You are going to be lost if you have not been reading about what test does what in the other blogs. In the Contents list on the right find several stories that explain the different tests with different examples of how they worked for me and others.
This will be about using male y-dna. Only men have the male y-dna. this is passed from father to sons only. So either a man or a woman will need to find many men from their own family lines to test their y-dna to prove with DNA each male line of families.
If a man born in 1750, for examples has three sons and all three of those sons have more sons and we can follow the unbroken male lines from the patriarch to a male line descendant of today, then the male descendants living today will have almost identical y-DNA signature as the patriarch from 1750. The differences, mutations, are readable and scientists know how fast or slow a particular marker mutates so one can gauge whether a mutation is acceptable or not to still be a descendant. – Chart is from ancestry.com’s wonderful trees, this is the family view of a person’s pedigree. This is a private tree and is not a tree to be found on the website, it was for illustration. I am happy to remove it if necessary and make another by hand.
Chart made from Family Tree DNA. This chart is so simplistic AND out of date I should pitch it out the window. So just use it as the idea and google and go directly to familytreedna.com and read the latest information. When you are comparing two men, lets say they miss a bit on a marker. If it is one of the red dotted markers then we know this marker can mutate very very quickly, so we might say, this is not of consequence and we will allow that miss – now you can’t do that too much, but you can have a few. You don’t have to worry about this with familytreedna because they do all this for you and your results will have the science taken care of for you and show you your matches and guess the distance but this let’s you know part of the way they know who is related to who and how closely.
Family Tree DNA is one of the first DNA for genealogy testing companies and in conjunction with them, volunteers from all over, ‘everywhere’ – I might guess from everywhere in the world but need to check that fact, teamed up to create surname projects, geographical projects, and haplogroup projects (matching, grouped ancestral gene clusters – aka – ancient ancestors).
The first project I learned about in 2004 (I think it was 2004) was the Lewis Surname y-DNA Project. Since that time the project has grown many times its size, but from the beginning the genetic signature of the y-DNA of Lewis males put them into genetic groups – family groups. And it is from those matching males that we could learn which men were related to which, which ones were different families and with the use of traditional genealogy coupled with y-DNA and au-DNA we identified some NPEs (non-paternity events) showing the person was either adopted or another reason (more later).
We need to make sure when identifying and testing other family members for their y-DNA (or mt-DNA more later) to prove lines, we need to make sure we have the right family line – it really is ours and that there has not been an NPE, adoption or name change of some kind. For this both people should take the au-DNA test – the Family Finder test with Family Tree DNA.
Our Project
https://www.familytreedna.com/group-join.aspx?Group=FrenchBroadRiverFamilies
Pedigree chart from Ancestry.com – To add lines to prove with DNA, then Ancestry.com if the place to research for one-stop shopping – for many family lines you will have something and someone there if you are among their customers. To prove any family line, simply reasearch back in time and find a male ancestor you wish to prove, research all their sons until you locate a living direct descent male line male and maybe they also are interested in DNA for genealogy and learning about their ancestry. Don’t forget to make sure the two of you are related and with AncestryDNA having the largest database for au-DNA then besides the traditional research they can also provide the au-testing. Once you have also tested with them you might find cousins who are male line that descend from the families you want to trace and if so you can ask them about taking the y-DNA test at familytreedna.com. Chart: Chart is from ancestry.com’s wonderful trees, this is the pedigree view. This is a private tree and is not a tree to be found on the website, it was for illustration. I am happy to remove it if necessary and make another by hand.
Pedigree chart from Ancestry.com – Over time as more people test we are learning not only our traditional research genealogies, but now our genetic ancestors and our genetic ancient ancestors… With each haplogroup sequenced, both y-DNA and mt-DNA and adding the au-DNA that proves I am related to all the people who tested these haplogroups, I can know I have my genealogy correct. Chart is from ancestry.com’s wonderful trees, this is the pedigree view. This is a private tree and is not a tree to be found on the website, it was for illustration. I am happy to remove it if necessary and make another by hand.
The use of male descendants from two brothers to identify the y-DNA of the father is simple and exact. If one man takes a y-DNA he does not prove his father – but if that man has a brother and the brother also tests and those two men – those two brothers do match then you can say they have the same father – this will work for men today and also work for patriarchs from 200 and more years ago.
Any or all pictures would be removed if there is an objection to use. Just let me know.
Cherie Lynn's Herstory 