Kristin, Several of the answers given concerning DNA testing for Genealogical purposes were quite good but the did not clearly answer your question. Your answer is possibly, if you choose the right test. Y-DNA (of the strict father-father-father... etc line) and MT-DNA (for the STRICT mother-mother-mother... etc line) will tell you if you have a match IF the person you want to match is a member of the above strict lines (the edges on a ancestry chart ONLY). The autosomal tests are for all the other lines. In other words the Y-DNA and MT-DNA ONLY test two lines in your ancestry chart and are pretty much useless for identifying specific individuals. What those two tests are good for is giving you your haplogroup and telling where your ancestors came from 30,000 or so years ago. In other words, beyond 20 generations AT LEAST! The chances of you finding a specific individual randomly that falls on the two lines given above are VERY SLIM. The autosomal testing is not at all like that. It tests ALL lines in the family tree back about 5 to 7 generations quite accurately. Beyond that, the autosomal clues are pretty much diluted out as far as identifying specific families or individuals that are related to you... but all lines are tested. If you want to identify if a family is related to you AND THEY HAVE BEEN TESTED, or their DNA is available to test, then the autosomal tests will probably give you much more information than the Y-DNA or mitochondrial DNA testing. As far as Autosomal testing - Family Tree DNA is the largest in the world and provides one of the best testing services. Ancestry.com is just starting out and I know little about their testing but the general rule of thumb is that you get what you pay for. It is your choice though but unless there is a large enough database to compare against, it is useless for you to go looking for a match... if you know what I mean. FTDNA does have the Family Finder on sale from time to time for $199 or is you are a member of a surname group or other recognized group, you could get a special offer. You can go to ftdna.com and check all this out - they are very open about letting people browse to learn about DNA testing and what is available and what it will do you you. Check it out, what do you have to loose? And also MT-DNA is NOT found in the nuclear wall or membrane, it is found in all cell cytoplasm within the cell in structures called mitochondria - thus the name MT-DNA. Hope this helps and if you have further questions, you can email me direct if you wish. Dave Michaelson P.S. Gale, Y-DNA testing will not give you the information you are looking for - neither will MT-DNA testing. These test only test two SPECIFIC lines as I mentioned above. Autosomal testing will test the other lines but will only help you if both parties have been tested (or the situation in the next paragraph exists) which is true for all DNA testing. ALL these tests are useless for identifying people whose DNA is not available. What the autosomal testing is good for is to test people alive today that have provided their DNA and been tested and compare their DNA to yours. In that way, using information from both (yours and theirs) trees, you could possibly get the data you need. The more people that match you, the easier it is to narrow your search and identify specific individuals and/or families. Again, I hope this helps. Dave ==================================== In you email, you wrote - "Kirsten Bowman" <viking@rvi.net> Subject: [ROOTS-L] Autosomal DNA? I have a fair understanding of the use of yDNA in genealogy but the blurbs I ve read about autosomal DNA don't give a clue to whether that test would help solve a longstanding brick wall in my maternal linewhich is as follows . . My 3rd great-grandfather was born in 1788 in a sparsely-populated region of Canada. I suspect he was the son of one of 7 brothers who settled in the area in the early 1780s. Roughly a dozen direct male descendants of those 7 brothers have done yDNA tests through FTDNA. Some have tested up to 67 markers and one has done the FTDNA Family Finder test. My own line daughtered-out with my 2nd great-grandfather and I?m unable to locate any direct male cousins for yDNA testing. Now I'm wondering whether an autosomal DNA test would tell whether I'm related to any of the fellows who have already testedor would an autosomal test of a female descendant of one of those 7 brothers show a relationship to me? Would the $99 test from Ancestry.com do the trickor is the $289 Family Finder test from FTDNA necessary? I realize that no testing could tell *which* of the 7 brothers was the parent of my 3rd great-grandfatherI'm simply wondering if I can narrow him down to a certain clan. Can anyone answer those questions or direct me to a site that gives a thorough explanation of what autosomal DNA testing will do?

Dave: Oh, thank you! Now we're getting somewhere. So if I'm interpreting correctly, you're saying that two (or more) parties must have autosomal tests and that there's no possibility for matching my autosomal or mtDNA test with existing yDNA results to find a common ancestor who is neither direct paternal nor direct maternal. Further, I'm understanding that the more generations between test candidates and the common ancestor, the slimmer the chances of a match from autosomal testing. And that with autosomal testing a non-match is not necessarily proof of no common ancestor. Is all of that correct? Since I would probably have to pay both sides of FTDNA's $289 (or wait for the sale), and in view of the distance to the possible common ancestor, it sounds like a fairly expensive shot in the dark. I'm not terribly interested in identifying my general ethnicity (that's already pretty well established), and I'm not heavily involved in tracing lines other than this particular one. Unfortunately the member of our surname project who has already done the Family Finder test is a half-sibling and connects to the main tree even a couple of generations above me, so I'd guess that that makes a match even more unlikely. Altogether it seems I'd be better off spending my money in hiring a researcher in Canada to try and turn up a lead that I may have missed in my 12 years of searching. Do you disagree? Again, thanks so much for writing. Kirsten -----Original Message----- From: Dave Michaelson Sent: Wednesday, May 16, 2012 9:11 PM To: viking@rvi.net ; Roots-L@rootsweb.com ; gale_gorman@me.com Subject: Autosomal testing Kristin, Several of the answers given concerning DNA testing for Genealogical purposes were quite good but the did not clearly answer your question. Your answer is possibly, if you choose the right test. Y-DNA (of the strict father-father-father... etc line) and MT-DNA (for the STRICT mother-mother-mother... etc line) will tell you if you have a match IF the person you want to match is a member of the above strict lines (the edges on a ancestry chart ONLY). The autosomal tests are for all the other lines. In other words the Y-DNA and MT-DNA ONLY test two lines in your ancestry chart and are pretty much useless for identifying specific individuals. What those two tests are good for is giving you your haplogroup and telling where your ancestors came from 30,000 or so years ago. In other words, beyond 20 generations AT LEAST! The chances of you finding a specific individual randomly that falls on the two lines given above are VERY SLIM. The autosomal testing is not at all like that. It tests ALL lines in the family tree back about 5 to 7 generations quite accurately. Beyond that, the autosomal clues are pretty much diluted out as far as identifying specific families or individuals that are related to you... but all lines are tested. If you want to identify if a family is related to you AND THEY HAVE BEEN TESTED, or their DNA is available to test, then the autosomal tests will probably give you much more information than the Y-DNA or mitochondrial DNA testing. As far as Autosomal testing - Family Tree DNA is the largest in the world and provides one of the best testing services. Ancestry.com is just starting out and I know little about their testing but the general rule of thumb is that you get what you pay for. It is your choice though but unless there is a large enough database to compare against, it is useless for you to go looking for a match... if you know what I mean. FTDNA does have the Family Finder on sale from time to time for $199 or is you are a member of a surname group or other recognized group, you could get a special offer. You can go to ftdna.com and check all this out - they are very open about letting people browse to learn about DNA testing and what is available and what it will do you you. Check it out, what do you have to loose? And also MT-DNA is NOT found in the nuclear wall or membrane, it is found in all cell cytoplasm within the cell in structures called mitochondria - thus the name MT-DNA. Hope this helps and if you have further questions, you can email me direct if you wish. Dave Michaelson P.S. Gale, Y-DNA testing will not give you the information you are looking for - neither will MT-DNA testing. These test only test two SPECIFIC lines as I mentioned above. Autosomal testing will test the other lines but will only help you if both parties have been tested (or the situation in the next paragraph exists) which is true for all DNA testing. ALL these tests are useless for identifying people whose DNA is not available. What the autosomal testing is good for is to test people alive today that have provided their DNA and been tested and compare their DNA to yours. In that way, using information from both (yours and theirs) trees, you could possibly get the data you need. The more people that match you, the easier it is to narrow your search and identify specific individuals and/or families. Again, I hope this helps. Dave ==================================== In you email, you wrote - "Kirsten Bowman" <viking@rvi.net> Subject: [ROOTS-L] Autosomal DNA? I have a fair understanding of the use of yDNA in genealogy but the blurbs I ve read about autosomal DNA don't give a clue to whether that test would help solve a longstanding brick wall in my maternal linewhich is as follows . . My 3rd great-grandfather was born in 1788 in a sparsely-populated region of Canada. I suspect he was the son of one of 7 brothers who settled in the area in the early 1780s. Roughly a dozen direct male descendants of those 7 brothers have done yDNA tests through FTDNA. Some have tested up to 67 markers and one has done the FTDNA Family Finder test. My own line daughtered-out with my 2nd great-grandfather and I?m unable to locate any direct male cousins for yDNA testing. Now I'm wondering whether an autosomal DNA test would tell whether I'm related to any of the fellows who have already testedor would an autosomal test of a female descendant of one of those 7 brothers show a relationship to me? Would the $99 test from Ancestry.com do the trickor is the $289 Family Finder test from FTDNA necessary? I realize that no testing could tell *which* of the 7 brothers was the parent of my 3rd great-grandfatherI'm simply wondering if I can narrow him down to a certain clan. Can anyone answer those questions or direct me to a site that gives a thorough explanation of what autosomal DNA testing will do?