August 2023: Haplogroup R-FT198778 may represent the common ancestor of a group of  Big Y700 testers at FamilyTreeDNA.com. The first tester identified their possible common ancestor with R-FT199198 as Michael Rutledge who lived in Baltimore County, Maryland as early as 1690.  Testers 2 & 3 have not determined a common ancestor.   

The graphic below shows the group of testers in this section of the block tree as of August 2023.  The Rutledge/Routledge surname project at FamilyTreeDNA.com is searching for a BigY-700 DNA tester that may break up the 2 private variants which will strengthen the group's paternal lineage.