GENEALOGY-DNA-L Archives

Archiver > GENEALOGY-DNA > 2001-01 > 0980955497


From: "Ralph Turner" <>
Subject: [DNA] Re: GENEALOGY-DNA-D Digest V01 #23
Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 07:38:17 -0800
References: <200101311400.f0VE0ef09285@lists5.rootsweb.com>
In-Reply-To: <200101311400.f0VE0ef09285@lists5.rootsweb.com>



>Listers,
>
>Perhaps someone can answer my question. A number people on the
>WHITNEY list are discussing DNA testing to confirm relationship to a
>common ancestor. All the discussions I've seen seem to center on
>inheritance of the Y chromosome from the father's lineage.
>
>My husband is a WHITNEY descendant through his mother, via her father.
>
>Would testing *prove* my husband's WHITNEY ancestry?
>
>Thanks,
>Theola Walden Baker
>

Theola:

About the Y chromosome. Do some reading on it. I suggest the recent issue of Sc. American, a short good article.

Your husband gets his Ychromosome unchanged from his father, not his mother. So there is no trace of the Ychromosome from her father in her or him. You would have to test his mother's father to make the connection if using only the Y chromosome. In a way, as long as there are no name changes or unknown men hiding in the woodshed, the Y chromosome is directly connected to the surname. If you are a male with the surname Whitney then you have the Whitney Y chromosome. Females do not get it nor pass it on in any way. That is the present thinking.

RT

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