tracing your roots through DNA

[mahees]

I was reading the dna ancestry project site and came across this article

http://www.dnaancestryproject.com/sp_case_study.php?is_special=c3ViLWFuY2VzdHJ5

This intrigued me:

"By comparing your haploytype to other males with your surname, you will be able to piece together the puzzle of your global family network. Because your haploytpe is passed down to you from your ancient forefathers, all males who share the same lineage as you, even if it is very distant, will have the same haplotype as yourself. Using this powerful information, you can conclusively determine whether a family line with your same surname shares a common ancestor with you"

My husband's 7x Great Grandfather was illegitimate and given his mother's surname in around 1700. If we did the DNA test through ancestry, and his 'haplotype' matched someone else who's done it, might we be able to conclusively say what that original surname was? Or is it not that clear-cut?

What are people's general thoughts on this method of genealogy?

Thanks
Erin 

[Twinmum]

My take on the DNA thing (and I could be wrong) is that it is not going to say you are decended from surname *A*, but rather it will say if perhaps your hubby and the man next door (only an example of course lol) share a common ancestor somewhere down the line.

Norma

[bhaven]

A book The Seven Daughters of Eve is very interesting on this type of DNA.  We have been tempted through Oxford Ancestry but its pretty expensive for the Y testing which I think is for the male side.  Its complicated & I can't begin to explain except to say my husband would love to do this test as it apparently can tell you which tribe you were from.   

Jean

[Maggott]

It may be mildly interesting to be tested, but it's not terribly informative as yet.  The test will show that your DNA 'markers' are those for eg western Europe,  Africa, far east but that's about it.  It may show that you have markers similar to those of only some other members of the 'ABC' family - & so prove that the 'ABC's aren't all related.  It may be an intersting project to be involved it but it won't give very much specific information- especially if you're going back 7 generations
Maggott

[supermoussi]

Hi,

The tests are becoming more informative all the time as this is a relatively new science.

For example two years ago I had my YDNA tested and found I was a common old garden R1b, which means that broadly speaking I have the commonest DNA type in Western Europe. No real surprises there as the vast majority of my ancestors were English, with only a handful of Welsh/French/Dutch/Belgians/Italians.

Recent discoveries have enabled R1b to be split up into different branches. I have now found that I am what is known as L21+ (or R1b1b2a1b5 or R1b1b2a1a2f). L21+ is a branch of R1b which only occurred about 4500 years ago, so everyone who is L21+ is related from c.2500 B.C. i.e. from the Bronze Age. However, most L21s actually seem to be related within a much smaller timeframe, say, the last 2500 years i.e., since the Iron Age. This is the period in which many people think Britain's population started to greatly expand.

Now my paternal surname is Harris, which I have only traced back to c1800 in West Oxfordshire, although I am fairly confident it is related to other Harris families in the same area back to the late 1600s. On the face of it as it is such a common surname my family could have come from just about anywere in the UK before the 1600s. Luckily another benefit of DNA testing is it allows you to find pre-surname relatives and in my case this provides some compelling, although not definitive, evidence that my family were still in the W.Oxfordshire area c.1000. After comparing my DNA with some of my other L21+ cousins I found that the person most closely related to me was someone called Coberley who came from Coberley in Gloucestershire. Coberley is only about 20 miles away from the place my Harris ancestor lived in 1800 and the Coberley family originated there in the 1200s or maybe before. So my Harris family shared a common paternal ancestor with the Coberley family probably just before surnames were adopted and near the Oxon/Glocs border.

I am also more closely related to some Scandinavian and German L21s than to most British ones. This suggests our common ancestor was involved in some of the European migrations, possibly in the roman/saxon/viking times.

So, a picture is emerging of the path my ancestors took thanks to both paper records and DNA. I am sure that within a year or two new discoveries will be made and  L21+ will be further subdivided. This will enable a much clearer picture of when and where my ancestors lived. Sooo, watch this space.

In the meantime I would recommend looking into getting a deep-clade Haplogroup test. Details of the main British haplogroups can be found on:-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplogroup_R1b_(Y-DNA)

and

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplogroup_I1_(Y-DNA)


Moderator comment: the links above need to be cut and pasted - if you just click on them they don't work!

[Nick29]

It may be mildly interesting to be tested, but it's not terribly informative as yet.  The test will show that your DNA 'markers' are those for eg western Europe,  Africa, far east but that's about it.  It may show that you have markers similar to those of only some other members of the 'ABC' family - & so prove that the 'ABC's aren't all related.  It may be an intersting project to be involved it but it won't give very much specific information- especially if you're going back 7 generations
Maggott

Yes, I totally agree.  With such a tiny percentage of the world's population actually on a database, you shouldn't expect anything very specific, unless you are very lucky.

[charlotteCH]

Someone in one of my lines set about getting DNA from the males of that surname and the results are quite interesting in that they show how various families we believed connected are clustered in different parts of England.

  There were quite a number of participants and it wasn't cheap- $150 US per swab.
The organiser of it all was a scientist and he was pleased with the results.  Maybe in my next life when i have time I'll get down to mastering iit all.

charlotte

[supermoussi]

Yes, I totally agree.  With such a tiny percentage of the world's population actually on a database, you shouldn't expect anything very specific, unless you are very lucky.

When talking about the last 15,000 years most people of Western European descent will still find their ancestors were in Europe not in Asia/Africa. So even though the bulk of the world's population is now in Asia or Africa, and have not been tested, they are not relevant within this timeframe.

If you want to go back a million years we know we came from Africa, but in a smaller timeframe the results are now coming through to get a better idea of our ancestors' course through Europe.

[Nick29]

Yes, that's great if you want to go back 15,000 years, but I doubt whether anyone had surnames back then.  I would be grateful to go back more than 200 years with parts of my family tree, and with the very small numbers of people on DNA databases, the chances of DNA being of any use to me are very slim indeed.