How can I find the connection WikiTree used for Y-DNA test results?

Question

WikiTree has made a Y-DNA connection between Greene-1554 and Randolph-1145. Since these two people have different surnames, I am curious about how this connections was made. Either there is an error or someone changed their name.

The WikiTree Relationship Calculator shows that there are 100s of connections between these two people. How can I find the specific connection, along a male line, that WikiTree used for the Y-DNA test results? It is possible there are multiple connections.

Answer 1

They simply belong to the same direct paternal line.  Until Greene has a Y-DNA test (and is a sufficient match with Randolph-1145) we don't know if their direct paternal line ancestry (back to their most recent direct paternal line ancestor) is accurate.

Answer 2

I don't think it is possible, without clicking on possibly 1000 connections. Since the closest relationship between these two people are 5th Cousins 4 times removed, it means that the ySTR connection must be beyond that.

Relationship finder gives you relationships beyond that, but in this case, there are many multiple connections.

Answer 3

Hi Rick, The Randolph-1145 YDNA test is showing on the Greene paternal line because they have at least one common yDNA forefather:  http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Vannes-7  It appears both lines are descendant of ancient France/Brittney family lines.  

Comments

Actually, this is their common yDNA forefather: http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Rennes-29 through sons: http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Bretagne-22 and http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Bretagne-76 

Sometimes I am glad I research Smiths.  

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Someone might hit the jackpot...:)

I presume these two profiles are more than 25 generations apart, given that relationship finder indicates they are not blood relatives.  A match would certainly keep someone busy confirming with DNA all the profiles involved :)

I still have no idea how you found this other than you have an excellent memory!

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Kitty, How did you come to that conclusion? The Relationship Finder does not show it.

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YDNA is passed from father to son, so I just clicked back through all the fathers until I got to the end, (25 generations?)  I then realized that I had seen a couple of the names in common and that is how I found their common yDNA ancestor, connected through the two different sons.

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Nice, Kitty.

The test details pages list all the connected people and highlight the earliest known ancestor. In this case http://www.wikitree.com/index.php?title=Special:DNATests&u=8598502&id=8 you might want to search for the word "earliest" since the list is so long.

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Chris, that is very interesting. The "earliest" is also the connection used by WikiTree? If someone adds the father to Vannes-7, the "earliest" will then be the father and the "earliest" will no longer be the connection.

I think what Kitty did was great: search through the entire line of fathers, for both profiles, and find the most recent common name. There should be at most 40 or so names in each list of fathers. The fact that the Relationship Finder can't find a "blood" relation, means the connection must be more than 25 generations in the past. This narrows down each list of fathers to about 15 each, making the comparison a little easier.

Does WikiTree have an automated way to create a paternal lineage (a list of fathers)?

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Hi Rick,

Your DNA Ancestors page has a Y section, but you can only go 10 at a time: http://www.wikitree.com/treewidget/Pierpont-94/89#Y

Chris

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Thanks, Chris.  The only problem I see with the list is I was looking for the most recent common yDNA forefather.  Earliest is useful, but most recent common is what Rick was looking for in this case, I think.  It would be nice if  the most recent could be highlighted on the list too.  ;-)

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You can step about 15 generations up each paternal line and then run the RF from there.

If you get a lot of cousinships, you'll have to go through them to find the male one.  Maybe that could be flagged.

Answer 4

The Greene line is only known as far back as Sir Henry [[Greene-2059]], the bent judge.  His father is unidentified.  Actually Henry first appears as Henry jr, so his father was probably called Henry as well.

The "Thomas Greene" that we're showing is really Sir Thomas de Boughton of Boughton.  His ancestors were called Boughton, not Greene.  How genuine they are, I've no idea.  But the judge didn't inherit Boughton, he bought it (or cheated it, or blackmailed it, or something).

The fake "de Greene de Boketon" pedigree that's all over the "sources" was cooked up later.

Answer 5

Actually it looks like we also need to snip off the Carys, Zouches, Stranges and Glendinnings.  The only lines left standing are the FitzRandolphs and (according to Keats-Rohan) the FitzHughs, supposedly descended from Ribald and Bardolf, said to be brothers of Count Alan, and presumed to be illegitimate sons of Alan's father by 2 of his many unknown mistresses.

Comments

Why not see if there is a Y-STR* match before snipping ancestral lines?

Until then, the uncertain father/son relationship for the snip location can simply be marked as uncertain.

DNA can provide support for some legends.

*BigY type testing may also be needed for very distant direct paternal line cousins.

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I agree with Peter, except that I would recommend starting with a yDNA37 test.  If they don't match at 37 markers, they won't match on 111 markers.

You would need to yDNA test this man:  http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Greene-1605 or one of his sons.  Alternatively, you could look for a living man from one of these yDNA lines:  http://www.wikitree.com/treewidget/Greene-1559/890  

It would be a kick to see if there is any kind of a close match.  I have seen exact matches at 13 generations to the common yDNA forefather, but I haven't seen any matches this ancient, 25 generations or so.  

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I thought we'd established that yDNA was for verifying paper trails against NPEs.  I hope we're not going back to the notion that it can bridge gaps where there isn't a paper trail.

At that distance, there's no way you can separate an individual from his umpteen male-line 10th cousins, mostly unknown, on the basis of one tested descendant.

Finding a match proves nothing when many people would match.

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As Peter said, DNA can provide support for some legends.  More accurately, I think a yDNA test can shoot holes all through the legends and they will sink without scientific support. I don't believe these lines are connected any more than you do, but a matching test would indicate that there may be something to the legend that needs to be verified with further research.

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There's no possibility that Henry de Greene could be Thomas de Boughton's son.  He could be his 8th cousin, since surnames weren't always hereditary.  But there's no way of tracing that.

So basically you'd know that any match would be a false positive.  You can't "confirm" what isn't there.

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The MacDonald line on WikiTree Tops might be an example.  The dates look very stretched around 1700.  The haplogroup looks promising, but so what?

A lot of MacDonalds have the haplogroup.  So if your name is MacDonald, you have a good chance of having that even if your father was Joe MacDonald the plumber, not the Earl of Auchtermuchty like your mother always told you.

According to Sykes, a lot of Sykeses have the same yDNA.  Because the name has a single major origin.  So a Sykes tree can be a just-grab-anybody-with-the-right-name-off-IGI job, or a list of fictitious people, and you still have a good chance of getting end-to-end yDNA matches to "confirm" it.

Just because a fantasy trail isn't disproved by yDNA is no reason to keep it.

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Agreed.  A matching haplogroup is NOT a matching yDNA test.

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What else are you going to get over 25 generations?

A probable ancestor of mine has the right parents in 1 RootsWeb tree and the wrong parents in 2 dozen.  And counting, because newbies go with the majority.  Two men, same name, same sort of age, same area, 5th cousins.

Only a matter of time before he's on here with wrong parents Confirmed by DNA.

American scenario - two people think they descend from different immigrants and the lines join up way back.  They match.  Confirmed.  Actually they match a bit too well, because they both descend from the same immigrant.

You can't even confirm the immigrant without testing descendants of all the candidates, which you can't because too many are unrecorded.  We have loads of lines attached to the wrong early immigrant, just because he's there and theirs isn't.  If you call them Uncertain, they'll become certain.  You can't say "DNA could prove this" and then say it doesn't after you've got a match.  You have to know what the match will or won't prove.

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I had a look at the long Y lines on WikiTree Tops, and I'm afraid a number of them are going to attract the attentions of the Corrections Officers.

The true current winner will be the FitzRandolphs, but with 30 generations not 33.  However, the MRCA for living descendants may be much closer than that.  In fact it could be the immigrant - it's not obvious there are any traceable Y-lines left in England, or any other known immigrant with the line.

30 could be hard to beat.  The Warennes and/or Somersets will go back to Hugues du Perche, if you can find any definite descendants (which would make some folks in Leicester very happy). 

But long Y lines are rare.  Henry I doesn't have one, and not for want of trying.

It could be that very few people beyond 25 generations have a line, and possibly none at all have lines through 2 sons and are Y-MRCAs.