Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) of Y-DNA

[Evestay53]

I have some questions about DNA testing. I am thinking about getting tested, but which level of test do I need? I have decided when I test to use FamilyTree DNA because they have surname projects. I have my ancestry traced back to when we came over to America. But we do not know which ship we came over on. The courthouse and all of its records burned and our record tracing stops cold. We know that we are from Peebleshire and Roxbourghshire. Will DNA testing be able to provide the link or area so we can pick up the paper trail? Does anyone have any ideas?

[Alan H]

I have some questions about DNA testing. I am thinking about getting tested, but which level of test do I need? I have decided when I test to use FamilyTree DNA because they have surname projects. I have my ancestry traced back to when we came over to America. But we do not know which ship we came over on. The courthouse and all of its records burned and our record tracing stops cold. We know that we are from Peebleshire and Roxbourghshire. Will DNA testing be able to provide the link or area so we can pick up the paper trail? Does anyone have any ideas?

No.

Or at least, it is phenomenally highly unlikely. It is POSSIBLE that you could have some incredibly unique polymorphism which might be shared by a relative who because of the family bible, or something, actually has paper records dating back to the 1700's. It is POSSIBLE that this distant relative also went and got DNA tested which revealed this same polymorphism, and decided to make their genomic data publically searchable.

I would just strongly suggest that the huge combination of unlikely factors added together means for all practical purposes "no" is the right answer.

[Alan H]

McElmurry wrote this: " It is not helpful to know you share small amounts of DNA with somebody if you can't compare trees to figure out where the common genes originated. "

I can't emphasize this strongly enough.

What's a SNP? How do they appear? When do they appear? Can they spontaneously appear? What's a haplogroup? Why is autosomal DNA different from Y-DNA or mtDNA?

Honestly, to make sense of this you need to understand a lot of modern human genetics. Without that fundamental understanding, you're just getting a mess of information from which you really can draw very few conclusions. There's a reason that some modern human population geneticists actually spend a lot of time researching the telephone book and census reports.

Do you want to know if you belong to a haplogroup which is associated with "Northern Europe"? Easy-peasy.

Do you want your DNA testing to show that your great, great, great grandmother hailed from Glasgow in 1740? No can do....not without a stupendously improbable alignment of events.

What if you happen to have genetic polymorphisms primarily associated with populations of people from Africa? It's very likely to happen. Does that mean that your great, great, great grandmother is actually from Zaire?

This stuff is a lot more complicated than people want it to be.

[Evestay53]

Alan H, Thank you. So now that leads me to think I could just get one of the less expensive DNA tests. For what ever use they would be.

[Alan H]

Alan H, Thank you. So now that leads me to think I could just get one of the less expensive DNA tests. For what ever use they would be.

Honestly, think about your goal.

Do you want to trace, person to person to person, your direct lineage as far back as you possibly can? If that's the case, then IMHO there is no DNA testing that is worth the money. Spend it on airline tickets and go to the counties and look up parish records.

if you want to know the general makeup of your genetic material, understanding that people have moved around the world since.....forever..... and you are almost certainly going to see linkages to populations that you don't expect, then DNA testing might be interesting.

Do you know that a very large number of "Scots" especially Scots that live in the Borders share genetic markers with a significant population of people from the Caucasus and Steppes?

It's because the Romans fought the Sarmatian empire for hundreds of years. In one battle, they won and wound up with 30,000 male Sarmatian hostages. They took those young men, put them in Roman uniforms and sent then to Hell...otherwise known the very furthermost border of the Empire..... where the Borders are, now. Well, what happens when you drop 30,000 young men into a local population?

But would you be shocked to find out that you shared genetic polymorphisms with people from Azerbaijan?

How about Hannibals march across southern Europe? Do you think some local women got raped along the way, and genes from Hannibals soldiers got spread into Europe? Do you know that apparently a significant subset of the population of Pakistan (not that many Pakistani's have been tested) share genetic markers with a subset of the Greek population? Son of a gun, remember that Alexander the Great guy?

Resign yourself to the fact that there's a good chance that you're going to share genetic markers with people from Saudi Arabia. Remember the Islamic empire? "Moors"... in Spain? Just how far is it from Spain to the Cotswolds?

This is the sort of thing which if INCREDIBLY LUCKY, you might find out by "DNA Testing".

[Alan H]

As a general rule, DNA testing paints a very broad picture of anybodys background.

If you HAPPEN by pure chance, to have a unique combination of mutations, or one incredibly unique single polymorphism, and IF some other people who just happen to have that same combination just HAPPEN to get tested, then it's possible to calculate, not precisely, but a "most probable outcome" of how related you are to them.

But what does it mean if you....John Smith in Texas, might be 2nd or 3rd cousins with Monique Desmartes, who happens to live in Paris, France? If Monique happens to have, stored in her attic, reams and reams of diaries, travelogues and the family bible dating back six generations, then you have found something. If she doesn't, and not many people have those things any more, then all you've done is discovered that MAYBE you have a second or third cousin who lives in France.

[Alan H]

What DNA testing is extremely good at is determining if the hypothetical pair, Joe and Bill are closely related, or not.... or you and Monique in Paris. Determining how closely related two specific individuals are, is eminently doable by standard DNA testing.

[WoodyGA]

What DNA testing is extremely good at is determining if the hypothetical pair, Joe and Bill are closely related, or not.... or you and Monique in Paris. Determining how closely related two specific individuals are, is eminently doable by standard DNA testing.

I did the Family Tree DNA Y-DNA67 test, and am awaiting the result. I've also joined a surname project for my family name. I hope that it will at very least give me some hits that my family is indeed Scottish, and maybe related to someone else in the surname project. My oldest paternal ancestor just appears in South Carolina, with no records to link him elsewhere or conclusively to anyone. I'm hoping this might at least point me in the right direction.

--Woody

[Alan H]

I have some questions about DNA testing. I am thinking about getting tested, but which level of test do I need? I have decided when I test to use FamilyTree DNA because they have surname projects. I have my ancestry traced back to when we came over to America. But we do not know which ship we came over on. The courthouse and all of its records burned and our record tracing stops cold. We know that we are from Peebleshire and Roxbourghshire. Will DNA testing be able to provide the link or area so we can pick up the paper trail? Does anyone have any ideas?

If you know that your family hails from there, then your best bet is to start looking at records in those counties that date to approximately the time that your relatives emigrated. I'm sure that I'm not telling you anything that you don't know already.