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Quote from: Biggles50 on Wednesday 30 April 25 10:37 BST (UK)

R-M269 is my haplogroup.

Knowing it is of Zero use to me in researching my family history.

Knowing that for the last few thousands of years my ancestors were in Western Europe is not telling me anything useful as it is far to general.

Even forking out excessive amounts of cash for a Big y test is only going to refine the result to a sub-branch which then is still going to be of little Genealogical use as again it is generic by nature.

Hopefully MyHeritage or Ancestry will buy FTDNA one day, as it seems clear that FTDNA don't have the necessary attributes to take Y + mt testing to a consumer audience. It's mostly used by hardened genealogists and people searching for their father. I am fairly sure the price of Y-DNA tests could be significantly reduced. Their autosomal business has obviously been nuked and all they have left really is the seemingly overpriced Y tests. You can get full genome tests for about the same now.

I also see that Peter Thiel's fund is looking to acquire 23AndMe to their already existing DNA company:

Nucleus Genomics, a New York-based whole-genome testing company, is connected to Peter Thiel. It is backed by Thiel’s Founders Fund, among other investors, and its CEO, Kian Sadeghi, has expressed interest in acquiring 23andMe, particularly for its telehealth subsidiary, Lemonaid.

Nucleus Genomics is a New York-based company specializing in whole-genome sequencing (WGS) and genetic analysis to provide personalized health insights. Unlike many genetic tests that analyze less than 0.1% of DNA, Nucleus sequences the entire genome—approximately 6 billion letters—to identify millions of variants that may impact health.

Their full genome test is actually less than the FTDNA Big-Y test, which give an impression of how overpriced it is.

It would be nice if a boat load of VC cash could be used to bootstrap another outfit offering genealogy DNA services, to boost the number of people you can match to and hopefully get better coverage for Y and mt matching.

From what I'm reading whole genome would offer better sifting of identical by state and descent segments, in short better weeding out of false positives.

Autosomal Tests: These typically analyze ~600,000–700,000 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) across the 22 autosomal chromosomes, covering less than 0.1% of the genome. They focus on common SNPs selected for ancestry and health insights but miss many rare or private variants.

WGS: Sequences all ~6 billion base pairs of the genome, including all autosomal SNPs, rare variants, and structural variations (e.g., insertions, deletions). This provides millions of data points, capturing virtually all genetic variation relevant to relatedness.

The denser data from WGS allows detection of smaller and more numerous shared DNA segments, increasing the chance of identifying matches with distant relatives who share fewer or less common segments.

Autosomal Tests: These rely on identifying identical by descent (IBD) segments, typically requiring a minimum length (e.g., 7–10 centiMorgans [cM]) to confirm a match. For 4th cousins, who share 0.2% of DNA (13–20 cM on average), the segments are often small or fragmented, leading to a ~50% detection rate due to limitations in SNP coverage or recombination events breaking up segments.

WGS: Captures all DNA variants, enabling detection of shorter IBD segments (e.g., <7 cM) with higher confidence. It also identifies rare variants shared by descent, which autosomal tests might miss. This increases the sensitivity for detecting distant relationships.

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I've got five y-DNA test so far. Only one big-Y, but you can often determine some of your recent haplogroups if your closest matches have taken big-Y. From that, you can extrapolate out migration path. Though it is somewhat circumstantial, the results are more of a best guess. One example:



For this specific line it appears it was probably part of the latest Bell Beaker immigration to Britain, c. 1800 BC, rather than the later Celtic migrations from c. 1250 BC to the Roman conquest.

So with the data you can get a reasonable idea of what historic peoples your line was part of. There is quite a wealth of archeological research on prehistoric cultures. You can get a reasonable idea of which pre-Roman tribes your ancestor belonged to in Celtic Britain, Germanic peoples, and early Celtic cultures of Europe. You can also see fairly clearly if your line ended up switching from Celtic to Germanic via conquest, or vice versa. Since the area that is now Germany was the intermediary zone between the Bell Beaker culture that likely spoke a predecessor of Celtic and the adjacent Corded Ware culture, that likely spoke Balto-Slavic.