Have you found y-dna testing useful?

Question

If you have not yet purchased a y-DNA (males only) test, you should consider it. It helped me get past a roadblock in my line. I was stuck and could not go back further than 1798, but when I took a y-DNA test, I matched 3 people with a documented known history to a well-known line. It helped me work in that direction and got me back to the early 1600s.

I would highly recommend a y-DNA test! The basic autosomal DNA tests can only go back so far. The y-DNA test will help answer questions about relatedness in the paternal male line.

Family Tree DNA is the best place to purchase a y-DNA test and is having a black Friday sale.

https://www.familytreedna.com/products/y-dna

Comments

I've found it useful, but would be much more useful if candidate cousins agreed to get tested - even for free. I've been willing to fully sponsor Y37 w/ potential upgrade to Y700. However, many believe that their DNA will be sold or made available to law enforcement, for example. They are extremely suspicious of how their Y-DNA will be used - even the ones that have had their auDNA already tested.

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Hello Mike, I could not agree with you more. I will pay for any of my male cousins to get tested to compare to my brother's results. I am for full disclosure so we can all verify our lineage and have a reasonable degree of confidence in it.

We already have so many family mysteries. You would think that the cousins would want to know the answers.

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Sadly, I have a Y-37 test sitting on my shelf that several candidates have declined to use. I feel your pain!

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So how does one introduce the value of testing in an appealing manner? Even surname project admins don't have any more luck.

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Short of bribery, the only thing that comes to my mind at this time is to get male test candidates interested in genealogy. Show them the profiles where the brick walls are identified and indicate that their participation in a test can help solve a mystery. It is difficult, no way around it.

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Marion, such a good suggestion. This is exactly what happened in my family. I was told by an expert genealogist that it would help our search if my brother had a Y-DNA test, specifically Y-111. I was sharing a story about our family research with my brother who I had thought would be reluctant for all the reasons Mike Wells has mentioned. However I was pleasantly surprised as my brother has a keen interest in Scotland having visited there several times. When I mentioned we had a family connection in Elgin he said he had unforgettable memories about this place and the Cairngorns National Park where he stayed in a beautiful stone cottage. So I would agree that sharing family stories could be an incentive for reluctant testers as their curiosity is aroused.

Answer 1

I broke through a brick wall on my Kenyon paternal line with Y-DNA testing. My uncle Jim agreed to the testing. It was like a miracle! I had spent years trying to break through the wall, Y-DNA testing took a fraction of the time and saved me money in the long-run.

I am now a volunteer project administrator with the Kenyon project at FTDNA. With Big-Y testing we are going back even further connecting the American Kenyon branches (Rhode Island) and (North Carolina) with one English line in Lancashire, England, dating back broadly to 1400's and earlier.

On my Richardson line, all the research for my 3rd GG Hill Richardson (1778-1850) ancestor was to no avail when Y-DNA revealed an Oyster Bay Townsend snuck into the picture. Two independent test results confirmed. Nothing like finding a fly in the ointment.

On my Lee line, Y-DNA clarified the line goes back to Walter Lee, thus ending the back and forth discussions. This means we can now move forward.

On my Phelps line, one of my relatives, Henry Phelps, abandoned his wife circa 1875. He changed his name, moved across the country, married a second wife and had a second family! Autosomal testing gave some hints with matches, but Y-DNA testing of a male-line descendant confirmed this was our guy. It may have taken 150 years, but we found him.

There are so many things you can do with Y-DNA. I don't have enough good things to say about it.

Comments

Marilyn, Thank you for sharing your remarkably successful story and many congratulations on breaking through multiple brick walls! Breaking through a brick wall can feel like a miracle when it happens. However, the real miracle is inducng any male relative to take the test. ;-)

Myths and legends can become "embellished" and morph as time goes on. Each time they do, they lose an element of truth until finally the story bears no resemblance to what actually happened. However DNA does not lie.

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Marion, Thank you for your insightful comment.

As you can imagine, a significant part of using DNA is to identify potential lines you think could be a match and also to rule out lines that aren't. To do this involved creating trees to locate a living descendant. I located a living descendant through a combination hints, published obituaries naming children, and google searches for potential addresses and telephone numbers. After that comes the moment of making the phone call and introducing yourself.

I had already calculated that the cost of five or more 37-marker Y-DNA tests was less than the cost of one genealogy trip to Salt Lake City or elsewhere. (The cost of one 37-marker test is much lower now! Currently on sale for $79!) I offered to pay for the tests which helps with the inducement. In the long-run it was worth it.

Most people readily agreed to take the test and were intrigued. There were a few who would not take the test, for whatever reason. That was okay. I just went on until I found someone who would.

Answer 2

My husband tested and it was not as helpful as I was hoping, but it did show that the family story of being Scots-Irish was correct.  Unfortunately, with that type of background, he had hundreds of matches with all different Irish and Scottish surnames.  His 2 closest matches have his surname - Martin - and I'm working on trying to figure out the relationship.  Appears to be somewhere in the 1850s in North Carolina.

Comments

If you use 23andme or GEDmatch, you can crosstab connections and try to create a cousin web.  In 23andme, it's a tab at the bottom to see all the relatives in common.  On GEDmatch, it is the free tool that matches all kits in common to 2 selected kit numbers.  They both help establish the common ancestor a little better.  Not perfect, but better.

Answer 3

Y-DNA test has not helped yet.  With a very common haplogroup (R-M269) Y-37 and Y-111 is not much help.  I have used https://ytree.morleydna .com on Autosomal DNA to eliminate some potential test subject.   People who have taken 23andMe DNA test is also helpful to determine who to buy BigY-700 test.  So far my BigY-500 are a Millikin, McMichael and a McMitchell - all appear to be descendants of Clan Milligan and a common ancestor estimated to have lived 1500 years ago.  I did not upgrade to BigY-700.

Comments

Starting at Y-37, I was fortunate to join a small interested group under R-M269 > P213 > DF27 > FGC29721.

Based on our FGC29721 information (and my limited ability to interpret it !); Y-37 seems to prove matches at about 3000 years (27 matches for me), so as many have noted - little use for genealogy. Y-111 (15 matches) seems to prove matches around when surnames became common and "like surname" matches at about 10 generations, say 300 years, but could not accurately resolve known 'genetically proved' first and second cousins plus several distant cousins of unknown distance. BigY was much better, but in the end it seems a paper trail is needed to for the direct paternal line. Y-67 (24 matches) presumably falls between the two. Y-12 and Y-25 are now out of date and can presumably only indicate key upstream haplogroup and branches.

Does anyone else have information indicating how far back STR matches reach ?

It is very frustrating that FTDNA and others don't include "me" on their charts and downloads as I have to spend a lot of time adding myself into them if sending them on to others.

Answer 4

YDNA is extremely helpful if you are looking for your paternal family. From the lowest level test (now usually 37 markers) to the Big Y, they all serve different purposes.

Examples:

My Jean/Gean/Jayne/Jane family. Old books claim we were all from one ancestor who came to the US.  Wrong - we have at least 3 distinct lines who were here early on.  We also had people who didn't have a clue what family their earliest known ancestor came from.  YDNA answered which family but does not tell you which exact person.

My Herrington family. Old trees and books claim my Herrington ancestor was the son of another Herrington man in a nearby county in North Carolina. YDNA proves there is no way that could be and shows that we actually descend somehow from the Herrenden/Herrington family of Rhode Island.

I have worked with several adoptees.  YDNA is extremely helpful when you don't know the paternal surname of a father.

Some people love the Big Y test because you get so much insight into your origins.

Hope some of that was helpful.

Renee

Answer 5

I have found y-DNA testing very interesting - it has shown the route my ancient DNA has taken from Africa, Asia and Europe to the British Isles.

Answer 6

Yes, I have had male testers on both sides of my direct male surnames test.  Encouraging cousins to upgrade to at least Y-111 has been challenging.  I worked with a company to do more research and they did a leeds cluster analysis.  I am now trying the same technique with the other surname line where I have more Y-DNA results to verify the lines that are connected.  Once you know about this technique using DNA Matches it is a big help to sort through many matches to find those that are most relavent to your family connections.  I am now at 6th generation and it is more and more difficult to find documentation to connect family.

Comments

Hello Sherry, Thank you for sharing. For the benefit of those who want to follow up on the Leeds cluster analysis, the URL is given below.

https://www.danaleeds.com/the-leeds-method/

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How does the Leeds method work with Y-DNA?  I’ve only seen it for autosomal DNA.

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Hello Peter, thank you for asking. I would think it would be easier, or at least, simpler, because you ignore all ancestral lines of descent except the male line. Apart from speculation, I have no practical experience using the Leeds method.

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I combined use.  Ancestry was the easier place to find DNA Matches with the cm details.  However, I contacted near DNA cousins on Y testing to locate surname testers.  I then asked them to do DNA testing with ancestry and only free tree required.  Usually they are willing when the test is on sale.

Answer 7

I am an admin in the Duke and Reed groups on FTDNA. We have successfully used the Big Y test to confirm common ancestors from 300-400 years ago. I may never be able to figure out a couple of missing ancestors from my Dukes in the 1700s, but because of yDNA, I know where they came from.

It can be very useful if you can get the right relatives to test. If you don't already know where you belong, I recommend starting with the Y-37 to get a basic reading on your paternal line. This will tell you if you fit into any of the existing surname projects and how many people in your line may have already tested. After that, Big Y is the way to go (which includes the Y-111 plus much more). You can upgrade to the Big Y later without having to reswab.

The Big Y can be expensive, so you definitely want to target the right people. However, it can really help break down the branches of your family in recent times. It all depends on where the mutations occured, so it can be hit-or-miss, but if you are unsure about somebody in your paternal line, it's definitely the best option for confirming or disproving male ancestors right now.

Finding and convincing distant cousins that you don't know to spend the money on that test is the hard part. It's even been difficult to convince some to follow through if I offer to pay for it.

(We have used mtDNA to do the same on a female line to prove a woman was the daughter of a certain couple where no male lines remained from her descendants.)

Comments

Same with my Jane family. We managed to get several people with established lines in England to test. I know for certain ours was from the Cornwall Jane family but may never find a record of who his parents were.  I keep researching and hoping!

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Thank you, Jonathan for sharing your perspective. I had the same problem – getting cousins to test even when I offer to pay for the test. This seems to be the hardest part. I don't know whether they are afraid of the results or they just don't care about their lineage.

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It seems like they don't care enough about the results to risk having their DNA out there in an unknown database, which I can understand--especially if someone you don't even know is requesting it.

This was especially hard for a female line I was trying to test with mtDNA. I built a big tree, tracked down all of the applicable descendants that were directly down the right line, and first tried contacting them online. I couldn't get any responses, so I tracked down their mailing addresses and sent out letters showing the tree and explaining what I was trying to do. Out of all of them, I got one person in each line willing to test to respond plus one who didn't want her DNA out there. So I feel like I got lucky to get the 3 testers I needed.

I have one male line that has been a brick wall forever. We are this close to breaking through if I can get a Big Y tester--who shares the same ancestor, so you'd think they'd be eager to test--and while several have expressed interest, but I can't get them to follow through or even respond most of the time. I'll probably end up having to offer to pay for it and maybe get one of them to finally do it.

Answer 8

I have found it useful at the Big-Y 700 level.  I have watched my ancestors move from Europe to England as more and more people have tested over the last few years. Still don't have a firm grasp beyond the 5th-6th generation back, but at least I have a region I can be fairly certain of. Am hoping that some day someone will test and get me to the time when surnames came into use... SO yes, I do recommend a Y-DNA test! My closest matches are from about the 400s to 600s (so far).

Ken

Answer 9

It has helped in a couple of ways . . . as a method to prove that there is NOT a relationship and as a method to prove there IS a relationship.  The word 'prove' is really only appropriate for the first case as proving a relationship with DNA is nearly impossible rather can only be used to help support an alleged relationship.

For my patrilineal line, it is clear that the man records say is my 7th great-grandfather is haplotype R while I am haplotype I, so one can say it is proved that he is NOT my 7ggf.  The haplotype of his son is not known but it is suspected that he, too, is haplotype R as other yDNA matches and autosomal matches heavily suggest that it was one of his children who had been fathered by another man.  Unfortunately, there are not enough folks who have taken a BIGY test to allow anything to be proved (but maybe just the right person will test someday)

Comments

Thank you, Thom for your post. Y-DNA can also help to hint, but not prove that a male ancestor was either an adopted child or a descendant of an adopted child. Y-DNA is helpful to exclude a male ancestor from a group.

Answer 10

I had one of my brother’s supply a sample in order to test his yDNA for last name Macklem. We are supposed to be Irish or possibly Scot-Irish. From autosomal testing, I knew that several cousins and I matched descendants of the Macklem’s from Chippawa, Ont.  Much to my surprize, my brother had no yDNA matches to other Macklem’s from Ireland, instead he matches MacFarlane’s from Scotland. My 2nd great grandfather William Macklem (1823-1888, Ontario, Canada) has been a brick wall for many years but now I expect that he was the result of a female Macklem & male (possibly MacFarlane).

Comments

From a new exact match and Mags’ help, my branch of Macklem’s are Maitland’s likely from Scotland but are still closely related to the MacFarlane’s.

Answer 11

The Y-DNA FTDNA 67-marker test has been useful in taking one more step toward solving what probably is the most significant mystery in the Bahamian Ceruti family. When my brother took the test, we expected to find many others that shared our surname. However, the test revealed not one single man with surname, "Ceruti." Instead, there were numerous men listed in the results with surnames, "Field" and "Fields."
The haplogroup is I-M253.
This was a surprise but it hinted that Theodore Ceruti may have been an adopted child or the descendant of an adopted child. Conversely, he could have been a pirate who changed his name and went into hiding to escape from this deadly profession, a possibility that we still can't rule out based on any test.

The Y-DNA result is consistent with my auDNA result, that shows no Italian ancestry but a high percentage from the British Isles. The test results listed the noted British astronomer, Sir John Field, among the Y-DNA men in our paternal group.

Answer 12

Yes, I have found Y-DNA testing most helpful, when I had male cousins and friends with the same surname test and we have learned a great deal from their results. Those results have helped prove some lineage errors and establish that because a group has the same surname, does not make them biologically related, even when they may have resided a county or two apart in the early census years.  Y-DNA is a very beneficial genealogy tool, these days, alongside documentation.

Comments

Sandi, Congratulations on your success in Y-DNA testing. It's true that it can help identify errors. You are also right in your discovery that people with the same surname are not necessarily related at all. This is what we found with the Stillwell surname. A group in England (with a web site that escapes me) keeps track of Stillwell Y-DNA. They have found (at least) two different haplogroups, comparing across "the pond" between the UK and the USA.

Answer 13

My husband's Uncle kindly did a Y test for me, at least five years ago.

No luck so far on my brick wall here. D'Arcy-1229

Only one match so far.. ONE.. to a person 6 or so generations back with a different surname, and the manager did not want to talk.

So still looking for answers on this brick wall.

Comments

NG, Thank you for posting this. It brings up a good point. The Y-DNA data have a story to tell you but it may not be what you were expecting. When you fail to get matches with the same surname, it does not mean that the test has failed. It just failed to confirm an incorrect assumption that you had made and therefore casts doubt that it could be true.

Something like this happened in my family. The most mysterious brick wall we have by far is the identity of our ggrandfather, Theodore B. Ceruti. My brother's y-DNA test failed to yield a single man, dead or alive, whose surname is "Ceruti." In some ways it deepens the mystery but in other ways it clarifies a situation so now we can again rule out any Italian ancestry. (We already did that when my auDNA failed to show any, but now Y-DNA confirms the findings of auDNA).

Now it is clear that he could have been

1. an adopted child

2. a descendant of an adopted child on the male line

3. an Englishman who assumed a new identity after arriving in the Bahamas.

4. involved in some other scenario that is consistent with the data

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This can be frustrating, but you are on the right track.

Answer 14

I have had great luck with YDNA helping track male descendants of my stepfather George William Acks (Acks-10). We were able to go back eight more generations!  My stepbrother agreed to do a test as my stepfather passed many years ago. I was able make this connection earlier this year.  

For decades, my stepdad and I had been stuck at his great grandfather Albert Adam Acks (Acks-7), born about 1816. I had concluded he was mostly likely from Baden, but was looking in the wrong area and was off by over a century as to when the migration to the US occurred. 2 YDNA matches helped me connect to an Axe/Ochs line in Baden that immigrated to Germantown, Pennsylvania, much earlier than I expected. The cousin tree I was able to build opened smaller CM autosomal matches in AncestryDNA, further pointing to the accuracy of these new connections. These YDNA-based findings gained 8 new generations back to Johannes Ochs (abt 1575-). https://www.wikitree.com/index.php?title=Special:Relationship&action=calculate&person1Name=Ochs-722&person2Name=Acks-10

I explained this research in some more detail here: https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Acks-7#DNA_connection_to_Ax.2FAxe_of_Germantown.2C_Pennsylvania.

Next up on the YDNA front: I have not had much luck (yet) with my YDNA. I need to dig into that some more. I also am interested in my maternal grandmother Juanita Porterfield. Next step there is to find some Porterfield males to do some testing.

Comments

Excellent!

Answer 15

If I could find a male cousin of my lineage I would most likely be very pleased.  Anyone descended from Prentiss Sargent Puckett, he had 7 sons, but a lot of their offspring were female. Sorry I don't remember his wiki ID, Try thru Puckett (2747), he was born in MO, in 1840.

Answer 16

The Rutledge/Routledge Surname project at FamilyTreeDNA.com has had truly fascinating and enlightening results from the BigY700 test, the most refined technology available. Over 50 of our men have thus far tested to BigY level, with each man falling into a category defined by his own personal mutations. One main category includes 26 men who are all related to a man who lived around 1350. His descendants subsequently split off, mutation by mutation, into 14 distinctive lines, all now residing within genealogically provable time frames.
Combined with properly-sourced genealogy, BigY has mutationally related one of the 14 lines to a certain 17th-century Maryland pioneer, another group relates to Pennsylvania Quakers.
Four of the 14 lines form a group linked via shared British/American genealogy, including one man whose certified family history relates him directly to American founding father John Rutledge (1739-1800) of South Carolina.
The project is always looking to welcome new testers and usually sponsors several Y37 entry-level tests per year.

Comments

Bravo! Well Done! That is amazing that you have so many tests to work with.

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Thank you for the kind remarks Glen Earls. It takes teamwork by enthusiastic, dedicated members of a group to fundraise and then recruit new testers as well as persuade previous entry-level (Y12 through Y111) testers to enhance their DNA legacy. Upgrading to BigY not only adds detail to each tester's male lineage but also supports improvements in the still-young science of genetic genealogy.

Answer 17

Yes. It is helpful. It is not perfect though.

If you go through the trouble of doing a YDNA test you should list a tree to your furthest "KNOWN" ancestor with your surname (that you can document). Too many people put their furthest "GUESSED" ancestor (or don't list an ancestor or tree at all) - and often turns out their guess is wrong - which totally throws off how useful the information is.

It helps in seeing where they lived, and if a group of surnames of ancestors with matching YDNA lived in the same or adjacent counties, that is a big hint to look for additional records or read the originals in that area (rather than just abstracts) to see if there is more info that will actually solve your brick wall. It can also help rule out certain areas to search if the surname matches but their descendants do not match your YDNA (unless there was some NPE) - so it can help narrow down where to search for records.

It still comes down to records though.

Answer 18

Year ago - I asked my brother to take the y-DNA test thru FamilyTreedna, since then we have upgraded to the BIG Y.  This test matched Clarkson cousins from Lancaster England who connected to my CLARKSON line back to 1749 when my James Clarkson was born.  Luckily there was a Clarkson descendant (from Ireland) who had a complete family tree and found the Clarkson male cousins.  Since then I have asked several male cousins to test from MORIARTY, HAMMOND and TANNER.  

Answer 19

I was not that lucky. My Y-DNA test had brought only matches related to me with common ancestors as far as around 500 years based on the genetic distance. I am yet to find one person with my biological father's last name, although I have a tree with the line of fathers going up to 1750's.

Answer 20

It hasn't helped as much as I had hoped.  Our last name is unusual enough that a records search does a lion's share of the work.  Unfortunately, very few people in Das Fatherland have taken this test to make any important hits.

My mtDNA has also not helped very much.  My haplogroup group is large and no one can narrow it down.  There are also very little to NO mtDNA tracking groups on DNA forums.  Very sexist I think.