Already have father & 1 of sons DNA, is it worth doing another son?

[George52]

Hi, I have both my FIL and son's (my husband) DNA, from Ancestry. We have a continued quest to try and find my FIL's (now deceased) birth father. Is it worth getting my husbands brother to take a test, or am I just wasting my money (and false hope)? Thank you

[ciderdrinker]

Hi
Well it could be worth it .
Each son gets 50% of their parents DNA.So if one son got his paternal grandmothers DNA rather paternal grandfathers he wouldn't match to any thing on your FIL side.
I have 2 step brothers ,both tested.Their DNA is vastly. different
One's origins is given as Mediterranean, Italy and Southern France while the other
is given as Scandinavian ,Viking and northern Finland.
Given their mother is from Derbyshire ,has DNA almost exclusively there but a tiny bit of Italian ,it's weird how much difference there is.
Same parents so you'd think similar but no.

(And Mother and one of her sister's is mostly the same but again 3rd sister quite different).
It's a bit of pot luck.
So if you can get a cheap test and your husband's brother  is willing ,why not ?

Ciderdrinker

[George52]

Thanks ciderdrinker! I hadn't considered that. BIL is more than willing to take one, let's hope he's willing to pay

[Nova67]

My close family testers are myself, both parents, two maternal aunts, one first cousin, my mother’s first cousin, her two children and grandchild. I am very fortunate in that they all tested for me.

One of my aunts in particular had more DNA links to work out which of the Lord families in Tasmania we must link to. It has been a big mystery and all were prominent in Tasmania’s early European settlement. If you get someone that matches all of us it is really interesting to me and must be investigated.

It is interesting to compare what is similar and different within us.

[Biggles50]

Yes it is worthwhile, if only to verify that they are full Brothers.

The bonus is that there is a fresh DNA match list to compare as the DNA inherited can be very different.

As a general DNA test methodology it is always potentially worthwhile getting the oldest relatives tested.  Grandparents, parents, aunts and uncles but with the aunts and uncles a starter would be one Paternal and one Maternal.

Then a Sibling.

Then a First Cousin from both Paternal and Maternal.

If any Second Cousin is known then it can be useful for them to test as well.

OK, so the above can work out quite expensive and so the first action on receiving a DNA test result is to look through the DNA matches and in Ancestry look at using the Common Ancestor filter and work though each one.  This should help to incorporate a number of “DNA Cousins” into your tree.

A very useful action is to use Ancestry’s Grouping feature.

Reading through this thread may give you some pointers.

https://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=863488.0

[Romilly]

Hi, I have both my FIL and son's (my husband) DNA, from Ancestry. We have a continued quest to try and find my FIL's (now deceased) birth father. Is it worth getting my husbands brother to take a test, or am I just wasting my money (and false hope)? Thank you

I was able to work out who my late Father in law’s late Father was, just from testing my husband. My Father in law was born 3 years after his supposed Father was killed at Gallipoli in WW1. There had long been a rumour that his actual Father was an Australian soldier here during WW1.

Sure enough, all of my husband’s closest paternal matches were in Australia. Many of these close matches had public Trees on Ancestry. After messaging two of his closest matches, I was sent some photos of his Grandfather. It’s such a shame that this all came to light after my Father in law died! He would have been so interested!

Best of luck with your search.

Romilly.

[AnotherDay]

You seem to be saying that a particular man (FIL) has tested at Ancestry. And you seem to be asking whether having FIL's sons test at Ancestry will help solve FIL's mystery parentage.

If this is correct, then the answer is: No.

FIL's sons will have 50% of FIL's DNA (i.e. a sub-set of FIL's DNA). The sons do not have any paternal DNA that FIL doesn't have.

[jc26red]

Does your FIL had any half siblings still living?  It might be worth asking them (if still living) or nieces/nephews from any half siblings to take a test. That way you can compare results and work out the matches... the ones that don't match belonging to your FIL are the ones that will give you a clue to where to start looking for the paternal line.

I have  recently discovered a great way to analyse these matches.
I am a bit late to the table with upgrading to RootsMagic 10 which has improved DNA logging, I have started combining this with one month trial of Ancestry pro tools which allows you to see your matches dna results, by entering that into RootsMagic, I have found some very useful clusters.  and it has certainly revealed how most of my matches relate to one another.
I have found someone who was adopted with a name change and managed narrowed down his parentage to one of a set of brothers using his results against matches with my tree.  I have also managed to work out quite a few of those private trees with the tree owner called  John Doe or as one of them is called "Apple Payment card"  I found her  through her match results to her mother which only showed up when using the pro-tools.   
It does help to have already researched everyone back to at least 4th cousin level, so anyone you don't recognise in the matches is likely to be on your paternal FIL's side. 
The only matches I have which don't  make sense is a large swathe of people who tested in the US and they seem to want to trace their trees back to the Mayflower and I'm pretty certain my family were not early pioneers.   I have also found one or two which I think Ancestry has made a blip and don't belong on my paternal side as they match with my maternal  side...  they seem very obvious errors which might throw someone looking for parentage off track.

[George52]

Thanks @jc26red, I'd forgotten about RootsMagic. No half-siblings to test unfortunately.

Thanks to others for replies also.