GENEALOGY-DNA-L Archives

Archiver > GENEALOGY-DNA > 2002-12 > 1040508517


From: OrinWells <>
Subject: Re: [DNA] Non-same surname matches
Date: Sat, 21 Dec 2002 14:08:37 -0800
In-Reply-To: <20021221.142614.-321423.5.garluke@juno.com>


At 02:20 PM 12/21/2002 -0500, Gary W. Cooper wrote:

>What are the implications of someone's DNA test resulting in 15 exact
>matches and none of them sharing the same surname, and the nearest same
>surname was 11 of 12 markers? What good would a 25-marker refinement do
>at this point?

Once again, in my opinion the single advantage I can see to a 12 marker
test is that if you have a lot of mis-matches you can exclude some samples
from being members of a family. BUT if two people match on 12 out of 12
you can NOT say they are from the same family EVEN if they share the same
surname. And since the objective is not to find out who you don't match up
with but rather who you DO match, the 25/26 marker test is the better way
to go.

We have one case in our study where a subject was a perfect match for one
of the families on the standard 12 markers. If we had left it at 12, we
would not have discovered that on 26 markers he missed by 7 and was clearly
not connected to that family. In fact we can't match him at all yet.

While it IS cheaper for the 12 marker test and we have discussed the
advantage of attracting participants at the lower price, if you are serious
about placing the pieces, you must eventually go to the 25/26 marker test
(or better). To take it still a step further, our BYU study actually
provided a 27th marker which was a test marker but they let me have the
results. It has provided some further refinement in some cases. But since
Relative Genetics is not testing on this marker I am unable to use it and
did not post it on the website.



Orin R. Wells
Wells Family Research Association
P. O. Box 5427
Kent, Washington 98064-5427
<>
http://www.rootsweb.com/~wellsfam/wfrahome.html
Subscribe to the "Wells-L" list on RootsWeb

This thread: