If I understand this correctly, testing xDNA would always connect you to one of the maternal lines, which would be doubling in number for each generation you go backwards. A single individual today wouldn't have a very big chance of proving he/she was descended from Anna Margaretha So-and-so in the 1740s, but if a large number of us who THINK we descend from her all had our xDNA tested, and a few of us showed up with the same DNA pattern, we few could compare our ancestry and see whether the overlap came from Anna Margaretha So-and-so or from another shared female ancestor. Computers, bless them... You remember a few years ago in England, archaeologists compared DNA from a 10,000-year-old female skeleton found Cornwall, to DNA swabbed from inside the cheeks of local school children and their teacher. The (male) teacher was found to be a descendant of the woman whose skeleton had been excavated. JRB On Monday, October 23, 2006, at 10:20 PM, pa-old-chester-request@rootsweb.com wrote: > 2. Testing DNA from X chromosome of a male subject, of course, would > show DNA material which he could only have received from his mother. > He can prove who his mother was. But that's as far back as can be > ascertained, because DNA from his mother could have come from the X > chromosome she received from her mother, OR from the X chromosome she > received from her father [who got it from HIS mother]. ...

Oh How I wish you were right..on X STRs.... maternal lines is mtDNA differnt part of DNA... I posted this same concept to the DNA mailing list almost a year ago... My answers were that the DNA in the older generations degades and thus is not readable...or something to that effect.. Probably correct, but I don't want to believe it.. Personally I believe the answer is out there in the junk dna somewhere... and feel that in another 2 - 5 years there will be answers to those questions.. Why would the X STRs degrade faster then the Y STRs ?? WE do know that yDNA degrades faster the mtDNA.. mtDNA is what they use for studying the 3,000 year old bodies they find... normally in the roots of the teeth.... Oh well really feel free to join the DNA mailing lists all those smart people love to answer questions... Nelda's websites - http://freepages.folklore.rootsweb.com/~bonsteinandgilpin/ yDNA tests for Hurst, Beatty, Gilpin, Graves; all direct male relatives _________________________________________________________________ Get today's hot entertainment gossip http://movies.msn.com/movies/hotgossip?icid=T002MSN03A07001