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Archiver > GENEALOGY-DNA > 2004-05 > 1083511028


From: "John A Hansen" <>
Subject: DNA Matches > Scottish Matches
Date: Sun, 2 May 2004 08:17:08 -0700


Dear Don:

I would think that a 25/25 match would certainly indicate
that you would want to focus a lot of effort on that precise
tree. There is some potential for misleading but at this
point I would even recommend upgrading to the new
37 marker test for that analysis!

Your odds of actually finding a written genealogy trail
amongst those 25/25 matches is certainly a lot more
probable than merely trying to connect two uncertain
suspected matches that have no certain connection.

My strong recommendation is to also use DNA testing as
verification of the standard genealogy research due
to the occasional mysterious paternity events and
other human mistakes that have mislead genealogist
for hundreds of years.

BTW: The Scottish DNA study does share information and
the participants are eager to match their written records with
anyone that even comes close to a match. Some of these
written ( and proven) genealogy ancestry records go back
hundreds of years.

Best Regards
John A Hansen




From: Doug McDonald <>
Subject: Re: [DNA] MRCA, Mutations, Statistics, Etc.
Date: Sat, 1 May 2004 07:00:00 -0700 (PDT)
In-Reply-To: <<>>

--- wrote:
>> I would even go so far as
> to say that a
> DNA match in the context of an extensive surname
> project might convey
> the right to say that person A is "presumably
> descended from immigrant
> B" or even from B's grandson C (if that branch is
> marked by a known
> mutation). However, filling in the details of the
> descent is still
> the job of conventional genealogy.
>

Well, there is my Yahoo mail user name. What about
that?

I'm claiming, solely on the basis of my name, that
my Scottish ancestor came over when lots of others
did from McDonald rich northern Scotland, and DNA,
that I descend (in the male line) from a man who
died in 1164 (or a close relative). While this is
somewhat presumptious, I view it as actually probably
, quite probably, true. (Note that one can't be
absolutely certain what the match is ... 23/25, 24/25,
or 25/25. Mark McDonald is saying it is 25/25. I have
part of his proprietary data, and am not so sure, but
there is zero question that I am a 25/25 match with at
least one of the chiefs that surely descend from him.)
Also, there are numerous lines from me to him not in
the male line, all well proven with paper.

There are lots of other McDonalds in the US who match
me 25/25, and none of us has been able, yet, to use
this to find a paper trail to anybody, so far as I
know. (We've had this only a month of so of course.)
Unfortunately, we don't know who matches us
in the UK .... except for the nobility and clan chiefs
... because Bryan Sykes won't share data with our
US based Clan Donald DNA study, and anyway he probably
has only 10 markers. We are going likely have to find
people in the US who have paper trails back to
Scotland, and get 37 or even 44 marker DNA.

Doug McDonald

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