Which test to take next?

[EdwardRHill]

I have done the Y-DNA 37 marker test at FTDNA and have no matches here. Meaning close matches to me like 32 o/f 37 or better. I have matches at another site that are close with a different surname. I have found a family that has the same surname as the people I matched up with and that family is well documented back to a town in England. The same town as one of my matches has been able to traced his line too.

He lives in Wales close to that town. The family that I found and can trace their line back to that town has agreed to the Y-DNA 37 marker test. I plan to do the 67 and try to get them to do the upgrade if we match. Now I waiting for the results. But I was thinking of doing a mtDNA but now this family finder test has come along.

The deep clade is out of the question for now. Until I get a close match here, I don't plan to take that test. So what test will bring me back the most interesting results mtDNA or this new Family Finder Test? Thanks

[tomcat]

What would be 'interesting' to you?

The mtDNA is matrilineal exclusively and the atDNA Family Finder is not exclusively patrilineal or matrilineal but a combination of both.

FF will take you beyond yDNA and mtDNA and find cousins who share neither of your haplogroups. The hope, genealogically-speaking, is that you will be able to triangulate off those cousins to work around brick walls.

[Kathleen Carrow]

I think the mtDNA test was really never significant genealogically speaking.I have done the FGS and my very closest match and I are still working on the tie through autosomal DNA.

I tested lots of Y DNA cousins as I have one sister and Dad was an only child. My family mysteries stayed mysterious for 4 years of testing.

When I did autosomal through DNA tribes of course I have the correct results for my sister and I since it is the same collection of chromosomes.However the results were skewed by the database it was compared against.
Through autosomal at Relative Finder I was able to understand that what looked both Native and Baltic was actually Northern Norwegian with strong Saami hints.Voila~! My Dad's stepfather was my biological grandfather.( A lot of other things happened to prove that like scads of Norwegian matches and multiple assessments of my results)

So like Tomcat I agree that atDNA with it's reaching across gender lines and looking at the whole genome (sort of) is the answer. It was long in coming and it takes a lot of work. Many many folks do NOT have a Gedcom or anything besides a name or two.Some think it is or should be a crystal ball. It is not.

When you get cousin matches verifiable with some paper records it is finally proof.

[EdwardRHill]

I think the one that interest me the most would be the one that helps me with figuring out my family ancestry. I had thought of doing the mtDNA because I heard that people were getting a lot of matches with it, and I hoped to do the same.

But then I read about autosomal / admixture which could help with the Indian rumor in my family. When I looked up that test and saw the cost I said to myself I want be finding out about that rumor anytime soon, it cost 500.

Now this Family Finder test has come along and it looks to me too be the best one out of the bunch. I just wonder how much its going to cost. Thanks for your replies.

[PDHOTLEN]

"paper trails"

Along with spending money on DNA testing, one ought to do some old fashioned genealogical investigating. Here's a free website:

http://www.familysearch.org/eng/default.asp

[EdwardRHill]

Thanks but I have been doing genealogy for on and off 10 years now. At one time I had over seven thousand names in my tree when Ancestry had the fetcher where you could add 5 generation at a time. Which was fun to see how far back it would take me and the famous names it said I was related too wink wink. Once I got around to checking the information Ancestry had given me I realized it was mostly bad and that I was going to have to do my own research to make sure I had good information. So now my tree has about 1600 names and I'm in no hurry to ad names just to see how many I can get into my tree. I think Family Search is run by the Mormons and I don't want them getting my information. Here is another free site

http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/

[darroll]

We ran into the same problem.
Bad information.

Will be getting the new test just to help others.

[PDHOTLEN]

Re bad info

I realize input is variable and often false. I don't automatically accept what is provided. But it improves over time. I traced one mtDNA match from Oregon back to Jamestown using ancestry.com, and it looks like a good trail. I see U5 matches radiating out from it. I don't see anything wrong with using Mormon derived data at all. But even some of their entries are sometimes wrong at first. The problem is that old entries stay on the list. You have to refer to your family history as a check. But I'm old (going on 73) and remember things that younger generations or siblings don't know.

[EdwardRHill]

Darroll

Mighty nice of you to get the test just to help others. I was hoping to help myself but if it helps someone else out well that would be OK to. I have some privacy issues and concerns about what will be done with my sample after I'm done getting information from it.

PD

No ones information is prefect and that's not the problem I have with the Mormon's, they probably have better information than most. The problem I have is one of the reasons they do Genealogy, and that reason is the collecting of names of people who have died so they can have volunteers stand in for the died and be baptized in the names of those people who have died. So they can become Mormons. I think they would have done that when they were alive if that's what they wanted. I think Sixty Minutes did a story about them and they showed pictures of the inside of the Temple and the place where they did the Baptizing. The tub or pool or what ever it was had bulls head around the perimeter of the thing they baptized people in. That's just to hard for me to swallow.

I signed up for the FF test the day I posted this. I have already gotten a email inviting me to take the FF test. Now all I have to do is decided if I want to or not.

[mwhendrix]

The issue with on-line lineage resources is that they can be DLed and re-posted by a new “owner.” To quote EdwardRHill, “At one time I had over seven thousand names in my tree when Ancestry had the fetcher where you could add 5 generation at a time.” And “now my tree has about 1600 names” In 35+years of research my family database has about 6,200 names. Almost every entry is associated with a reference and not one of the references is a “.ged”. When I see “research” posted at Ancestry with more than 1,000,000 records, it is apparent that it is nothing more than the “cut and paste” accumulation of data; no “research” was involved. And, if the underlying data is wrong, GIGO. Because of this, I will not post any of my research to the web.
Some may view this as being selfish. I view this as protecting the integrity of my research. I will share research with individuals after reaching agreement that they will not post the information that I have provided. PDHOTLEN, I’d like to share Norwegian research information with you: morfar left More og Romsdal in 1909.

[EdwardRHill]

When I had added 7000 names it was just for fun. There was no way I was going to believe that information was correct. At one time I keep my tree privet and felt the same way as you. But I figured why not make it public. Its not going to stop people from doing what they are going to do anyway. They can not change my tree only I can. The information I have comes from all sorts of Documentation not just Ancestry. If I find something I look to find three pieces of documentation to back it up. Using sites like ancestry you are going to find some clues faster. I will not call you selfish it is your research and your time that went into it. It is yours to do with as you please. I find nothing wrong with that.