Russell
Great tool for African American research.
Had my son test, his father is African American and wanted to see what we could find out about his paternal line, since their family name could be anything due to slavery. We wanted to know if his matches would lead to if, or, where his direct paternal line came from. Would it be African? Would it be European? Either way, would it give clues to where his people were pre-1865? We had great results. He tested at 111 markers and initially, none of his matches had tested above 67. He had 4 or 5 matches at a distance of 2 steps. I reached out and heard back from two of them. Both shared as much info as possible, one upgraded to 111. When they still matched at 2 steps, both upgraded to the full Y and remained just as close. I can now trace my son's paternal line to England, ealy 1600's, to America 1650's, to North Carolina where his 5×great grandfather was born to a white man and an enslaved woman, brought to Mississippi, where he served in the Civil War before gaining his freedom and down to the present time. It has been a challenging but wonderful and rewarding journey. I've also tested my own brother and we have almost no matches. I am patient and figure it just takes time for the right match to test. I highly encourage those thinking of testing to go for it and just learn all you can so it isn't so frustrating.