The implementation of this page is quite unpredictable, as text brought over from editing sources is "run together," obliterating spacings and punctuation. I apologize for what I cannot control.

Q: What does YDNA "prove?" Is it guaranteed to reveal my lineage to a Paternal Ancestor?

A: Not exactly. All DNA results, from the smallest sampling to a full genome, do not present results as "proof" of paternity, maternity or lineage, but as "probabilities."  

Even if you sampled every single male ancestor that you suspected, which would require enormous expense and access to all remains, any one male along the line could be a brother to your linear ancestor (in other words, an uncle or cousin of yours at some level) and while you would still share a common paternal ancestor, your exact line of descent is not revealed, because you do not get names from YDNA. This is most famously illustrated in the claims of descent from Thomas Jefferson. The exact lineage back to a common paternal ancestor of Thomas Jefferson may be established by YDNA , but any male who also descends from that common paternal ancestor would match, and therefore, a descent from Thomas Jefferson himself can be conjectured but not proved without more direct evidence.  

What you do get from YDNA results can strengthen the results of genealogy. By analyzing records, both civil and personal, the genealogist builds up a case for an ancestry. If your results can be compared to a pool of other results, you may be able to find a common strand. Most importantly, if you or other researchers have a theory as to your paternal ancestor, your YDNA may be the most important clue in focusing research. YDNA is just a bunch of numbers, but if there is genealogical evidence to support a suspected ancestor, these numbers take on meaning when compared to other results.

Example: When my YDNA was analyzed, there were a few results to compare with from other suspected "cousins." By the time the fifth over-98% matching result arrived from someone who is proveably not part of my direct line within at least five generations back, it appeared fairly obvious that men from three different ancestors were all cousins, and thus shared a Common Paternal Ancestor. Thus, the YDNA helped to strengthen conjectures based on genealogy.

A: If there is or ever will be a study of your surname or YDNA Haplo pool, your YDNA can be the key to determining a likely line of research that may represent the only link to a pool of descendants of known or strongly suspected ancestry. In other words, if your fourth great grandfather is a "dead end," then having your YDNA tested can, at least, offer the possibility of narrowing down the various lines that you may spring from, and at best, may help you towards "proving out your line" to your satisfaction. 

Example: Mr Mystery Slayden has no father in records that we can find, but a direct male descendant (proved from using genealogy, i e,  birth and death records, etc) matches other known or suspected descendants of Arthur & Rachel Slayden. This means that Mr Slayden does not come from any of the other lines of Slatons in our pools, and even if we do not know the name of his ancestor from his YDNA, research can be focused on the most likely father from what is known about Arthur & Rachel and about Mr Mystery, and allowing us to concentrate on a known line for clues, instead of groping through all the different lines that we know are not related.  YDNA testing may be the key to breaking through a "dead end."

Q: How can I tell who these families are?

A: The Most Distant Ancestor for a family line shows in the colored separator bar. The individuals below the separator are thought to share the ancestor(s) named in the bar. The individual donors also show a Most Distant Ancestor that is manually entered by them, and may not share the same format with other individiuals. For the most part, it should be clear that those grouped under the separator bar come from a variety of named ancestors that are known to connect to the name in the separator bar. Most Distant Ancestor for individuals is thus capable of serving as a further subgrouping tool within a common ancestor group, but not always.  Read the Most Distant Ancestor entries carefully.  Unfortunately, FTDNA does not allow admins to order the individuals further than a single separator bar, or to edit an unhelpful Most Distant Ancestor entry. Also, some results do not show in both views, so a member in CLASSIC may only show in COLORIZED, or vice versa.

I am a donor or sponsor of results that are in your Project. When I run MATCHES from the kit site, I see all kinds of names and not the ones in the Project. 

Q: Should I ignore them?  

A: Large contingents of males share YDNA at 12-marker matches and above, because surnames are a convenient but not bulletproof indication of ancestry. Concentrate on 25-37 matches and above, and there may be some names that pop out that suggest a community where these names have been found using historical and genealogical methods. Those matches may be worth some scrutiny. But do not assume that you are related in any meaningful way to these other names just because of these matches.  Matches among different surnames at the 12-marker level are more of a distraction than a pointer to any meaningful common ancestor. 

Q: Why do I see them?

A: The MATCH feature filter defaults to The Entire Database of YDNA results and can be filtered for any Project you belong to. Make sure that you are looking at the the Show Matches For: with the database you want.

Most importantly, the implementation of the filter for Markers:  is not intuitive, you will get different results based on the number in the Markers: setting. 

Example: If you search MATCHES against the entire database with markers set at 67, you will see who tested for 67. You will seldom see all results at one filter number unless every matching donor with your surname tested with FTDNA at the exact same marker number level.  Any results that were transferred from another source will not show up in MATCHES.

Q: My aunt had her DNA tested. She was born a SLATON, can she join here ?

A: yes, but females do not inherit the same "straight line" of markers from their fathers as males do. If a female sponsors a YDNA result, that kit number will lead to a male. If the request to JOIN comes from a woman who sponsored a male result, that request will be honored, since the donor's surname will show with the kit that is joined, not the name of the sponsor. Even if that woman also had her own DNA tested, our site does not allow mitochondrial and atDNA results to show. 

Q: My great great grandmother was a Slaton, and we still use the name in the male line, but we cannot find a marriage for her. Is our YDNA useful?

A: Under most circumstances, a male descendant of a Slaton/Slatton daughter should not match other males in the Project, but that YDNA might be posted as a type of proof of that concept. Also, the non-matching YDNA could focus research on a match with another surname that might be found in the community of your female ancestor.

If YDNA from a male descendant of a daughter does match, it suggests that a possible cousin marriage took place, very common in the US until about the mid-20th c, when it became more rare but still happens. Unfortunately, there is no distinction between that result and what could be designated as incest. We cannot avoid that can of worms in cases such as this, except by intense research. 

Examples: Mickey Slaton, a daughter of George Slaton, produced sons who used the name Slaton, and a direct descendant male did not (as predicted) match other George male descendants, since we do not know the father but assume that it was not a Slaton. Whereas, a daughter of Hiram & Harriett Slatton, Sarah/Sallie, produced a son and daughter, acc to her obituary and census, who appear in census with her as Slatton/Slatten. We do not yet have a descendant from that male to test, so we do not know if she married a cousin, or simply did not marry at all and used her birth name. Finding a male from son Willie is a thus a research goal. 

Q: Can anyone tell anything about me from my results?

A: Do not confuse FTDNA YDNA with "genome" projects that suggest that medical information or "racial" or American Indian ancestry can be identified. There is no "racial" or medical component of the YDNA used in this Project. As an example. there are at least two men in this Project who are physically not like the others, and their "difference" cannot be identified in any way, by anyone, with the YDNA shown in this grid, and never could be. These numbers can only be used to suggest common paternal ancestry among groups of matching results. Also, the surname is all that appears to the public, not a given name. The answer is NO.

Q: Are these all of the results in this Project?

A: No, the Project had more than 30 results from Ancestry/Relative Genetics, but since Ancestry dropped access to their Projects, and the each result from sources other than Family Tree DNA (FTDNA) has to be transferred, many results are in paper form (or online)Key results have been (or attempted to have been) transferred Funding and the complications of transferring imposed by FTDNA means many of these will probably never show on the FTDNA Slaton Slatton Slayden Family YDNA Project site

Q: What do these codes, like I1 and I-M253 mean? Why do some results show one or the other?

A: Everything in an answer to this question is subject to change, because the nomenclature for DNA is always evolving  Suffice it to say that Ancestry used the short-form"hierarchical" of designation for haplotypes, such as I1a (eye one ay) and I2a (eye teo ay) "Long form" hierarchical haplotype designations become quite unwieldy as more mutations are found and more letters and numbers are added to the "tail" to specify a terminal SNPProbably for that reason, FTDNA uses a "composite" form called a haplogroup designator, which uses an alphanumeric for the "terminal SNP."  I1a (Ancestry)  becomes I-M253, I1b/I2a has become I-P37 ,  and I1C became I-M233FTDNA cannot show a predicted Haplogroup for a transferred value, so the haplotype from the other source is used in the Most Distant Ancestor entry for transferred results That is why "shortform" haplotypes will appear in some Most Distant Ancestor entries

Q: Where can I read about DNA without requiring a medical degree to understand it?

A: We recommend :

Also, Youtube.com has some postings ranging from very simplified to very technical in nature. Some are misleading or inaccurate, some are helpful