stealth results . . .

Yesterday, without announcement, Patrick's, #60, YDNA26-37 portion of his Y-Refine12to37 upgrade was posted.    It's good news!    Patrick is definitely an Augusta/Washington Co. Berry.    I don't think he ever doubted it but I'm always hesitant to count my chickens with only 12 markers, and, at best, an 11/12 match at that.    But now, with 24 markers returned, the Augusta distance table looks like this.Dean McGee's table generating algorithm is still a little dubious, probably because Patrick is now, at best, a 22/24 match, but I'm now much more confident.

Patrick's YDNA26-37 markers were returned a couple of weeks before they were 'expected' so maybe this is a good time to mention something about how these tests are run, at least at FTDNA and I expect by other labs as well.    Your samples are sent to the lab once each week, on Wednesday at about 4:30 Mountain Time in a numbered batch with all the other samples that have arrived or asked to be upgraded that week.    An 'expected' results date is then produced and posted to your personal page.    As we have seen, these 'estimates' are rarely accurate and are sometimes not even 'approximate'.    I'm still waiting for markers that were estimated for 11/27/06.

For business reasons they do not run the samples as they arrive or even necessarily by batches.    Their tests are run in panels.    For example, the YDNA tests are run separately for markers 1-12, 13-25, 26-37, 38-47, 48-60 and 61-67.    Likewise, SNP testing is run by haplogroup.    For economy of scale they need a minimum number of orders to run a test.    Tests are run as sufficient orders accumulate.    That's not a real problem for the lower numberd panels, plenty of them come in each week.    But for the higher numbered panels, the Deep SNP tests and the advanced markers it can cause an appreciable delay.    The example given by FTDNA is "For haplogroup R1b the orders can be sent to be tested nearly once a week, but G receives fewer orders and generally requires several weeks to accumulate the minimum number of orders necessary to run."

That's just the way it is.    What it means as a practical matter, though, is that if you are contemplating upgrading your sample that they have on hand, you should do it today or tomorrow before about 4:30 Mountain Time in order to avoid as much delay in getting your results as is within your control.