Several weeks ago I upgraded my Family Tree DNA (FTDNA) test and added the BIG Y. It is the newest Y-DNA test available. The results won’t be posted until late February. I haven’t seen numbers on how many people ordered the BIG Y, but four projects reported a total of 400 BIG Y orders. It is expected BIG Y will provide 10 – 12 million base pairs out of 18 million base pairs tested. There are about 59 million base pairs on the Y, but half of the Y is considered unmappable.
I will add updates as they come in.
BIG Y FAQs
http://www.familytreedna.com/faq/answers.aspx?id=27
Roberta’s first glance at BIG Y
http://dna-explained.com/2013/11/16/what-about-the-big-y
Debbie has several posts on BIG Y
http://cruwys.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/the-new-big-y-test-from-family-tree-dna.html
http://cruwys.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/a-confusion-of-snps.html
I like Debbie’s second post. She briefly talks about each of the major players in the Y-DNA testing world – FTDNA, Full Genomes, BritainsDNA Chromo 2, and National Geographic’s Geno 2.0 Project.
Information from FTDNA’s November conference indicates National Geographic will be released an update to Geno 2.0 within 7 to 12 months (June – November 2014), but no word on price, how many SNPs or STRs will be tested, or if there will be a discount for those who tested with Geno 2.0.
National Geographic’s Geno 2.0 Project
https://genographic.nationalgeographic.com
No word on details, but it is expected BritainsDNA will release Chromo 3 in the near future.
BritainsDNA Chromo 2
http://www.britainsdna.com/products
Full Genomes – Comprehensive Y-DNA Sequencing (mistakenly called a Full Y by some, but estimated to provide 14 million base pairs out of 23 million base pairs mapped)
Ups Downs Family History 