A lot of people have all kinds of questions about DNA tests and family tree research. Genetic genealogy has exploded over the last 15 years or so. In this video, I talk about ethnicity reports and some of the different types of tests available to genealogy researchers, including autosomal DNA, mtDNA, and Y-DNA. I also give my two cents about the pros and cons of the different DNA sites as well as my opinion on the validity of ethnicity reports.
Hello Sara!
Thank you for that informative video. I am on Ancestry, 23&me, and Family Tree DNA. I have a brother who is on Family Tree DNA, but that is all. A cousin who was interested paid for the Family Tree kits for us, hoping to find out more information about a paternal line, which is why my brother is on there. I had also hoped it would help me for my paternal side, but the Family Tree site is a little daunting for me to understand. I know that I have an unknown grandfather on my maternal side, and through Ancestry I believe I narrowed it down, but still could not figure it out. My question is about GED Match. Can I put all my DNA results, along with my brother’s (who I manage); and, if so, would it help identify which relatives are paternal and which maternal? Could it possibly help identify that branch that is unknown on my maternal side? Thank you!
My brother took a Y-DNA test with FTDNA at the 111 marker. Almost ALL of the matches are a different surname than ours. That surname also shows up in my autosomal DNA results at Ancestry in 2-3 cousins. To make matters worse, my father also had a maternal great-grandmother with the same surname!
I have since upgraded my brother’s results to the big-Y and I have also completed a family tree of my unknown cousins trying to figure out where we fit in.
Thank you for the video!