Could DNA testing help discover father of my illegitimate Grandmother?

[Craclyn]

Good luck RTL. To get the most out of your test you should prepare by connecting your result to your profile in a tree on Ancestry. Also watch the videos on Ancestry Academy and on Youtube so that you will be familiar with what is coming.
Give us a shout if you need any help in interpreting the results.

[River Tyne Lass]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmbmAt5bm34

Thanks Craclyn, 

I am looking at this Ancestry clip at the moment and this does seem very helpful.  There do seem to be a lot of helpful videos out there.

I might well have to give a shout    I think I am no expert .. I daresay I will just have to learn as I go along.  It is reassuring that there are people on here to turn to for help if I do  get bamboozled along the way.
Thanks for your kind message. 

By the way, I have no tree on there - but I believe I can set up a free tree when my results come?

[avm228]

Exciting!  I resisted the whole DNA thing for a long time, but now have the zeal of the convert - it’s really reinvigorated my interest in my own tree (which had ground to a bit of a halt).

[River Tyne Lass]

Thanks avm228, it is exciting! I have resisted for so long and now I want it done yesterday!  That is very encouraging that you feel you have now become a convert after having this done. 

It does all feel like an adventure is about to start!

I am quite interested in seeing my ethnicity - my paper trail points to English (one possibly Scottish - born in Edinburgh) and Irish bloodline ancestors only.  However, I have seen an early photo of my Great Grandmother and she does look a bit foreign.  I have also recently seen two childhood photos of my Grandmother's half siblings and if I did not know otherwise I would think they were foreign - although I could not pin point which foreign country.  They look darker skinned.  They were not foreign though - they were born in Durham to English parents.  One of my Great Grandmother's brothers was a Tyne Pilot.  The Tyne Pilots had nick names and this Pilot's nick name was 'the Arab' this was apparently on account of his looks and dark complexion.  I am curious as to whether I may have foreign links because of these things even though nothing shows on my paper trail.  I would be quite excited to see any foreign links if these do appear.

[avm228]

For what it is worth, my experience has been that 23andme (for which you’d need a separate test) is particularly good on ethnicity estimates.  My own is pretty straightforward - overwhelmingly English with a smattering of Scottish & Irish and remnants of a few Vikings in there, as expected from documentary evidence. But my niece and nephew have a more eclectic mix and 23&me is the only site which has yielded a bang on match to their known ancestry, and quite specific to locations (e.g. particular regions of Middle Eastern countries).

MyHeritage not so much. It has me at 0% English and mostly Scandinavian.

No doubt this will vary for different users depending on the size and diversity of the relevant database. But do be cautious about placing too much reliance on the ethnicity stuff.

[davidft]

By the way, I have no tree on there - but I believe I can set up a free tree when my results come?

Just to say re setting up a tree there I would not wait until the results come. I would do it now even if you set it to private initially so that it is ready when your results come in and you get matches (hopefully) straight away. Good luck.

[Craclyn]

RTL, You can set up a free tree at any time. No need to wait for your results. I would recommend that you start now so that you have as much as possible on there and the connection linked before your results come in. You can either build from scratch or import a gedcom if you already have a tree on your computer or elsewhere online. Some of the automated functionality that suggests common ancestors will not work unless you have your kit connected to a tree which is either public or private and searchable.

[Spelk]

Just a correction to what I said earlier about having no matches on FTDNA. That was due to me stopping my results being compared to other results - which rather makes the test pointless.
Having corrected that I get plenty of connections on FTDNA. Mostly showing peoples trees which have common ancestors and no surprises.

My top three matches on Ancestry have me puzzled. The three people show as having common connections with each other as well as me. One of them is showing to be a likely first cousin which is quite possible as I know of 27 of them. But he or she does not have any tree uploaded so I'm not going to bother contacting them. The other two are likely 2nd or 3rd cousins.
One shows a tree with same people in my tree and I have been in touch with her (a second cousin) previously.
The other one has a tree with about 1000 people and looks OK with no obvious faults or gaps in recent ancestors but none of the surnames is familiar to me.
What I suspect is that there has been some "hanky panky" at some time. Sorting out whose tree has a wrong parent in it may be a bit delicate and difficult. 
In my tree I have a G2 Gmam whose parents I do not know but she is in a different branch so cannot be the source of the problem connection.

[River Tyne Lass]

Thank you for advice that I can start a free tree straightaway - I had not realised that.

When I got home last night I found that my kit had arrived - good service, as this was ahead of predicted wait time of 7-10 days.  I won't do my sample or send off until tomorrow as I would like to at least get a certificate of posting before I send this off in case it might get lost.  I have successfully activated the kit.

Realistically, with regard to starting a 'tree' I might possibly have to wait until later in the week as I have a block of nightshifts coming up and will be running from pillar to post now until the end of the week.  Or is it possible just to start a tree (perhaps starting with my parents and working back) and keep adding here and there as I get time? 

I will appreciate any advice from anyone more familiar with the process.  Thanks in advance.

Added: Sorry for all these questiions - it is just I am hoping to get off to a good start and not inadvertently mess up at the get go.