Do we have anyone on the list who is familiar with the DNA Testing Projects for various surnames? If so, can you tell me the answer to this question? I have a friend who was adopted at birth. She has received her adoption records from the state and is searching for information about her birth parents. The adoption papers only furnish the name of the mother and her family. The father's family is listed as unknown. If the adoptee furnishes a DNA sample would it be possible to learn the surname of her birth father by comparing the results of her tests with the results of surnames already done in this project? Would this information be furnished when the test results are received? Any information will be appreciated. Lee

Lee, PJ is right. To track a male surname line, only male dna on that line will work. I have entered my mother in an mtdna project and her female dna is capable of only tracking the female dna through her maternal line ...my mother WASHBURN, her mother McLAIN, McLain's mother COOPER, Cooper's mother PULLEN, and Pullen's unknown mother... and on back through time. I still do not understand the mtdna results, so am relying on the PULLEN site administrator at FamilyTreeDNA to explain any 'matches' with me. I am hoping to learn eventually something that might help me determine the mother of PULLEN (hoping my paper trail ...or somebody else's paper trail) to give me clues as to PULLENs mother and who she married. If your friend is old enough to have a mother that might appear on 1900 to 1930 census, or in birth and marriage or divorce records, etc., she might be able to find her mother (as revealed in the adoption records) and thus stumble on some clues. I suppose the adoptive agency does nothing to help reunite children and parents ...though I have heard that a few do. Also perhaps helpful, there are some special genealogy Message Board forums where people are searching for birth parents. It would take some aggressive, frequent postings of known information and some good luck that the birth mother or father (or a possible sibling of your friend) might be also searching.....or maybe just doing genealogy on his / her own lines. Perhaps the mother also had other children also searching for information. Maybe, maybe not. My WILLIAMS dad's siblings ended up in an Iowa orphanage (or were fostered out) while young and while trying to find his lost sister Dorothy b about 1927 IA (who I know was married to a RODE / RHODE, etc. in the early 40s) , I sometimes search some of the postings hoping that the sister's children might have posted. Not often I think, but once in awhile, somebody gets lucky. Check Rootsweb, Ancestry and Genealogy.com boards. If a child / children were removed from the home or the mother by a County or State due to inability to support a child, etc., there would possibly by 'case' records that have survived somewhere ...but those records are difficult if not impossible to attain. I only know this because my parents fostered children in AR, IN and then TX over more than 40 years. The protection of records is meant to protect privacy, but it sure creates a frustrating situation for children, parents, etc. searching years later and I have my own personal feelings about over-protection, but it's hard to fight the system..... I wish your friend much luck. Audrey in TN ----- Original Message ----- From: "Lee Cate" <leecate@cddn.com> To: <TNWEAKLE-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Sunday, July 22, 2007 4:03 PM Subject: [TNWEAKLE] DNA TESTS > Do we have anyone on the list who is familiar with the DNA Testing > Projects > for various surnames? If so, can you tell me the answer to this > question? > I have a friend who was adopted at birth. She has received her adoption > records from the state and is searching for information about her birth > parents. The adoption papers only furnish the name of the mother and her > family. The father's family is listed as unknown. If the adoptee > furnishes > a DNA sample would it be possible to learn the surname of her birth father > by comparing the results of her tests with the results of surnames already > done in this project? Would this information be furnished when the test > results are received? > > Any information will be appreciated. > > Lee > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > TNWEAKLE-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the > quotes in the subject and the body of the message