GENEALOGY-DNA-L Archives

Archiver > GENEALOGY-DNA > 2007-10 > 1191882546


From: "Roberta J. Estes" <>
Subject: Re: [DNA] 60 Minutes Genetic Genealogy Segment
Date: Mon, 8 Oct 2007 18:29:06 -0400
In-Reply-To: <c74.19b0ad54.343c00d6@aol.com>


If African Ancestry truly does have the largest African DNA data base, I
would expect them to generate more matches than DTDNA, and based on the
results we saw, it surely looked like DTDNA had quite a few more. I wonder
if they would answer that question if I called them since I'm not a
customer. Maybe someone onlist who is a customer of theirs will ask that
question.

Roberta

-----Original Message-----
From:
[mailto:] On Behalf Of
Sent: Monday, October 08, 2007 5:53 PM
To:
Subject: Re: [DNA] 60 Minutes Genetic Genealogy Segment


In a message dated 10/8/2007 4:17:32 P.M. Central Daylight Time,
writes:

I wonder if they have multiple matches, like Family Tree DNA did, if they
report multiple matches or if they just report the "best" match as their
tribe.


Based on Kittles responses to questions at the end, I suspect that
AfricanAncestry internally generates a list much like the FTDNA list and
then uses the observed frequencies to predict the "most likely." There is
nothing, from a scientific standpoint, that is "misleading" or "erroneous"
about this, provided the differences are statistically significant. I
wonder if FGS might eliminate some of them :)

I specifically commented to CBS about this aspect of their show, as it was
the part that bothered me the most -- presenting it as if the companies do
not
know what they are doing.
My comment to CBS was essentially this: The differing results are no more
mysterious than why I have maternally related cousins all over the US today
-- the descendants of the common ancestress have migrated in the hundreds
of years since she lived.


As an aside, my husband, who is not trained in either genetics nor
statistics and only knows a little from listening to me blather on about
what I'm doing, watched the 60 Minutes show with me, and as soon as they
got to that part of showing the different results, he said "OH GEE! ALL
those countries are in the same part of Aftrica, can't they see that?"
(Fortunately, he's not geographically challenged).

Anne



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