Kathy Lee, It depends on your goal. Then you have to find the correct relative to test to match your goal.
If you want a broad overview of ALL your lines back about 200 years, then you want the Family Finder test. You will want someone from the oldest generation you can find. My dad, born in 1934, is still alive, so I tested him because I can get results back to about the 1730s. I get ALL his lines, both his Portuguese half and his American half. If it was my mom who was Portuguese, I would have tested her to pick up her Portuguese half. If you want to focus on just ONE line and ONE line only, you would want a Y-DNA test, and you would have to have a male for that. So in my case, if I wanted my Mello line, I'd have to find a male with that surname. That would be my dad. So I would get my dad's line, his dad, his dad and his dad, all the way back in time. It's the top of the pedigree chart. But if I wanted to focus on my dad's mother's line ONLY (Blackburn), my dad's Y-DNA won't work. I had to go find cousin Alan Blackburn and get him to test, as his father's father's father's line winds up being my Blackburn line. The Y-DNA 37 or 67 is best for genealogical purposes. If you want to focus on your mother's mother's mother's line ONLY, you would have to find ANY person whose mother's mother's mother's mother is your ancestor. This is the bottom of your pedigree chart. This type of testing, mtDNA testing, is usually more anthropological in nature. That means you get more info on the "out of Africa" theory than you do on genealogy. It's a bit harder to find a cousin using this type of testing. It's best used in conjunction with a theory, such as we both believe we descend from the same mother's mother's mother's mother. However, the first DNA match in the project was with mtDNA because both people happened to have a rare mutation/difference. The paper trail then proved the match. Now, about those skeletons in the closet: This happens every couple of years. Let's say family story has it that the milkman had a thing for grandma. Make sure you think long and hard about doing a DNA test. It may show that the milkman story was true. If you just want to start somewhere but still unsure, do the Family Finder test with the broad overview. There are now enough of us that we are starting to figure out the connections. Barely scratching the surface, but we are connecting. Cheri Mello FTDNA Admin (volunteer) Azores DNA Project -- For options, such as changing to List, Digest, Abridged, or No Mail (vacation) mode, log into your Google account and visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/Azores. Click in the blue area on the right that says "Join this group" and it will take you to "Edit my membership." --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Azores Genealogy" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to azores+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to azores@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/azores.
