No paper trail

[donnap]

My grandfather was a runaway. We do not have any reliable record of his parents names. There is no paper trail to follow.
My father is willing to do a DNA test, would the y chromosome test be the best place to start?
Ancestry vs Ftdna, are they essentially the same? Is the cost the difference?

The more I read the more overwhelming it all becomes.
Thanks for any advice,
Donna.

[Romilly]

Ancestry DNA tests are all Autosomal; which looks at both sides of the family. They have a special offer on at the moment, - £79 instead of £99. FT does a 'Y' Test, - (just the male side). I guess that you just have to weigh up which would be the most useful.

Romilly.

[davidft]

If you are going to do a test I would go with the company that is biggest and has the best reputation, which in my opinion is Family Tree DNA (who incidently do some of the tests for other companies too).

One thing to remember is very few people do DNA testing and most that do are Americans.

As you do not know anything of his parents and if you can afford it, it would be sensible to do both the yDNA (male line) and autosomal (all lines) tests to increase the chances of a match. Even then it will be a struggle to make matches and make take some time, of ever, but then again you could strike lucky as some people have.

Whatever you decide good luck.

[Deer243]

If it's only the paternal line you're interested in I would recommend a 37 marker test from Family Tree DNA. They do produce less expensive DNA tests but 37 markers is realistically the minimum level you need for it to be of much use.

[donnap]

Thank you for your comments, it's much appreciated. I have just 'clicked'/understood re autosomal test on ancestry, thanks for keeping it simple.
It's worth a try, I'll go for the 37 marker at FTDNA, we may have a bit of the Irish luck and find a clue. Cheers.

[Kimbrey]

If you sign up for a test with FTDNA it is worth joining their "Forums" as a lot of help is offered via them {by other members}

You can read the forums without "joining"  but you cannot post any queeries etc unless you are signed up

Kim

[shellyesq]

If you are on Facebook, the group DNA Detectives has a good number of people who really understand the DNA stuff and can offer help.

Once you get the results, you may want to look into transferring the results to GEDmatch (https://www.gedmatch.com/select.php), which is a free site that has people from various sites, so you may find more matches there.  This gives step-by-step instructions in how to transfer your results.  http://www.dnaadoption.com/uploads/DNAadoption/DNAadoption_files/UsingGedmatch.pdf 

[sami]

......It's worth a try, I'll go for the 37 marker at FTDNA, we may have a bit of the Irish luck and find a clue. Cheers.

I'm also dealing with a 'no paper trail' situation and have been wondering about trying DNA testing. Would you let us know how it goes? I'd be interested in hearing if you think the test has helped you.

sami

[Deer243]

Hi Sami,

You might find this video useful: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uE1-PsdXcA

It gives a fairly brief overview of the main options for DNA testing.