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Scientists have found out that the surname of the English man can be defined with a high probability on structure of a man's Y-chromosome. Comparing features of a structure of Y-chromosomes, it defines, whether was at the men carrying an identical surname, the general genetic ancestor or their surnames are not connected with the general genetic origin. It was found out that if men carry a widespread English surname probability of that they had a general ancestor, makes 24 %, and if rare - that of 50 %.
This is a very important discovery, a discovery that involved mainly statistics. Such knowledge can be used in criminalistics if a large enough database is created and maintained. In this case the surname with a high probability can be established by means of DNA analysis.

Such a database would not be too reliable. The point is that surnames can easily be changed. Thus, a criminal can easily do that, which will make the investigators get confused even more.