How many generations ago does the Y-DNA test trace?
Because Y-DNA is passed down from the father to the son intact for many generations, the answer is that the test can cover both recent and distant generations. On the recent side, the Recent Ancestral Origins section will point towards possible countries of origin. If you have few matches, this list will not be statistically representative, and you therefore will need to wait until more people are added to the database (several thousand are added every month). The Y-DNA test also identifies the haplogroup, which represents your deep ancestral origins (think tens of thousands of years ago).
Because Y-DNA is passed down from the father to the son intact for many generations, the answer is that the test can cover both recent and distant generations. On the recent side, the Recent Ancestral Origins section will point towards possible countries of origin. If you have few matches, this list will not be statistically representative, and you …
