DTDNA Y-Chromosome matches on Wikitree

Question

YDNA connections to my surname of Williams seem to match about three dozen Williams men. What does this mean? Are they actually on my direct paternal line, as implied by sharing the Y chromosome? Or am I confused? Thanks.

Comments

It might help to draw the attention of the correct people if you would edit your question to add the DNA and/or YDNA tag.

Answer 1

Hi, Ken. Good surname there, my friend.  

Those listings you see under the "DNA Connections" panel on various profiles are predicated on the fact that the WikiTree members who have entered that they have taken a yDNA test (of any kind and depth) have their genealogical connections aligned on WikiTree, not necessarily their genetic connections. The DNA connections are only being inferred by father-to-son linkages up and down the tree by connected profiles. WikiTree does no actual examination or evaluation of DNA.

The result--and this includes yDNA, mtDNA, and autosomal DNA--should be considered only suggestions for further research. You can find instances in the tree where males of entirely different Y haplogroups will appear as being in the same patrilineal inheritance chain...which of course simply can't be. And someone who took only a 25-marker STR test years ago will appear in the Connections list alongside someone who has taken a Big Y-700.

It makes for a quite serviceable system to generate hints, but there's no actual matching going on. That's up to the individual members to investigate.

Comments

Edison Williams, you are one of the YDNA "connections" that came up in this group I was reviewing. Comparing GEDmatch numbers, we only share 3 cM, so that's not likely a match. Your "dead-end" Williams is Elijah Williams in North Carolina ... and I happen to be scouring North Carolina and Virginia for my missing link.

I've done the Y-111 test and am expecting the Big Y-700 test results in about a month.

Also, I don't find you as a match at FTDNA.

Kenneth Williams

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Well, that's kinda fascinating, Ken! Where did this show up? You have me very curious now.

Our surname yDNA subproject began almost 18 years ago...albeit at a snail's pace at first. It now incorporates other surnames--not as the result of NPEs but of time: we share a common patrilineal ancestor somewhere in the past, but it's before surnames were commonly adopted in the British Isles, probably circa 700-900 AD--and has positively identified multiple branches of our specific Williams line.

Unfortunately, we have never been able to link those branches to original immigrant(s). Our working hypothesis is that we came over to the Delaware valley during the wave of Welsh Quaker migrations prior to 1730, and then left Pennsylvania following the influx of Scotch-Irish to move through Virginia and on into north-central North Carolina where many Friends settled in the late 1700s and early 1800s. This is in need of updating to bring it current, but it's a biiig JPEG chart that will give you a snapshot of our lines, anonymized for test-taker's names.

Drop me a private message from my profile if you want to chat further without clogging up your G2G topic.

Answer 2

Adding to Edison’s fine post:

The dozens of men won’t all be in your paternal line, meaning ancestral to you. Rather they will be agnate to you, meaning you and those people will both have patrilineal connections to a common ancestor. And only then with the huge caveat that Edison described.