I'm genuinely considering taking advantage of the $999 Full Genomes offer, but I won't be making that decision lightly. I'm under the impression that it is meant to be all-encompassing and that I wouldn't need to take another Y STR or SNP test ever again. Is this true? How are the results that have come through so far holding up? Any quality concerns? Is it too early to judge the value of the Big Y test in comparison? Thanks, Rob McFadden S660+

*I suggest there is no "one and done" in DNA testing. The whole of the Y chromosome can not be practically covered. In that sense, from a layman's perspective there is no such thing as whole genome or full genome testing. It's only "as much as we can do now". Large parts of the Y chromosome aren't even mapped yet.* *However, that is not to say that the FGC test is not a good test. It is and it has broader coverage than Big Y. They are really two different approaches, both using Next Generation Illumina equipment. FTDNA acquired the equipment and tried to develop a test that focused on discovering SNPs according to an academic study last year at Stanford. This study identified what they call "gold" regions of the Y. The point of FTDNA's approach is to try to be more cost-effective. * *FGC's price sale changes the equation on cost-effectiveness as would any future pricing actions. I think is exceptionally good news as we want to see a price war kicked off. We've already had one in a sense with FTDNA's introductory pricing of $495 last year but not they are back up around $695. We need permanent price reductions out of both vendors. We'll get there eventually.* *FGC's approach is to use the BGI lab in China which uses the Next Generation Illumina equipment also. This is an exceptionally big multi-purpose lab with government subsidies so they can probably reach very low costs at least at some point. The FGC approach takes more the focus of "let's test all we can" versus the FTDNA "gold" only. More data is good so FGC's approach should be worth more. How much more? I don't know. I think these things end up being individual decisions.* *My primary recommendation is to consider how you can best test your cluster. No amount of data is useful unless you have other people to compare it with. That is the key to building a tree. If you are like many people, you care most about genetic genealogy which means connecting our genealogies to our surnames in general, family and clan histories and the like. This is not the same thing as deep ancestral research of what "general" haplogroup we fit into.* *This is why your STR based cluster (I use the term "variety") is so important and this how you take advantage of the Y STR testing you've done. You want to run a Next Generation test on at least two diverse people of the same surname in your cluster and then see at least one person from every surname in your cluster and then some testing from neighboring clusters. When you accomplish this you can cut to the chase on building your family tree for the last 1000 years. * *It works and will work with either Big Y or FGC. They both are large scale discovery tests. I've seen it work now multiple times with the L21 Big Y results where we have passionate groups of several people of the same surname test. There are enough SNPs out there to be found that we can get in to the arena of genetic genealogy. The nature of the Y paternal lineages is that bottlenecks have created strings of SNPs that mark subclades. M222 is a prime example with over 20 SNPs that mark the subclade.* *I will re-iterate, Next Generation tests are the only vehicle we have today to get us into genetic genealogy. Either Big Y or FGC will work. There are trade-offs between the two, but.................... my primary recommendation is to think of it as a group testing project. You need a plan to get others of your surname involved and others in your cluster. This may require some pooling of resources.* *Mike W* On Sun, Apr 27, 2014 at 6:19 AM, Rob McFadden <rob@themcfaddenproject.com>wrote: > > I'm genuinely considering taking advantage of the $999 Full Genomes > offer, but I won't be making that decision lightly. I'm under the > impression that it is meant to be all-encompassing and that I wouldn't > need to take another Y STR or SNP test ever again. Is this true? How > are the results that have come through so far holding up? Any quality > concerns? > > Is it too early to judge the value of the Big Y test in comparison? > > Thanks, > Rob McFadden > S660+ > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > DNA-R1B1C7-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the > quotes in the subject and the body of the message >