What is gentic genealogy?

What is gentic genealogy?

Alastair Greenshields (Principal) gives expert video advice on: What is gentic genealogy?; How does DNA help when trying to trace your family history?; Who invented it? and more...

Genetic genealogy is the use of the DNA that most people have in their bodies and we use it to trace up, usually the paternal line. So from male to male, to his father, to his father, many generations back. So we can trace up the direct paternal line. And quite often we are trying to trace ancestors and see if a putative cousin is really part of that family. So we need, usually a male cousin to get tested. We use their Y chromosome, we can use to trace up their direct line up to a common ancestor who should match the DNA. So all the descendants will share the same DNA or very, very similar. That's essentially that's what genetic genealogy is. We're trying to use DNA to match cousins up, to match lineages up, families generally across the world as well where they've migrated to, and be it the States, Canada, South Africa, Oceana. Essentially, they carry their Y chromosomes with them and we're trying to use the DNA in tandem with the paper trail to see if they're related.