Several weeks ago I mentioned how important it is for our project members to be members of their relevant haplogroup project(s). The purpose of that membership is to provide visibility of your haplotype and to allow knowledgeable persons to provide direction and recommendations. At the same time, I enrolled each of our members in the base or gateway haplogroup project. R _R1b ALL Subclades project is the gateway project for the R-M269 subclade (i.e., the descendants of Samuel Sturtevant).
Also, I have mentioned the importance of depth of testing. R-M269 is the largest clade in Europe, and, unfortunately, because there are so many members, the usually recommended Y-DNA testing levels of 37 or even 67 markers is not sufficient to identify a terminal SNP and their subclade. It looks like at least a 111 marker test is required. The Results page for R_R1b ALL Subclades reflects the problem. There are about 6700 members in that gateway project and the administrators are unable to identify a specific subclade for more than one-half of the members because they have not tested sufficient markers.
How many markers are sufficient? Unfortunately, it is not possible to tell what is sufficient but we know that even 67 markers are NOT sufficient. Our members in the R-M269 clade have tested at levels up to 67 markers. This means that they must upgrade to at least 111 markers if they wish to find a terminal SNP and their subclade. Our members who have tested to levels below 67 will not gain anything by testing to 67. At least one member must step-up and volunteer to upgrade to 111 markers before we know whether even that level is sufficient to identify a subclade and potentially other matching persons.
Another possibility is the FTDNA BigY test. The BigY tests over 10 million markers (both STR and SNP) and can determine your exact position to the lowest known subclade. The BigY is expensive but is likely the last DNA test that will need to be taken. It is only available as an upgrade and periodically can be purchased at a $100 discount.
Please contact us if you have questions.