Jan wrote:
So, if my brother were to submit his DNA, how would THIS work??
The easy way to think of the DNA project is this: the Y chromosome,
which is what we test, comes down from the testee's father, and
before that from the father's father, and the father's father's father,
and so on up the line. If you think of a customary pedigree chart,
the trail of the Y is the very top line on the chart. Usually, in
our society, all of that top line has the same surname, and that is
why Y-DNA testing is organized by surname. Sometimes, however, the
surname may change, for one reason or another (adoption, estrangement,
infidelity, whatever). In these cases, you may have to make an
arbitrary choice of which surname project to join. Of course, if
a male ancestor is simply unknown (and thus his surname as well),
then you would have to stick with the known surname of the male
descendants as a starting point. If the DNA test reveals a match
with a specific family that *might* have included the unknown
ancestor, that's a possible basis for further research.
John Chandler