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Archiver > GENEALOGY-DNA > 2007-08 > 1187288895


From: marianne dillow <>
Subject: Re: [DNA] An Obstacle to Genetic Genealogy
Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2007 11:28:15 -0700 (PDT)
In-Reply-To: <00a901c7e007$2e9b6fc0$6401a8c0@Richard>


My situation is a liitle different but important to me. My Dillow surname is very rare in the US. There is a Dillow man who tested at FTDNA and is under the Dillard project. I didn't want any info from FTDNA on him. I just asked if they could forward my email to him so he could get in touch with me as I am trying to determine if the three branches on the Dillow's descend from a cmmon ancestor. I was told that they couldn't forward my email to him and now I am trying to find someway to get in touch with him. I gave up my identity to FTDNA to forward my email to him but they told me thhey couldn't do that. So, I am in the same situation only in a slightly different fashion.

Marianne Dillow




"R. Stevens" <> wrote:
Those folks who set the preferences on their FTDNA personal homepages so that they can only see matches within their surname project are - perhaps inadvertently - creating an obstacle for those of us who are trying to find out where in the world - outside North America - our ancestors came from. That's because when they limit the matches shown to only those within their surname project, those of us outside that surname project can't see them either. Here's a frustrating example from my own recent experience.

I have just one exact 25-marker match that I know about: my second cousin (once removed), Mark. In checking my (y-dna) "Recent Ancestral Origins" page the other day, much to my surprise I discovered that a second such match had appeared, with a man who reported that England is where his y-ancestor came from. This match is not reported on my "Y-DNA Matches" page AND is not in YSearch, so I have no way to find out more or to contact this person. Obviously, I don't get many exact 25-marker (or more) matches, so I got pretty excited about this one. Well, "pretty excited" easily becomes "pretty frustrated" when one cannot find out anything beyond "England."

I contacted Catherine MacDonald at FTDNA. She informed me that the individual concerned has set his preferences so that he only sees matches within his surname project, which is why I cannot see him on my "Y-DNA Matches" page. Ms. MacDonald was very helpful and agreed to forward an email from me to my mystery exact 25-marker match. That was a couple of days ago, and I have yet to receive a response or to see any change on my "Y-DNA Matches" page.

I guess I should be grateful for the report on the "Recent Ancestral Origins" page. It's something, at least. But I want to know more. I really do understand WAMH guys limiting what matches they see, but we don't have the WAMH. My "Y-DNA Matches" page is definitely not overburdened.

Anyone else have a similar experience? This is really frustrating to me.

Rich

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