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Subject: Re: [DNA] Surnames Projects - June 30, 2007 - Part 2 of 3
Date: Sun, 08 Jul 2007 09:17:20 -0400
References: <c3643e1d.918a.4984.b5cb.d443c9d2e280@aol.com><fe90fcd66973f.6973ffe90fcd6@southeast.rr.com>
In-Reply-To: <fe90fcd66973f.6973ffe90fcd6@southeast.rr.com>
(my earlier post was somehow corrupted and certain portions missing, so here it is again)
List,
The below list of largest FTDNA projects reminded me of the measure of success that I believe is important. Many projects include a goal such as "to find how all Linkerbachs (made up) are related." The question then arises, "am I done yet?" In my view, it is desirable to achieve the goal quickly and with as few participants as possible. This frees up time to move on to the next goal. I believe that measuring a goal is as important as setting it. In the Goff/Gough project, I split my measurement between the U.S. and British Isles since the level of participation in the project is vastly different between these two areas. In theGoff/Gough project, many of the families in the U.S. today descend from Goff/Gough families that were in the U.S. by 1800. As such, I chose the 1850 census as the devise to measure success since it was the first census to list all household members. From the census I extracted all males with the phonetic equivalent surname of Goff or Gough born before !
1813. I c
The above method is not a perfect measure: some Goff families arrived after 1850, others had no representation in the extract (men born after 1812 who died before 1850), not all lineages in the 1850 subset abstract are known, and new Goff families may have arisen through adoption after 1850. Despite these known shortcomings, I believe is is an effective tool to answer the question, "am I done yet?" Thanks,
Phil Goff
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: WBDave <>
> Date: Saturday, July 7, 2007 11:11 pm
> Subject: [DNA] Surnames Projects - June 30, 2007 - Part 2 of 3
> To:
>
> > The following is a list of the Y-DNA surname projects with 100
> or
> > more participants. The full 50+ list can be seen at
> > >www.worldfamilies.net<
> > Bill Davenport
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