On Tuesday, August 29, 2017 at 1:13:02 PM UTC-7, Andrew Lancaster wrote: > On Tuesday, August 29, 2017 at 5:34:31 PM UTC+2, wjhonson wrote: > > > We hear countless times about people matching each other in Y-DNA testing, or that the Y signature of some ancient ancestor has been discovered. However these studies show, *no regard whatsoever* for a corresponding Autosomal group, of the same people, that tries to show even in a simplistic way, that these people are even related *to each other*. So I would say, it's a real world. > > "We hear countless times" sounds like the right way to start a straw man story. But the wording is also "apples and pears" logic. Y DNA can indeed really say something about ancient ancestors, and define groups into family tree structures as part of that. There is no such thing as a corresponding "autosomal group" in such discussions about "ancient" ancestors. Autosomal SNP testing does not look for novel mutations, it looks at old and widely shared mutations, and therefore does not look at ancient family trees structures with branches. And you, knocking down a scarecrow I never raised. I did not state that Autosomal *can* tell us about ancient ancestors. My point is that Y is overused to the point of *inventing* details about ancestors whom you do not really share at all.

On Tuesday, August 29, 2017 at 10:42:42 PM UTC+2, wjhonson wrote: > My point is that Y is overused to the point of *inventing* details about ancestors whom you do not really share at all. Every type of genealogical evidence gets used wrongly sometimes. But I am not sure what type of examples you are describing here as being typical of Y DNA studies. I have mentioned a couple of Y DNA problems already, that I think many people would recognize, but they do not seem to match what you are seeing: 1. false assumptions about ethnic origins (Roman DNA and all that) and 2. over-reliance on bad/rough dating estimations for last common ancestor. In my opinion both derive partly from marketing strategies.