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There are various presentations and lectures that are available online that offer information about genealogical DNA testing. One that is relevant to Y-DNA results is this one by John Cleary.
When it comes to the traditional Y-DNA markers, more is generally better, so we encourage people to test to the full extent that they are able.
More markers may help to uncover distinctive mutations that are particular to certain family branches, and having this information at our disposal is good for all of us.
Even if upgrading may not be of immediate benefit to your own genealogy, it is a good thing to do for the collective benefit of our project and its current and future members.
It would likewise be good for the project to do the "Big Y" test. As more project members do this test we'll be in a better position to be able to deduce how the branches of each group fit together into a common family tree, even in the absence of historical records. The information provided from the BigY test can also give us a way to estimate the age of a family and the branches in its family tree. The most recent analysis of our project's BigY results can be found here.
You can also order other types of DNA tests, such as the autosomal Family Finder test and tests for mitochondrial DNA (which is inherited from the direct female ancestral line).
To order upgrade tests for yourself, first login to Family Tree DNA's website and then click on the "Upgrade" link that is near the top-right of the screen. From there you can selected which test(s) to order.
Once you have logged in to Family Tree DNA's website, there are some things that you should be sure to do:
There are a number of ways for you to search for genetic matches. Matches that occur within our project will be publicly shown on our project's "Results" webpage along with some interpretation.
Matches within our project can also be viewed from your personal login page with Family Tree DNA. First login at Family Tree DNA's website and then click on the "Matches" link in the "Y-DNA" section. If you wish to see matches outside of the project, you can change from "Pike" to "The Entire Database" in the "Show Matches For" drop-down menu. You can also select the number of markers to conduct a search on. Possibly you might have to click on the "Run Report" button to execute your search.
The place to start your exploration is by going to your personal webpage with Family Tree DNA and then clicking on the "Haplotree & SNPs" link in the "Y-DNA" section.
Depending on your haplogroup prediction, you might be offered a "deep clade" test or a "SNP Pack" as a potential upgrade test. These test typically cover about 100 SNPs and will help to refine your position among the known haplogroup tree.
The "Big Y" test is much more thorough, investigating about 10 million locations at which SNPs might occur. In addition to determining whether you carry known SNPs, it can also detect previously-unidentified SNPs for which you are positive. These novel SNPs have good potential for helping to figure out the structure of our Pike family trees, along with also giving the maximum refinement to your haplogroup.
In addition to surname projects like ours, there are also a number of geographical and haplogroup projects registered with Family Tree DNA.
To search for and join other projects, first login to your personal webpage with Family Tree DNA. Then click on the "Join a Project" link under the "Projects" menu item. Scroll down the page and then browse through the various projects that are available (they include surname projects, haplogroup projects, geographical projects (some of which are only for Y-DNA, some are only for mtDNA, and some are "dual" in the sense that they are utilising both Y-DNA and mtDNA).
More details on how to join projects can be found here.