All my years of searching to find out..........

[TSully980]

I have spent several years and several $'s to find all the info that I have. I decided to have the Y-DNA testing done because of a brick wall. All the records I have found add up and are verifiable. Except for one person. So I needed the DNA testing to prove I was part of this line. I expected the results to match this line. Well guess what....
I didn't match anyone in this line and I don't match anyone at FTDNA or Ysearch.
So this lead to some questioning. As it turns out my father may have been a product of an affair. There is a process that can be done (hehe) that may now prove something. My father has a living brother. Every other male has passed on or there aren't any that I can locate. So the question here is, if my fathers brother has the Y-DNA testing done how close should his dna match mine if in fact my father (his brother) is a Sullivan? The test that will be done is the 37 marker test. And if we aren't even close I guess my only path is to wait until my dna test matches someone elses.
Does all this make sense? Thank you, Troy

[Mary Lee Becker]

Troy,

There can be mutations in brothers, but if your uncle and your father were true biological brothers you should be an identical, or very close match to your uncle.

Not matching your present surname does not necessarily mean an affair. It could have been an orphaned child adopted/taken in and raised by another family. It could even be a related family, ie: a married sister's child. Keep that option in mind when doing research.

[TSully980]

Thank you for the response. The big problem is that I have found out this information and suspect that my tree will now end on the paternal side with my father. I was very interested in finding all the info on the paternal side. I have concentrated most of my efforts on the paternal side. Now it looks as though I will be giving all the info I have to someone who wants it that is of the line that I probably don't fit into. I have no matches here at Family Tree, Ysearch, or Ancestry. Where else do I look? What more can I do to find a potential match?
Thank you, Troy