Athey's Haplogroup Predictor

Whit Athey presents a "Haplogroup Predictor" on his website. He describes it thusly:


 * Prediction of Y-chromosome haplogroup from Y-STR values is easy and fast with this program. You may choose a version of the program with the markers in FTDNA order or numerical order by clicking the button of your choice above.

Normally, haplogroup is obtained by testing a different set of markers than is used for the standard YDNA test. However, the standard set of markers can be used to predict haplogroup. That is, even though the markers used for a YDNA test are not the same ones that are used for a formal haplogroup test, you can still get a good idea of the haplogroup by exmaining these markers.

Athey's predictor allows you to use of the standard YDNA marker suite to predict haplogroup. All that's needed is to type in the marker values from a specific YDNA test, and you get a prediction of which haplogroup is probably involved. In test examples I've run the predictions match closely with those provided by FTDNA for their YDNA test results. However, the outcomes do not necessarily match predictions by FTDNA exactly. In some cases Athey's predictor gives more precise predictions (e.g., "I1B2A", instead of simply "I"), and in some cases less precise (e.g., "R1b" instead of "R1b1c7").

The website currently (18 September 2007) provides two versions of the Predictor
 * A basic predictor for 15 major Haplogroups, and
 * A "Beta" version that predicts 21 major Haplogroups.

Both programs allow you to input YDNA results manually, or in a batch mode. Both programs allow you to use either the FTDNA sequence of markers, or a numberic order. The later is handy if you happen to have a set of results that does not follow the FTDNA sequence.