Where to Go from Here: Rambling Part 2

Since the last post focused on Autosomal DNA this one will be about Y DNA. I think it's been pretty clear for a while that if I want to have real hope of learning more from Y DNA I need to move my results to Family Tree DNA. My ancestry.com Y test gave me many markers but no haplogroup to speak of. My 23 and me test gave me the next step in my haplogroup (verifying that I'm R1b then taking it to R1b-U106) but they're done right there and don't offer any further testing for SNPs down the line. I've gotten the most connections from Autosomal DNA but none so far have helped me break through the Levi Thompson barrier.

With all that in mind I paid for the FTDNA ancestry transfer test. For a fee I was allowed to give them my ancestry results to be placed in their system (and they'll do the conversions) and for a little extra I was able to order a gap filler test to give me a standard 37 marker FTDNA result (my original Ancestry test had most of the markers but was missing a few). So in the end I'll have something like 47-ish markers to look at and compare.

It will be very interesting to see how they handle my odd 16.2 at DYS 458 and a few of the other conversions I made when I put my results in Ysearch.

More importantly, I'll be able to take advantage of further SNP testing to help me narrow my searches for my paternal line. So Ancestry gave me R1b and some results that match with a big swath of Northern europe about 10,000 years ago with a cluster around the North Sea. 23 and me confirmed my north sea suspicions and gave me U106 which brings us into the 5 to 6000 year range with a more defined cluster of "Germanic" people. Hopefully with results at FTDNA I'll be able to narrow the gap between 4000 BC and 1834 CE a little bit better and maybe turn up some new leads.

I have my eye on a group of men who rank high in my YDNA STR (markers) matches and fall into a cluster in R1b-Z18. Most of them are very familiar and appear on my maps as my closer matches. At the Z18 project they're called the cumberland cluster and they have many of the "odd" values I check for when I do my own searches. At this point it's highly likely that I belong with them and that we have a common ancestor in the last 1000 or so years, further testing is the only way to be sure.