The Oliphant Clan and Family Association includes members from nations worldwide though most are in our homeland, Scotland, and the United States. We search for Oliphant roots through traditional methods, as well as DNA analysis. DNA results, combined with genealogy research, will hopefully break down some brick walls and solve some mysteries in our Oliphant heritage. There are three kinds of DNA tests that are part of the Oliphant DNA Projects: (1) The Oliphant Y-DNA Project is intended for Oliphant males, or males with a different surname where an Oliphant was known to be the father, seeking to trace or confirm their Oliphant (and related surnames) heritage. Members will be identified on our public web site only by kit number, but the administrators may disclose additional relevant information to project members. The Y-DNA Project is, in essence, a Surname Project or a One Name Study. You may have seen both terms used. A Surname Project uses Y-DNA testing to identify members of a family that share a common surname. Surnames are passed down from father to son like the Y-chromosome. Females do not carry their father's Y-DNA, and therefore cannot have a Y-DNA test. Females who would like to check their direct paternal line should have a male Oliphant relative order a Y-DNA test. We recommend that men tested for this project have their Y-DNA tested to 111 markers, and 67 markers at the very least. The Oliphant Y-DNA Project is housed here at FamilyTreeDNA. (2) Both females and males can order a mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) test here at FamilyTree DNA. All of us inherit our mtDNA only from our mother, so this test identifies our maternal line (mother’s mother’s mother, etc.) However, mtDNA may not be as useful since it looks deeply into our pasts to determine ancient origins thousands of years ago. (3) A third type of DNA test, autosomal DNA, may also be undertaken by any gender from a multitude of testing companies. In fact, this is probably the type of DNA test that you are most familiar with owing to advertising from FamilyTree DNA, Ancestry.com, MyHeritage, 23andMe, and others. Autosomal, or "Family Finder", type tests can look back a maximum of 500 years, with increasing probabilities of NOT finding matches the farther we go back. The Each company sets its own autosomal DNA match thresholds and some more distant matches might not appear because of these restrictions, but let's take a look at your chances of finding a cousins at different levels at three of the bigger testing companies: Relationship 23andMe AncestryDNA Family Tree DNA Family Finder First cousins 100% 100% 100% Second cousins 100% 100% >99% Third cousins 89.7% 98% >90% Fourth cousins 45.9% 71% >50% Fifth cousins 14.9% 32% >10% Sixth cousins 4.1% 11% Remote (typically less than 2%) Seventh cousins 1.1% 3.2% Eighth cousins 0.24% 0.91% Ninth cousins 0.06% Tenth cousins 0.002% Source: https://isogg.org/wiki/Cousin_statistics The Oliphant Autosomal DNA Test is housed at www.GEDmatch.com. You can download your raw DNA file from any testing company and upload it for free to GEDmatch. Then join the Oliphant Project under "Ancestor Projects". Regardless of which type of DNA test you are pursuing, the big take-aways here are: (1) Get your elders tested while you can. If someone has passed away who did another kind of test (Y-DNA or mtDNA), order an autosomal test on that existing DNA sample; (2) The more Oliphant men testing their Y-DNA, the the greater the variety and number of different lines of Oliphants that will be represented in the Y-DNA database. Having a larger selection of Y-DNA results to compare to means that more identifications can be made; (3) Likewise,the more people participating in the Oliphant Autosomal DNA Project, and the greater the chances of hitting those 5th to 8th cousins, and that is where we'll hope to find some revealing connections. PLEASE NOTE: DNA test results are intended for genealogical research and are not intended for medical DNA analyses. The Oliphant Projects' volunteer administrators have no commercial affiliation with any profit-making organization relating to this project and receive no compensation for services or expenses involved with the Oliphant DNA Projects.