BIG Y DNA Test (Next Gen Y Sequencing) is here and at a reduced price!

[Alexandros]

FTDNA has announced their new 'BIG Y' DNA Test, which offers next generation sequencing scan (i.e. full scan) of your Y-chromosome! They accompany this launch with a reduced price, from $695 reduced to $495, if you order before Dec 1st. Of course it is still pretty expensive and we do not know if the $695 is actually the original price or just a marketing trick to 'force' people to rush and pre-order.. I remember when FTDNA reduced their price for the Family Finder test, they originally said it is for a limited duration of time and people rushed to order before the 'deadline', but then it turned out to be a permanent reduction. Anyhow, the number of SNPs offered by the BIG Y test is unprecedented (10 Million base-pair coverage, including 25,000 known SNPs). The best we had so far was GENO 2.0 with just over 12,000. I have been reading that GENO 2.0 are considering going into next gen sequencing. It seems that the next gen sequencing war is on! Any first volunteers for testing??

 

[Maciamo]

That sounds interesting. There is another even more detailed Y-DNA test (full sequence of 60 million base pairs, i.e. 6 times more than FTDNA), but it costs 1250$.

 

[BakodiP]

FTDNA has announced their new 'BIG Y' DNA Test, which offers next generation sequencing scan (i.e. full scan) of your Y-chromosome! They accompany this launch with a reduced price, from $695 reduced to $495, if you order before Dec 1st. Of course it is still pretty expensive and we do not know if the $695 is actually the original price or just a marketing trick to 'force' people to rush and pre-order.. I remember when FTDNA reduced their price for the Family Finder test, they originally said it is for a limited duration of time and people rushed to order before the 'deadline', but then it turned out to be a permanent reduction. Anyhow, the number of SNPs offered by the BIG Y test is unprecedented (10 Million base-pair coverage, including 25,000 known SNPs). The best we had so far was GENO 2.0 with just over 12,000. I have been reading that GENO 2.0 are considering going into next gen sequencing. It seems that the next gen sequencing war is on! Any first volunteers for testing??

Note that Geno 2.0 is in strong cooperation with FTDNA, as far as I know FTDNA analyze all the tests for them. Anyway I wish I had so much money to spend without a second thought. 1 or 2 years and I hope it'll be avalaiable for a reasonable price to Eastern Europeans as well. (For that money I could order 3 Geno 2.0, or 5 23andMe kit via US postal companies.)

 

[Dorianfinder]

That sounds interesting. There is another even more detailed Y-DNA test (full sequence of 60 million base pairs, i.e. 6 times more than FTDNA), but it costs 1250$.

There are about 20 million base pairs on the Y that are worthwhile sequencing. The first 2 million base pairs on the p arm are pseudoautosomal and thus aren't helpful from a Y SNP search prospective. The palindromic regions also generally don't have many Y SNPs. The test that costs 1250$ tests approximately 60 million base pairs whereas the Big Y will test approximately 10 million base pairs. The Big Y will focus on regions where the likelihood of Y SNP's is highest.

 

[Dorianfinder]

> My first idea was to order the Full Genome (FG) test, but before doing it I followed the discussions on the forums concerning the FG and the Big Y to understand what would be the best choice and finally I decided to do the Big Y test for the following reasons:

1) Most of us are already in the FTDNA database
2) Being member of specific FTDNA projects allows easy SNP or clade repartition, comparison, analysis
3) Geno2 SNPs can be transferred and integrated in the FTDNA database for each member
4) New discovered SNP of the Big Y will be added automatically to the data of the corresponding member (no raw data to analyze and to send around the world)
5) Project managers will then be able to integrate the new SNP for the classification
6) In many cases, the stored DNA at FTDNA can be used for the Big Y
7) The coverage of Big Y is 2-3 less than FG but good enough to discover new SNPs
8) 495USD if ordered before Dec 1st (FG is 1250USD)
9) Big Y results can be compared to members having done the FG test
10) If needed, an FG test can be ordered later
11) As Big Y is approx half the price of a Full Genome Y-test, more people will test Big Y.

You get the most value from a test like Big Y when more people in your clade order it. What you really want is that one or more people with a common agnatic ancestor about 30 to 40 generations ago sign up, and maybe one that is about 20 generations away. And when some of us have reached this level of testing we'll know if Big Y is useful or not.

The above points are good, but let's not forget that there is still a chance that your clade defining SNP is in an area not yet covered by Big-Y.

 

[Dorianfinder]

That sounds interesting. There is another even more detailed Y-DNA test (full sequence of 60 million base pairs, i.e. 6 times more than FTDNA), but it costs 1250$.

Hi Maciamo, for the record G. Magoon from Full Genomes says, "The 12-16 mbp figure is a rough estimate of the number of sites where we can confidently (>~95%) identify novel SNP variants that are free from various issues that give rise to false positives."

ISOGG states that the Full Genomes test covers only 12 to 16 million base pairs whereas the Big Y covers at least 10 million base pairs at the same confidence level. If these facts are correct then it seems the Big Y test by FTDNA is the better deal!

 

[Maciamo]

Hi Maciamo, for the record G. Magoon from Full Genomes says, "The 12-16 mbp figure is a rough estimate of the number of sites where we can confidently (>~95%) identify novel SNP variants that are free from various issues that give rise to false positives."

ISOGG states that the Full Genomes test covers only 12 to 16 million base pairs whereas the Big Y covers at least 10 million base pairs at the same confidence level. If these facts are correct then it seems the Big Y test by FTDNA is the better deal!

That's good to know. Thanks.