During 2002 I became interested in DNA testing (particularly YDNA) as an aid to conventional genealogy. The interest arose from the "brick wall" that seemed to have arisen in the search for Grierson ancestors, when it became apparent that the limit to easily accessible documentation had been reached. By 2003 I was well into the testing regime, and in a position to begin to draw conclusions from the study, albeit those conclusions were somewhat tentative because it was also apparent that the science was evolving rapidly, as it continues to do. Those early conclusions can now be seen to lack definition by comparison with more recent results, and doubtless there will be future advances that clarify things further.

On this page are links to successive articles written as the knowledge advanced. For the beginner, there is some value in reading them in date succession as they contain progressive explanation of both principles and jargon. The associated "Grier Charts" contain the latest data sets from which my conclusions are drawn, and they are periodically updated for reference purposes. This data is also the basis of articles written for the Clan Grierson website which is linked on the opening Grierson page of this website.

The "Grierson/Amuligane relationship" paper and its associated spreadsheets is a separate enquiry into the discovery that Grierson and Millican/Milligan DNA results showed unexplained similarities. It concludes that several families with roots in Galloway and Dumfriesshire are genetically linked in the era preceding the use of surnames.