Several months back my sister, my youngest brother, and I "went in" thirds on a 37 Marker Y-DNA test for our Cook/Cooke line which has been stuck at our 2nd Great Grandfather W. C. Cook(1811-1882) for the entire 27 years that I've been researching. FTDNA is the only option for YDNA testing at this time. We had very few clues. His place of birth which was given as North Carolina in all his census entries. Our other clues was that he was somehow connected to the Joseph S. Cook who died without a will in Williamson Co TN in 1838. With no will, there were no other clues to the connection other than the names of those who purchased from the estate. We needed to narrow down the NC Cook lines assuming that he was born in NC as his census entries suggested.
In autosomal DNA testing, your DNA(all 22 pairs of chromosomes and the X chromosome--2 xs if you are female) is compared to the DNA(Chr 1-22 & X) While you get 50% of your DNA from your Dad..and 50% from your Mom. You won't always get the same portions as your siblings. It will be an assortment. So much so by the time you get back to the 3rd cousin level 10% of 3rd cousins won't share DNA and at 4th Cousins you have a 50% chance of sharing DNA. The Y DNA which is passed from father to son in the direct male line does not change that much from generation to generation. Sometimes it will pass unchanged for many generations which is why YDNA testing helps to "zoom in" on your direct male line.
The results came in a week ago and I've spent most of my research time focused on understanding those results. As we expected my brother's test had a good number of matches ranging from a genetic distance of 0-3 with others who had a direct male line back to a Cook ancestor. We also have Patterson males among the matches ranging from 0-3 and going back to the 1700s like the Cook lines. Our Cook matches seem to all have a connection to Shem Cook out of VA and later Granville NC. Our closest Cook match is from the line of Stephen Cook who moved his family from Granville Co. NC to Clark Co. Arkansas in the late 1840s. Names which repeat frequently among the Granville Co Cooks are Shem/Isham/Shemuel Rolin/Rowlan and Claiborn. While my Cooks were mainly in the Rover and Unionville area of Bedford Co TN there are others off of Shem Cook's line which raised families in Carroll, Gibson, Henderson, Monroe and Shelby Counties of Tennessee and still more which moved from North Carolina and Virginia to Georgia and Alabama. Using the DNAgedcom software without my own and other Cook descendants results I was able to find 10 testers who shared DNA with us and also have Shem as an ancestor.(three of them have 15+ cM segments) Does this mean the DNA came from that line. No....but it is worth checking out to see if the DNA segments along which we match triangulate. So now I'll be writing those matches and hoping they agree to upload to GEDmatch for comparison. I've also written the top 6 matches(2 genetic distance 0 and 4 genetic distance 1)
If you can't afford to purchase a Y DNA test on your own, consider sharing the cost among your siblings or cousins. Holiday sales will be happening soon so it is a good time to start thinking about that. With a common surname like COOK one really can't afford not to test.
We may upgrade to a Y-67 marker but we have six matches at the 0-1 genetic distance level(tests ranging from 37-111) I realize that having only tested at 37 that is all they are compared to and someone who matches you at 0 Gen Distance at 37 may have additional mutations which will increase the genetic distance if they both upgrade to a higher marker test. You may have to do as I did and find the path to your match's most distant male ancestor(in the case of Y Testers).
As far as autosomal testing recommendations, test as many of your relatives(especially the older generations) as you can. Second Cousins are very helpful for sorting thru your matches. If you test at AncestryDNA, be sure to upload to Gedmatch. 23&me tests can be uploaded to the Genesis section of GEDmatch. Hopefully FTDNA will be allowing uploads from 23&me and AncestryDNA again soon.
**Hint** Sometimes you have to join the surname project in order to see the matches contact info. If you see a match and there is nothing in the TESTER portion of the table except for the name(ie. COOK, PATTERSON etc.) that tester has their settings to only show to project members.
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