Can 37-marker STR be used to roughly predict subclade membership without a SNP test?

Hope y'all can help me. I'm R1b1a2a1a1b (P312), and I'm curious to know what deeper downstream subclades I might belong to. Problem is, I'm too broke to pay FTDNA $40-a-pop for the all the possible SNP tests.


So what I've been doing is using a combination of my own 37-marker results, YSearch (comparing my panel to those of known, tested deep-clade members), a TMRCA calculator, and age estimates of various subclades to try to "predict" which one I might belong to.


How reliable a methodology is this? The only thing I've been able to ascertain with any measure of certainty so far is that I'm not M222. (I'm not U152 either; I paid for that SNP test.) Apart from that, the results are kinda all over the place. My best "match" so far is M153 (the Basque marker--Basque?? Really?). But belonging to M153 is nearly inconceivable; I and all my distant male cousins hail from NW Europe, mostly Britain. Comparing my STRs to the clade upstream of M153 (DF17) gives some ambiguous results.


So, should I just be patient and pay for the SNP tests as I can afford them? Or might these techniques actually give me some useful clues?
Thanks!

The 67 or 111 marker test will give you a better chance at comparing with possible matches at Ysearch. Most of the people on Ysearch with that level of testing are testing for SNPs. TMRCA doesn't really help, because most of the P312 terminal subclades are the same age; except for u152, which is a little older. If you join a FTDNA project they will ask you to upgrade, then buy SNPs, so you may be stuck throwing more money down. You could try 23andme and genoproject. They test more options than FTDNA.

A 37-marker STR test is extremely basic and won't help you determine which subclade of R1b you belong to. Actually, even a 111 marker test probably won't be very useful in the case of R1b, since there are so many known subclades and STR values are so similar. Single SNP tests at FTDNA can prove very costly if you have to try them all, and time consuming if you only order one at a time, then progress little by little deeper into the tree. It's much simpler and cheaper to just order a Geno 2.0 test if you really want to know your deepest subclade (and perhaps discover a new subclade too).

Thank you for the advice. I'm going to compare options between upgrading at FTDNA and just doing Geno 2.0, from scratch.