Illigitimate birth and DNA results

[ayrgenes]

Confused about the answer! I have a birth of G/father around 1875 in Ireland. His mother died at childbirth and he was raised by an aunt. There was no father registered on birth cert. So the question is: will I be able to trace a line further back, and how far if there is no G/Gfather regisitered? I have tested and results were R-M269.

dave

[Catherine Wait]

Hi Dave, I'm not the best with DNA markers, but recognised R-M269 as one of the markers found with in the McFadden families.  Have a look at http://themcfaddenproject.com/dna-testing-info/lineages/.  Research done on the connections and origins of the surname McFadden and variants.  Prehaps someone in that reseach can help you.

Happy Hunting
Catherine

[Jill Eaton]

Dave,

The Haplogroup R-M269 is, according to familytreedna, "the most common Y-chromosomal lineage in Europe shared by 110 Million European Men"

The Haplogroup gives you some indication where the origins of your Y lineage comes from but is going to be very little help in identifying an individual ancestor.

You appear to have had your Y DNA tested (male line) rather then autosomal (which I understand is both MtDNA (female line through your mother) and male line tested. There are a number of different test options

My husband had his Y DNA tested some years ago on Ancestry and it did identify a DNA match which lead to his unknown grandfather but only because a close male relative (his half uncle paternal) had also been tested. The match was indicated and the probable relationship given.

Unless there is someone who shares an amount of matching DNA to you on an existing Database, your Haplogroup in itself isn't going to be much help.

If someone has taken a test from your male line is will helpfully be flagged up but it depends which company they have tested with. Ancestry is one company. There are various others.I think they are called 23andme and MyHeritageDNA though there may well be others I don't know about.

I was able to upload my raw Autosomal DNA file (which is on Ancestry where I took my test) on the MyHeritage site but I don't know whether you can do the same with Y DNA results. Hopefully someone else will know the answer

[Eric Hatfield]

Yes, I agree with Jill. The Y-DNA test is the obvious place to start to identify your GGFather, but if it isn't helpful, which may be the case if people had lived in that area for generations and most had similar Y-DNA, then you need to do an autosomal test (which doesn't test Y-DNA or mitochondrial DNA, but the chromosomes 1-22 and X on #23) which will contain DNA from all recent relatives. If you are fortunate, there will be someone there who will match (very likely) and who you can prove is the right family line (much harder).