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Let me say this:

I know you don’t care about my family tree. That’s OK. My family tree is beside the point. I’m writing this in case you’re wondering whether a Y-DNA test can tell you anything about your family tree.

And the answer to that question is, “Kind of!”

Starting point

I had a working theory about my ancestry.

I had traced my paternal line to George Pack, my 5th great-grandfather. George was born around 1755 in Virginia and died in 1825 in Kentucky. I’m descended from George’s son, Samuel.

I mention this because the names of the Pack men are important to the working theory.

Several years ago, I came across a manuscript called “Ancestral Families of Robert Lee Pack,” by a college professor and professional genealogist named John Vallentine.

Robert Lee was John’s wife’s grandfather. Robert Lee’s great-grandfather was a different Samuel Pack. This Samuel was from the same generation as my 5th great-grandfather. He was born around the same time and in the same Virginia county.

John thought my George and Samuel might be brothers but couldn’t prove it.

He also hypothesized that George and Samuel were descended from one of the original English colonists of New Jersey, also named George Pack. The short version is there was a steady line of George and Samuel Packs beginning in New Jersey and ending 100 later in present-day West Virginia.

What the Y-DNA said

DNA is deoxyribonucleic acid, the molecule that passes genetic information from one generation to the next. Y-DNA tests look at the Y-chromosome, which passes virtually unchanged from father to son. Sometimes, at random, there’s a mutation, and these mutations can be used to estimate how recently two people share a common paternal ancestor.

My Y-DNA test results said there’s a good chance John nailed it.

Let’s start with the question of whether my 5th great-grandfather was brothers with the Samuel Pack who lived in West Virginia.

Two strangers who’d taken the test listed Samuel as their earliest known paternal ancestor. Counting backward, I’m the first generation, my parents, the second, etc. George and Samuel’s father, the earliest possible Pack ancestor I could possibly share with these strangers, would be the ninth generation.

Based on our DNA, the testing service estimated there’s a 99.41% probability that these cousins and I shared a common ancestor within nine generations. That meant there’s only a 0.59% chance that our most recent common ancestor was someone else.

The test didn’t say who their father was. It only indicates there’s a strong chance that George and Samuel were brothers. We think their dad was a trapper named Samuel based on local tradition, family lore and a decided lack of Packs in the area at the time, but there’s no way to prove it because there’s no paper trail.

According to John’s theory, George and Samuel’s great-great-grandfather was a colonist named George Pack who arrived in present-day New Jersey in 1665.

Counting backward, this colonist would be the 12th generation.

My Y-DNA was a close match with two descendants of the earliest George Pack. John’s theory is that my line was descended from George’s son, Samuel. The guys I matched with were descended from a son named Job, whose family migrated first to Canada and then out to Utah and Idaho.

There was a 95.42% chance that one of these cousins and I had a common ancestor within 12 generations. The other cousin was an even closer match. The testing service estimated there is a 98.31% chance we shared a common Pack ancestor within 12 generations.

What does it mean?

By itself, the Y-DNA test didn’t tell me much of anything. It told me who I matched, but it didn’t tell me why I matched.

Judy G. Russell, a genealogist and lawyer who writes The Legal Genealogist, says, “DNA only works with the paper trail research, not instead of it.” Without things like birth records, wills, and court records, we can’t say for certain whether my cousins and I are linked through the trapper Pack or the George Pack who lived in New Jersey.

We might be connected through the trapper’s brother or George Pack’s uncle.

But then there’s Jack’s hypothesis.

Serious genealogists follow the Genealogical Proof Standards, a set of best practices that the Board for Certification of Genealogists that allows you “to come as close as possible to what actually happened in history.”

Basically, you should:

1. Do reasonably exhaustive research.

2. Include complete and accurate source citations.

3. Analyze and correlate the evidence thoroughly.

4. Offer a convincing resolution of conflicting evidence.

5. Provide a soundly written conclusion based on the strongest evidence.

In other words, you should do the work and be able to defend it.

John did that. He acknowledged that there was “a scattering of colonial Pack families” and that “Pack families settled in several eastern Virginia counties between 1655 and 1700,” but “family records for these early-day Virginia Packs are sparse,” and, besides, no one had linked these random colonial Packs to Samuel or my 5th-great grandfather, George.

The Y-DNA evidence was imperfect, but I believed it strengthened John’s argument, so I gathered up everything and applied to the Descendants of the Founders of New Jersey.

There are a bunch of hereditary and lineage organizations out there. The most famous might be the DAR, the Daughters of the American Revolution, which is open to women who can prove descent from someone who supported the Revolutionary War. The group I applied to is for people who can show they’re descended from one of the original New Jersey colonists.

A few months later, they accepted. I now have a certificate showing that genealogists who don’t know me read the application, weighed the evidence I submitted, and thought, Yeah, that checks out.

So, Y-DNA tests can be tremendously helpful, but they can’t tell you everything.