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General => Ancestral Family Tree DNA Testing => Topic started by: Cragside on Friday 27 July 18 14:01 BST (UK)
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Hi All,
I've been looking for living family of my grandad over the last few years and have finally discovered an individual who may be my cousin.
In order to show that we share the same grandad I'm thinking of having a Y Chromosome test done. Has anyone had this test done and if so can you recommend a company who i could contact to carry out the test.
Thanks.
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I have only used FTDNA but I would certainly recommend them. There are other possibilities, as I'm sure others will tell you.
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If you do a YDNA test you want it to be at a higher level to rule out spurious matches. This means testing at Y67 or even Y111 if you can afford it. Both you and your match will have to test so that bumps up the cost. ftDNA is a good company in my opinion and have sales from time to time so something to look out for.
Doing this test for this one person is putting a lot of eggs in one person so to speak and the likelihood of finding another who you could compare with on the Y chromosome may take a long time if ever. I only mention this to point out the lottery nature of these tests, the opposite side of the coin of cause is that you could get an exact match first time out.
So another type of test you could look at is an autosomal test (family finder test). This test doesn't specifically look at the Y Chromosome but looks at what you inherit from your parents, their parents and so on and from that predictions of relatedness can be made eg cousins, second cousins etc. The downside is it does not tell you where about in your tree a map will be but is more a tool to help track relationship and maybe fill gaps in a tree. So although less precise than the Y DNA it is more assistance when looking at a broader picture so maybe something to keep in mind
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Someone will tell me if this is wrong......
Autosomal DNA is a term used in genetic genealogy to describe DNA which is inherited from any of the chromosomes, not the sex chromosomes. Humans have 22 pairs of autosomes and one pair of sex chromosomes (the X chromosome and the Y chromosome) - 23 pairs in total. Autosomal DNA is shared by all decendants and can be used to confirm ethnicity percentages and close relationships with a high level of accuracy.
Females have two X chromosomes and do not inherit a Y chromosome.
Males get a Y chromosome from their father and their father's line.
X chromosomes are passed down from both parents to all their children. So, an X or mix of X's could be from both parents (and g'parents etc.).
Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is passed from the mother to all her children of both sexes.
The inheritance of X-chromosome DNA follows an interesting pattern, from a defined set of ancestors. Added to that, the inheritance pattern is different for males and females.
Males only have one X-chromosome, inherited from their mother (the Y-chromosome comes from the father), so their X-DNA is purely from the maternal half of the family (but not all branches).
Females inherit one X-chromosome from the mother and another from their father, so have X-DNA from both paternal and maternal lines (but again, not from all branches).
Good luck
Roger
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Once you have the result of your test on FTDNA you can join a group for your haplogroup and perhaps your surname and the moderators on those groups will give you excellent advice, which may be slightly different depending on whether you are an R or an I. There are some good general advice groups on Facebook as well.
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"Autosomal DNA is shared by all decendants and can be used to confirm ethnicity percentages and close relationships with a high level of accuracy."
I think most of us here would disagree with this statement. Ethnicity percentages are something to look at briefly as a source of amusement, they certainly don't as yet confirm it with a high level of accuracy.
And although autosomal DNA is passed down to descendants, it is in ever decreasing amounts, and you may share little or no detectable DNA with a 4th or even 3rd cousin. Close relationships can usually be confirmed with closer relationships, but not in all cases. However, it should confirm a first cousin relationship and I would suggest that it would be a better test than Y test for your purposes, and it will give you leads on other lines as well as davidft has already said.
Regards Margaret
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Autosomal tests are a lot cheaper too. :)
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Once you have the result of your test on FTDNA you can join a group for your haplogroup and perhaps your surname and the moderators on those groups will give you excellent advice, which may be slightly different depending on whether you are an R or an I. There are some good general advice groups on Facebook as well.
Like most people who have their DNA tested, I was intrigued to find out my Y DNA haplogroup, which is the very common R1b-L21 (my mtDNA is J1c2, also very interesting). However, as time goes on and I get my autosomal test results, I wonder why we make such a fuss about our haplogroup. Modern research suggests that the Y DNA R1b haplogroup is associated with the Bronze Age invaders of western Europe who came from the Eurasian steppes, but according to FTDNA, only 14% of my DNA comes from "Metal Age Invaders", so although they gifted my my Y DNA haplogroup, fully 86% of my DNA comes from hunter-gatherers and Neolithic farmers, making my R1b inheritance look pretty insignificant.
Harry
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Thanks for the replies guys. Very helpful. I’ll keep you all informed.
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Like most people who have their DNA tested, I was intrigued to find out my Y DNA haplogroup, which is the very common R1b-L21 (my mtDNA is J1c2, also very interesting). However, as time goes on and I get my autosomal test results, I wonder why we make such a fuss about our haplogroup. Modern research suggests that the Y DNA R1b haplogroup is associated with the Bronze Age invaders of western Europe who came from the Eurasian steppes, but according to FTDNA, only 14% of my DNA comes from "Metal Age Invaders", so although they gifted my my Y DNA haplogroup, fully 86% of my DNA comes from hunter-gatherers and Neolithic farmers, making my R1b inheritance look pretty insignificant.
Harry
Harry, if you are R-L21 and have tested to 67 markers, you can use my L21 SNP predictor to find a much younger haplogroup (4,500 years down to 1,200 to 2,500 years). With the new haplogroup on hand, you may be then be able to order a SNP pack in this time frame. If you are lucky, you could test positive for a YSNP branch in the 500 to 1,000 year time frame:
http://www.rcasey.net/DNA/R-L21_SNP_Predictor_Intro.html (http://www.rcasey.net/DNA/R-L21_SNP_Predictor_Intro.html)
Another good YSNP predictor tool is NevGen:
http://www.nevgen.org/ (http://www.nevgen.org/)
If are lucky and belong to a large prolific haplogroup, many people are starting to be able to chart the connections between testers using YSTR signatures and YSNP testing:
http://www.rcasey.net/DNA/R_L226/Haplotrees/L226_Home.pdf#PAge=23 (http://www.rcasey.net/DNA/R_L226/Haplotrees/L226_Home.pdf#PAge=23)
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Thanks for that. I used your L21 SNP Predictor and it said I had a 95% chance of being DF41_S, DF41_N or L226. However, on further checking, my DYS values are quite different from those required to be any of those SNPs.
If I understand correctly, all those SNPs are R1b1a1b ... but I have tested R1b1a2a1a1b4, and now that I look at my results, I see I tested L226-. I'm L21+ and P312+, and that's it.
A few years ago I noticed I was getting matches on FTDNA with people called Matheson, which is not a name in my family-tree, so I sent my Y DNA results to the person running the Matheson DNA project and she told me that my results were pretty close to those in the Matheson DNA sub-group she had entitled R1b-Pict. That figures, as my paternal line has been based for hundreds of years past in east Fife, the historical "Pictland" or Caledonia.
Harry
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I would also recommend an autosomal DNA test over a Y-DNA test in this instance.
Y-DNA alone can not prove you have the same paternal grandfather. It can only prove that you share a reasonably recent patrilineal ancestor, or that you don't.
Autosomal DNA tests are much more popular so you're more likely to find close matches of both sexes with that test. A full first cousin would show as a very good match.
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Thanks for that. I used your L21 SNP Predictor and it said I had a 95% chance of being DF41_S, DF41_N or L226. However, on further checking, my DYS values are quite different from those required to be any of those SNPs.
If I understand correctly, all those SNPs are R1b1a1b ... but I have tested R1b1a2a1a1b4, and now that I look at my results, I see I tested L226-. I'm L21+ and P312+, and that's it.
Harry
You should also try NevGen as well. Also, FTDNA has a L21 SNP pack which would test around 150 YSNPs below L21 to get you to the next level down.
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You should also try NevGen as well. Also, FTDNA has a L21 SNP pack which would test around 150 YSNPs below L21 to get you to the next level down.
This is getting a bit away from the OPs initial post so apologies for that.
Just a though but for anyone wanting to refine their haplogroup might a LivingDNA test be worth considering. I know they claim to have the most powerful chip on the market and when I had my test it did give more detail on my Y haplogroup taking it much further down the branch of my group than the Y67 test I had done previously did.
Just a though and interested in any observations on this suggestion.
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I would also recommend an autosomal DNA test over a Y-DNA test in this instance.
Y-DNA alone can not prove you have the same paternal grandfather. It can only prove that you share a reasonably recent patrilineal ancestor, or that you don't.
Autosomal DNA tests are much more popular so you're more likely to find close matches of both sexes with that test. A full first cousin would show as a very good match.
Both atDNA testing and YDNA have their pros and cons. If you do not have a very robust pedigree chart or have a recent adoption in your pedigree chart, atDNA is the right choice. But if you are trying to break through break walls in the 1700s for one or two lines that are very important to you, YDNA is a better choice.
If you are stuck on your grandfather, great grandparents or 2G grandparents, then atDNA is much better. If you are stuck on one of your 4G grandfather, YDNA is the best long term choice. The vast majority of the time, it will not reveal YDNA mutations that match your ancestors but there are now 10 to 15 % of the testers (under R-L226 at least), where mutations have been assigned to ancestors. But for larger surname clusters, it does show branching and indicates which lines are more related and which are less related and allows you to fine tune your research efforts for your brick walls.
atDNA are much more popular due to the low entry costs but 80 % of the testers have almost no interest in genealogy and only have a dozen ancestors charted if they are interested. YDNA has the most long term promise as we are building a descendant chart of mankind and we are now regularly finding many branches in the genealogical time frame and are revealing many interesting NPE lines. Under L226, we now have 20 well defined surname clusters where the average around five to ten branches based on YSTR and YSNP mutations. These 20 surname clusters now represent 20 % of all 700 testers under R-L226. YDNA is also very easily disproving many weaker family history lines as well which is very valuable for not wasting research time on lines that can not be related.
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Quite honestly, it's just idle curiosity on my part, trying to refine my L-21 status, for my family-tree has no brick walls on either side and I was brought up in the village where my father's family seem to have lived for ever, certainly since the earliest parish records in the 1500s. My mother came from the next village and had a more varied pedigree but there are no brick walls there either. I can trace my mtDNA J1c2 line back to Belfast in the late 1700s, and I can point out houses in my home village where some of my paternal ancestors were living in the 1700s.
I'm a bit sceptical about DNA testing firms which claim to have isolated "Pictish" DNA, but it should certainly be around in Fife where there has been great stability of population over centuries. Just a few hundred yards from the house I was brought up in there is a field with a carved stone bearing an incised cross with a petal design, thought to date from the Ninianic mission in the Dark Ages to convert the pagan Picts.
Harry
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Just a though but for anyone wanting to refine their haplogroup might a LivingDNA test be worth considering. I know they claim to have the most powerful chip on the market and when I had my test it did give more detail on my Y haplogroup taking it much further down the branch of my group than the Y67 test I had done previously did.
Just a thought and interested in any observations on this suggestion.
There are only two comprehensive chip tests left for YSNP testing - NatGeo and LivingDNA. The number of YSNPs included is pretty robust but the selection is very dated and primarily includes YSNPs from thousands of years ago - even though there are many more recent major branches available to include that were ignored. The NatGeo test is not a genealogical test - it is aimed at creating the older part of the tree of mankind. Unfortunately, LivingDNA keeps all the very old and non relevant YSNPs but did add another ten percent (but not that well researched).
It is really sad that no company that has chip array test has been updated properly in ten years - and that is forever in the genetic genealogy environment. YSEQ and Full Genomes (as well as LivingDNA) are really missing out coming out with a useful chip array test. The three levels of SNP pack tests from either FTDNA or YSEQ could be easily be replaced by several chip array tests that would be much more economical for getting to your more recent YSNP branches. R-L226 is only 1,500 years old and we now have 83 branches under L226. Between the three major primarily Irish haplogroups (with CTS4466 and M222 added), there are around 500 branches under these three haplogroups.
But the SNP pack approach is reaching its upper limit as L226 now has 1,200 known YSNPs (future branches to be discovered) but the SNP pack is limited to testing only 150 YSNPs. M222 has probably 5,000 YSNPs unique to M222, so 150 YSNPs does not even cover the known branches these days.
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@Robert Casey
Thank you for your reply. Very helpful and informative to me.
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Thanks for that. I used your L21 SNP Predictor and it said I had a 95% chance of being DF41_S, DF41_N or L226. However, on further checking, my DYS values are quite different from those required to be any of those SNPs.
If I understand correctly, all those SNPs are R1b1a1b ... but I have tested R1b1a2a1a1b4, and now that I look at my results, I see I tested L226-. I'm L21+ and P312+, and that's it.
Harry
You should also try NevGen as well. Also, FTDNA has a L21 SNP pack which would test around 150 YSNPs below L21 to get you to the next level down.
I've just checked NevGen but all it told me was that there is 100% probability that I'm R1b, which I knew already.
Harry
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I've just checked NevGen but all it told me was that there is 100% probability that I'm R1b, which I knew already.
Harry
The YSNP prediction tools do catch around 50 % of the known more recent haplogroups but the other 50 % would take a tremendous amount of time to analyze and add. These YSNP prediction tools could predict 80 to 90 % of the YSNP branches in the 1,200 to 2,500 range, but it takes around an hour to prepare the data input for each haplogroup and there are literally hundreds of haplogroups with new ones being discovered daily.
I keep hoping that some vendor will come out with a better chip array test (other than the very dated and limited tests by Nat Geo and LivingDNA). This would eliminate the need for YSNP predictor tools for the most part since you would just have one $100 to $150 test to get you down to a more recent time frame. It really a shame that YSEQ, Full Genomes, Nat Geo, LivingDNA and FTDNA really have failed to come out with a decent list of chip array tests. These chip array tests could include 10,000 to 50,000 YSNPs for only $100 to $150. But all we have is the R1b SNP pack, followed by the L21 SNP pack, followed by the L226/M222/L555/etc. SNP pack, followed by YSEQ testing of individual private SNPS. Not the most economical approach even with today's technology.
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I've just checked NevGen but all it told me was that there is 100% probability that I'm R1b, which I knew already.
Harry
The YSNP prediction tools do catch around 50 % of the known more recent haplogroups but the other 50 % would take a tremendous amount of time to analyze and add. These YSNP prediction tools could predict 80 to 90 % of the YSNP branches in the 1,200 to 2,500 range, but it takes around an hour to prepare the data input for each haplogroup and there are literally hundreds of haplogroups with new ones being discovered daily.
I keep hoping that some vendor will come out with a better chip array test (other than the very dated and limited tests by Nat Geo and LivingDNA). This would eliminate the need for YSNP predictor tools for the most part since you would just have one $100 to $150 test to get you down to a more recent time frame. It really a shame that YSEQ, Full Genomes, Nat Geo, LivingDNA and FTDNA really have failed to come out with a decent list of chip array tests. These chip array tests could include 10,000 to 50,000 YSNPs for only $100 to $150. But all we have is the R1b SNP pack, followed by the L21 SNP pack, followed by the L226/M222/L555/etc. SNP pack, followed by YSEQ testing of individual private SNPS. Not the most economical approach even with today's technology.
At least 50 % of the time, you can skip the first two levels of SNP packs and go directly to the L226/CTS4466/M222/etc. SNP pack based on YSNP prediction. These three Irish haplogroups can now be predicted with 99 % accuracy with 67 markers when using two variables. Here is a YouTube on what is involved. It shows you how to create your own YSNP prediction EXCEL macro:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AD1HHb0Cwfs (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AD1HHb0Cwfs)