OK I am going to wade into this one slowly but only once. To preserve a YDNA I may want later I ordered the basic test because it can always be upgraded under better circumstances. Which I have done for two families due to illlness and end of line. If you are looking for matches, many YDNA studies will not do less than a 37 marker test and some require higher. Which again puts me out of the money bracket. This is what I understood from my various YDNA advisors: the basic saves the DNA and may tell you where lineage was from so way, long , long ago; the top bracket generally will give you a chance to find other living descendants if they have worked back at least 6/8 or so generations. I have done some MTdna and found a link: planned no, surprised yes. This came about because their genealogy was shared and we could show relationship in late 1600's early 1700's in VA. A quirk at best but a delight just the same. I can say I think we miss much when we only attempt to follow the male line of our ancestors, many of our females were just as interesting. Blessed Season's Greetings and a Healthy Happy Kin Finding New Year. HUFFMAN HOFFMAN , BRAMMER, LEE, SCOTT, MORROW, TUTTLE, FRY, FRYE, STOUT, PLANTZ, PLANTS, WARDEN, LANGDON, LEWIS, STROHSCHNIEDER/STROSNIDER, STOLLAR, ELY, EALY, HAINES, JONES, DUVALL, PATTERSON, RITCHIE/RITCHEY, FOLK/ FOULK, MOYER/MYERS, FULLER (in MD),FULLER (in VA), most of my more southern lines. Have another set of names for Mass, Maine, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, & Vermont. Susi ************** One site keeps you connected to all your email: AOL Mail, Gmail, and Yahoo Mail. Try it now. (http://www.aol.com/?optin=new-dp& icid=aolcom40vanity&ncid=emlcntaolcom00000025)