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Ancestral Family Tree DNA Testing / Re: DNA Why I urge caution
« on: Sunday 26 May 19 23:18 BST (UK) »The gray
I have no idea what experts you have spoken to--but difficult doesn't mean impossible. A man's autosomal DNA is not a clone of that of his father. In autosomal DNA, everyone has two alleles at every marker or locus, one donated by the father and one by the mother. Obviously a father and his son do not have the same mothers. Their DNA will look different, even though the son received an allele from the father at every marker. What will look the same is their y-DNA, which is a different story. Let's say Dad has these alleles, shown as numbers at a marker----12/23. His female partner has 8/10. Son will receive a number from each parent out of a possibility of four combinations. Let's say he receives 10/23. That illustrates why his DNA is not the same as that of his father. Now Son can pass down nothing but 10/23 at that marker to his own children. But Dad can only pass down 12/23 no matter what. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that if Offspring has a 10 at the same marker, combined with another number from his or her Mom, it will not have come from Dad--but Son.
"It would certainly make things easier if it was possible to test the husband and his father, but both of these people had died before DNA testing became generally available as was the mother but perhaps you missed that small point."
You never mentioned that all were deceased, so what was there to miss? And how is all that the fault of some testing company? Wasn't that your original point--their so-called lack of accuracy? If the possible fathers are deceased, then there can't be a paternity test. There is the possibility of autosomal testing and receiving some DNA relatives, the distance of relativity being calculated. Let's say the deceased possible father, old Dad, had some other children. What relationship of Offspring to them? Or old Dad had some siblings with their own offspring--same question. In that case, none of the potential fathers need to be alive. All that's required is luck.
[snip of irrelevant stuff about ethnicity from Guy Etchells]