This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Author: carlllawson Surnames: Classification: queries Message Board URL: http://boards.rootsweb.com/surnames.lawson/6860.1.1.1.1.2/mb.ashx Message Board Post: You must understand that the Y-DNA and mtDNA test only the paternal and maternal lines of a male's family. Let me try to give an example. Let's look at a male's grandmother's parents on your father's side of the family (paternal line). They could have been Native Americans but the YDNA test will not show this. He does get DNA from them but it will not be shown in his YDNA test. Let's look at his grandfather's parents on his mother's side of the family (maternal line). The same holds true and will not show up in his mtDNA test. So the YDNA test only shows that his paternal father, grandfather, great grandfather and so on, were not Native Americans but any of their wives could have been and it will not show up in the YDNA test. The same holds true on the mother's side of the family. This male has 4 great grandfathers and 4 great grandmothers, the YDNA and mtDNA only looks at 1 great grandfather and 1 great grandmother. So there are still 6 others that he gets DNA from that could have been Native American. Important Note: The author of this message may not be subscribed to this list. If you would like to reply to them, please click on the Message Board URL link above and respond on the board.