Well I did it. Possibly foolish, but it is done. I felt the itch, there was a Father’s day sale, and it was only an upgrade. I spent about half of what I thought I was going to spend, but will not say how much so I do not look really foolish. I also checked my 67 marker Y DNA test before I ordered the big one. I still only have three distant matches. The estimate is that there is a 95% chance we have a common ancestor between 400 AD and 1700 AD with the most likely date being about 1100 AD to 1250 AD. Although Y DNA is supposed to track with the family surname in most western cultures, 800 or 900 years ago there were not very many surnames. The fact that none of my matches has the Ragusin surname is evidence of this.
In case you are confused about what I have done. I have ordered the “BIG Y 700” Y DNA test at Family Tree DNA. This is the ultimate Y DNA test commercially available. The only thing better would be to sequence the entire Y chromosome. Previously on this site I mentioned that I had not taken this test because, no other Ragusin in the world has taken a Y DNA test, I had no close matches with 67 markers, and the cost was prohibitive. Well the cost went down and I ignored all the other issues.
I did look at a friends BIG Y results. His family surname is Brown and yes he had an uncle named Charley Brown. Y DNA can be extremely useful in sorting out all the different Brown families–if those other families get tested. I will have to wait an see what I get. I am cautiously hopeful that I will learn something. I can also say that I did this for science.
What did I buy? Family Tree DNA will take my DNA and separate out the Y chromosome. Then they will analyze it in a fancy machine the function of which I do not understand. I saw this machine during a visit to their lab, but did not get a clue. They put a sample of my Y DNA in on one side of the machine and get a computer file out the other side. That computer file will report my SNP (single nucleotide polymorphism) value–whether I have “A,” “C,” “G,” or “T”–at each of about 1,300,000 locations on my Y chromosome. It will also report on the number of STR (single tandem repeats)–repeated segments of DNA at various locations–at about 700 other locations. As I have stated elsewhere on this website, this test is so accurate that each male should have a unique signature, but those closely related should have nearly similar signatures.
Now I have to wait…
Copyrighted by Thomas John Ragusin 12 Jun 2023.
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