Hello Cornelia You say that "you aren't acknowledging the autosomal, which covers all ancestors, not just the direct line paternal and maternal lines. " I have not ignored atDNA as you suggest, rather I have acknowledged that for the study of ancestral DNA migratory routes, all DNA is important. What I am saying is that fundamentally DNA gives evidence of these migratory routes and of the likely origin groups, or ups, in any one particular place or region from either the most likely place where the study chromosome or autosome diverged from a parent group. Geneticists and others studying these migrations are still not entirely in agreement about the interpretation of the spread and densities of any one group and this mainly because of the difficulty in precisely dating the arrival points; indeed they have difficulty telling precisely if there was only one arrival event or many spread over a period of time. This is as true in the British Isles as it is elsewhere but it ignores the underlying question that I posed in my posting. How does the study of DNA add to my family history, which I acknowledge has a great importance in the study of migratory groups and by inference the study of the make-up of later 'mixed' populations, but I am extremely doubtful over its relevance to family history which is based upon surnames - the first is a study of the natural over a very long period and the second a study of the very recent (comparatively) social construct. You say that "the basic purpose of dna; " is to "to verify the paperwork" and/or to "to fill in where paperwork fails due to war, natural disaster, careless record keeping, careless storage, and neglect." I ask how? You say "to discover ones complete ancestry, not just the visable ancestry but deep ancestry as well." I interpret that to mean the migratory groups from which we are descended. I agree it will do that, but how does that provide any useful data that informs me about anything to do with my modern family surname and those who share it? You add that "because some people are honestly curious." I see nothing wrong with curiosity, but I see more and more threads developing across family history boards telling us of the importance of these DNA studies, but they never explain why they are important, except in the terms that you have written in your reply. The issue for me is that this is becoming a new branch of pseudo-science where an awful lot of 'facts' are being placed into the public arena with wholesome dollops of scientific jargon which are actually unsupported by any valid arguments. Let me assure you that my curiosity is sparked but I want a valid and clear rationale for all this enthusiasm. Personally I trained in both the social and the physical sciences and would be appalled if a student of mine were to make some of the assertions that I have been reading in some of the postings made on this subject without valid supporting evidence or research underpinning the claims. You further added "and last but not least, because it's the only way for some people to learn who their contemporary relatives are (especially adoptees)." I find this astonishing; how can one find families of adoptees through these projects, indeed I would have imagined that there would have been all sorts of legal ramifications concerning that and other privacy issues. This surely is a notion that undermines the validity of these projects rather than supports it. You claim "it does work, you can learn these things and much more from it, but a negative mind gets negative returns. you reap what you sew." I have been presented with no evidence to support or to contradict your claim that it works, but, and if this is negativity then so be it, I will not let pass the ideas that you and many others are putting forward as being scientific without challenging them. I learned a long time ago that to question ideas is to enable their further dissemination rather than to hinder them, except where they are inherently flawed. Finally you say that "the paper work is important, even invaluable" - as a family historian I would have expected this to be at the top of the tree in terms of importance, especially when you follow the precept of starting from where you know and working backwards. You continued " but sometimes it just doesn't exist. some never did, some has been destroyed". That is true, although you have to be pretty unlucky to be living in a modern state to find that all sources of evidence has been destroyed. But then you say that "when that happens, turning your back on DNA is like turning your back on potatoes when there's a famine. " Which brings us back to the original question. So, I shall rephrase it. How does a study of DNA in any form replace the documentary evidence in the study of your family history - really I'd like to know. I'd like to hear about the process and about the data that these studies produce that will add anything to my understanding of my family history. John