The biggest advantage of doing the DNA is that you can use it to help focus your search to get past brick walls. If you find that you are not closely matched to someone with your surname, then you can eliminate that line from your search for a connection to your brick wall ancestor. However, If you have a strong match (36 or 37 to 37) it would be a good idea to focus your search in areas where the other person's line lived. Granted the match might be back a couple of centuries from where you got stuck but at least you will be on the right track. And by comparing notes with people in this line, you may be able to help each other find the missing link. One of you may have a piece of information that is the key to the other's lock. The more people you have looking for the same person and sharing data that you each find, you might be able to solve the puzzle together. I have a same surname ancestor that I have no idea who his parents or siblings were. He and his wife came from NC but there are a lot of different Morton and Johnson families and lines in NC during the time when they were born. Being able to eliminate many of those lines would greatly simplify my search. The iffy nature of matches with other surnames and the fact that if it is really a common male ancestor for two different surnames it is probably during the period of history where records of people was scarce. Now I'm not talking about possible spelling changes or anglisizing of foreign names. Some of these might be truly connected. I have one line that has three different spellings for their name in the same generation that carried down to today And four if you count the parents who spelled their name the old German way. Hope this helps. Brec Morton ----- Original Message ----- From: Linda Griffin To: Brec Morton Sent: Thursday, July 27, 2006 10:09 PM Subject: Re: [JOHNSON] DNA relationships You are right about the odds on this DNA stuff..so then what do you do with it? How do you share it with other surnames? Linda Griffin