Big Y is here!

OK. I guess it's time to get our learning hats on (again).    Up to this point I have pretty much ignored SNPs and SNP testing.    Our interest has been, and is, genetic genealogy.    And, up to this point, my understanding was that STRs are valuable for genealogy and SNPs are valuable for things on a longer time frame like population migrations.

Apparently, though, the release of FTDNA's Big Y test results may indicate that there may also be some things that look like SNPs but are really complex variant STRs which may be genealogically significant.

So, time for the learning hats.    I don't know any answers so I'll just point out some things that seem to me important to read and learn and maybe we'll be able to learn this together.

The first is Roberta Estes' DNAeXplained – Genetic Genealogy blog post, "Big Y Release".    Be sure to also click on and follow all the links within her blog post as they are necessary to an understanding of this new tool.

In case you missed the link in the last paragraph, here it is again:      Big Y Release

Click for FTDNA Big Y help page