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General => Ancestral Family Tree DNA Testing => Topic started by: Katharine75 on Friday 29 May 20 14:39 BST (UK)

Title: Illegitimate grandfather - looking for matches.
Post by: Katharine75 on Friday 29 May 20 14:39 BST (UK)
Hi all. Apologies if this query had already been answered on this forum previously.
My grandfather was illegitimate. I did an ancestry DNA test but nobody seems to be 'connected' through this line.
My grandfather had a son (my dad) and I have a brother. I was considering Y-DNA to hopefully find answers.

My question therefore is: which companies (with availablity in Australia) have the best Y-DNA testing. And more importantly, which companies will show database matches just as Ancestry DNA does.

Thanks, Katharine.
Title: Re: Illegitimate grandfather - looking for matches.
Post by: guest189040 on Friday 29 May 20 14:47 BST (UK)
If you read this it may help you choose

https://genie1.com.au/which-dna-testing-company-to-use/
Title: Re: Illegitimate grandfather - looking for matches.
Post by: Ruskie on Friday 29 May 20 15:13 BST (UK)
This might help:

http://www.whodoyouthinkyouaremagazine.com/news/what-will-y-dna-test-tell-you

An autosomal test should give you some matches but it might be a waiting game for decent matches on that line.

I am not going to advise against a Y-DNA test - I am sure plenty of people have had success with this, but unfortunately I haven't been lucky.

Autosomal tests are cheaper and a lot more popular that Y-DNA tests and if you haven't had any matches with an autosomal test I am not sure if you can be hopeful of any with a Y-DNA test as fewer people take them. (This is just me thinking out loud ... )

Having said that, it is probably more of a long term investment. FTDNA is usually recommended.

If your father is still alive it might be worth getting him an autosomal test so you can compare his and your matches to remove those which come from your maternal line. This may help narrow down any possible paternal matches.

Good luck with whatever you decide to do.  :)
Title: Re: Illegitimate grandfather - looking for matches.
Post by: rlw254 on Saturday 30 May 20 17:45 BST (UK)
There's a difference between using Y-DNA testing to find close paternal matches and using this type of test to determine a paternal surname. The former is much harder and, as people have said, can require a long-term investment and some luck. If, however, you just want to determine a paternal surname, a Y-DNA test can often uncover this at the cheapest level with moderate reliability. On FTDNA, I have 51 matches to my own Y-DNA at a low level (25 markers). Of these 51 matches, only 12 do not match my paternal surname. There is only one that is an actual close match with 67/67 markers shared. This becomes more complicated if the paternal surname is uncommon, with very few descendants having tested, but when the alternative is not knowing anything then it seems like an easy decision to me.
Title: Re: Illegitimate grandfather - looking for matches.
Post by: hurworth on Monday 15 June 20 22:58 BST (UK)
Are any of your grandfather's children able to test?

We've also solved who a gt-grandfather was - two of his grandchildren tested and uploaded to several sites.  But the child whose father was not known was a daughter, so it was not possible to use Y-DNA
Title: Re: Illegitimate grandfather - looking for matches.
Post by: Ruskie on Tuesday 16 June 20 01:23 BST (UK)
There's a difference between using Y-DNA testing to find close paternal matches and using this type of test to determine a paternal surname. The former is much harder and, as people have said, can require a long-term investment and some luck. If, however, you just want to determine a paternal surname, a Y-DNA test can often uncover this at the cheapest level with moderate reliability. On FTDNA, I have 51 matches to my own Y-DNA at a low level (25 markers). Of these 51 matches, only 12 do not match my paternal surname. There is only one that is an actual close match with 67/67 markers shared. This becomes more complicated if the paternal surname is uncommon, with very few descendants having tested, but when the alternative is not knowing anything then it seems like an easy decision to me.

My husband’s surname is Wright. He has no y-DNA matches with that surname, and only 6 matches in total.  :-\

My father has hundreds of matches, most of them very low level matches - none have remotely similar surnames.
Title: Re: Illegitimate grandfather - looking for matches.
Post by: brigidmac on Friday 19 June 20 11:23 BST (UK)
When you day none seem to be connected through this line do you mean all your father's connection are from his mothers side?

When looking for my grandmother's birthfather we only had distant matches too

And surnames do not help if you don't know birth fathers surname in fact you have to look for ones you don't recognize .

Do you have a name for his birth mother?
We  grouped all our matches into those that shared with maternal side and those which didn't
Then looked at matches via location and ethnicity which helped us. After several years found a set of distant matches to Grandma's birth father

Luck was on our side that someone tested who didn't know his grandmother had had a baby before marriage

Hope you get a lucky find too

More and more people are testing.
Title: Re: Illegitimate grandfather - looking for matches.
Post by: rlw254 on Saturday 20 June 20 08:22 BST (UK)
There's a difference between using Y-DNA testing to find close paternal matches and using this type of test to determine a paternal surname. The former is much harder and, as people have said, can require a long-term investment and some luck. If, however, you just want to determine a paternal surname, a Y-DNA test can often uncover this at the cheapest level with moderate reliability. On FTDNA, I have 51 matches to my own Y-DNA at a low level (25 markers). Of these 51 matches, only 12 do not match my paternal surname. There is only one that is an actual close match with 67/67 markers shared. This becomes more complicated if the paternal surname is uncommon, with very few descendants having tested, but when the alternative is not knowing anything then it seems like an easy decision to me.

My husband’s surname is Wright. He has no y-DNA matches with that surname, and only 6 matches in total.  :-\

My father has hundreds of matches, most of them very low level matches - none have remotely similar surnames.

Hey, that's how it goes  :-X

Really it comes down to relying on a large network of people in a shared group to have tested. If the surnames in question come from a highly divergent group you might not see naming patterns. I stand by my original sentiment though where I would rather test and find out what the match pool looks like instead of not know at all.
Title: Re: Illegitimate grandfather - looking for matches.
Post by: hurworth on Saturday 20 June 20 09:02 BST (UK)
When discussing Y-DNA matches it's very helpful to mention the level of the test. 

At Y-37 most matches are so distant that they could predate surnames.
Title: Re: Illegitimate grandfather - looking for matches.
Post by: Katharine75 on Sunday 21 June 20 13:41 BST (UK)
In regard to my matches on AncestryDNA I have been able to work out where most of my closer matches tie in by looking at our shared matches. That's easy enough to do, then I have them all colourcoded by family. I do not have many closer matches that are not accounted for. I have contacted any that might pertain to my unknown great grandfather but unfortunately haven't had any replies. There seems to be many matches where people either haven't logged in to Ancestry for a long time, or maybe they don't have much interest in genealogy itself and have only done the test for the novelty of knowing ethnicities!
That makes it frustrating when trying to find a lead.  :(
Title: Re: Illegitimate grandfather - looking for matches.
Post by: Katharine75 on Sunday 21 June 20 13:42 BST (UK)
Thankyou for all your suggestions.
Title: Re: Illegitimate grandfather - looking for matches.
Post by: Romilly on Sunday 21 June 20 15:02 BST (UK)

I'm in much the same situation with my Paternal Grandfather Katherine...

All it needs is for the 'missing link' to test!

Don't give up, - just check again from time to time...

Romilly.