneers info. Thanks for the suggestion.

That’s getting harder as the tree grows exponentially

I guess looking at anything on there has me wondering what it is this tree stays here constantly and I barely look at it. Maybe my big 700 hundred will produce something. I can look everywhere else and see something.

Ron, if nobody tests, nothing changes. And if only you test, only your haplogroup changes. The others need to d something. You have have done two things right- done Big Y yourself, & got your uncle to join. I accept that he would be R-Y94231 like yourself, had he tested for it. Therefore I have created a new R-Y94132 sub group.

Where is that at?

Same place

Also, am I interpreting this correctly when I say that R-BY23441 which is a snp right above mine was in Northern Ireland according to snp tracker then came back to Scotland where my snp 'R-BY24841' happened and then again traveled even further north in scotland where it had another final snp which is present day R-BY23930 and still in Scotland? How can I find out these men's surnames that are just above my snp 'northern Ireland' and just downstream from me 'modern day Scotland?' Does this mean my paternal lineage migrated from Scotland after my snp and before the terminal downstream R-BY23930? Could I potentially discover where they lived in Northern Ireland/Scotland? Could my surname potentially change?

You might find joining the Ireland yDNA Project (FTDNA) , and look to see if they any members that share your terminal SNP. There is a Scots-Irish project, but they request that you have some evidence that your ancestors came from Scotland.

When placing this kit, I noticed the likely Scots origin of the surnames Stewart and Ross. As Ross tends to be Northern Scots & Stewart tends to be southern Scots, I made no further conclusions. This is a fairly recently discovered group, and the picture may become clearer as more surnames are added to this group, along with ancestral locations. The same applies to making sense of the distribution of SNPs. Present distribution is not necessarily an indication of point of origin, especially using “singletons”. With more test kits, clusters may emerge.