Why take a Y-chromosome test?

[neelawson]

Someone's suggested I take a Y chromosome test as if it's a magic bullet to break through my ancestry blockage but I don't see the point. I'm trying to ID my father who was probably Polish but I only have low DNA matches (< 100cM) at any sites and I'm a member of every known one - Ancestry, MyHeritage, 23andme, Living DNA, Family Tree DNA, Gedmatch.

From my 23andme test my paternal haplogroup is E-V13 which 1 in 39 of their customers have and it was apparently spread throughout Europe by Balkan conscripts to the Roman army early AD. I have a handful of low matches at 23andme who also have E-V13 but can't find any connection to them, so the connection could be hundreds of generations / several thousand ago. Any value in the test surely relies on other men having taken it too doesn't it or am I missing something?

[4b2]

You could still use the below 100cM matches, by finding groups of people with common ancestors in them.

The chances of getting close matches on y-DNA are not that high, particularly if you don't have US ancestry, and even lower for non-Anglo ancestry. Very few people have taken this test outside of that sphere, and if you do get matches, they are more likely to be from diasporas.

The best COA is to get the FamilyTreeDNA basic test, which is about $100 when on offer. Once you get the results you can see if you have matches that would be worth upgrading to the big-Y test, which is about $450 - the upgrade is less.

My paternal line is unknown from my great-grandfather. I have the big-Y test and my closest match is from a MRCA born somewhere in the window of 1300 (though the range is very vague). All it's given me that is genealogically useful is a surname, which has provided a tentative theory. Though I don't have any autosomal matches with the surname.

If your ancestry is recent Polish the chances are the closest match will be even more remote. I've also seen English y-DNA tests where there are no relatives at all.

[neelawson]

You could still use the below 100cM matches, by finding groups of people with common ancestors in them.

The chances of getting close matches on y-DNA are not that high, particularly if you don't have US ancestry, and even lower for non-Anglo ancestry. Very few people have taken this test outside of that sphere, and if you do get matches, they are more likely to be from diasporas.

The best COA is to get the FamilyTreeDNA basic test, which is about $100 when on offer. Once you get the results you can see if you have matches that would be worth upgrading to the big-Y test, which is about $450 - the upgrade is less.

My paternal line is unknown from my great-grandfather. I have the big-Y test and my closest match is from a MRCA born somewhere in the window of 1300 (though the range is very vague). All it's given me that is genealogically useful is a surname, which has provided a tentative theory. Though I don't have any autosomal matches with the surname.

If your ancestry is recent Polish the chances are the closest match will be even more remote. I've also seen English y-DNA tests where there are no relatives at all.

That's interesting - though even Google can't tell me what COA stands for! Besides that do I understand from what you say that even if I took that test the usefulness of it depends on which other ppl have taken the same test with the same company???

[Andy J2022]

That's interesting - though even Google can't tell me what COA stands for!

Course of action, I suspect

[Biggles50]

A yDNA is not necessarily a Magic Bullet, but with work it can provide avenues of research.

I would suggest that you buy either a 67 or 111 yDNA test, then if you get the results you seek fine, the main usage of a Big y test would be in providing a more accurate haplogroup.

I did a y111 test and the results gave me matches with the closest match predicting that we have a MRCA from about 1750. 

The second closest match has a predicted MRCA further away in time.

Both these matches have the same family surname and this confirms to me where the NPE in my timeline is likely to have taken place, namely 1880.

One thing to note is that you may not find the actual “Family Surname” that you seek, you will more likely get hundreds of matches with hundreds of different surnames.

I got lucky in that the results above confirmed my research into a particular family.

The link is to a pretty good tutorial, there are two in the series.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67P9hv7nDZg

[neelawson]

A yDNA is not necessarily a Magic Bullet, but with work it can provide avenues of research.

I would suggest that you buy either a 67 or 111 yDNA test, then if you get the results you seek fine, the main usage of a Big y test would be in providing a more accurate haplogroup.

I did a y111 test and the results gave me matches with the closest match predicting that we have a MRCA from about 1750. 

The second closest match has a predicted MRCA further away in time.

Both these matches have the same family surname and this confirms to me where the NPE in my timeline is likely to have taken place, namely 1880.

One thing to note is that you may not find the actual “Family Surname” that you seek, you will more likely get hundreds of matches with hundreds of different surnames.

I got lucky in that the results above confirmed my research into a particular family.

What do you mean ' get the results you seek',  I haven't got a family name to seek. Where did you test and where do the matches come from, presumably only others who've taken the same test with the same company? Is Family Tree DNA the only site which does these tests so you're therefore reliant on finding other people who've tested there and who have the same haplogroup and are willing to share that information?

[4b2]

Is Family Tree DNA the only site which does these tests so you're therefore reliant on finding other people who've tested there and who have the same haplogroup and are willing to share that information?

FamilyTreeDNA is the only large provider of y-DNA and mtDNA tests. The usefulness of the tests for genealogy is solely based on people related to you taking them. If you do have a close match, it's possible they don't list enough info for it to be useful. As with autosomal tests like Ancestry - it's pot luck. If your paternal line is Polish the chances are low of have a close match. The majority of tests seem to be from US persons. There's probably 500k-1m people who have taken the y-DNA test and maybe 10-20% of those who have taken the genealogically useful test.

[neelawson]

Is Family Tree DNA the only site which does these tests so you're therefore reliant on finding other people who've tested there and who have the same haplogroup and are willing to share that information?

FamilyTreeDNA is the only large provider of y-DNA and mtDNA tests. The usefulness of the tests for genealogy is solely based on people related to you taking them. If you do have a close match, it's possible they don't list enough info for it to be useful. As with autosomal tests like Ancestry - it's pot luck. If your paternal line is Polish the chances are low of have a close match. The majority of tests seem to be from US persons. There's probably 500k-1m people who have taken the y-DNA test and maybe 10-20% of those who have taken the genealogically useful test.

Thanks for explaining that.  BTW US person's could have Poiish ancestry of course.

[4b2]

US person's could have Poiish ancestry of course.

Yes. You're most likely to match with diasporas in the US.