06/01/2025
Corrected text. Apology for the previous errors.
Hello Carpenter Cousins!
Recently, someone wrote to me asking the following ...
One thing that puzzles me is why is so hard for long time traditional genealogists to accept Y-DNA for their paternal genealogy?
Let me add in Y-SNP testing also to your question as used as a genetic or DNA test.
Short answer:
DNA testing is a tool to help verify the accuracy of the genealogical documentation via genetic genealogy triangulation. DNA tests beyond the documented genealogy usually only provide clues of where to look for more documentation.
Longer answer:
Traditional genealogy is focused on name supported by documentation. And the documentation is about the good, the bad and the ugly.
Yes, records can conflict, and human nature has a big impact on those records. Youth want to be older and later adults (especially women) want to be younger. Typos happen and garbage in equals garbage out.
I think most people researching find older genealogies without good documentation full of errors. Some older work was done by assumption and others done deliberately.
The critical parts of traditional genealogy are the names, dates and places supported by the documentation, documentation and documentation.
If one has conflicting data, then you add more documentation until a consensus is achieved. Or at least until you have relatively exhausted all probable sources.
About a quarter of a century ago, what sold me on genetic genealogy and specifically Y-DNA testing was the concept of triangulation to create a genetic fingerprint or profile that had a familial pattern.
The three elements of the triangle process involved actual genealogical names. It was a check cross check process that verified that the genealogy compared to the genetics matching. https://isogg.org/wiki/Triangulation
To me, the secondary nature of genetic genealogy was to help push past roadblocks by reverse genealogy. It is not perfect, but it has been very helpful. Again, it involved names, but the goal was to overcome the road block to complete triangulation process. https://isogg.org/wiki/Genetic_genealogy
Back in the mid 1990s, my work was starting to use CODIS (Combined DNA Index System) and the California database version was then really small. Most crooks that had not yet been tested were not entered - until they got caught again. Over time it became an excellent tool. https://le.fbi.gov/science-and-lab/biometrics-and-fingerprints/codis-2
FYI - I did a little bit of CODIS learning, teaching and training for my County Department way before I took my first Y-DNA test in 2002 and the Carpenter Cousins Y-DNA Project started later that year.
All the above is focused on names matching names. Even when a body is found, the goal is to identify the person (to give the remains a name) and to help bring justice to the deceased family.
Early genetic genealogy also attempted to coordinate genetic profiles that originally included blood types then early basic genetic haplogroups. Some early companies pushed the limits and made outrageous claims that a person's ethnicity or tribal connection could be traced back in time some 500 to 600 years without any genealogy needed.
Most of those companies went out of business and others had to drastically cut back their claims. The main reason was assumptions using woefully short sample sizes to make illogical and deceiving claims.
The reality of genetic DNA testing - including material gathered together over the last many decades - documents percentages of where people are and where they came from primarily based on self-reporting. Person A was born in one location and later moved to another location. And if person B is born in the same location and matches person A genetically - that is a form of triangulation. And if they match surnames and have a common genealogical ancestor that is even better.
The genetic testing of ancient human remains is 99% not digging up a grave with a marker indicating the name of the deceased. Anthropological studies using DNA research deals with UN-NAMED human remains. Scientists study these unnamed remains to learn more about how they lived, how they were related and for many other reasons. The DNA testing creates genetic data points.
Scientists being human, tend to humanize remains and animals over the cold rational identifier given to categorize the remains found. Thus like the naming of pets with human names according to s*x, they often give human remains a name.
One of the most famous is "Lucy" - the then (1974) oldest Australopithecus afarensis proto human remains found in Ethiopia. https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/australopithecus-afarensis-lucy-species.htm
More common were location names like "Cheddar Man" found in 1903 in Cheddar Gorge in Somerset, England. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheddar_Man
The real names of such human remains will never be known. They are lost to time. And as you have mentioned, they are known only to God and their immediate deceased families.
While genetic testing has exploded over the last few decades, it is still in its infancy. We are little more than 75 years from confirming the DNA Helix (in 1953) which heralded the modern age of molecular genetics. By the mid 1960s the basic human genetic code was determined, by 1972 the sequence of the first gene, followed by chromosomal staining and understanding extra chromosomes caused genetic abnormalities.
Paternal testing was once suggested by blood types finally to genetics by the mid 1980s and the National CODIS program only became real in the mid 1990s. And it was not until 2000 that National Missing Person DNA Database was created to help identify the more recent human remains found.
Familial genetic matching only came to our understanding on to the criminal justice scene by 2003/2004 in England. This allowed those not in the various genetic databases to be found when the genetic profiles led researchers to compare close relatives. It has been very effective.
We first saw widespread use of specific mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) testing and Y-DNA testing in the 1990s. But it was not until the late 1990s and early 2000s before we started to see the start of over-the-counter (OTC), aka commercial, DNA testing.
More advanced OTC testing came with Autosomal DNA (atDNA) testing, 111 Y-DNA markers and more advanced mtDNA testing that came about 2010. And the first advanced SNP genetic tests were by 2011.
Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms, aka SNPs, testing grew from basic Haplogroup estimations of 10-12 Y-STRs into more advanced searching for new SNPs by 2010s. And the first FamilyTree DNA (FTDNA.com)
Big Y-SNP test was only started in 2013. This type of testing was used to search and identify SNPs, especially Y-SNPs, mostly through the citizen science efforts. Thus has caused a fantastic growth in our knowledge of SNPs over the last decade.
There is a problem however. Genetic genealogy is focused on names and the ideal of genetic genealogy triangulation. We know where the living human testers tested and where they claim their birth. But, when we add comparisons to say unnamed human remains, we only know where they were found.
And history is replete with groups of people moving around their continents and moving to other continents. Again, those remains do not have names and are just data points of anthropologic reference. For about 99% of the ancient deceased human remains, we have no real clue what their names were. Neither do we know the names of their spouses, children or who their parents were.
And like decades ago, assumptions are made that most people lived and died close to their place of birth. That is an assumption based upon the more modern city/farming state. It ignores that for most of human time that homo sapiens were hunter gathers. And they followed their food sources on migrations and intermingled with others to create new family units.
Traditional genealogists and most genetic genealogists accept that data points of deceased human remains may be related to them genetically in some manner. But they are unnamed dead people and there is no paper trail genealogy that links them.
When I can use genealogy to track/document an ancestor to the American Revolution that is family.
When I can track a genealogical ancestor to their immigration to America that is family.
When I can track genealogical ancestors in the old world that is family.
When I can no longer trace my documented family line farther back into history then my family genealogical paper trail connection stops. Then, until more documentation comes in, the past is nothing more than an unknown deep ancestry.
Again, unnamed human remains are not genealogical family members supported by any documentation. They may be genetically related, but they are not genealogical family.
Most humans can recognize the importance of the study of the Family of Man or in essence the time before our genealogical paper trail or our deep ancestry. We are somewhat interested, but only in the general sense of where mankind evolved. It does not have the same emotional sense of their immediate family. Their documented family history is of named ancestors. Unnamed genetic related data points are deep (or distant) ancestry.
Haplogroups verified by Y-SNP testing are an additional check cross check of the genealogy and Y-DNA testing. It, like Y-DNA testing, is a tool to assist the genealogy verification process. Genetic genealogy is a tool to help document the genealogy via the triangulation of data.
In the genetic genealogy process, we make a specific distinction in the triangulation process. Some are "genealogically and genetically (by x DNA test) related" to a paper trail ancestor. Those without the genealogical documentation are "genetically related (by x DNA test) but not related genealogically."
Y-DNA testing or Y-SNP testing that does not have a genealogical connection is obviously at best "genetically related (by x DNA test) but not related genealogically."
Have I Y-SNP tested? Yes.
Have I found it useful? Yes.
Will most people doing genealogy find SNP testing useful? No.
The main reason is that DNA testing is a tool to help verify the accuracy of the genealogical documentation via genetic genealogy triangulation. Most will be happy to have a genetic match at a lower level (like 37 Y-DNA markers). Many will not be interested in the higher cost of SNP testing.
In summary, most genealogists are more interested on building their documented genealogical tree. And if it is cost effective, then to a genetic cross check of that genealogy.
Of course it they have more disposable money and curiosity, then they are more likely to proceed with higher levels of DNA testing that could include SNP testing.
I hope this answers your question.
I add the following for reference ...
Please see my "Real Deep Ancestry" that shows how I present my genetic ancestry along with my Big Y-SNP testing. https://carpentercousins.com/RealDeepAncestry.pdf
See also images 2 & 3 under the page using the "Descendants" link in the TOC at: https://carpentercousins.com/Group5/index.htm
The above link shows the Carpenter Cousins Y-DNA Project - Group 5's use of Y-SNPs. I suggest going to full screen or adjusting to see the complete images. They are doing an amazing job!
Best Wishes!
John R. Carpenter
La Mesa, CA USA
Carpenter Cousins Y-DNA Project
https://carpentercousins.com/carpdna.htm/
Carpenter Cousins Project Admin
https://carpentercousins.com
Guild of One Name Studies
https://one-name.org/name_profile/carpenter/
Category: 2 - A study where research using core genealogical datasets and transcriptions is well under way, but currently in some countries only.
