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Update on Gold Y Testing

We recently hit a giant milestone in our Y-DNA Project. We have 40 completed BigY700 DNA kits out of 110 testers. That is nearing 40 percent of all testers!  The BigY reads 40 million areas of the Y chromosome and is the best DNA kit to determine genetic distance between family members. The 40 kits have resulted in several families being branched off from one another in the last 270 years. Our extensive testing has revealed that our Y chromosome is mutating slower than the average family, resulting in less defined family branches. This has been frustrating as the genetic family tree has not given some of us the answers we were looking for. This has been furthered aggravated by a paper trail that does not exist between 1700-1750, the crucial years we are looking to piece back together. But we have made many discoveries and the effort has been rewarding. There are two kinds of Y tests. STR (short tandem repeats) and SNP (single nucleotide polymorphisms) are genetic mut...

Building a family subclade using Y DNA, and why you should test

 Using top level Y DNA testing on Crow/Crowe descendants, we are able to follow genetic variations along the male Y Chromosome, otherwise known as "SNP''s. (single nucleotide polymorphisms) These SNP's happen at random among men. This top level test allows us to recreate the modern family tree. My fascination with using Y DNA is partly because the paper genealogy is near minimal for any branch of the family prior to 1800. The other reason is the amount of incorrect information attached to thousands of trees on all the genealogical sites. It is just too easy to assume that James is the father of John, when hundreds of trees say so. This is where we apply Y DNA, by finding out exactly which Crows are related to who. For instance, in early Spartanburgh, there are three unrelated Crow families living side by side. The Gold, Red and Teal families identified by color in our Y DNA Project. Some of these families could have been the result of adoption or some other event that ...

Gold Crow's 2020 Year in Review

 2020 has been a year of recruiting new testers and building out the Crow Genetic Tree. A lot of behind the scenes work went into this. Countless emails, messages on the DNA sites, and loads of investigative work on family trees. We've talked with a lot of folks all across this nation  and made some friends along the way. This Project is fun and a worthwhile adventure.  The Gold Crow family now has 110 testers, with 30  at the BigY700 level. Those are incredible numbers, I have not seen any other surname project with  these kinds of numbers in one family grouping. There are two reasons for this, 1. Participation by all of you, recognizing the value of purchasing a Y DNA kit and even going all in on the expensive BigY test. This is the most advanced test that FTDNA offers and brings the best clarity on dating estimates. 2. Phil and I have worked well together, we live on the opposite coasts, but we have a shared goal on finding out how we all connect and where ou...

Background on the Gold Crows. Origins, Objectives and DNA Evidence

The Crow surname project on FTDNA has been around  for about 20 years. With 600+ members,  that puts the project into the top 100 of the 50,000 surname projects on FTDNA. There are 20 unique Crow lines identified that are unrelated in the surname era. The largest identified group is the Gold colored group. There are 106 testers. Of whom 10  have tested all the way to to the BigY700. This test reads STR and SNP markers along the y-chromosome. 60 men have tested at 37 STR markers and above , while the rest sit at 12 and 25 STR markers. All the BigY testers tested positive for the SNP, I-F22033. This SNP was formed approximately around the year 426AD/CE. The only testers in FTDNA that have this SNP are Gold Colored Crows.  Of the 106 testers, only 3 have a surname other than Crow. These 3 men had an NPE (non paternal event) occur somewhere in their lines and are all likely related to the others within the last 250-500 years. We can decipher genetic distance be...

Crow DNA Project on FTDNA

Welcome to my blog. If you are interested in your family history, you are in the right spot. I am the co-administrator for the Crow Y-DNA project on FTDNA. We have 19 unique Crow/Crowe family groups identified  worldwide. I am part of the Gold group. My interest is finding and identifying each Crow family to place them in our project. If you are a male, or have a male to test their Y-DNA, then please visit our site. Feel free to reach out to me as well. mikec1120@comcast.net https://www.familytreedna.com/groups/crow-dna/about https://www.familytreedna.com/public/CrowDNA?iframe=yresults https://gap.familytreedna.com/project-statistics.aspx Introduction to Y-DNA testing https://isogg.org/wiki/Y_chromosome_DNA_tests