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Archiver > GENEALOGY-DNA > 2001-02 > 0981220520


From: "Orin R. Wells" <>
Subject: Re: [DNA] DNA Project
Date: Sat, 03 Feb 2001 09:15:20 -0800
In-Reply-To: <42.10389cd6.27ad69af@aol.com>


At 09:03 AM 2/3/01 -0500, Ann Turner wrote:
>You might be surprised by the number of posts from people who frankly say
they don't want
to know. They've invested a great deal of time and effort in tracing a
certain line, often their own surname line. They feel it's part of their
identity and they don't want to take the risk of turning up contrary evidence.

While I find this metality totally contrary to the goals of genealogical
and historical research, I too have run into it in various ways. One is
where someone has mistakenly identified a wrong or non-existent ancestor in
their tree and do not even want to discuss the facts that show the
information to be wrong. "They have done THEIR research. End of the
story". I am sure we have all heard stories of how some researcher has
actually destroyed public records to hide the evidence that they had an
illigimate ancestor somewhere in their tree. Oh, the shame of it all.

With DNA we run the distinct chance that in a genealogy related project we
WILL find cases where not only ancestors were not "ancestors" but that
living persons do not have the parent they think they do. Personally, I
would want to find out and I am of a nature that, if my parents were
living, I would not be stressed. Now how a husband would react to learning
"his" child was not really his one can not predict.

In the case of the Wells study, I have already been alerted to this
potential for problem. I intend to advise anyone participating in our
study that they have to be prepared for this sort of eventuality before
they get into the project. If they are at all nervous about this, I would
rather they not participate.


Orin R. Wells
Wells Family Research Association
P. O. Box 5427
Kent, Washington 98064-5427
<>
http://www.rootsweb.com/~wellsfam/wfrahome.html
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