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I am contemplating taking the mtDNA test (and possibly the mid-range Y-DNA test as well), and would welcome feedback from those who have already bought them on a couple of aspects.

Firstly, regarding the cost, they are currently priced at USD 159 and USD 249 respectively. Does FTDNA ever offer discounted prices, as Ancestry and MyHeritage routinely do? Presumably there are added shipping costs. Does anyone know what they are? (I am in the UK).

Regarding the mtDNA test and its potential usefulness, my maternal direct ancestry as far as I know is all based in Anglesey. Having been researching fairly enthusiastically for about 18 years now, I am still unable to get back with certainty any further than G3 grandparents.

Those of you with Anglesey ancestry will understand the difficulties involved - the very frequent occurrence of the same few surnames and the relatively closed community of the island, meaning that DNA matches seem to be very commonly connected on more than one line.

My hope is that an mtDNA test might identify some known autosomal matches as being on the direct maternal line. I suppose a problem might be that the database of mtDNA matches on FTDNA is presumably much smaller than the number of people on the autosomal test databases.

I would be interested to hear any feedback on how useful people have found the test in identifying how matches are connected.

Dave

I don't know whether this is the correct forum for my question so please indulge me if it is not.

My understanding (such as it is) of the inheritance of X and Y chromosomes from parents is as follows.

Females inherit one of their mother's two X chromosomes and their father's only X chromosome.

Males inherit the Y chromosome from their father, and one of their mother's two X chromosomes.

My question concerns recombination between the mother's two X chromosomes before one is passed on. Most references I have been able to find on the internet seem to say that, as with Chromosomes 1 - 22, recombination occurs between the mother's X chromosomes before one is passed on to a child. Some references, however, say that recombination MIGHT take place, but might not.

If recombination occurred between the X chromosome which my mother inherited from her mother and the X chromosome which she inherited from her father before she passed one of them on to me, and before she passed one on to my sister, then my sister and I should inevitably have some kind of partial match on the X chromosome.

When I did an X-DNA comparison on GedMatch I was surprised to find that there was no match on the X chromosome - even if I dropped the cM threshold to 3. For clarity I should point out that the results of our autosomnal DNA tests show unequivocally that we are full siblings.

Just to add to my confusion, both my sister and I have a partial X DNA match with our female maternal 1st cousin.

I don't see how this is possible unless there was no recombination before one of our mother's X chromosomes was passed to me and also no recombination before her other X chromosome was passed on to my sister.

Has anyone else found a similar result between full siblings, and does anyone know how frequently this occurs?

I took an Ancestry (autosomal) DNA test a few years ago and have done quite a lot of work in identifying how I am related to my DNA matches. I would describe my understanding of DNA inheritance as middling, if patchy in areas.
I have read the various WIKI articles on DNA and DNA inheritance, but remain unclear on some areas of how it works.
I am particularly interested in a bit more detail on how recombination / meiosis works and the structure and size of DNA segments inherited from parents. One problem I have found with some articles explaining the science is that they go into great detail on these subjects in other lifeforms, whereas my interest is solely in DNA inheritance in humans.
Having searched on Amazon there are many books purporting to cover the subject for genealogists. As ever, reviews range from wholesome praise to total condemnation.
Can anyone who has read them recommend any of these books and tell me what their strengths are?

I have a (presumed) ancestor whose burial record in Ellesmere for 1810 shows the 'House of Industry' as place of residence. I assume that this would be the Workhouse erected at Swan Hill (Haughton), which my googling endeavours lead me to believe was erected in 1791/1792 and was opened as a 'House of Industry' in January 1795. So far so good. However, someone of the same name (who I believe to be the same person, but you know how it is!) gave birth to an illegitimate child in 1776, and the baptism record (Ellesmere) shows the mother's place of residence as 'Workhouse'. Does anyone know where this would have been?