This page supports my Y-DNA discussions.

SNPs, STRs, Haplogroups - what a lot of kerfuffle! Jargon for science' sake.!

See here my attempt to make sense of all the jargon one might read as answers to problems, queries and concerns.

See here my other pages for AUTOSOMAL or Family Finder discussions. Charts of Cousins - Showing consanguinity.

Facebook comments tend to say “Test this”, Do that” without actually answering what the nature of the query is.

Repeating what is known without explaining what NEEDS to be known or learned!
_I_ must explain that a lot of the answers you seek must come from the learning you must acquire.

I have recently found this to provide some REAL, easily understood answers. Who DoYou Think You Are . . .

The pros of an STR DNA test are that it can be used to find your genetic family surname, and may suggest what haplogroup and subgroup you belong to.
The cons are the unstable markers, and the fact that it cannot define precisely when your most recent common ancestor with your matches lived.

A copy-error on the Y-chromosome within the portions sequenced by the Big Y-700 test is calculated to occur on average every 90 years (82–98 years).
A positive outcome from identifying SNP Progenitors is that the statistically based model of SNP dating can be improved.

What ARE our FATHER MATCHES?

Imagine a world population of 7 billion people.
Consider that half of those are males. You are male; Yes?
Determine also that we are Caucasian males of Western Europe; (Atlantic Modal).: Yes?

Of the population of European Union, there would be about 200 Million Men.
. . . Sorry Americans, but before America there was Europe!

Of those there might be among those tested for Y-DNA (at FTDNA) might be roughly 1-million.

Conclusion:- What are the chances in RANDOM that you, me, or any quest for a father is going to find easily THEIR Father line in such a small sample of tested males from among a huge crowd of untested population?

Additionally, if some of those males do not purchase the most expensive and highly refined test sample (Y-700), No one is going to learn of the name of the Haplogroup, their origin population.

They are all ACCURATE, but the level of refinement, of Analysis, is price dependant.
Unlike then, as compared with the several millions of autosomal tests on Ancestry.com, there might be only a few hundred R-M269 males to consider as fathers.

SURNAMES

SUR - From the French language of ‘Sur’ meaning on top or over other or existing names. A means of identifying individuals as much for TAX purposes as providing poor relief. The money had to come from somewhere and avoidance was as much a problem 1000 years ago as it is today..

BBC - SURNAMES
When communities were small each person was identifiable by a single name, but as the population increased, it gradually became necessary to identify people further - leading to names such as John the butcher, William the short, Henry from Sutton, Mary of the wood, Roger son of Richard. Over time many names became corrupted and their original meaning is now not easily seen.

After 1066, the Norman barons introduced surnames into England, and the practice gradually spread. Initially, the identifying names were changed or dropped at will, but eventually they began to stick and to get passed on.

For us today is the common notion of “NPE” which is “Not Paternity Expected”. The are a great many instances where a male child is given his mother’s name or Father not recorded. Then there are instances of orphan and adoption. Illegitimacy and Fostering within the family complicates the ‘cousin’ relationship by half and perhaps by Generation.

Thus your current surname could well be the ‘third-in-line’, for example, between SMITH then WILSON and JONES!!

What is next? Aaarrh, those paper Genealogical Parish records.!! And the TREE of my family, of course derived from such documents.

The Y-DNA Analysis

OUR Biological sample which contains our DNA is applied to an electronic device that is made up of seven slides or Arrays, or CHIPS.
These look at the molecular detail and at known sample points, enumerating the molecules (base pairs = bp) seen there.
You will see these arrays and their measured values at your DNA [Y-STR Results].
There also you will see as many "panels' ,(test samples) as you have paid for..

Panel 1 = 1 to 12 = 12 Markers.
Panel 2 = 13 to 25 = 12 Markers.
Panel 3 = 26 to 37 = 12 Markers.
Panel 4 = 38 to 67 = 29 Markers. in three panel parts.
Panel 5 = 67 to 111 = 44 Markers. in five panel parts.
Panel 6 = 111 to 561 = 29 Markers. in forty-five panel parts.
Panel 7 = 562 to 838 = 276 Markers. in twenty-eight panel parts.

LivingDNA and 23andMe cheat us out of fine detail by providing, for lesser sum of money, of course, only Y-37 or Y67 tests without any option or choice. And then lists of Y-Matches are not provided - just a vague Population Group (Haplogroup). {BEP}.
Forensic DNA -STR Description

Short tandem repeats (STRs) are short repeated sequences of DNA (2 – 6 bp) that account for approximately 3% of the human genome (Lander et al., 2001). The number of repeat units is highly variable among individuals, which offers a high power of discrimination when analyzed for identification purposes.

It is the variability in the number of repeat units that we Y-geneticists use to indicate Historical or Ancestral origin (in time) and matches with other males. These STR are tabulated in the projects seen in FTDNA.

Reference Samples are used to create Haplogroups of testers from SNP, then STR to separate family branches.

Equipmet in Laboratory

YouTube_1 - - YouTube_2

WDYTYA _ Irish-Arbroath
Pinpointing Your Irish origin Using Y-DNA test results irishorigenes & origenesmaps.com

It is interesting to note that FTDNA (Family Tree DNA) are the only consumer genetic genealogy company that provide MATCHES for the Y-Chromosome. -- The different match lists with different Genetic Distances [GD] can be seen at test Y-37, Y-111 & Y-700 samples.
Of significant note is that all this DNA stuff depends on folk taking a test. While your test you might think is if no value to you, it does add to the dastabase that adds integrity and quality to the results of others.