I have a very lonely surname – according to estimates, there are only about 1000 to 2000 Bettingers in the
My particular Y-DNA has an interesting story (I think that everyone’s Y-DNA has an interesting story, it’s just that I’ve decided to share mine!). My most distant paternal ancestor came to
So, to boil that confusing paragraph down, as of 2007, 193 years after “Branch #3” budded off the Bettinger Family Tree, there are only 6 people alive that have that son’s Y-DNA. Four of those six still have the potential to pass on Y-DNA. You would think that after 193 years there should be hundreds of us, but that’s not how genealogy or genetics works.
P.S. – I don’t mean this post to come off as sexist or biased in any way. I’ve spent a great deal of time tracing the female descendants of “Branch #3”, of which there are many. This was just a story about the descent of the Y-DNA (which I’ve tested and is connected with the Bettinger Surname Project) through “Branch #3.” I’m very interested in my maternal lineage (that is, my mtDNA line), and have already written about my unique maternal line here on the blog.
One Comment
Blaine said:
“You would think that after 193 years there should be hundreds of us, but that’s not how genealogy or genetics works.”
I was shocked when I realized that my brothers are at the end state of our yDNA.
Lorenzo P. (our gr-grandfather)from Italy had three sons. Two “daughtered out.” Our grandfather Agostino had two sons. One son had a son, the other son had two sons. None of those sons have had children. One had died, and the others are no longer married, and not likely to do so again. That is the end of Lorenzo’s line in the US. Perhaps he had brothers in Italy that we have yet to find, and the yDNA line continues.
We are at the end of our mtDNA too. The oldest gr gr gr grandmother from Switzerland passed her DNA down to me through her daughters. My grandmother’s sisters either had no daughters, or they did not marry. My grandmother had two daughters, my mother and her sister.(My aunt.) They each had one daughter. My Aunt’s daughter had two daughters and my mother had me. My Aunt’s granddaughters had only sons, or died before having children. I have a daughter who is at the end of her childbearing years, and is not likely to conceive due to a medical condition.
So why have we had our DNA tested? Curiosity, desire to add to the genetic knowledge, and it is one way of leaving a trace of our family behind.
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