In Praise of FTDNA

What Family Tree DNA has made available has been incredible for the St. Clair Family:

1. We've found a path towards the true history of our family. We don't all descend, as the dusty old books say, from Rollo or William the Conqueror. We have 12 distinct lineages, and a much more complex history. 
2. FTDNA's Family Finder test has helped 3 of our family members solve, or start to solve, their questions about adoption. 
3. With continued SNP testing, we're getting much closer to "connecting the branches to the leaves" as Bennet Greenspan said. In two cases, we feel there's a chance we may solve the entire history of family lines back to the very early medieval period. None of this would have been possible without the ongoing advancements of FTDNA.

That list could go on an on. When I think back to the time 10 years ago, before Stan St. Clair and I took the first tests in the family, genealogy was so inexact. People argued over competing documents and made wild claims. And no one had any certainty before the 1600s.

Now, using FTDNA and SNP research, many of us have a direction of where to look and when we might connect to much older records.

By making the complicated science of DNA easy for the masses, Family Tree DNA has truly helped genealogists overcome brick walls in their families.