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General => Ancestral Family Tree DNA Testing => Topic started by: calvert on Wednesday 16 August 23 16:54 BST (UK)
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Hi some years ago I undertook dna testing through ancestry and have since put the data on myheritage, livingdna and familydna.
Lots of hits on maternal side, and on my fathers maternal side, but not one for Calvert’s. (Fathers father).
Recently I discovered that my paternal grandfather isn’t who I thought it was, thus accounting for no matches.
I therefore want to take a y-dna test now but don’t know where to start. Has anyone any advice please.
Thankyou.
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There are some Y-DNA test Companies out there 23&Me and Living DNA to name but two.
As it happens I have on my table a Y-DNA test kit from Living DNA, as I have doubts about my Paternal paper trail.
The issue seems to be in actually having recent DNA match’s once the test is processed.
Living DNA does, if the reviews are correct, have more accurate Haplogroup identification, presumably as their testing process tests more SNPs in the Y chromosome than 23&Me does. At least that is what Family History Fanatics reported in their Review video, this group is the one behind the video tutorials on Gedmatch.
So basically if you are in no rush, I’d wait a while to see how it goes with my test as I’ll post the findings here in due course. I’ll take the test Thursday and post it the same day, not sure how much that will cost as it has to go from the UK to Texas in the USA, so about a six week turnaround if a prior My Heritage test is any indication.
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Hi some years ago I undertook dna testing through ancestry and have since put the data on myheritage, livingdna and familydna.
Lots of hits on maternal side, and on my fathers maternal side, but not one for Calvert’s. (Fathers father).
Recently I discovered that my paternal grandfather isn’t who I thought it was, thus accounting for no matches.
I therefore want to take a y-dna test now but don’t know where to start. Has anyone any advice please.
Thankyou.
What makes you think your paternal grandfather is not your actual paternal grandfather? Or is it simply no one has yet tested from that side?
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Thanks for your reply, I was informed this information from another family member.
Others have suggested familytreedna is the best to test y-dna, but I am looking for any advice. Thanks
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I always check anything told to me by family for myself. Also just because you cannot find any matches on your assumed paternal grandfathers line does not always mean something is awry. DNA testing is not as cut and dried as it seems, it could be no one on your paternal grandfathers side has tested yet. I know the Y DNA is passed down the paternal line, form father to so and so on. Like mt DNA is passed down the maternal line. Your mothers, mothers mother etc.
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Thanks again. I do know who I thought was my paternal grandfather, isn’t.
Do you know the best means of testing y-dna.
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Thanks again. I do know who I thought was my paternal grandfather, isn’t.
Do you know the best means of testing y-dna.
Was your father born within marriage, if you do not mind me asking, where was your supposed grandfather at the time? Was he away in service or something?
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Thanks for reply, I’m afraid I can’t answer those questions on here. I do know my grandfather (as I thought he was) couldn’t have fathered my dad.
Any idea on best site for testing y-dna.
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Hi, I am more than happy to be shot down by other people but I am not sure how much YDNA is going to tell you. The number of people having had it done to a sufficient level of accuracy is still pretty small. At the Y700 level on FTDNA, I have nine matches none of whom share my paternal Surname, though I have a fair number of matches on the Ancestry Autosomal tests, so I know it is correct. The confirmed links I have are in the flexible spellings zone, pre 1600.
I think you are more likely to get mileage out of the hard work of cluster analysis. MyHeritage has quite a nice auto cluster tool. Or I have done it manually in Ancestry using the colour tool.
If you have a reasonable number of matches then I would expect that you will have a reasonable number of unexpected close matches? Seeing how they cluster is your best bet I would think.
It should be simplified hopefully by the new Ancestry Parent 1 and Parent 2 feature.
There is a lot of information out there on how to approach this. There are some good links in the forum and I am sure there will be other people who can suggest others.
I have had good success in working out where matches who do not all have trees fit into my tree using this approach.
I hope this is not too long winded a reply.
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Thanks for your help. I’m on myheritage but not to confident on how auto clusters work, but I’ll give it a go. Was thinking of purchasing the y dna test on familytreedna as well.
Thankyou
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Hi, autoclusters works by grouping together people who share DNA. Including you, although it does not make this very clear. The first cluster will be people who share most DNA with you and each other. Say cousins, then you might get a group of your grandfathers/mothers cousins descendants, they all share bits of their shared grandparents DNA so they Cluster together.
If you look at each cluster, can you assign that cluster to an ancestor? Looking at your tree, depending on whether people have built a tree on myheritage this can be easy or not. You may have to do some work to extend their trees. I would pick the easy ones first. The ones you can’t find obvious links to are likely related to your mystery Grandfather. This link may also be helpful. There is a whole new world of DNA out there for you if you have not done this before.
https://dna-explained.com/category/clusters/
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I have broadly sorted my dna matches into categories relating to my grandparents.
My results on ancestry, above 20 cM, are 1120, 145, 179 and 60 matches.
I believe the first one is so high because my great grandfather was from North America, they had large families and didn’t know where their beds were. So many illegitimate children in that line searching for answers.
So numbers may vary.
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I agree with David. I believe some people have success with Y tests, but it is a gamble.
For my husband with one of the most common names in the UK he has about 8 matches in total, and not one with his surname. Any connections to Y matches could lead back thosands of years.
I would revisit the autosomal results which are likley to be more useful than a Y test.
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I'm with the idea of clustering. I had my Y DNA tested with FamilyTree DNA in 2004 and still get new matches. They seem to be a reputable company but although I have approximately 30 "Exact Matches" none of them has an appropriate surname. The problem with Y-DNA is timescale. Even your exact matches may relate to something that happened 100s of years ago, which is not a lot of use for most purposes. You may however get lucky and find an exact match with a surname that is meaningful but unless you know the name beforehand how will you know what you are looking for?
MyHeritage has a very neat auto-clustering tool which takes seconds to use, but I found it reasonably hard to decipher once it's done. If you are comfortable using spreadsheets you may find the more laborious but still quite fun idea of doing your own clustering helpful. Having to do it yourself may give you a better understanding of why and how you are doing it. The Leeds Method of clustering is very well explained by Dana Leeds, who invented it, here https://www.danaleeds.com/the-leeds-method/ Essentially you start by listing your matches between about 400 and 90 cM in a column then, using the shared matches information, group them into separate columns using your own colour scheme. It should help you to see which of your matches are associated with your paternal and maternal sides and even your 4 grandparents.
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A lot of people find the Leeds method useful but you need to have matches in that specific cM range for it to work - so not useful in every case.
Both My Heritage and FTDNA have useful tools which may help you.
Every tool is worth trying, and I think persistance is necessary. :)
Added:
Thinking again, and apologies if this has alreadybeen mentioned (I just skipped over the thread) …. But if you have tested with Ancestry who group matches into parent sides, and you have plenty of maternal matches, won’t the rest be either paternal or unassigned? You could start by looking at the closest matches on the “paternal” line. Do you know who the closest match on that side is? (Eg a known cousin).
If your father or any earlier generations are still living I advise that you have him/them DNA tested too, as well as any of his siblings.
Before going down the Y DNA route, which is expensive and likely to disappoint, I suggest exploring all aspects of your autosomal results. If money is no object, there is no harm in taking a Y test. FTDNA are good and you might as well opt for the BigY - biggest and best.
If you go ahead with it, please pop back and let is know how you get on.
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It sounds like most people haven't had much success with Y-DNA testing so I just wanted to add it has been quite helpful for my research.
I did a Y-111 test and have only one match at that level, but his surname is similar to mine (Neale and Naylor), and ancestors from same general area of England. Tracing my paternal line back to the 1700s I find Neale was spelled Nail, so the jump to spelling Naylor is not a stretch. Although I think the link to my Y-DNA match was a few generations further back, it does seem to confirm the paper trail research and maybe with time will be able to more definitively establish the connection with the match.
To research my paternal grandfather's surname (a quite rare one), I asked two cousins on different lines with my grandfather's surname to take a Y-DNA test. Reason for two tests was in my grandfather direct line there was illegitimacy a few generations back, so the Y-DNA of this branch is different to most people with the surname. I was hoping this test may help establish the father of my illegitimate ancestor, and it hasn't disappointed. I have not got a definitive identification of the father but have two close Y-DNA matches that narrow down the unknown father to one family, several brothers are on the possible list at the moment. After knowing the probable surname of our ancestor from the Y-DNA I went to my mum's autosomal DNA matches on Ancestry, and I am currently working through these matches to narrow this down further.
The third test has linked my paternal grandfather's surname to a similar but much more common surname which branched probably in the late 1600s. This one I upgraded to BigY to further evaluate.
I might be lucky that these tests all were helpful in my research, and certainly it's not inexpensive, but was worth it. I tested with FamilyTreeDNA as they have the largest Y database. I would suggest starting with a Y-37 test. If you have matches at this level, then it may be worth upgrading to a higher level, however if there are no matches at 37 then there's probably no reason to pursue higher level testing at this stage (unless you are just looking for a more refined haplogroup).
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My husband tested with familytreedna back in 2014 at the request of someone else with the same (not common) surname.
We had a name group forum going back then and this other person came back with an unusual result which didn’t match with anyone else in the group. His paper trail was almost identical to my husband originating in the same area of Limerick, same social standing etc., his line went to America/Canada and our line came to London.
Because of the unusual result indicating Native American heritage no less, our group name administrator suggested the least expensive test just to rule out the connection. I was positive it would be right unless there had been a NPE. The result came back with a match… dating back to 1720. As our line hadn’t been anywhere near America, we took some further SNP tests along with another match originating from Limerick who had done Y111.
The results came back showing that there was a genetic difference detween the native american and an European/Asian origin.
I should add the FTDNA administrator was also part of our surname group forum. Most people on the forum had done a YDNA test, the results were sorted into clusters by the administrator.
I would suggest you join FTDNA, and search for the name group for your grandfather first to see how it is organised. You can also email the administrator for that named group to ask for their advice, some are more helpful than others.
The tests are not cheap, and a general rule of thumb for a reasonably accurate match would be the Y111 test.
https://www.familytreedna.com/products/y-dna
When the results come back, check out your matches which you will see in your profile pages.
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A further note…
Read up on Haplogroups.
Older haplogroups like the one my husband has are rare and we have very few matches. The ones we do have which have different names all originate from the same area.
Younger/later haplogroups are more common and there will be more people matching, hence the need to do the more expensive Y111 test. Make sure your tree is accurate, locations and dates etc., this will help when trying to make connections. You can email your matches, not everyone replies though or has enough info to help make the connection.
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Thankyou for all your replies and advice. Regarding ancestry I’m in the process of categorising all matches into maternal and paternal. I presume somewhere in the unassigned maybe the answer to who my paternal grandfather is. With regards myheritage and auto clusters, there is one cluster involving 5 members that I can’t assign to any part of my tree. One of these matches has shared dna of 203cm to me, so quite a close family link, however I have no idea how this person and the cluster fits into my tree…again I’m hoping this cluster may shed light on my paternal grandad.
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Happy Hunting!
Two things spring to mind.
Perhaps try unlinking your paper grandfather from your Ancestry tree. He may be confusing the Ancestry matching algorithm.
Also, don’t ignore your Paternal Ancestry matches, the matching algorithm may be picking up paternal matches correctly.
Finally that 203cm match certainly sounds interesting, hopefully one of those matches has built a tree? Or at least the start of one. I have built a few based on that to try and explain dna matches, it is so much easier working backwards in time to try and find someone in the right place. Though even then it can leave a woolly bit in the middle. I have one New Zealand link that I can get back to London , but can’t get the link between him in London and the likely link to my family in Angus, Scotland. But that is what makes it fun!
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The 203cM match looks promising.
Hopefully they have a useful name you can build a tree around and other shared match’s that can be incorporated into said tree.
203cM has a high probability of being in the 2C range and for that it is at Great Grandfather level as a possible MRCA so again, hopeful.
A 240cM match to me is a Half 2C in the tree branch I created to solve a missing Father from a Birth Certificate, whilst there will probably never be a paper trail it is the best one can do.
Also you may like to look up Court Records as there may be a Paternity claim against the Father. This may require a visit to the appropriate County Archives as not all such records are digitised.
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Thanks for replies, yes the 203 match is promising. I’ve made contact with the person several times as his family/ancestry is from where my dad was born. Unfortunately none of my efforts so far have been positive, he is unwilling to help, or doesn’t know any information.
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Hi, probably they don’t know, even if they know the person was a bit of a rogue, it can a take time to come to terms with. The best thing is to build trees and confirm all the matches make sense. The you can potentially go in to more detail with chromosome matching. But you have to accept that that might be as far as you get, with an 80 or 90 percent probability of your ancestry.
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Thanks, yes I know that I may not probably ever know for sure, which is really frustrating as 30 years off/on building a tree thinking my paternal ancestors were Calvert’s, to be suddenly told they are not.
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With wars etc. resulting in lots of deaths of young men, it is not at all unusual that you might have no matches with a particular surname. I have an entire branch which started out as one surname but now has many matches of a variety of surnames all through women. Unfotunately all the men died out in wars, or were childless, so none of my matches on that branch have the 'original' surname.
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Thanks, yes I know that I may not probably ever know for sure, which is really frustrating as 30 years off/on building a tree thinking my paternal ancestors were Calvert’s, to be suddenly told they are not.
Although it is who bought you up that counts, and the fact you inherited the Calvert surname even if your dad was not a biological Calvert. I found out that my uncle born Sep 1944 was likely not the son of my grandfather as his war records hint this, and uncle looked different to the other siblings, such as taller, had darker skin and was more extroverted.