Baffled by Y-DNA test.

[Alexander Bisset]

That test might help my research. I do not know one of my great grandfathers, or 2 of my 2g grandfathers due to illegitimacy.

Are there any direct male line descendants still alive who might agree to take the test? The nature of a Y-DNA test is that there must not be any female between your great grandfather (or 2g grandfathers) and the person being tested. This is because the Y chromosome is only passed from father to son. Having a Y chromosome is what makes someone male.

 

[peter]

Alexander is spot on - 9 times out of 10 the person who wants to know the answer isn't the best person to take the test.

Much of the time you won't even know if such a person exists, let alone who they are, and that's why I introduced the DNA Research category in 2012. See the article Find Your DNA Partners for more details.

 

[Bob Spiers]

... I re-iterate I do not believe most researchers serious or otherwise have identified all their 4th cousins....

... the majority of researchers out their don't trace siblings forwards beyond a generation or so. This is dramatically more true of female siblings where finding marriages into the future and tracing surname changes means people lose interest as it becomes no longer one of "their" names, despite them being perfectly valid cousins just as they are on the male lines...

I couldn't agree more, and further I would consider it some sort of record if anyone had identified ALL their 4th cousins. It would be a Herculean task for the reasons quoted by Alexander. As for DNA testing - and I own here to having little more than academic interest - that might make a contribution in years to come, but for the foreseeable future (another 5 years at least), a much better return for money would be gained by taking out subscriptions to Ancestry & FMP and not forgetting LC.

 

[Katie Bee]

Are there any direct male line descendants still alive who might agree to take the test?

Thanks for your reply Alexander. Yes there is a male relative of one of the missing 2g grandfathers. I have been working up to asking him to take a DNA test!

Thanks Peter for reminding us about your DNA Research Category, I had over looked that.

 

[Alexander Bisset]

The key thing about "taking a DNA test" is that most people assume you want to draw blood from them, which puts you in the vampire category However once you explain its a swab of the cheek no different really from using a toothbrush then the resistance dies away. Especially useful trick is if you diffuse the request with humour and say you aren't a vampire, but do really desperately want to find out about your 2g grandparents so could he brush his mouth with a stick please.

 

[Katie Bee]

That is a super reply Alexander. You have given me more confidence to go ahead and ask. Thank you.

 

[Alexander Bisset]

Happy to have inspired you. Hope it goes well.

 

[GillW]

The problem isn't finding people further back it is tracing people further forwards.

Further the vast majority of researchers out their don't trace siblings forwards beyond a generation or so. This is dramatically more true of female siblings where finding marriages into the future and tracing surname changes means people lose interest as it becomes no longer one of "their" names, despite them being perfectly valid cousins just as they are on the male lines.

The following may be of help to members in working out forward ‘cousin relationships’.

While writing up the family tree I wanted to create an index to it, so that when looking at a list of my relations I want to be able to recognise to which ‘branch’ of my tree a blood/marriage relative (with different surname, or cousin 1st/2nd twice removed etc) is connected.

For each direct ancestor I created a page listing their siblings and their families and then another for their descendants, with the relevant degree of ‘cousinship’(?) listed. This also easily identifies any marriages between cousins.

Initially I numbered these pages numerically, but have since changed this to alphanumeric – using the first letters of the relevant direct ancestor name for the ‘alpha’ part (e.g. JEF1 for the Jeffries cousins). I have not included ancestors of the cousins’ spouses.

I copied my Ancestry ‘list of people’ (with their birth/death dates) into an Excel file, added an extra column and put the relevant page number for each relative into that. The direct relatives are in ‘upper case’. When printed off this provides a handy index of relations!

(I suggested to Peter this could be a topic for his newsletter but he has not taken it up - yet).

 

[Bob Spiers]

.....While writing up the family tree I wanted to create an index to it, so that when looking at a list of my relations I want to be able to recognise to which ‘branch’ of my tree a blood/marriage relative (with different surname, or cousin 1st/2nd twice removed etc) is connected.

For each direct ancestor I created a page listing their siblings and their families and then another for their descendants, with the relevant degree of ‘cousinship’(?) listed. This also easily identifies any marriages between cousins.

Into what medium did you create the 'page'? Was it a text document like Word or from within a FT program?

 

[GillW]

Into what medium did you create the 'page'? Was it a text document like Word or from within a FT program?

Yes it was a Word document.

 

[peter]

That is a super reply Alexander. You have given me more confidence to go ahead and ask. Thank you.

Katie, the other thing is to make it absolutely clear that you'll be paying for the test - in my experience many people don't.

Stating this clearly from the outset not only removes any concerns your relative might have, it also underlines how important it is to you.

 

[peter]

While writing up the family tree I wanted to create an index to it, so that when looking at a list of my relations I want to be able to recognise to which ‘branch’ of my tree a blood/marriage relative (with different surname, or cousin 1st/2nd twice removed etc) is connected.

One of the best ways to keep track of how you're related to someone you've found is to enter this information in the Notes box on the My Contact page. The notes you make are displayed beneath the relevant entry on your My Cousins page, so you can see at a glance how each person is connected to you.

Yet another reason to invite the cousins you know to join! Remember that when you use your My Referrals page to invite a cousin to join they'll be linked to you as soon as they register.