GENEALOGY-DNA-L Archives

From:
Subject: Re: [DNA] Ybase hits 600
Date: Sat, 1 Mar 2003 18:42:31 EST

How do you get DNA back that far?

In a message dated 2/13/03 1:42:09 PM, writes:

<< At 11:01 AM 2/13/2003 -0800, Charlotte Coats wrote:
>With all due respect, just a couple of points....
>
>Part of the concern is medical from what I've seen on other sites...if
>someone has the ability say a medical insurance company, could search DNA
>bases and find a genetic medical condition

As far as I know, the y-chromosome markers being used in the genealogical
DNA testing do not contribute to any known predisposition to anything
medical. So even if an insurance company or anyone else were to harvest
the data as it is presented in the ybase.org database it would be of no
value to them whatsoever. First of all the markers would tell them nothing
pertaining to the medical information about the participant and secondly
there is no identification of the donor to match it up to anyway. Thirdly,
given any dna pattern you may have dozens if not hundreds or thousands of
people with exactly the same DNA pattern because their family has
experienced no changes in pattern for hundreds of years.

I think we have absolutely nothing to fear in this regard. But I am
willing to listen to any expert who can tell us this is not true.

By the way, we just got some results from a participant test in the UK
whose ancestor traces back to about 1590 in Warwickshire. We already have
his cousins on file in the US who also trace back to a different ancestor
of the same time period and location. It is now very clear that this DNA
pattern HAS to continue up the tree at least two more generations (about
1540 would be my best guess). That is how slowly some of these families
change. For all practical purposes this means zero changes in nearly 500
years.




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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