Question of the Week: Has Y-chromosome DNA testing helped you with surname research?

Question

Note that if you're researching a surname using Y-DNA, there are a couple of features here at WikiTree that can be very valuable:

• One Name Studies
• Our DNA Project

If using DNA for genealogy is new to you, check out the Getting Started with DNA on WikiTree tutorial.

Comments

The answer to this is absolutely! I don’t need the whole world to know my story. Let’s just say I could be a great commercial for what could happen if you did it.

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Yes and no.  I had traced my paternal line to my ggg grandfather, but I can not get any further than the early 1800’s.  I am not connected to anyone who tested with my last name (ydna), and the best results indicate the paternal line seems to go through another last name. So I have the name, but cannot progress any further.  Perhaps someday!

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People should realize that Y DNA is something recent and if there are no matches, eventually they will come as more are tested.

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I am in much the same situation as Paul Berry.  I caught on a while back that my Stradtmann ancestors were most likely not born in the town where my Great Grandpa Heinrich Christoph Stradtmann was born (Celle, Hannover), and that the "Stradtmann" surname only began with him.  Actual geographical origins of the family could be anywhere from the Netherlands to Denmark or Sweden to Poland or Moravia.  Now it seems fairly certain that the famiy had lived in the Netherlands until shortly before 1820.  I'm coming up with Y-DNA matches with a genetic distance of 1... but nothing "exact".

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Although Y-DNA has not solved the mystery of where in Ireland our Jeremiah Moore came from.  It has linked us to a Moore family from County Cork who were Wesleyan Methodists (the same faith as the  minister who married Jeremiah Moore to Martha Morgan in Canada) and 2 family Moher who are Roman Catholic, also from County Cork.  On all 4 lines we are stuck before the common ancestors.  I am currently using atDNA to connect all the in common matches for the 2 Moore families and finding that the common thread is an area about  50 miles wide in Cork along the coast from  Schull to Clonakilty.

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Yes, Y-DNA has provided me a strategy to break through my brickwall.

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Close but no cigar. Smith is tough name. I have found one other Smith that matches me at 25 Y-markers, and also a Marshall family with similar identical match. All three families seem to trace back to VA pre-1800, a strong suggestion that there is some connection. But VA was a large area then and there is no paper trail from any of the three that goes back reliably pre-1800. Mine starts with 1803 VA birth of my g-g, plus a subsequent census entry that my g-g-g's were also from VA.

25 Y-markers are a bare minimum for useful comparison, but in my apparently rare lineage, these are the only identical matches yet discovered. There are many more 1-miss lines, none Marshall or Smith though. Hughes is the most common match from that group.

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Yes, my FamilyTreeDNA Lumsden Y-DNA project has introduced me to matching cousins in Canada, Ireland, Australia and the US that I didn't know before.  So far, however, we have not been able to find our ancestors in common in Scotland.  Hopefully time will tell when more Lumsdens join the project that might have good records back to Scotland.

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I had a weak link in my trace back to an early Bishop who was one of the founders of Guilford, CT. The Y-DNA test made it certain.

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Yes and No. My husband has a null factor in his DNA which puts him into Clan Colla. However, the information about Clan Colla is overwhelming and I have yet to find anyone beyond already known ancestors in the massive information. Having a Mc name puts his matches all over the map. McDonnel, McDonal, McDanel, McDaniel, Mc Donald and a few without the Mc. It has led us back to a distant cousin he had found and been in contact with about 17 years ago that we had lost touch with. Which was very nice.

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No, not yet. My paternal 2nd great-grandfather is a brick wall. My father tested his Y-DNA, and he has some matches, but so far we have not identified the MRCA. I am sure it is just a matter of time if I continue plugging away at it.

My husband also tested his Y-DNA but has few matches. No leads yet.

Interestingly, both my father and my husband belong to a Y haplogroup (two different groups) that are both noted as being Asian and almost exclusively found in Asian countries. However, their paper trails are primarily from England. No Asians in the paper trail.

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I'm not sure I can say it has helped. It seems to have raised more questions than it answered. It appears to show that my paternal line is not Irwin at all, but Rutledge. Unfortunately to date I have not found any Rutledge ancestors. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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Dan West of the University of Tennessee at Knoxville is doing research on the Gibbons family.

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Yes had Y FTDNA 111 done result came back IM253 37/37  to  Thomas Coe line in Oulton Norfolk 1733 ? , but my paper trail birth/ marr certs etc traced back to Coe's in Camberwell 1773 .Unable to find the connection, as the London family is certain. Guess no Coe  decendents from the London family has had dna done. Peter.

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Definitely helped establish common lineage in my Angle/Engel Surname Project so that now we can work together with more purpose.   With the help of a couple of family researchers I had run into over the years we tested from each family and confirmed we were related.  What was disappointing is that we have not a single new match in 5 years or so.  However, I am greatly appreciating the Ancestry.com autosomal DNA tests which have connected me to lots and lots of family and helped to confirme lineage back 7 generations on several lines.  However, results are best when you have a very robust family tree in Ancestry.  

I have had a wonderful experience with my own DNA and 23andme and found a little village in Slovakia where my ancestors lived for hundreds of years.   Prior to that all I knew was that there were from Austria/Hungary.

Being very proactive recruiting men to submit a YDNA test can be very helpful.  I  would suggest a minimum 64 marker test.  My dad's DNA has hundreds of 12 marker matches since I had a BigY DNA test done one his sample. My father has been gone since 2008, but I am still able to do additional tests on the DNA to help inform an ancient DNA project FGC22501 which was formed in response to DNA samples taken of 7 Roman era males found buried in York, England 200-400AD.  What I am finding is that many of the surnames associated with the ancient DNA are also in the 12 marker matches but none other.  

On my Belcher line I recruited several individuals all of which helped to confirm the genealogy with YDNA.  The project has a wonderful administrator that really helped to delineate family groups and insisted on each sample including a family tree such that common lines typically line up geographically.  

Laurie Angel

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I wish I could say I have, however, Phelps is a very common name, and there are many branches, most of which are not related. Being female and having no male relatives who've tested, makes it impossible for me to be sure exactly how far back I can look. I'll continue to bug my single living male cousin to test, but I'm not holding my breath!

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No..as of yet.. Because  I learned that my father's last name is not really his last name. So trying to find his people has been hard. Because he (my dad) knows virtually nothing about his true parentage.

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Absolutely in Mitchell and many other lines. For Mitchell we have connected   what is a double Mitchell line for me out of MD into VA, NC, TN, KY and westward. We would not be connected if we didn't have FT DNA Y Male results.

I have tested many of my lines for male YDNA, all are connecting! Outside of my lineage there have been some interesting NPE's that led to answers in the end,... proper surnames.

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No. Y-DNA testing hasn't helped me at all. I have one match since May, 2014 that was genetic distance 1. I was already aware of him. He and I share a gg-grandfather. Other than that, I have not found anyone that helped me, Either they didn't respond to my inquiry or they weren't closely related. Only eight out of 446 matches are from my haplogroup.

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I got a match with a 6th cousin. His family had a clear path in the records back to Colonists John Bishop. In fact, his grandfather is recorded in a book of descendants of that Colonists compiled by some very careful researchers about 100 years ago. The missing link for me was that my 2nd great grandfather Samuel left no mention in his will and other documents of his father. But his father appears in that book with mention of a son Samuel born within a year of the my Samuel's  recorded birth and there were no other Samuels that had such a close match.

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Yes, in a negative way.  I learned that I may not be a Yates, but an Elliott.   At the 111 marker level, I have 5 Elliott matches vs 1 Yates match.    I have found one historical event that may explain my "Elliott Event".

 

 My lack of Yates matches may be misleading due to the extreme shortage of Southern Yates testing for their y-DNA.

So meaningful results may not be forthcoming until generations from now, when there is a sufficient database.

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Not so far - still hunting down matches and unfortunately not enough people who are willing to submit their DNA results also provide a family tree to use for tracing connections. The only Y-DNA match I was able to validate 100% was one I could have figured out without the DNA, so not too useful just yet, but I'm still hopeful that I'll get some mileage out of it yet.

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Well, NO, becasue the men who took the Y DNA for Jesters won't put them into gedmatch. One person had kept a chart the would use initials of the donor with a immigration path in one section, in anothre section would put the linage of the donor.  there was another section for the ones who didn't match at all.

My brothers will not take a Y. So finding a close male cousin who will has been a bit hard. But two descendents of my 3rd ggf, who descend from 2 different sons, did. If you descend from Richard Jester b. 1632, all the numbers were the same straight across the line, with minor changes on a couple.

But what about us girls?? Or the descendants of Jester women? A couple cousins and I are busy running numbers of those we have found gedcoms on,  We have descendants from 3 children of my 3rd ggf. We have descendants of two or 3 of the sons of Thomas, son of Richard.

What is bad about atDNA is its hit or miss. I can match 3 of 4 of  from one family but not of another.  So I take the number of the person I don't match and run a 1 or 2 kits who match..  to see who matches both of us. Now it gets interesting. Because whether two kits match or not, there are others we do match, and in a spreadsheet where the data can be sorted, you can see if any of the numbers duplicate. And if those are the numbers we need to run in the Milti kit against the list of core numbers that we have identified as being a Jester descendant.

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Similar situation as Paul Berry and George Stradtman. I was able to match 2 male cousins back to a GGGGF though. Very helpful as my paper trail wasn't as stratight foward as theirs. But all that collateral eveidnce I collected now fits and backs up the DNA matches to that MRCA. As to the surname, its another story. No matches on the P-rr-tt Genealogy by Y-DNA Project. Family lore states the father of this 4th GF was an English Sea Captain. Have joined several DNA projects hoping some day...
Just stumbled across a posting that may help narrow the search for me and may possibly be helpful for others:
Wayne Townsend (NPE Burk)
October 21 @ 7:13pm
I stumbled upon a naming tradition in my genealogy which may explain the name of my ancestor, Solomon Burk Townsend, my NPE.  It may be significant for recognizing other NPEs in America.
Solomon was the son of Elizabeth Townsend (married but estranged from her husband at the time) and Thomas Burk (unmarried).  Thus Solomon's true father appears as his middle name.
I also have a descendant on my mother's side, John Moles Scott whose father was Jeremiah Moles and whose mother was Elizabeth Scott. 
In an affidavit before a church board it was admitted that John was the bastard son of Jeremiah by Elizabeth.  Thus, Elizabeth's maiden name became John's surname and Jeremiah's surname became John's middle name. 
I don't know if this was common (illegitimate children getting that father's surname as a middle name) but 2 occurrences in the 1700s in VA seem like a significant pattern.

Well that middle naming convention may help, the problem is my 4th GGF listed a middle initial ONCE, on his marriage records and no where else is a full middle name or MI used. However Christopher M Parrott's Great Grand son, William Mason Parriott's middle name may solve that mystery then again perhasp not. At any rate I'll be looking for a "daddy" with a surname that begins with the letter "M".
 

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Not yet. By my calculation (and I'm not a mathematician!), assuming 1 breeding male per family over 10 generations, I have in the order of 500 1st to 9th male cousins (ditto females). So to get the BIG TRIANGLE back to my 9G grandfathers DNA, born say in the late 1600's, I need to find as many of these 500 males as possible to do a DNA test (with ftDNA, then upload to GEDmatch and WikiTree to make life easier). My Uprichard group (including Upritchard, Bridget and related surnames) comes from the Shankill, Seagoe, Magheralin, Donaghcloney and Tullylish parishes of Ulster, Ireland, and in the Griffiths Valuation, just about exclusively from the Lurgan area plus Bleary and Corcreeny townlands. Thus to get a wide range of Uprichard group males, I really need and enthusiast in the Lurgan area to help find suitably surnamed males and persuade them to test. From my end in NZ I have found a few likely suspects with no known relationship to me, who may be willing to test and start the ball rolling. Main question is 'will the yDNA test be strong enough to link cousins 9 or more generations apart ?'. From what I have read, mtDNA will be to dilute, but may support yDNA links ?. Comments, advice and help greatly appreciated.

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Yes.  My Y-DNA results largely confirmed genealogical research conducted by a distant cousin about the origins of the common ancestor of our line of Kathans -- Capt. John Kathan of Putney, VT.  In an article in Vermont Genealogy, my cousin concluded that John Kathan's original name was John McKachan and he emigrated from Ulster along with all the other Scotch-Irish in the early half of the 18th century.  He also conjectured that McKachan was a derivation of McCaughan, a surname focused on Counties Antrim and Derry in Northern Ireland.  My Y-DNA results place me in the I-M253 haplogroup and identified several close matches, including two McCaughans from Northern Ireland.  Surnames for other close matches (McCoy and McKee) are known derivatives of McCaughan also.

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No. My uncle had his Y chromosome tested on FTDNA and he came up with his closest match of like 6 generations. This was project initiated by the Clan Matheson (a world-wide Clan group) and my uncle was unable to find any close matches with other Mathesons.

My uncle had 3 markers tested as the Clan had asked members to do if they chose to- one being his Viking Ancestry, his haplo group, and any relation to other Mathesons around the world. Perhaps enough people have not tested.

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Y-chromosome DNA research is useless when your father is adopted, as mine is. Only the auDNA test can help. My sons get their fathers' DNA and, because male, precious little of mine. These are my understandings at this point (Nov. 2017).

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Roberta, don't count yourself out. I did an autosoma and have found that I match numerous other Jesters, several are men who also took an autosoma.  

And if you ever decide to pursue the the bio line of your father, it might turn into something interesting.

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HI,Lynette!!!

  "If I ever decide to pursue?????? I've started his search maybe ten years ago with ancestry.com, then Jewish Gen, then with auDNA at ftdna, which is the ONLY thing that led me to the Berman family who are DNA relatives, at the 3rd or 4th cousin level, depending. I've read a poorly written book about the Pogrom in Poland by one of their cousins and made a tree for those Jewish relatives I am related to. 

Though I'm discouraged, I still have to do a gedcom and gedmatch for their tree (probably against the decision of my living relative from that family--which is definitely NOT what I want to be doing) for our worldwide collaborators to have a go at it. 

My father has no known male cousins. He and his half sister are it, and deceased, so the aunt's dau and I are the only living relatives plus ALLLLLLLLL her kids and grandchildren (in CT). 

I think I've not done the gedmatch etc because I don't want to cause a rift, even though I might not ever meet her again. We do stay in contact.

Roberta

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Roberta,

Your sons get 50% of your DNA.  On the 23rd chromosome they get a Y from Dad and an X from Mom.  Females get an X from each.  I have tested 4 generations father, daughter and son, then thru daughter, grandson and great-grandson, and 3 generation is another line, father, son, grandson.  Each generation decreases by about 1/2.  But odd bits get passed down.  For example my brother and my son share nothing on Chromosome 13, but the overall percentage is as expected.  I have so far helped 2 persons find their biological family trees.  There is one that is back more than 3 generations that we have not figured out because there are just too many possibilities.  We were able to narrow it down to one line using cousins,  I realize it is very frustrating when you have hundreds or in my case thousands of matches you cannot figure out.  It takes a lot of work and analysis.  Look to see if your local genealogical society is giving any classes.  Here at the Kansas City Irish Center we are giving a class on November 18th and will be giving classes next year at Genealogy KC.

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Scott, are you a direct paternal line descendant of Dirck Volkertsen? He is an ancestor of mine and many of his descendants adopted the Fulkerson surname. He was one of the first if not the first Norwegian in America and married into the Vigne family.

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Yes I am. :)

There are several on the site who have ties to the Fulkerson line and I have been fortunate to work with many of them in building the Fulkerson family ties on WikiTree. I wouldn't go quite as far as to say he was the first Norwegian in America (I'm not sure if Erik the Red gets that distinction or not - history still hasn't decided), but he might be the first Norwegian colonist (or pretty close to it) when he arrived between 1628 and 1632 in New Amsterdam. Either way, I'm glad to know I have another cousin on the site.

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Not to mention all those wretched people in the family that had more than 10 children mostly males and their descendants that still had 10 children back from my grandfathers generation. Thank goodness for the pill it certainly is making research easier for our generation downward.

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Joyce, thanks for your kindness and suggestion. I have one more push I know I can do on my missing Jewish GF -- maybe 2.

One's to do that gedcom/match of my Balkan tree. The other is to go laboriously back to ftdna and search for more of my Jewish matches. The men do not want to communicate there, realistically as a rule.

But as a hobbyist genealogist with only about 10 years having a go at this genealogical set of parameters, I'm coming up to a period where I have to do many practical things to keep my life on track, especially since I'm behind and don't want to leave a mess for my kids.

I feel I haven't been wasting time, though, by setting up WTree's Jewish Roots Project and continuing to help it to flower. But I can only do one thing at a time.

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I don't mind all those 'wretched people' who had 10 or more children! Children are a blessing from God and so many cousins would not be with us today without them.

I have a 6 x's great grandmother who had 13 children; one died at age 21 without a wife or kids, and she ended up with 130 grandchildren! How do I know? An article was written about her in the Chillicothe Leader Newspaper in 1884 when she was 105 years old. The journalist did his homework and verified she had over 1000 descendants! A very interesting article, I might add.

I had 8 children myself and we are expecting grandchild #22 next spring. Would have been over 30 had it not been for miscarriages. We also have 2 great grandchildren. I cannot imagine having 130 grandchildren- too many to really know,  but wow, what a blessing!

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I actually feel sorry for the Mums especially those in the city trying to live on a pittance and raise children. Although my grandmother who was one of 9 said the older ones minded the younger ones, what about sibling rivally I wonder how that operated? She thought that having four children was a very tiny family. One of those greatgrandfathers of mine on the maternal side had 26 children to 5 different women (probably more if the truth was known). My Paternal greatgrandmother had 13 (only one died) and brought up 5 grandchildren as well she came from a family of 17 (only one of them died) although her fathers first wife had died and a couple of the girls were farmed out. I notice no problem job wise though plenty of farm work among family as soon as they were old enough. However if it had continued instead of 7 billion people in the world by now it might have been 14 billion and far more problems than we have today to contend with. Certainly a lot harder to do our DNA family tree as they take the average on 4 children in the past and the numbers certainly don't add up.

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Heather,

It can be hard to raise a family on a pittance- I did it for years- and just with 2 kids as we were pretty broke, but you make things the best you can. When there were all 8 kids at home I made all foods from scratch for the most part- we had a lot of potatoes as they are cheap and stretch meals and can be made into hundreds of dishes. We had meat at every meal, though a lot of hamburger as this too can be made hundreds of ways. No one ever went to bed hungry, without a clean house, clothes, or what they needed, though not always what they wanted. This is actually good in many ways as it teaches character, resilience and a hard work ethic as one must work for what one has or wants.

I am a born-again Christian and so I do not see the population being a problem as God takes care of those who follow him. He told us to multiply and he never took that edict away. He will care for us. Even oil can be made in 2 hours from slaughterhouse waste- many ways to make oil, so even natural resources are not as scarce as most would have us believe.

Your ancestors had a lot of children, just as mine. I knew two families of 13, one of 12, one of 17 and one of 21- all when I was younger, but have moved away from that town.

As the mom of 8 children- yes there can be sibling rivalry, but this can happen with 2 kids. My kids mainly were close growing up, and still are. They all help one another when needed, and they all visit and have their kids close to one another, We have kids and grandkids in and out daily and often several kids stop by daily.

Life is what you make it, whether one has no children or 20. I see children as a legacy from God, as a reward and a gift. How we see children and how we value them has a lot to do with how they turn out, and how society as a whole values not only children, but people in general.  

I do appreciate your input as it is interesting to hear from someone who thinks differently from me. It is always good to have a dialog and be respectful and I am glad that you and I were able to share.

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I was not thinking of the world we now live in, but of those poor women in the time of the early King Georges in England and Queen Victoria when 70% of the women in the population had to rely on prostitution just to feed their children potatoes or bread. Lock them up in a room where they lived and give them laudunum or opium a drug to zonk them out and keep them safe while they worked. How charities had to build hospitals and institutions when children were born, blind deaf or dumb due to social diseases.

Our world would be Paradise on Earth to them now, where even the poorest of the poor can get a handout.

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My maths is not great, as for me to have a 9th cousin, my 9G (or is it 10G) grandfather would need to have 2 breeding sons, plus sons in each successive generation, just as I must have. The key question is, if my 9th cousin (male) does exist, how different will his y-DNA be to mine ?. If there is a DNA expert out there reading this, could they please advise. Prince George is about the only person I can think of who would have an ancestral paper trail strong enough to potentially find a male 9th cousin, if one exists ?

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Hi Alan: The academic Y-dna researcher Maarten Larmuseau at the Belgian University of Leuven specializes in the rate of extramarital occurrences.  You can also find an answer in the observation posted by Greg Lavoie below, on Nov. 4. He reports no such occurrences over 20 generations. I have a 10 no-events in my tree. Interesting that both occurred in  strongly Roman Catholic regions. Hard to generalize on this subject, I would postulate...

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Thanks for that Gus, and pleased that a 'convincing match' was achieved at 10 generations, which is what I am after - just in case I accidentally come across a 9th cousin or more. So far I'm not hopeful as no other Uprichard group males have tested with FT-DNA or ANCESTRY or uploaded to GEDmatch. I'm hoping someone in Ireland will. I'm not looking for extra-maritals, but if some do crop up, it would be very exciting.

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Neither autosomal DNA nor y-DNA proves an ancestor (unless that ancestor was tested).  Both tests only prove that you are kin to your matches.   But y-DNA proves that you and your match share a paternal ancestor.

You may be ecstatic that you and your match are both Smiths and his elaborate tree goes back to Captain John Smith.   Problem is that you may be both really Arnolds and descend from Benedict.

If you have many matches with the same surname that would infer that is your true surname

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Alan, you and a 9th cousin share an 8th great-grandparent.   Yes, for a y-DNA match, that 8th g-grandfather would need to have at least 2 breeding sons.   I don't think it would be practical to "hunt" for the 9th cousin.   You could only hope that your 9th cousin would also test for his y-DNA and then FTDNA would notify you of his discovery.   But when you find your elusive 9th cousin, that doesn't prove the identity of your 8th g-grandfather, because neither you nor your 9th cousin may be who you think you are.   Why?   For a multitude of possible reasons.   Your 8th g-grandmother may have lied about the paternity of those 2 sons.

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Jim: The way this developed was that I already knew that the other van Weert was family from the paper trail. I found him, contacted him and convinced him to take the FamilyTree Ydna 37 marker test - zero genetic difference. Yes, the wife of the common ancestor could have lied about these two sons (Stephanus Carolus Ambrosius for me and Wilhelmus for him). Fortunately, there are more sons. Also, my Ydna is R1b-A8043, uniquely mine. You find me on the ISOGG phylogenetic tree. Until I got confirmation of the other van Weert's subclade last month, only my grandson was codefined as A8043 (terminal between P311 and 312) worldwide. Yes, the wife of the common ancestor could have paired with the common ancestor's brother.... How much certainty do you want? A second van Weert I convinced to take the test was not expected to be family and he wasn't. A third one is still in the pipeline. Late arrival, no paper trail defined for him as yet. All this is aimed at resolving where my van Weert's came from in the 15th century; for that I have to sort out the various van Weert "clans" in the Netherlands.

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WRT "I don't know if this was common (illegitimate children getting that father's surname as a middle name) but 2 occurrences in the 1700s in VA seem like a significant pattern."

This pattern is common (though not universal) in 18th and 19th century Kent, England.

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Thanks everyone. Really enjoying the above discussion points, but I only have a vague understanding of the detail. To Jim; even worse that Arnold - they could be Trump !.

I'm not looking for 9th specifically. At this stage any y-DNA match would be rewarding, regardless of surname, since there are zero at the moment. If a match does come up, how certain can we be of our n'th degree of cousin distance. Getting heaps of like surname males to test is the first hurdle. Since many are likely to be descendants from people in the Ulster parishes I mentioned above, relativity would correlate with proximity (Newton would be pleased). Hopefully a few males will appear and with a bit of luck, on WikiTree.

Ancestry autosomal testing has accurately defined known first and second cousins and daughter of a first cousin and plenty of others with 'extremely high' or 'very high' probability of relationship to follow up, but not the right surnames, so probably thru female lines. As I understand it, autosomal DNA changes much more quickly than y-DNA, so it is harder to analyse relationships after 5 generations or more.

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In depth research by me (5 minutes on the web !) indicate the Y chromosome has about 60 million base pairs and is around 20mm long (Tanush Jagdish). WikiTree tells me I have tested for 37 markers and that I am in haplogroup R-M269. Wikipaedia says this haplogroup has a mere 10 million European males alive today, so little to be gained from that. Next step is the 37 markers (out of the 111 available in FT-DNA). To rephrase my earlier question, how many of these markers, or what % of them, will I share with: My late father; My brothers; My sons; My male first cousins; My male n'th cousins. If my as yet unknown n'th cousin shows up, will 37 markers tell the story or will we both need to do 111 markers to determine 'the truth' ?. My ANCESTRY autosomal test has placed my strongest links with northern England, which could be true for both my parents (my fathers mother and my mothers father). More expert comments would be most welcome.

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Y-dna is passed from father to son, Allen, so you (should) have the same (100%) as your father, your brothers, your half brothers of the same father, your uncles (with the same last birth name), their sons (but not the sons of your aunts). Three things can mess this up: adoption, adultery and mutation. The first two result in a big change in Y-dna (and often a big change in family concordance), the latter causes a very minor change in the Y-dna. Mutation also occurs infrequently. If the 37 marker Y-dna test gives more than 1 genetic difference, ignore the link. Don't throw good money after bad... Spend it on yourself. I am in the 10 million plus R1b-M269 Haplogroup, not very useful to know. By taking the 111 marker test and the big-Y I now gave been given my own group R1b-A8043 by ISOGG; number of members: three. When I locate another A8043, I know he is related.

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Thanks Gus, much appreciated. I am aware of the father-son connection, and am also aware that Y mutations are very rare. Can you extend your answer a bit further and advise if I have identical y-DNA to my 10G grandfather, or even 20G ?, or is there room for 1 or more mutations over this time period (10-20 generations or 300-600 years; give or take). I know all 20 living male descendants of my great-grandfather and believe he had no male siblings so there are probably no third cousins. You appear to be saying that any other male with identical y-DNA on the 37 marker test will be related to me (regardless of surname), but for absolute proof the 111/Big-Y/ISOGG test is required. You also appear to be saying anyone not identical at 37 marker cannot be related. Is that correct ?. Presumably the myriad of y-DNA 12 marker relatives that appear on an almost daily basis have no real value at all even if the surname matches ?.

We have one known skeleton in the cupboard, so at least one different surname could potentially appear out of the blue.

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Well what I want to know is if a relative takes a Y test to 37 receives 8X25=200 people all with different surnames matching at only 12 what is the point of getting more people further back in the past before there were surnames I could be wrong here but to me it just points to an indigenous population without surnames in the past somewhere which the map of where your ancestors came from will tell you anyway.

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Alan:  Your Y-dna should be of the same Haplogroup sub-clade as all of your directly paternal grandfathers, even 20 generations back, provided no mutation, adoption or adultery (forced or voluntary) occurred.  I asked four days ago: "How much certainty do you want?". You gave me no guidelines. How often does mutation occur? There are expert answer on that; I'm not such an expert. Same for adultery, I gave a reference four days ago. Have you read it? It is wonderful that you know 20 living male descendants of your grandfather. Would you spend the funds to have all 20 take a 37 marker Y-dna test to proof what....? That one or two don't match? Is that your level of certainty? Or would you spend that money on more precisely defining who you are in the Y-dna Phylogenetic tree (to look that up, google "Eupedia, R1b) and then compare with your nephew (father's brother's son, I dislike the term "cousin")? I humbly recommend reading:  https://dna-explained.com/2017/11/17/why-the-big-y-test/

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Gus: Thanks for the big-Y test article. I will need to read it several times to understand it and get used to the jargon.

Sorry I missed your question about what I'm trying to achieve. Will this help ?; I met a lady some time ago who's single name was Uprichard (note the different spelling). We have kept in occasional contact, but when her ANCESTRY test identified her as a "high" chance of being a 4-6 cousin, interest surged. Could she find a male relative willing to FT-DNA test ?. Yes she did - so now waiting results. Presuming the results confirm we are related, can we tell from y-DNA how many, or about how many, generations ago ?. The same question applies to two more Uprichards I have found via the phone directory, if they are willing to test.

If y-DNA does enable us to approximate the generations, we can gradually build what I call a BIG TRIANGLE back to the oldest common ancestor, and maybe where he lived, whether we know his surname or not. Does Big-Y help answer this question ?.

Your point about adoption etc is a good one, as a Uprichard not related by y-DNA only excludes him and his descendants from 'my' BIG TRIANGLE, not necessarily his adoptive ancestors. Similarly, someone with a different surname could well be included.

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This is really helpful, Allen,i.e.being specific. I checked Upritchard on Y-Search, found only one, must be you? If your lady acquaintance's Y-dna sample matches yours, you will match the male person she got to submit his Y-dna for big Y testing. She and he should then compare their maternal dna to confirm their relationship, to obtain that certainty we spoke about. If the Y-dna matches, somebody should change the name spelling, to make searching back in time more efficient. You have to go back in time in order to triangulate. For that (going back in the family tree) you have to follow the paper trail. By googling "Uprichard" I got the impression there is quite a bit recorded already. Good luck. Let me now when the big -Y results come in, I'm hooked now.

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Another point, Allen. Did you take the Big-Y yourself? Then your Haplo Group should be much better defined than R1b-M269. What did FTdna tell you about your subclade?   Also, I reread your Nov 7 comment about  the large group of namesakes "back home" and that you have a "few male suspects" willing to test there. If you can spare the cash to give yourself a Xmas present, invite all of them to take the FTdna 37 marker test. It's on sale now!!. If one of them comes back zero genetic difference with you, go for the Big-Y update (111 marker results are  included free), again if/when funds allow.

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Thanks for your patience Gus and yes, Y-search is me, (Upritchard-7), email reunion(at)upritchard.com. I wish a few Uprichard group males in the Ulster Counties of Armagh and Down would also get hooked !. The 'suspects' unfortunately are all in NZ.

What set me off was the Griffiths Valuation of Ireland published in1862 (see Google). It lists 34 Uprichard group families, all of whom are in an ellipse around 8m/13k long with the towns of Moira and Gilford at the ends and Lurgan top west. An even smaller ellipse within, about 1.5k long with Bleary on the West edge, has 16 . I have tabulated and mapped all 34 (See my first contribution, now way above). Allowance should probably be made for a 10-20% increase for families living in the same dwelling. There are certainly lots of Uprichard group hits on Google but pre about 1850 can be difficult to link to a specific family. Post 1850 (G or GG grandparent distance) you need to be local to be able to find interested people. Facebook and Linkedin bait gave zero response.

I argue that common sense indicates, because of their close proximity in the mid 1800's, that all these people come from one or very few common ancestors around the early 1600's; possibly people transplanted under King James-1. Further back and we end up in Wales. Hence my BIG TRIANGLE project.

My theory, which you support, is that I need quite a few Y-37 matches to form the base of the triangle. My problem is that points along the base of the triangle are separated by genetic distance or "cousin-distance". Y-37 will not give this and I need an expert (you) to tell me if Y-111 will.

Spending a lot on Y-111 and Big-Y has merit, but for this project, only if more 'cousins' test; only if these advanced (and expensive) tests can identify cousin distance; and only if at least one more will also do advanced testing.

 

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My brother and I have dna testing and loaded onto WikiTree with ged match done as well - we don’tknow The first thing about how to make it work for us.  Help would be great!

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Late to the party here. Alan, if you post your interest as a new G2G Question, it will get more attention. Right now it's buried way down here in a thread run off topic, and I wouldn't have noticed it save for Barbara's new post.

Barbara, so we drive things further off-topic, I'll send you a PM with a couple of pearls of genetic genealogy wisdom that will be worth every penny you paid for them. :-)  But I'll at least include some links to a few good articles.

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Thanks Edison. I'm not keen on a new question as interesting points in the above comments will be 'lost'. However I do agree the thread has gone well off topic in places. Since I am better informed on what I want to know, I will post a new question along the lines of 'will y-37 or y-111 indicate cousin distance ?'.

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Alan: I'm not the message board police  :-)  but my point was that deep topic-drift dives down tangential rabbit holes do a disservice to the original post, and render any resultant information unlikely to be found in the future for those who might have a similar interest.

You're asking some rather basic questions about the application of yDNA to genealogy. That's a conversation that might be of interest to others.

Will y-37 or y-111 indicate cousin distance?

In a word, no. Y-STR and Y-SNP testing doesn't work that way. The relationship inferences for non-recombinant DNA like mitochondrial and Y-chromosomal DNA don't--and can't--be interpreted similarly to those for autosomal DNA. Apples and oranges. No predictive assumptions can come from yDNA about 5th cousins versus 6th cousins because the Y-chromosome doesn't recombine. STR and SNP values change only by mutation, not recombination.

One place to do some informational exploring is the Family Tree DNA Learning Center (scroll down to the section on "Y-DNA Testing." A quick Google search will give you some good study material, including a link to a 2015 nearly two-hour FTDNA webinar on YouTube titled, "Y-DNA Markers, Matching & Genealogy."

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Edison - I have posted a new question as you suggested. Would you be so kind as to copy your response above across to it, as it contains very useful comment for viewers. STiR the SNiP, so to speak.

A "quick" Google search on this subject !. Unlikely if you are wandering round in the dark like me and don't really know what the question is in the first place.

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Sorry, Alan. Didn't know you'd posted a new question. I had to go hunting for it. But I did offer a...er, few words in answer. :-)

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Yes, I have been able to identify more than 10 Lane men who descend from  Thomas Lane (1634-1709) with wife Elizabeth Shepherd.  At this point, there are descendants from both of his sons: Thomas (1662-1734) and Joseph (1665-1730).  If you think your Lanes are part of this family, have your male Lane do Y-chromosome.

Thanks for your attention.

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YDNA was incredibly helpful to me in researching my Harris family.  Other family members had identified a certain Harris individual as an ancestor and I had serious doubts, since there were no first source records.  Then a quite distant cousin who had done YDNA testing reached out to me, having seen one of my WikiTree profiles, and I started learning. There were four men who had tested and one of them had great documentation from my known ancestor, to his father.  However, that individual was the result of an NPE, so my uncle also tested and now we had five men matching and identified as a separate group from 63 other Harris families in the US as identified in the Harris Research Project in FTDNA.  It let me start the (very) hard work of identifying my line of Harris ancestors from the starting point of knowing that all those other families were NOT related to me.  That was incredibly invaluable information.

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I did the Y37 test a year ago so far i have 6 matches only 2 with with my same surname. I really don't see where it was worth the price.

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Lynette Jester and Joyce Hodges-- Please accept my apologies--I didn't want to sound so discouraged, but I am.

This month and next I'll try to follow your suggestions, and if you have more please send them to HILSE-40, here at W-Tree.  And:  Thanks!

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Roberta, as far as I'm concerned you have no need to apologize.  Discouraged??? We all get that way. Usually just before a really great find.

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You can stop wondering then, Karl, and that is an unpredictable outcome.

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Great topic; I'm glad I stumbled across it.

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Karl, you have my sympathy, but note that if relatives test with a different company and do not discover WikiTree or how to upload to it, you may never find each other. Putting a brief family tree on the web sites of the major testing companies may help. I am being pro-active and asking others with related surnames to test, even paying for one of them and getting a y-37 match. OK if you have an unusual surname like mine, but not very useful for Smith or Jones.

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Alan, i took the Y-37 on FTDNA I have a tree there, one here, 1 on Ancestry, 1 on family search, The 2 Covert  matches that i got i just got. My tree on hear links up to the main tree.

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Complete washout for me. I tested to 67 markers and can't afford to upgrade to 111 or a Big Y right now, but I had zero matches above the 25 marker level. I'm quite disappointed, because trying to break through the brick wall I'm stuck at on my paternal line is the main reason I took a Y test in the first place -- but the universe really loves making damn sure I never get what I need when I try anything, so I don't know why I ever got my hopes up in the first place.

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I have not found that an upgrade to 111 markers is helpful for either of the 2 samples that I upgraded.   The Big-Y, now Y-500 will show your very deep ancestry, but is unlikely to break down any brick walls.  It is interesting.  I have been able to work with a combination of Y-DNA and atDNA to locate clusters of people in an area and thereby narrow my field of search.

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Joyce, in this phrase " a combination of Y-DNA and atDNA" do you mean auDNA?

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Craig, I've recently received a "buck up" message from one of our friends here. I'm sorry to see you caught in a downdraft. We do find ourselves stuck occasionally. It's part of the human condition. and we owe ourselves the right not to do any self-destructs, but as a better option, notice it and move on. So, to make a change starting now means to choose to go back now and delete all the words after the dash and insert something like, "I'm damned mad about it too!"

Signed:  "LUCY--5 cents"

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Hiya, Roberta! Just a quick peep from the viewing gallery: yes, "atDNA" means the same thing as "auDNA." The abbreviation "atDNA" is actually the one that is most commonly used...it just didn't become the standard here on WikiTree. I always default to "atDNA" myself, partly because it's more common; partly because it's consistent with the abbreviation "mtDNA" (we don't use "miDNA"); and partly because "auDNA" is just plain odd to speak out loud: if I do presentations about genetic genealogy, I don't like to be saying something that sounds like, "Hey you! DNA!"  

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Stone Family Association has a dna project on the internet, recording a large group of Kit numbers dys color coded with individual tested y dna markers, easily found in a google search.  The recorded finds are playing havoc with my well documented, proven ancestors.  For example: William Stone 1608-1683, yellow coded, kit numbers 60829, N80630, haplo group R-M269 has a y-dna profile, also in the same dys color coded, R-M269 is listed a profile on Capt. Simon Stone 2 Jun 1770-23 Dec 1818, kit # 246815 with matching dys markers, his wife Charlotte Hall 1771-1818, dau. of Asa Hall 1752-1825.  This Simon Stone 1770-1818 is a descendant of immigrants Simon 1585 and Gregory Stone 1592, children of David Stone (married twice 1. Elizabeth, 2. Ursula).  These are two different Stone families, un proven to be related.  Now this William Stone 1608-1683 has a brother John 1610-1687, signers of "The 1639 Covenant, New Haven Colony", and William's markers are the same as Eusebius Stone wiki Stone-1692.  Go Figure ???-May I Trust Results?

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Hi Joan, I'm confused by what you've written. My son-in-law is a descendant of Eusebius Stone-1692. His DNA test information is displayed on the Stone-1692 profile. As far as I know, Eusebius Stone-1692 is not a descendant of William Stone-70 and Verlinda Graves-36. WikiTree doesn't show that they're related.

I assume the 'Stone Family Association' your refer to is the Family Tree DNA Stone surname project at  https://www.familytreedna.com/public/stone?iframe=ycolorized

On that project's page, kit #s 60829 and N80630 show they are descended from William Stone-1398 and are in R-M269 group B.  Kit #246815 is alone in group R-M269 group ZE, descended from Simon Stone (1769-1818) who doesn't appear to have a WikiTree profile. Two of the descendants of Eusebius Stone-1692, kits #142048 and #838135, have profiles on WikiTree. Kit #142048 is in group R-M269 group H and I'm working with the Stone project to see that Kit #838135 is added to that group. These men are in different groups because they don't share common Stone ancestors (in a genealogical time frame).

You asked if you can "Trust Results". Yes, you can. yDNA is an excellent way to sort out different families with common last names like Stone. (My mother's maiden name is Smith, and I've had great success sorting out Smith men who could have been confused with one another.) I can see that your maiden name is Stone, but your 'private' privacy level doesn't allow me to see how you're related to any of these Stone families. I'd be happy to work with you to help you sort out how to use yDNA for your Stone family. Please reply either here, or send me a private message. 

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Hi Graham, I’m sorry for your experience. I can say that I know how you feel though. We found out (with my brother’s y-DNA results) that our paternal family name isn’t Wylie. I was stunned and had a terrible time with that information at first. That was a few months ago, and I’ve come to terms with it for the most part. But now I have this massive brick wall mystery surrounding our ‘true’ genetic surname. I’ll always identify as a Wylie, just can’t help but be curious about the other name though. I know this sort of thing is common, but I haven’t bumped into others who had the same experience yet. Feel free to message me if you’d like. It’d be nice to talk with others who can relate on the unexpected surname surprise after testing DNA.

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Joan I've got these Stone ancestors  in my direct line. Can you provide a web address for their study? Thanks so much.   Leigh Anne

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Thank you for the Stone study web address. I need to upload my deceased brother's son (my nephew) YDNA as we're from William atte Stone.  My bro. died unexpectedly with the DNA kit on his to do list. :-(

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Y-DNA testing definitely helped in my case, confirming my pedigree as a Blankenship, and putting me closer to determining the father of my 3rd great grandfather, and thus taking it all the way back to emigration. I think I've got him, but it will take a little more testing by a few more people to be certain. Anyway, I'm close, and closer than I have ever been previously. An entry in the DNA project for our most distant ancestor, well, 12 through 67 markers, and we're an exact match. I upgrade to 111 markers, and we're a match at a genetic distance of 1. We're still the closest match of all the others in this group in the project. Like I was saying.

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Having recently upgraded to BigY, now 700 markers, you enter a whole new and exciting ball game. Well worth the cost if you can afford it. Our group has 22 Y37 matches and we are encouraging them all to join the DF27 project. Only 3 700 testers so far, with several in the pipeline, and already SNPs are giving indicative dates of when the different surnames split - before patronymic names were introduced. Insufficient testers yet to split my surname group over the last say 5-15 generations, but working on it.

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Lately, we've been using autosomal DNA to isolate other families that might have YDNA test subjects.

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Our surname family of Bailey through the FamilyTreeDNA Y-700 testing has now confirmed our Ternimal SNP matched to two other Bailey/ Bailie’s. Our Baileys immigrated in the early to mid 1700’s to South Carolina. My 6th great-Grandfather’s  last name is listed on the land Grant as Bayley as is his brother’s. He was “known to be from Scotland. Several spellings of our surname are found. We are now told that we are confirmed with this Ternimal SNP, we are all three “Bailie” until we test the line of the immigrated “Baillie” or the perfect person willing to test.

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I have had this same situation.  Been researching my Webb family line & been at a brick wall for years.  Took the Y37 test at FamilyTreeDNA, and it shows that I match 37 of 37 markers to descendants of a one William Adkins, b. 1689 VA.  Had a rough time with it too.  Will share more if U wanna email me:  ricknglenna74@yahoo.com

Answer 1

After my 2nd great grandfather Thomas Goodman was killed in 1906, several papers reported his last name was Goodwin and that he came from a well-known Goodwin family in the area. Indeed his father did list his last name as Goodwin on his first marriage certificate, but all my research showed that they were descendants of an Arthur Goodman who settled in the Hart County, Kentucky area by 1813 from Virginia . My Y-DNA test confirmed that we are in fact Goodmans and most likely descendants of Benjamin Goodman who arrived in Maryland in the late 1600s and died in Virginia in 1735. Our Arthur Goodman's exact lineage to Benjamin is unclear, and all of my closest Y-DNA matches also hit brick walls in the late 1700s/early 1800s. So the Y-DNA test helped link my Goodman family to our first colonial American ancestor but so far has not been useful in establishing our lineage from Benjamin to my 5th great grandfather Arthur.

Comments

As told to my father by a local Goodman......."Mr Carey, in the old days everyone was named Goodman, but to keep the name, you had to "live up" to the name.   Pretty soon a Goodman got caught for horse stealing and he changed his name to Smith.   Another Goodman ran off with another man's wife and he changed his name to Swain.   Mr Carey, there's only a few of us remaining."

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Yes living up to your family name was terribly important, I can remember it being dragged up every time I commited a misdemeaner as a child just remember dear you are a Douglas and Douglases dont do that. (Obviously she didn't read our history they did much worse things) However she told me when she was growing up it was remember you are a Stewart and a Royal Stuart they have a reputation to uphold greatgreatgrandmother(obviously never read history either) However I have found in research murder in a family branch and there is a quick name change for the others and often emigration to another country. Not to mention running away with the maid, the shop assistant, a cousin, your relatives wife or an attractive person totally out of your social class both male and female. I have found them all and suspect that no matter how peculiar the reason a name change appears to be there is always a darn good reason.

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So amazing, Heather!--What tools did you use to find in your families' lines  all the unlikelihoods above?  These are like the mysteries that people tend to cover up, and we are all so curious about them in our own families !!

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I stumble upon them by accident in newspapers also a lot of the time or comments like. But thats not our real family name it should be XXXXXXX then I check it out to find out why? or things like "the family never aproved of that marriage so then I wonder why? I even found an online photograph of a family group last week hoping to give to a relation but on the bottom was written. The one sitting XXXXX from the front they all disowned her after that! so then you think what was that? However other family members have made me promise not to put their branch on. I have honoured that but discovered somewhere else someone has done it anyway. All families have black sheep or secrets and generally I let sleeping dogs lie.

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Thanks, Heather. You're more the True Detective and truly (in a good way) suspicious. I must learn to think anew, I suppose.

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"Sleeping dogs" turn family trees topsy-turvy.
One lying naughty granny can mean that your Smiths are really Jones, and another naughty granny can switch your Jones back to Smith.

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"TOO funny, Jim Yates" as old timers would have said, but really, your first line earns "lineage royalty," Jim, No kidding!

    Anyone remember the name for it????

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I propose this song as theme music for this thread.....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfjraLge1gk

Answer 2

My surname is Thomson and I have contact with a relative with whom I share DNA with our common ancestor being a Thomson born 1739.

Most of my Y-DNA matches have the surname Williamson.

This supports my Norse Viking Y-DNA as the surnames on the Orkney and Shetland Islands were not fixed until around 1830.

Comments

My mothers surname - Tulloch - is widespread on Orkney and dates back to the 1300s. My understanding is that Norse origin surnames became regularly handed down in Orkney from the 1600s.

Answer 3

When I considered joining WikiTree, I noticed that there was another Lavoie family on the site that had already done Y chromosome testing.  Comparing trees, I noted that we only shared in common the Québécois pioneer ancestor René de la Voye (1628-1696).  My lineage runs through his first son René, while their lineage runs through the second son, Jean François.

This meant that testing could establish paternity going back about 10 generations on each side.  I received my results back within a couple months of joining the site, and was pleased to find a convincing match between the two families.

I should add that there weren't any suspected non-paternity events in my lineage, so this wasn't going to resolve any deep mysteries about my paternal background.  That said, it was still great to see DNA being put to use to establish paternity across so many generations.

Comments

Greg,

By you matching your cousin's Y DNA you did him and you a big favor. Up till that time you were probably from the same line. Now you know for sure. Be thankful that there were no NPEs. They are almost impossible to figure them out.

jim

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I just recently joined, added my Big-Y and DNA-Y 37 results and very quickly authenticated into Greg and the other Lavoie's connection.  I was able to validate two points on my Lavoie lineage which just builds a stronger case.  Thanks to trailblazers, your subsequent cousins may find things a bit easier down the road!

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Bravo!, Phil, Bravo!!

Answer 4

MY answer is: Yes! Absolutely! I have a lot to tell. PARKER Y-DNA GROUP #1. Anyone in this group, please contact me!

Answer 5

I have submitted a Y-DNA67 test for  first my cousin Bill Dietrich at Family tree DNA and the big Y at FTDNA.  Our Dietrich family are haplogroup E-M35, sub-clade E-BY4543.  Has this helped  for finding our Dietrich ancestors beyond what my genealogical research has already found?  No, it has not!.  It has only created new questions for me as to the origins of our family in Germany. Our closest Y DNA matches were from Dresden, Saxony, and yet our ancestors emigrated to Hungary about 1786.  Most of the Lutheran Germans that emigrated to the Batschka were from the Alsace and from the Pfalz.  I've not found any yet from Saxony.

So what is important to understand about Y-DNA results is that often the matches can be from thousands of years ago.  This is not very helpful for genealogical purposes. Most of my matches are not Dietrich. Of cours,e this may or may not mean anything.

From my experience, autosomal DNA is much for useful as a genetic genealogy tool.  Especial the Ancestry DNA test, since they by far the largest data base of testers   I have found many important clues through my test and the tests of my siblings.  Of course the problem with all of these DNA tests is the reliability of the information provided by those that have tested.  Many have no trees attached.  And those that do, I personally question some of the accuracy.  Also when submitting questions to those DNA cousins, most don't respond.  Many of those that do, know less about our common ancestors than I do.

Anyway, for what its worth, this has been my experience.

Comments

Well I noticed with my husbands Y that the people who had put trees seemed to go back to William the Conqueror trusted 15 gentlemen as I read somewhere a long time ago that those he brought with him were relatives, that although you couldn't totally trust your relatives in those days. Other people were even less trustwothy and easily bought. However what really annoys me even more is people who put up a tree and then ban everyone from looking at it. I thought relationship was sharing and give and take.

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Almost every white person goes back to William the Conqueror.   Those that don't just haven't thought it out.

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A bright retort, Kelly Dazet !  but that anc.com gives more answers isn't as impressive as you might think. That GM site advertises heavily on television, garnering more visibility than other sites, alas.

Smarter, more careful genealogists get onto other sites is my bet.

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::-)  Thanks Roberta.  Actually I'm not sure how many smarter, more careful genealogists use or are interested in DNA and genetic genealogy.  Don't think it matters which testing company. Most who have submitted their DNA with any of these companies are only interested in their ethnicity estimate, not in finding clues through cousin matching. Some are looking for an unknown biological parent/s.  

Of course what I have written here is just my personal opinion based on my experiences. I've tested or uploaded my DNA now with FTDNA, Ancestry DNA, MyHeritage DNA and Living DNA. and well as GEDmatch.  

So far, of the four companies, I like MyHeritage and Ancestry the best.  MyHeritage because they have the best tools and the most people testing in the countries of my research interests, mainly Germany, Ireland and Norway. Ancestry because of the number of cousin matches and useful clues that i've found so far.  Also have the feeling they are the most accurate (though I have no proof that that is a fact). But their tools are poor, they don't provide matching of cousin more distant that 4th and I don't think they are interest in listing to suggestions on imporvements.

GM?  General Motors?  anc.com is a technology service provider.  I assume you mean Ancestry DNA.

Heather,

I suppose some people are concerned with privacy, though also some just don't want to share all the time, effort and expense they have put into their research, though they should probably then just keep their family tree's in computer software and not online. Someone has  traced their family back to William the Conqueror?  1066? I feel lucky to have traced family into the 1700s,  I don't follow the 15 gentlemen statement. not sure what you are saying. Our Y DNA test matches are probably from ancestors 800 to 2000 years ago, which is for my research, not so useful.

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Personally I suspect by only five generations we all have a relationship, because of those huge families, imagine winning a prize for having the most children in the country! Certainly it saved the government a lot of money paying for emigration. As in hardly more than a decade the females were ready to procreate again and the males into the workforce, after having already worked their butt off at home or on the family farm anyway, as a type of unpaid apprentiship.

By that time also they were almost fodder for testing the new types of weaponry invented anyway.

You win some you lose some and here we are.

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Heather,

:-) Ok, I think reading into your social/economic/political comments you are saying that 5 generations is about max for the reliability of Y DNA staying with the surname family line, because of NPEs (non paternal events) or "hanky-panky"  on the part of our ancestors.  Of course I have no idea if that could be true for the majority of our families.  I can only say that in the past, the church was extremely important to our ancestors. In other words they were "God fearing", so I wonder how often NPEs occured.  I'm sure they did, just not as often as in today's world.  Babies were baptized soon after birth, because often they did not survive and parents wanted to be sure if they did not survive their souls would ascend -- because of the importance to them of God and church. However if my family research is correct, there could have been an NPE at about 6 generations.  But Y-DNA is telling me my research is incorrect! :-)

Answer 6

YDNA testing can be very helpful when you have a common surname. My grandfather and his cousins in both Illinois and Tennessee consistently claimed that "Ford" was the anglicized version of a French name, and we did have circumstantial evidence to link us to the Faures of Manakintown, Virginia. But there were many different Ford families living in Virginia, the Carolinas, and Tennessee in the 1700s and early 1800s, often quite near one another, so YDNA testing was an obvious choice for us. We were lucky in that my brother did closely match a group of Fords and Fores who appear to be descended from the Faures of Manakintown. Unfortunately, we've been unable to find a Ford/Fore male to test who has a solid paper trail aaall the way back to Jacques. (I'm beginning to wonder if anyone really does!)

Answer 7

I orderrd the FTDNA Y37 test in hopes that it would help me extend my paternal CASTIGLIA line in Palermo Province, Sicily. After about two months, I received results that included six matches with varying genetic diatances. None of the matches were Southern European, let alone Sicilian/Italian. It appears our common ancestors were from the Arabian Peninsula  thousands of years ago. I hope to find more matches as the databasee grows. Autosomal tests have been much more useful for confirming my research.

Comments

I think you have to understand the history of your background to understand your results people those families came from small populations that had lived in isolated areas and kept marrying within that community or the new community they shifted to can expect a straight line back with little deviation. Others like my Border Raiders whose livelihood was rape and pillage and the women entertained the raiders so the men could get the cattle to a safe place certainly couldn't. Others in the family that were presecuted for generations and had to shift from pillar to post changing surnames as they went a pretty good reason for that, also. The naming systems in different countries for instance where the surnames were taken from the mother how complex is that? Or living on islands where you had no surnames at all just a first name and when you shifted to a larger continent either made one up yourself or the customs officer made one up for you. So you could be either Tom Dick or Harry where-ever you came in the Q

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y-DNA matches reveal cousins with whom you share a common paternal ancestor.   y-DNA doesn't reveal ancestors because your match's tree may be total fiction......and yours too.

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LOL

+1

Answer 8

It's worth people paying attention to what DNA tests come with Y-DNA included. 23andme does, correct me if I'm wrong, AncestryDNA doesn't.

Comments

Living DNA does too, and I was very impressed with how deep the haplogroup information they provided.  It was much better than any of the FTDNA STR tests, which I also have (Y111).

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How can anyone know which company's results is more accurate?   If one company's results fits what you're looking for, then naturally you're more happy with that company.

The old saying is, "If you're a hammer, everything looks like a nail."

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Living DNA provided a quality yDNA result that exactly matched my FTDNA results, as far as it went, to R-L257.  Their result was much deeper than the STR predictive haplogroup, deeper than the M269 pack, and well into the Z18 pack, stopping only 2 SNP's from my FTDNA result.  That's a very good result.  Their mtDNA haplogroup exactly matched my FTDNA Full Sequence result, except it didn't report the extra mutations.  That's also a very good, quality result, but not as good as FTDNA.  Their autosomal test was equivalent to the rest.  So for far cheaper ($99 currently I believe) than FTDNA, I got as good or almost as good a result on all 3 tests.

As far as I can, I avoid subjective analysis, try to be strictly data driven.  In this case, I wanted a double check, a verification of my current DNA results, and Living DNA was completely satisfactory, totally identical results, at a far lower price.  Even though I know it's just one data point, for those with limited funds, I am perfectly happy to recommend Living DNA to anyone.  (I'm sure you were just being rhetorical.)

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Thanks Ron.  Based on your recommendation, I'll probably test at Living DNA.
Do they have much of a database?  i.e. Do they provide matches?
There needs to be a y-DNA central clearing house....like gedMatch for autosomal.

I figure that our money spent for y-DNA is an investment in the future, when there is a much larger database.   The payoff will not likely occur in our lifetime.

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"Do they provide matches?" Later this year they'll provide this. https://www.livingdna.com/press-releases/305/living-dna-preview-unique-new-family-networks-capability-rootstech-2018

They can also tell you which parts of the UK your ancestors came from: https://www.livingdna.com/family-ancestry

You can also upload your raw DNA data to other ancestry sites for further matches.

Answer 9

Yes and no. Some interesting connections surfaced and I do get new DNA matches mails all the time. But no confirmations by DNA. However, the physical lines Are all massively entertwined and part of our {{Dutch Cape Colony}} project and if that is not finished and correctly filled in, the DNA results will still not make any difference. All those thousands of profiles need to be primarily validated first. Besides, it is a separate branch of genealogy that I understand too little of, and need to make the time for (after all the project work has been done) to understand and triangulate.

Answer 10

ABSOLUTELY NOT!  I have done the 111 marker test and get no matches at that level and not good matches at any other level.  In fact, I don't see my surname in any matches except the 12 marker level and most of those matches did 37 or 67 marker tests (meaning they are not positive matches).

I should be getting my BIG-Y results soon, I am hopeful but pragmatic.

Comments

My experience is the same as Thom's here.  For me, I was not expecting any great discoveries when i did the test, so with low expectations I was not disappointed and don't regret having done it.  I have traced my male ancestors back 10 generations and I am currently trying to verify two more generations beyond the 10th from the same Bavarian village in the late 1500s.  My closest match in the 98-99% is about 16 to 20 generations back.  None of my connections have the same last name as me, nor a similar one.  From Church records I can see that in the early 1700s my family name changed slightly, but not significantly.  I guess with the connections on FamilyTreeDNA that I have so far, the unknown shared common ancestors date from the time before last names in Europe were used.  The majority of my connections are from Britannia, so a huge branch went that way from Europe a long, long time ago.

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Me too.. or at least not yet. Perhaps when there is more widespread coverage it will be more useful.

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I don't believe that y-DNA will reveal much until the database is much much larger........mabe after we're all dead + 100 years.

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Since I posted the message above, I realized that i have always assumed that my paternal y-dna ancestors followed the arrows shown on the FamilyDNA website, thinking that my line stayed in Germany but the other children of my ancestors continued on to Scotland.  But it is conceivable that my paternal ancestors continued to migrate from Continental Europe to Scotland, and then later at least one of them migrated back to Europe and settled in Germany.  I saw a TV show about Stonehenge and they stated that based on artifacts found there and in Germany, that there were likely people going back and forth between those two places.

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Joe: I'm also a Kohl.  Our family is from Hesse of Celtic origins.  When we did the initial 12-markers we were identified as related to Irish Niall of the Nine Hostages.  Further testing, of course, didn't continue to match that.  But all of my 12-marker "matches" have been Irish.  I've had only one true Kohl match in ten years...which was also from the same area, but not able to find the actual relationship.  More helpful to the other person, but still interesting.

Answer 11

Yes, the Y-DNA matches on FTDNA show a large number of matches to the Hough (pronounced Huff) surname.  The BigY test then provided SNP matches to others connected to William Hough from Cheshire, England.  In addition, the BigY data also shows matches with other Cheshire Houghs but with an earlier common ancestor. The data enabled us to conclude that the Houghs from Cheshire, England who arrived in MA and PA in the 17th century and those who arrived in VA earlier are in the same Haplogroup and matching SNPs.

Answer 12

After several years since my y111 test and various SNP packs, I stlil have not received a single match higher than 25 markers, and only three matches at 25 markers. None of the 3 have my surname and they all have a genetic distance of 2. I am still very hopeful, but sadly disappointed so far.

Comments

Richard:  Any connection with the Dutch line "Hollenbeek"?

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Gus, you wrote:

Richard:  Any connection with the Dutch line "Hollenbeek"?

I don't know.  My earliest "known" ancestor is Jasper Hallenbeck (1774-1861), with many different spellings, from Schenectady or Montgomery County, New York.  Yes, one of the spellings is Hollenbeek.  But also Hollenbach and Hollinback and Hollenbeak and Holsombeck.  In other words, I can't be sure of anything.  My basic haplogroup is R-L48 and my other Hollenbeck/Hallenbeck people in my Y-DNA project are haplogroup "I."  There is no way they are related by direct paternal line.  I did a "SNP Pack" and upgraded to 111 and learned that a more specific designation of my haplogroup is R-S18372. The other specific haplogroup in my  project is I-CTS616 and  the rest are all I-M223.  None of that group are even "R."

There are some Hollandbeck from West Virginia and Hollabaugh from North Carolina with R-M269.  My ancestors were from New York.  I don't know more than that.  I am in the Hollabaugh Y DNA Project and Hollenbeck Y DNA project at Family Tree DNA.  Any and all help is appreciated.  :-)  Thanks.

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Hi Richard: I see your problem! Google: "wiewaswie.nl". When it opens, switch from Dutch to English (click "EN" , top bar). Insert Hollenbeek into the Search box and you get all Hollenbeek's on record in the Netherlands. You can try your other name variants also. This tool may be useful to others as well, but our discussion gets off-subject. Better to switch to my e-mail address if you have more questions: "oretome@sympatico.ca". Best.

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I suppose if people haven't tested that are related to you in droves you wont get results fingers crossed for the future when more countries and people do.

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Your patience may finally be partially rewarded with an opportunity to try and tie a couple of apparently unconnected trees. I originally tested (via 111) as L48. By adding a "SNP Pack" I just learned that a more specific designation of my haplogroup is R-S18372. If there are no NPEs, my brick wall Y-DNA ancestor is Anders Nielson Wiborg, giving three R-S18372 groups on WikiTree that should tie somewhere in the past 800 years:

• Martin Fesmire (bef. 1745 - aft. 1800)
• Jacob Halenbek  (abt 1594 - )
• Anders Nielson Wiborg (abt. 1655 - 1718)

Answer 13

Not in my case. I tested my brother in the hope of trying to find out whether our Crackett surname might have originated from Crockett, but I am no further forward.

Answer 14

Absolutely YES.

As a tool within a one-name study it is invaluable.

It has proved the link between the line of Henry Kingman who emigrated to America in the 1630s and the Kingmans of Somerset who stayed in England - where there is no paper trail to connect them.

It has proved the link between Robert Kinsman who also emigrated to America in the 1630s and my own (maternal) Kingsman family from Wiltshire - again there is no paper trail to connect them.

It can also throw up problems. Within the tree of Robert Kinsman there is a branch for which the yDNA just doesn't fit, contrary to published histories of the family. I know where the break is - but who the real progenitor of this branch is remains work in progress.

The key is patience. It takes years for matches to come to light as volunteers are few and far between. Personally, I'm a case in point. I was one of the early testers - hoping for a clue as to my illegitimate G3 paternal grandfather. Twelve years on and I'm still waiting for a yDNA match. BigY has taken me a step closer, but my most recent branch point on that is still some 1500 years ago. I'm ever hopeful of a closer match.

Comments

I thought it would be easy for the Watson family as they seem to be on every branch in every tree that I have been associated with perhaps thats the problem the large families from the past.

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Excellent post.

Yes, it takes years, maybe decades before a link is made.

We're still waiting for ours.

I've gone proactive: I've studied the surname and searched out records of different Baty/Beaty/Beatty trees and then compared them against the FTDNA Y-DNA database.  Any tree that doesn't have a member sample, I email the descendants and solicit them.  I have also created Wikitree profiles for possible "link" ancestors and posted (in research notes) that I'm looking for a descendant.

One thing I've learned in 21 years of genealogy research: patience.

Easily 1/2 to 2/3rds of my tree is distant cousins answering surname forum posts, "Oh, you're looking for Joe Schmoe 1835?  I'm descended from his brother, he's the family line going back to the old country."

In time, a descendant will submit DNA that will match to ours and we will know where our tree leads.

Answer 15

Yes, it has helped me greatly. I hit a brick wall with my 4x great grandfather and because of my YDNA test I matched up with other Harveys who were able to find how they were related and so I knew in general how I might be related to them but couldn't connect the dots. Thankfully I had a great surname project leader researching the Harvey's and got me in touch with members in my group who were also very helpful. After a lot of research and collaboration we discovered one person who had to be the father of my brick wall. So it's with YDNA testing and a very helpful project group we were able to break through the brick wall. Not everybody will have that much success. Obviously others will have other issues like adoption or a name change or just no relatives testing. But for me, it was awesome. Couldn't have gotten back to the 1500s without YDNA testing and collaboration.

Answer 16

Not yet. The only person who's matched Dad at 67 markers is his brother, useful information but not helpful in figuring out further back generations. They get a lot of 12- and 25-marker matches, but so far they've only had one 37-marker match besides each other. That match has a different surname and genetic distance of 4, so I suspect their common ancestor is too far back to say anything definitive about NPEs.

They don't match anyone else in the FTDNA Casteel surname project, but as far as I can tell no one else who descends from either the definite paper trail ancestor or his suspected grandfather has tested, so we haven't been able to confirm or deny anything from that yet.

The relative on my mom's side who's tested has had a couple matches with people who descend from a person of the same surname who's in the right state a hundred years before our ancestor, though not the same county. It's a promising possibility, but it hasn't gotten us through our brick wall on that line.

Answer 17

Not yet. I have no matches with my surname at all. Just one person 2 away at Y-37 from the county next door.  A handful of related people at 3 away.

At Y-67 I have no close matches at all.

So a bit disappointing, especially for some Americans trying to get across the Atlantic.

Comments

Same thing has happened to my husband it makes you wonder if an ancient ancestor was living in a brothel and every child a different father.

Answer 18

Yes. With an not so common Surname it wasn't easy to find where we fit in. We are officially part of the Golden DNA study. Spent a while with my Dad''s DNA kind of  floating around the project until two distant cousins tested and confirmed my paper trail back to John Gaulding. 

I have just recently gotten permission to add one of the two testers to WikiTree so I can DNA confirm my Paternal line back to this John Gaulding.

Mags

Answer 19

Y-DNA testing has helped me a little bit with surname research.  More so just by identifying what haplogroup I am in as well as my maternal grandfather’s y haplogroup.  My paternal line goes back to Northern Sweden so there are a few different patronym last names, however I have found quite a few descendants from other branches of my old paternal line (both through family search and from a auDNA match's family tree).  So if I can get a few of them to take a Y-DNA test as well then we can compare.  For my grandfather’s test we have found a couple matches with the same Lukens last name so that all matches up nicely.

Answer 20

We were at a 25 + year brick wall. The other Ellis progeniture, William Ellis the shipbuilder, on Prince Edward Island was supposed to be related to my ancestor Robert Ellis. We had William's line back to the 1540's but could not fit my ancestor into the family. They were from north Devon but Robert's tombstone says he was born in London. I am thinking that his wife knew something that we don't and I am willing to think that his parents may have lived in London for a time.

Before my mom died, she came up with a theory of who Robert's parents were. There were a bunch of deeds concerning the Peacock Inn in Bideford with all the correct names and dates, some wills leaving a Robert some houses in Bideford, a receipt for the rents on some houses in Bideford sent to my Robert's widow, Roberts daybooks indicating that he had been an innkeeper.

Instead of spending a large amount of money on hiring a researcher in Bideford to search out all the deeds, I decided to have my dad and his third cousin from New Zealand tested and then hope I could find and convince one of "the other bunch" on PEI to test. If they didn't match there would be no point in looking into the deeds. It took awhile, but eventually it did prove that my Robert and William shared a common ancestor and it would be worthwhile to continue the search.

Finally, at long last, I found the voters lists that must not have been available when mom was alive. She wouldn't have missed them. After several years of a Robert and a William (his brother) both living in the same places (one place being the Peacock Inn), in 1841 the voter's list said Robert had removed to Prince Edward Island. I knew from his daybooks that that was exactly when he came back to the Island. I knew I had it and would have done cartwheels if I was able.

Having the matching Y-DNA gave me the encouragement I need to go on and finally find the key. I still have not found Robert's birth, but I am thinking that his wife did know something that we didn't as I found a baptism in London in the correct year, and with the correct parents. I may never be able to prove that it is my Robert, but I think it is...

Comments

No. There is only one match with the same surname and thousands with many other surnames. There is somewhat of a pattern with the same root part of a surname with changes according to the language of the country where the match's most recent ancestor came from. That root is in my tree and I have DNA matches to it, but no close link to my father's surname. There are a lot of Irish and Scandinavian surnames, but also some Ukranian, French and other northern Europeans. The closest surname in spelling/sound to my surname is German. The only record in the "old world" is in Germany, but it's sketchy.

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Wow that is some great sleuthing well done.

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Happily, I have to update my comment above (Nov. 8, 2017). YES! After 2 years of waiting, my full brother has a hit to the original spelling of our surname. I've been able to back it up further with 3 autosomal matches of my own to people who have the surname in their tree.

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Randi, I have a dozen or more Rivenbark distant cousins.

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Jim - If you're interested in learning about the Reifenberg lineage, contact me.

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I wonder if we are related I had relatives there a long time ago, mind you the DNA has probably drifted away by now.