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Archiver > GENEALOGY-DNA > 2006-08 > 1155262606


From:
Subject: Re: [DNA] Matching
Date: Thu, 10 Aug 2006 22:16:46 EDT


In a message dated 8/10/2006 1:02:04 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
writes:

> See: http://www.familytreedna.com/trs_explain.html
>
> In a nutshell though it means these two people had a common ancestor
> within approximately 7 generations ago (95% probability).

That table is based on a mutation rate that is about double what father/son
studies show, so personally I'd double the number of generations. However, I
still think a 37/37 match is worth a modicum of effort to look for any
commonalities in time frame / location. As others have mentioned, there might be some
additional clues. Does one surname have lots of good matches within the
project? Then the other surname might be due to misattributed paternity somewhere
along the line. Is the haplotype rare? Then a match is more "interesting." As you
noted in another message, the rarity of the haplotype doesn't impact the
TMRCA calculations, which are based purely on the behavior of random events, but
it does influence my willingness to do some research.

Ann Turner

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