I'm waiting on a fellow's STRs to add to the SNP report and decided to look at a couple of things while doing so. With the sequencing there are a few that have popped up with shared SNPs. I decided to look at 2 pairs, both in the S660 group. Degnen and Howle apparently share a couple and Fergusson and Williams share a couple. We know nothing about these SNPs; I'm not certain that we know whether or not they fall phylogenetically under S660 -- but what we do know is that 2 pairs of S660 men who did BIGY have some additional SNPs in common that apparently other sequenced S660 men do not. In order to see how helpful these may be other than possibly sorting out some further DNA heritage I looked at what information is publicly available to see if I could learn anything more than 2 pairs each share to date unknown additional SNPs. If you go into the M222 project pages, you will note Linda has the haplotypes nicely separated...this BTW, Linda, was very helpful. Howle/Degnen Howle ancestral claims England for an origin with known ancestry to 1685 New Kent, VA; Degnen claims Ireland with known ancestry 1751 Co Cavan. In the first 12 alleles they share 4 mutations In the 13>37 panel they share 4 more In the 38>67 panel they share 1 more..........for a total of 9/67 and an accompanying TMRCA of 1000 years with 65% confidence (1000+/-350 ybd): 950 CE Fergusson/Williams Fergusson claims ancestry also from Co Cavan Ireland 1785 while Williams has his ancestry traced to 1859 with no other claims for origin. In the first 12 alleles they share 2 mutations In the 13>37 panel they share 6 more In the 38>67 panel they share 2 more >TMRCA @ 67 markers 1100+/-330 (850 CE) In the 68-111 panel they share 8 more >TMRCA @ 111 markers 1200+/-305 (750 CE) With in the knowns S660 group, the 4 of them share 28 mutations which translates into a TMRCA for the 4 of them @ 1550+/-330 ybd and within the margin of error for the TMRCA of the entire test confirmed S660 group. What does it mean? S660 certainly is older than 1550 years as this number among 4 of rather diverse (in the Isles) ancestral claims and haplotypes reflects a possible relatedness of their ancestors well after proliferation of S660 began. No new news there. The fact that 2 pairs share some common SNPs found in Sequencing with accompanying TMRCA between 1000-1200 years ago would suggest that there is an ancestral proximity for the ancestors of each pair within that window of time -- note we yet know nothing about the discovered SNPs, where they are located phylogenetically nor when they may have mutated...all we know is that they've been ID'd in the YDNA of these men. We might ask the question: where were the ancestors of these men between 750 CE and 950 CE since all 4 of them are S660 and the pairs TMRCA is about the same. I do not believe we may use surnames nor ancestral origin claims to sort that out with any confidence...but the discussion of may be very interesting. Just for curiosity then I looked at the S588 so far Ewing and Lane just because Linda has them in the vicinity and I was curious. Lane claims Hughenden England 1535 and Ewing gives an ancestral known of Ire 1744, but the Ewing are known to have been in Scotland earlier. @67 markers they share 12 mutations: 4 in the first 12, 7 in the 13>37 panel and 1 in the 38>67 panel. No surprise, their TMRCA is 1325+/-405 ybd. Just a little bit to think and talk about. Hope you find it as interesting as I do. Susan