In part I, I tried to show how my wife and I began a considerably different way to shed light on our genetic past! Instead of just pushing back against our "brick wall" ancestors, we thought we might see what we could learn about our even more distant ancestors by studying our Y-DNA and mtDNA and by teaming up those with similar mutations we can see WHERE they are living and, with standard family data, we could see where their ancestors lived. With enough genetic similarity by grouping those with similar mutations together, we would have the ability to generalize (albeit carefully!) from the patterns of each of our DNA and mtDNA mutations to a similar group of other's DNA and mtDNA that closely matched ours! When we got our respective DNA and mtDNA results we had to study the literature and learn a whole parcel of new terminology. In about 3 weeks I began to see how to use most of the many extant chart and graphs - at least I was beginning to be able to see what I needed to know! After 2 months I finally found how to check my Y-DNA mutations against a European database of mutations compiled from a number of Countries I discovered that I was closely aligned to the Atlantic Modal Type. Loosely defined as a group of mutations that correlates with original inhabitants of the Atlantic areas around costal Europe. About 10 % of all samples of Europeans fall into that typology. Charts also showed that my initial 12 marker study correlated with a number of individuals in North Europe, Eastern Mediterranean, North Asian areas and in Malaysian/Australian pacific areas. All data used was from individuals in a world wide study but none had enough persons to justify a strong connection. However, study of my findings is beginning to show that I have ancient connections to world wide groups of peoples. My mother's mtDNA which I have a copy of showed that she was from many ancient old world locations. However her type - "U" (an Oxford researcher designation) - showed that the group she most closely conforms to is "Karelian" -an obscure ancient Northern Finnish/Russian people! Then my wife found that her mtDNA was clearly "U4". she was strongly aligned with the ancient KARELIAN" peoples!!! Then I checked my findings on FamilyTree DNA. I had developed a 4 generations chart of my father's ancestors. The last two generations were both in Sweden so I said that my "ethnic" place was Sweden. All of the other Y-DNA participants had done the same. There were now about 14,000 participants with 8,000 from the U. of Arizona - a pretty good sample size. There were 11 persons in the 14,000 who fairly closely correlated to my findings. They were as follows: 1 - from Sweden 7 - from north Finland 3 - from Native Siberian tribes This was a real shocker as I have strong, good genealogy of my fathers fathers, etc., on back to about 1535. The director of the Project however suggested that statistically all 11 of those matches would not share an ancestor for about 16 generations (on average). So 16 generations just happens to almost coincide with a Swedish military action in Russia/Finland (abt.1617) which caused the Swedes to hastilly retreat -no doubt taking with them their usual "slaves" who likely shared the North Siberian and Russian Karelic genes. Such slaves were usually used in Northern Sweden where iron was made and later - Steel. they mined and worked the furnaces. My Swedes worked he Furnaces in the 1500s. Possibly, then , some of the males were descended from their Finnish slaves and eventually incorporated into the mainstream community (by 1730). This research has helped me orient my focus of my future research without doubt!! Dick Matteson College Park, MD .