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Archiver > GENEALOGY-DNA > 2006-06 > 1149143973


From: "Eric Olson" <>
Subject: Re: [DNA] Famous People and SNPs
Date: Wed, 31 May 2006 23:39:33 -0700


It is good to hear of these occasional success stories.

Eric Olson


> [Original Message]
> From: Hal Whitmore <>
> To: <>
> Date: 5/31/2006 9:52:53 PM
> Subject: Re: [DNA] Famous People and SNPs
>
>
> Dear Eric,
>
> I'm sorry you have been disappointed. I'm very new to this (since the
first
> of the year) but it has given me exactly what I anticipated for
GENEALOGICAL
> purposes. It has given me a pretty solid replacement for a generation in
New
> York state between 1800 and 1830 with virtually nothing except "family
> tradition."
>
> It has also, tentatively at least, given me solid proof that three "Great
> Migration" immigrants to New England are NOT related to each other, as
many
> genealogists have been speculating for about 150 years. (I only have one
man
> in one of the lines, and there is always the possibility of a non paternal
> event until I have a couple more who match him.) That has saved me
wasting
> any more time in research in England on one of the lines which obviously
> isn't mine. (R1b vs I). I won't have to travel to Hereford again this
trip.
> (Of course I've paid for enough DNA to pay for my flight over <grin>.) I'm
> waiting for those additional "probands" but if they pan out at least half
a
> dozen published genealogies by quite respectable authors, written between
> 1867 and the present will have to be rewritten. And, it will be good solid
> proof! And, although it wasn't one of my original objectives, we will
> probably have sufficient data on the lines of four sons of a man born in
> 1615 to say to a cousin who comes along knowing only his or her great
> grandfather's name, "you belong here, and you should be looking here and
> here." (Not everyone was writing to ancient relatives--even more ancient
> than I am now-- 45 years ago to collect some replacements for a paper
> trail.) That will be kinda nice to leave behind too.
>
> The Genghis Khan stuff is kind of a fun side line, and it was fun today to
> tell some genealogists that have their line back to Switzerland in the
> 1500's that there ancestors probably got there from the Balkans. Not
> genealogically important, perhaps, but worth a footnote to the overall
> picture of the family.
>
> But, my expectations were reasonable and are well on the way to being met.
> (It takes a lot longer than I anticipated to recruit the right people and
> get the results back.)
>
> Hal Whitmore
>
> on 5/31/06 2:23 PM, Eric Olson at wrote:
>
> > Glen,
> >
> > I suspect that the vast majority of folks who have contributed to the
> > databases are genealogists and family historians seduced by the
marketing
> > hype: "Genealogy by genetics is the greatest addition to Genealogy since
> > the creation of the Family Tree," and "History Unearthed Daily", and of
> > course those Certificates offered by another testing company of "Viking
> > Ancestry" if R1a from the British Isles, etc. I admit I was seduced by
it
> > at first in the manner of "Great Expectations", but nothing much
happened
> > except the return of a string of 37 numbers and an R1a in the Haplogroup
> > column, and a canned description of the Kurgan culture. Not much help,
in
> > fact no help, for my genealogy. Joining the surname group project and
> > buying deep clade testing was not helpful either. I feel a little
guilty
> > talking my cousin into buying all those tests. (My surname of
interest is
> > my mother's maiden name Carroll / or Carrel, stonewalled in
Pennsylvania in
> > the 1700s).
> >
> > As for Genghis Khan, Ui Neill, Somerled, etc., I daresay very few Y-DNA
> > testees went into this hoping for connection with any of them. Aside
from
> > Genghis Khan who had even heard of them? Most were looking for great
great
> > grandpa's dad in Colonial America. These excursions into ancient
history
> > involving famous figures are pleasant diversions designed to beat the
drums
> > for more and more testing, in my opinion, often involving an SNP test.
> > Good for the testing companies, good for the population geneticists,
good
> > for the dadabases, but not much immediate good for the genealogy of the
> > person paying for the tests. The knowledge, if it comes, will be a
delayed
> > reward.
> >
> > Eric Olson
> >
> >
>
>
>
> ==============================
> Census images 1901, 1891, 1881 and 1871, plus so much more.
> Ancestry.com's United Kingdom & Ireland Collection. Learn more:
http://www.ancestry.com/s13968/rd.ashx


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