Should I submit my DNA?

[Ray]

I am interested in doing a test to expand my own surname search, but I have a VERY unusual last name, Rucksdashel. Not knowing how large your database is, how can I be assurred that when I submit my DNA and pay my fee, that the search will NOT come back as "No Matches". I know of less than 5 living people (other than my kids) with my name in the US. As interesting as this concept seems, I am worried that it will be an expensive trail to another dead end.

[whitkeen]

I can't answer for Max as to the size and scope of the database. However, there is no way to guarantee that you will match anyone in the database, even with a common last name. Do you match the 5 living people who are not your children? If you don't know, I would start there. Also, if you do both Y-dna and mt-dna, you might find some matches through one or the other. My husband matched 2 people through mtdna, but is not closely related to either one. No Y matches at all. Think of your dna contribution as the first one, rather than matching, and you will be more comfortable with not matching anyone, should that be the case. Maybe, because of you, someone else will contribute whom you do match.

[admin]

Re: Should I submit my DNA?

Originally posted by Ray
I am interested in doing a test to expand my own surname search, but I have a VERY unusual last name, Rucksdashel. Not knowing how large your database is, how can I be assurred that when I submit my DNA and pay my fee, that the search will NOT come back as "No Matches". I know of less than 5 living people (other than my kids) with my name in the US. As interesting as this concept seems, I am worried that it will be an expensive trail to another dead end.

Our database has around 13,000 entries, 10,000 of which are customers. It is growing quite nicely and it is the largest of its kind in the world. One of the good features about our matching system is that it keeps looking for new matches as the db grows and in case of a match it keeps informing you. So, it's not good just for what we have now, but for what it will be added.

[dennis]

I'm sure you have considered this, but your surname was probably subject to quite a bit of variation in spelling when illiteracy and phonetic spelling were common prior to about 1900. There are one or two surname projects based on the soundex code, and you might consider that approach in looking for others to compare your DNA to.