If your primary interest is in finding the direct male (surname) line on back to a common ancestor then all you need is a good Y-DNA test. You need autosomal testing for an overall view of ethnicity and matches that are not straight male line based. For instance...the person who wants to determine whether the family story that "dad's grandma was a Cherokee Indian" has any validity needs to have autosomal testing done. Joan In a message dated 5/16/2012 8:32:38 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, gale_gorman@me.com writes: Interesting. I can probably upgrade my test results at FTDNA at some point to include mtDNA. For now my focus is on finding the right Gormans in Ireland at 1803 and beyond. Gale Gorman Houston