Liverpool & South West Lancashire FHS - Forum

I'm thinking of doing a DNA test on my paternal line that goes back to Ireland does anyone have any experience of these tests or insights to offer about the products/prices/surname groups etc?

Blue

Watch out on Ancestry, a while ago they had a 50% offer on, if there's no longer an advert for the bargain, give them a ring and ask about it, no harm in trying!

I'm sure somebody tried an offer - did they go to Chester or Wales I think? and updated us about the results a little while ago, but I can't find the message, it was on the Liverpool Forum.

Let us know how you get on with it, we'd be interested to know.

Hi Blue,
Myself and 3 erstwhile same surname possible X-times-removed 'cousins' did DNA tests last year. All four of us have confirmed long-term roots in Ireland going back beyond 5 generations and while the results were interesting to an extent they were overall disappointing.

I was a close match [10 out of 12 'markers'] with a 'cousin' in the US but nowhere near a match with the other two; one in the UK and the other in Ireland. The close match indicated a common paternal ancestor between 1000 and about 1,500 years ago! There's no way we can find out who he was and where he was from, although the DNA does point to where the bloodline originated from 2,500 to 25,000 years ago, possibly via the Basque area of Spain.

However, I had a perfect 100% match with two people in the company's database; one in Wales and the other in New Zealand! The Welsh one wished to remain anonymous [no email address or contact details] but I was able to contact the NZ one. Turned out his paternal g.g.father arrived in NZ from Essex about 1875. His surname, Hunter, had never appeared in any of my lot. I have been able to find his family back in Essex in 1861, 51 and 41. From ages it would appear the Hunter g.g.g.g.father was born about 1770/75. That period is the same as when my g.g.g.father was born in County Clare, Ireland. According to the DNA company a 100% match means a common ancestor between 500 and 1000 years ago.

So basically, despite the hype, the DNA test only told me that the people I wanted to be my lost cousins from a 100 or so years ago couldn't be and that sometime, over a 1000 years ago, there was a man who became a g.father [to the nth place] to both me and the lad from NZ!

I was disappointed in the lack of accuracy in 'event' timelines and it reinforced my belief that surnames can be purely accidental. After all, it isn't that long ago, in DNA terms, that surnames didn't exist as such. You were known by a first name plus a trade and/or place name. If my Irish ancestors did, as in family lore, originally arrive in England with William the Conqueror in 1066 and then Ireland in the 13th century they would have been merely Tom, Dick or Harry the cooper, smith, archer, Hunter etc, in the service of a Duke or Sir Somebody.

I've learned that the basic DNA test compares from 12 to 15 so-called 'markers'. In order to get accuracy in relationships down to the first cousin level one needs comparison of over 30 'markers'. And the more markers, the higher the cost. It isn't as easy as CSI and the like make it look!

As far recommending a company I went with Oxford Ancestors in the UK http://www.oxfordancestors.com/
I didn't go with Anc in the US because a Wirral friend of mine who did found himself inundated with emails from potential long-lost 'cousins' from all over the States who had a 95% marker match. As far as he knew he had no emigre relatives anywhere!

Brian
[whose surname could have been Cooper, the family trade though 4 generations!]

Thanks Mary and Brian. These products are pretty expensive although there is a surname group "discount" available for the site I was looking at yesterday:-

http://www.familytreedna.com

I may be disappointed by the results so I will leave it for the time being. I don't think I will get the sort of information I want such as confirmation of the Male Y Chromosome DNA going back to the County Cork area.

I was also wondering about a cousin of my Dad's whether if he and my Dad did the Y test it would produce an identical match that would confirm the markers of the male line that goes back to County Cork.

Blue

Hi Blue,
Be assured that the standard and the up-market [and much more expensive] DNA tests offered by genealogy companies will not tell you anything about the previous 5 or 6 generations. In most cases this could apply to the previous 10 or more generations. Even my 100% perfect match of 15 'markers' out of 15 in total, didn't produce a link to the other 'match' despite going back 5+ generations.

The tests won't tell you anything about specific areas such as 'County Cork' etc, because they are much too recent in history. You would get an indication that your paternal ancestor may have been a Roman living in Egypt around 100 BC, or he was in northern Europe of Germanic tribal stock around 3000 years ago. Or, like mine was probably in the west of Ireland around 15,000 to 20,000 years ago and got there from the Alpine area of what is now Switzerland via quite a long stay [around a 1000 years] in the Basque country of northern Spain. No wonder I take a good tan!

In my opinion these genealogy DNA tests are just money-spinning ventures and far too much is anticipated from them. If you are really interested in where your paternal line 'probably' comes from, then OK it is worth doing. But, the science is still growing and learning in the field of genealogy and there's quite a lot of controversy about interpretation of the various genetic markers, etc.

Dickiesam