Free Y-DNA Testing for males with the surname of Riddell or Riddle

[SouthseaSteel]

I think a y DNA kit would certainly help my cousin and other males who have several single mothers in their lines

How / where / what company is best to purchase with ?.

B

FTDNA is the best company for a yDNA test.

There are multiple versions which as the depth of the testing increases so does the price.

The 111 test is a good starter but the 37 will also provide results and any can be upgraded retrospectively.

I took their 111 yDNA test and the closest matches indicate the MRCA 6 generations away.  Whilst this might seem quite a while it does give the surname that I was expecting to find.

If Haplogroup knowledge is important then the lesser test will only give a partial result, the Big 700 is needed to get the detail, i.e.mine is RM269 which is a common European one so not really worth knowing from a Genealogy perspective.

Can I please ask why folks wish to know their exact haplogroup?  What other specific useful information can be gleaned from knowing it?  Thanks

[brigidmac]

Thanks For your example Biggles

I don't understand the hapalog bit but if it can help identify surnames of great grandfather  s father to single mother HD it could confirm distant matches and confirm or disprove current theory

But if it's males thru generations
It wouldn't help with the birth father of SD  single mother to HD

What kind of cost would be involved.

Southsea if there is a single mother in the line  the paternal surname is different to the testees given surname  so it can help solve that kind of mystery regardless of a hapalog group
( Which to be honest I don't understand)
Looking at 1850s   ggggfandfathr
3rd cousin matches  so not really that far away

[Biggles50]

Haplogroups in a nutshell:-

At the dawn of man/woman there became Tribe A

Over time the Tribe expanded and separated into Tribes AA, AB, AC

Over time these in turn separated such as AAA, AAB, AAC etc the same with Tribes AB, and AC who also expanded and separated.

As each Tribe expanded and genetic mutations occurred the DNA markers of these mutations can now be identified.

So a haplogroup “tree” would all go back to a common source ie mitochondrial Eve as she is called and yet the various branches and nodes on the tree each have their own specific Haplogroup reference.

Using haplogroups is how the remains of Richard III were identified.

Mapping the migration of a specific haplogroup is possible and said mapping shows where the group originated and where the subsequent “Tribe” separations took place and the migration route of the haplogroup of interest.  So one has to be a real nerd not to mention have deep pockets to be able to afford the high cost of the test and have results that only a die hard really is interested in.  I’m pretty sure I would be asleep standing up very quickly if someone started talking haplogroups at a party that I was at.

Hope that crude explanation helps.

Now yDNA is only passed Male to Male hence it is useful yet limited.

Conversely mtDNA is passed from Mother to all her children, it cannot be passed on by her Sons but her Daughters pass it on to her children.

Hence both these tests have limited usefulness in determining Parentage.

[SouthseaSteel]

Yes it does thanks, very much so.  Excellent message.  I have taken the 37 marker test and the results are pretty unremarkable with about half the matches having a similar name to mine and with a closest genetic distance of 2 which could be a very long time ago!!  I believe it is pointless upgrading one's own analysis unless your matches of interest have also similarly upgraded to 67 or 111 etc markers.  Unfortunately all my "close" matches have only tested 37 markers like myself so I will hang fire. They are however presumably waiting for me to upgrade mine before upgrading theirs!!! 

I apparently belong to the very common West European R-M269 haplo group.  Am interested to know what I would get after paying $319 for a Big 700 Y test apart from a lot more letters and numbers, albeit in a unique combination, to my haplo group.  Cheers

[brigidmac]

biggles how wonderfully you explain things

I hope i can persuade my cousin to take a Ytest he might like the idea of belonging to a tribe .

+ after all the hours i spend looking at his distant matches it would be good to obtain the likely surname

do they give indication of the Family name of the eldest patriarch in a group  + your close + distant matches like ancestry or do you have to work out fromthe Hapalogue group

ie this post was originally about RIDDLE

but if his male line descends from HARRISON FARNSWORTH OR WORLEY woud the 111 test reveal that

[SouthseaSteel]

The results are presented merely as a list of names (no handles or nick names here) and they in theory should correspond to your own paternal name.  Like I say, about half of mine are variations of my family name.  It should be clear what name you belong to and there are named discussion groups you can join.  You get all sorts of other haplo information, maps and the like but its all quite generic and certainly of no genealogical use, which I knew when I took the taste. That was the origin of my question - what would my $300 specific haplo group really tell me!!  ftDNA is awful at answering that simple question

[hurworth]

The results are presented merely as a list of names (no handles or nick names here) and they in theory should correspond to your own paternal name.  Like I say, about half of mine are variations of my family name.  It should be clear what name you belong to and there are named discussion groups you can join.  You get all sorts of other haplo information, maps and the like but its all quite generic and certainly of no genealogical use, which I knew when I took the taste. That was the origin of my question - what would my $300 specific haplo group really tell me!!  ftDNA is awful at answering that simple question

Upgrading to Y700 would provide a better idea of when branches occurred. 

I funded a test for one of my male relatives whose patrilineal lines leads back to Scotland.  We're fortunate with this line that we have records back to the 1600s because they'd been granted land.  According to these records the male line has been on the brink of extinction since the early 1700s when four sons were born.  One brother died young before having children and two others had a daughter.  The remaining son married and had several sons but two didn't have children and the other had daughters, leaving just the one son who was in his 40s and unmarried.  He finally married and was the gtgt-grandfather of my tester.  So, if the tree and records we have are correct anyone else matching on the line should be related from prior to 1700.

At the Y37 level there were 5 matches, 4 of whom with the same surname as the tester (just different spelling really).  I was pretty excited about this so within a week purchased a Y700 upgrade, and a few months later one of the matches  (in North America) were interested in doing the same, and one in Scandinavia (who descends from a soldier from Britain)

Dating is far more accurate with Y700 than Y37, and it shows the date of MRCA for the GD=2 match at Y37 is around 1650ish (give or take quite a lot) and for the GD=4 (different surname) it's around 1450.

This isn't everyone's cup of tea, but it's been useful for the North Americans for pinpointing where their origins lie as they could only get back as far as a census record saying the ancestor was from Ireland.  The one in Scandinavia has probably benefitted the most even if the connection is 600 years ago.  My tester has gained less as we already had good information, but it has confirmed there has been no hanky panky up our line for 100s of years.  I'm glad I paid for the upgrade, as it encouraged two of the closest matches to do the same.  I have no doubt more matches will pop up who will further fill in the branching.

The other tester from another line paid for the test themselves, and we've found it very useful as there's a match whose MRCA is probably about 6 generations back (mid 1700s ish).  Unfortunately he died several years ago (before my relative tested) but we've been able to connect with other members of the family and collaborate on our research.   They're an exact Y37 match.  Some other Y37s have the same surname - 2xGD=1 and GD=2.  The GD=1 are from the same location as the tester's gt-grandfather.  But most of the Y37 matches aren't very useful as Y37 doesn't separate the closer matches from the more distance ones as well as the higher level tests, which may explain your lack of enthusiasm for Y-DNA testing.   

[brigidmac]

Thanks for your example Hurworth

We " know there WAS some panky

So if I've understood correctly

the surname list could show the surnames of the  unknown 2xgrandfather and his birth father

+ If people in USA are looking for their origins they could see the match + we could compare the paper trail + mutual matches .
There are clear DNA matches  to a Kentucky group of people but no idea how they link to Yorkshire

[hurworth]

Hi brigidmac,

Autosomal testing is often better for finding an unknown father somewhere, but by the gtgt-grandfather level it gets harder to find the link.  It works better if many descendants test. 

If your cousin is a direct male descendant from this line (i.e. - going up his tree the unknown male is his father's father's father and so on)  then it may be helpful.