1. Go to Leo Little's interative SMGF search utility at http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~geneticgenealogy/SMGF/search4.htm.
2. Check the "Name" box in the left upper corner of the screen.
3. In the "Name" search field enter the Mennonite surname you are planning to search for.
4. In the field next to the "Name" search field change the haplogroup to what you suspect the surname to be. Most males of Mennonite ancestry are in Haplogroup R1b or Haplogroup I. When uncertain select R1b, since this will be the most common Haplogroup.
5. Click on the "Search" button at the bottom of the screen.
6. If a person (or persons) of Mennonite ancestry with the surname you are searching for has Y chromosome data in the SMGF database a screen should appear that says "Y-Chromosome Search Results" and the marker results for that person (or persons) should appear in a row with the names of each marker shown above the results for that marker. Any marker values for that person that match the default marker values will appear on the screen in light blue. Any marker values for that person that don't match the default marker values will appear on the screen in dark blue. The results for some markers such as DYS464 may be missing if the SMGF hasn't yet tested all of the markers, in which case the results for those markers will appear as white boxes.
7. Click on the small button that looks like a small pedigree chart on the left side of the screen just below "Pedigree" for each person whose surname matches the surname of the person you are searching for until you have found the pedigree chart of the person you would like to extract the marker results for.
8. Close the pedigree screen.
9. Record the values for all markers that match (those in light blue) from the "Y-Chromosome Search Results" screen into a spreadsheet or anywhere you would like to record the values.
10. On the left side of the screen click on the boxes in front of each marker that didn't match in the initial search. These would be the markers for which there is a dark blue square in the search results. This should result in a green checkmark being placed in the box and the markers changing to being red in color.
11. On the left side of the screen click on the "+1" button. This causes the values in the search screen to increase by one if the markers have been marked with a checkmark.
12. Click on the "Search" button on the left side of the screen again.
13. When the "Y-Chromosome Search Results" screen appears make note of any additional markers that match.
14. Click on the box in front of any markers which now match, but which haven't previously matched to remove the checkmark for those markers. This should result in checkmarks only remaining in front of markers that still do not match (the markers still in dark blue in the "Y-Chromosome Search Results" screen.
15. Once again, click on the "+1" button on the left side of the screen.
16. Click on the "Search" button on the left side of the screen again.
17. When the "Y-Chromosome Search Results" screen appears make note of any additional markers that match. Click on the box in front of any markers which now match, but which haven't previously matched to remove the checkmark for those markers.
18. Once again, click on the "+1" button on the left side of the screen.
19. Click on the "Search" button on the left side of the screen again.
20. When the "Y-Chromosome Search Results" screen appears make note of any additional markers that match. Click on the box in front of any markers which now match, but which haven't previously matched to remove the checkmark for those markers.
21. Click on the "-1" button on the left side of the screen four times.
22. If the boxes in front of either markers Yca2 or 461 still have a green checkmark in them then click on the light blue button to the right of that marker and increase the marker value by one if you set the Haplogroup as R1b at the start of the search in step #4 above.
23. Click on the "Search" button on the left side of the screen.
24. When the "Y-Chromosome Search Results" screen appears make note of any additional markers that match. Click on the box in front of any markers which now match, but which haven't previously matched.
25. Click on the "-1" button on the left side of the screen once.
26. Click on the "Search" button on the left side of the screen.
27. When the "Y-Chromosome Search Results" screen appears make note of any additional markers that match. Click on the box in front of any markers which now match, but which haven't previously matched.
28. Click on the "-1" button on the left side of the screen once.
29. Click on the "Search" button on the left side of the screen.
30. When the "Y-Chromosome Search Results" screen appears make note of any additional markers that match. Click on the box in front of any markers which now match, but which haven't previously matched.
31. At this point you should have completed 7 searches (the initial search on the default marker settings and a search of all values 1, 2, or 3 numbers above the default settings and a search of all values 1, 2, or 3 numbers below the default settings. A significant majority of the marker values should now appear in light blue and thus match the values for the person who was originally tested.
32. Continue repeating steps #28-30 changing the marker values for those markers you have not yet found a match for until you have found matches for all 43 of the Y chromosome markers that the SMGF tests for or until all the markers that still don't match have a value of "--".
33. If you haven't found a match by the time you have checked the lowest value for one or more markers you will need to check the highest potential values for that marker if they weren't already checked in your earliest searches. To test the highest possible marker values you will need to reset all of the makers that still have a green checkmark in front of them to the highest possible value by clicking on the light blue box to the right of the marker and changing the value for these markers to the highest number possible.
34. Continue repeating steps #28-30 changing the marker values for those markers you have not yet found a match for until you have found matches for all 43 of the Y chromosome markers that the SMGF tests for or until all the markers that still don't match have a value of "--".
35. If at this point the marker values for any specific marker are not matching this suggests that the marker value for that specific marker is a relatively rare one and that the marker likely has a microvariant value such as 12.1 or a bi-allelic value such as 16-17. To find these rare values you will need to search the main SMGF search screen for all the microvariant and bi-allelic values for that marker since Leo Little's search utility does not do searches for these rare values. To do this click on the gray "Search Again" button that is below the marker results on the "Y-Chromosome Search Results" screen. Then change the marker values in the SMGF search screen for any markers that appear to have a rare value to one of the microvariant values such as 12.1 or a bi-allelic value such as 16-17.
36. Click the gray “Search” button at the bottom of the screen and note whether or not the marker now has a matching value. If not, continue searching the SMGF database, testing for each microvariant or bi-allelic value until a match has been found for that marker. Most markers have only a few possible microvariant or bi-allelic values, but some such as DYS 385a, DYS 385b, DYS 458, and DYS 464 have 10 or more possible microvariant or bi-allelic values. You might want to search for some of the more common of the microvariant or bi-allelic values first. You can find the relative frequencies of each of the marker values for any specific marker by clicking on the name of the marker on the main search screen at http://www.smgf.org/ychromosome/search.jspx. For example, the relative frequencies of each of the marker values for the YCAII marker are found at http://www.smgf.org/ychromosome/marker_details.jspx?marker=YCAII. Try entering the microvariant or bi-allelic marker values you haven’t yet checked that appear with the highest frequency on these tables. This will increase your chances of finding a match more quickly than if you were to simply randomly try all of the potential microvariant or bi-allelic marker values. Hopefully on average no more than 20 searches will be required to extract all the marker results for any one person.
37. Extracting the results for DYS 464a, b, c, and d can sometimes be a little tricky. If after completing step #36 above you still haven't extracted all the results for DYS 464 then try entering 7 as the value for DYS 464a, b, c, and d. Then note the number of matches. Then enter 8 as the value for DYS 464a, b, c, and d and note the number of matches. Continue increasing the value of DYS 464a, b, c, and d by one until the total number of matches equals four. In some cases, there will be a microvariant marker value for 464a, b, c, and/or d. In these cases you should be able to determine the microvariant marker value or values by following steps #35 and #36 above.
38. If you know at least some of the marker values for the person you are trying to determine the marker values for from another source (such as Family Tree DNA or another lab), then change the default values to the marker values you know from that source if they happen to be different than the default values.
39. If you have already determined the marker results for one person with a particular surname and there are other people with the same surname that you also need to determine the marker results for, then try entering the marker results for other people with that surname rather than starting with the default settings. If the two people have the same progenitor then their marker values will either match or come very close to matching. Determining any differences in the marker values between two people with the same progenitor would thus be much easier than if you started with the default settings.
40. Bear in mind that the Sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation web site only allows you to do 50 searches of the Y chromosome database per day. Thus, if you have exhausted your 50 searches on a particular day you must wait until the next day to do additional searches to complete your extraction of the markers for a specific person.