Results from Family Finder- What's next? what other tests should i do?

[irmb]

HI, I am new to DNA testing. I am very confused and have a few questions.

I tested my elderly dad and his Family finder results showed his admixtured background:
60% African (YOruba), 40% French, Spanish

Dr. McDonald confirmed the results by showing roughly the same percent but with other population matches:
Yoruba- French
Yoruba-Spanish
Mandenka- French


He said that the most likely matches are the ones at the top and that French could also mean English/Scottish. So, this is very confusing to me. Why can the French also indicate English Scottish?

To make things even more confusing, Dr. McDonald's X chromosome painting came back showing an overwhelming majority (about 80%) of Caucasian blocks, about 10% African and another 10% Middle Eastern.

I am completely confused. I did the genetic testing to find or confirm East Indian ancestry and found nothing. And I am now perplexed by the X chromosome painting which showed very, very little African. It just does not match the X chromosome typical pattern for admixtured people in the Caribbean. So, to clarify the results, which other tests do you suggest I do?

Will the mtdna further clarify the X chromosome map?
What information will I gain from the y chromosome test? I am not really interested in deep ancestry. I am more interested in recent ancestry.
Which y dna test should i do?

Thanks
Trying to find my family tree and facing difficulties because of migration patterns, lack of records, etc.. I am hoping that DNA can help me shed light on my history.

[efgen]

He said that the most likely matches are the ones at the top and that French could also mean English/Scottish. So, this is very confusing to me. Why can the French also indicate English Scottish?

Europeans have mixed quite a bit over the centuries, so it's difficult to distinguish between populations from different modern-day European countries. The reference sample from France was just the closest match to your father's DNA in the current reference database. As more populations are added to the reference database, your Population Finder results may change a bit.

To make things even more confusing, Dr. McDonald's X chromosome painting came back showing an overwhelming majority (about 80%) of Caucasian blocks, about 10% African and another 10% Middle Eastern.

Your father's X chromosome was inherited from his mother only. Perhaps she had much more Caucasian ancestry than African or Middle Eastern? If not, then your father just may have inherited more of the Caucasian segments from his mother's X chromosomes. Women have two X chromosomes, but only one gets passed down to each child, and it's a mixture of the mother's two. So each child gets 50% of the mother's two X's.

Will the mtdna further clarify the X chromosome map?

mtDNA and the X chromosome are different.

As mentioned above, your father's X chromosome was inherited from his mother, but she had two -- one from each parent. So the X is essentially a composite of your paternal grandmother's ancestry, from both sides of her family.

mtDNA focuses on the tester's direct maternal line (mother's mother's mother's mother, etc) without influence from any male ancestors. So your mtDNA will be different from your father's mtDNA, since you inherited your mtDNA from your mother, while your father inherited it from his mother. An mtDNA test will match you up with other people in the FTDNA database who you share a direct maternal ancestor with. You'll also get an mtDNA haplogroup, which is deep-ancestry information -- the haplogroup will indicate where your direct maternal line originated thousands to tens of thousands of years ago. Different haplogroups originated in different areas of the world.

What information will I gain from the y chromosome test? I am not really interested in deep ancestry. I am more interested in recent ancestry.
Which y dna test should i do?[/COLOR]

Y-DNA focuses on the direct paternal line (father's father's father's father, etc), and only men can take it. Like with mtDNA, you'll get both genealogical matches and a haplogroup.

Elise

[irmb]

Thanks so much for your thorough reply. I might go ahead and do the mtdna.

[tomcat]

Are there other family elders available to test to further define the lines of descent of your various ancestries?

Testing your father's Y and Mt will disclose his direct-line paternal and maternal ancestries and, while that may be useful and interesting, those results will not be of much help in sorting his autosomal results - direct-line DNA's are ancient and slow to change whereas autosomal DNA is churned in every generation.

As to Y and Mt tests - go for the most complete tests you can afford.

[mixedkid]

I think one very important thing to remember is that our FamilyFinder results are ongoing; new people continue to have their autosomal DNA tested and that gives us new distant cousins and new inforformation about our families. That first core list of cousins is important, but we cannot ignore the growing evidence that sometimes only slowly trickles in over time, perhaps over a year or two. Patience is the key to all of this.