GENEALOGY-DNA-L Archives

Archiver > GENEALOGY-DNA > 2006-01 > 1137171886


From: Doug McDonald <>
Subject: Re: [DNA] Y-STR testing rate slowing down?
Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2006 11:04:46 -0600
References: <011320061644.13215.43C7D901000F2D6B0000339F22058864429C9C0EA004019D0EBC@comcast.net>
In-Reply-To: <011320061644.13215.43C7D901000F2D6B0000339F22058864429C9C0EA004019D0EBC@comcast.net>


wrote:
> On virtually
> every surname that I am interested in, there has been a noticeable
> fall off in postings to forums like GenForum or rootsweb. [I don't
> access the ancestry.com message boards, so I can't speak to their
> level of activity.] It is just my observation in all of surnames
> that I am interested in that over the past two years or so, the kind
> of white-hot interest in genealogy that was palpable about five to
> eight years ago has significantly diminished. This would ultimately
> affect! DNA testing, if I'm right. Do others have this same
> impression??
>

As to Internet message board and surname mailing lists, the answer is
a qualified yes, the traffic is down.


But there is one major reason, which was to be expected: when the
Internet spurt in genealogy interest was highest, people were
looking for answers to extend their trees, and by contact with
people working on the same lines, got lots of answers fast.

I sure did, some good, some bogus. The winnowing out of the
bogus created lots of posts.

But now the "big spurt" of people have all done all they can
by attaching on to the (valid) paper work of those they previously
had no contact with. Their dead ends become ours.

Thus, it gets harder, much harder, and the traffic dwindles.

All this is the expected course of events.

Doug McDonald

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