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My sister has the wallet my father was carrying when he died in a road accident in 1969, complete with resultant blood-stains.

Is there a way to do DNA-testing from this blood-testing. What sorts of DNA-testing are possible (Y-DNA, mtDNA or autosomal DNA). If it's possible, how would I go about it?

[There are no other living male descendants that we've been able to trace from his grand-father or great-grandfather. (Lots of women, no men).]

  • You need to consider the degree of faith you can place in any interpretation. Can you be certain whose blood (or other fluid) made the stain? How degraded is it likely to be? If some kind soul "cleaned up" the wallet with a chemical before returning it to the family, there may be no usable DNA present. – Fortiter Aug 05 '13 at 01:54

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It is sometimes possible to extract DNA in such situations but it is a very expensive process and there is no guarantee of success. You have to pay the money upfront regardless of whether the tests are successful. The best chance of success is with mtDNA because there is a lot of mtDNA in each cell. I believe the success rate is very low for Y-DNA. There is a list of companies that do such analyses in the ISOGG Wiki:

http://www.isogg.org/wiki/List_of_forensic_and_ancient_DNA_laboratories

You could take an autosomal DNA test yourself as you will have inherited 50% of your father's autosomal DNA. If your father has any sisters then they could take an mtDNA test as they would have the same mtDNA as your father.

To get your father's Y-DNA you could trace his surname linke back a few more generations and then see if you can find a living male descendant from a different branch of the tree.

Debbie
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  • I looked into this issue recently and discovered a service that seems reasonably priced. They offer no guarantee. Also I do not know anything about the what is stated in the results or if data file is created that can be uploaded to a service like gedmatch. https://www.easy-dna.com/discreet-dna-test/ – Annie Sep 12 '15 at 03:02