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Archiver > GENEALOGY-DNA > 2007-04 > 1177516061


From: "Jim Huston" <>
Subject: Re: [DNA] Non-paternity events----how often do they happen?
Date: Wed, 25 Apr 2007 10:47:41 -0500
In-Reply-To: <002e01c78718$58e0a270$0b01a8c0@p42700c>


Odd (for me, anyway) that you should broach this subject just now. I was
thinking about adding an increment to the NPE discussion when I got up
today. I have been focusing on paper genealogy since I have no genetic
matches beyond 25/25, and have traced three of my ancestral lines (Huston,
Strang, Wells) fairly extensively.

I already knew that one of my Huston ancestors had been born out of wedlock
(William, 1775, Bucks Co., PA), and learned just last night that that one of
my Wells ancestors also was born out of wedlock (William, 1812, Coshocton
Co., OH), making it two out of three well-documented lines with a bastard
son. Although in both cases the parents married about a year later, and the
sample is admittedly small, I think this frequency may well have
implications regarding our assumptions about the frequency of NPEs in
general.

The last couple of decades have seen much public agita over the increase in
out-of-wedlock births, but I'm beginning to suspect that may be the norm
over the long term, and that the apparently high rate of "legitimate"
children born in the previous 150 years or so is an aberration (or an
artifact). I have long contended that our ancestors' behavior did not
differ significantly from our own; I'd sure like to see more definitive
research.

- Jim H.


>From: "louis" <>
>Reply-To:
>To: <>
>Subject: [DNA] Non-paternity events----how often do they happen?
>Date: Wed, 25 Apr 2007 02:01:43 -0700
>
>Dear List:
>
>I haven't written for a while, but time to jump in for at least a while.
>
>One important question that I have is weather there has been any scientific
>studies of non-paternity events in various populations: By this I mean,
>how
>many times have 2 brothers or cousins taken a Y-DNA test who have a known
>common ancestor from the paper trail, and then ARE TOTALLY SURPRISED to
>find
>that their Y-DNA is much different from each other?
>
>I think this is especially important for someone such as myself, who is
>getting the Y-DNA sequence of many of my ancestors lines, by assuming the
>cousins I find to test are indeed the actual descendants of the ancestors
>in
>my pedigree chart. Of course, there is always the possibility that a
>non-paternity event occurred, and this concerns me as to the accuracy of my
>findings.
>
>Does anyone think it is a good idea to do a survey (maybe I should start
>this up), to find an actual % of non-paternity events occur in the
>population.
>
>Any thoughts on this?
>
>Thanks,
>Louis Loccisano
>
>
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