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Hello Coon Cousins and Non-Cousins:
Me again, begging you to get a DNA test on one of your male Coon relatives. I just got an e-mail from Ancestry.Com telling me they have lowered the price on their 33-marker Y-chromosome test to $79! Such a deal! When I posted about this before, it was $99 for a 12-marker test.
As a reminder, the only connection I have with Ancestry.com and their DNA testing is that I bought a kit from them and gave it to my brother for his 80th birthday. Beyond that, I have no connection whatsoever!
My Coon paper-based research has only dug up a few hundred Coon relatives (living and otherwise). If a bunch of you add your stuff to the Coon DNA Project, I could get hundreds more. Genealogists can't have too many relatives.
My brother's test turned up a couple of Coons who are close genetic matches to me and mine. We were unmatched by only one particular marker which is frequently subject to mutation (so I've been told). I don't pretend to know a whole lot about DNA, but having my family's DNA in the Coon DNA Project has led me to understand a lot more than I did before.
And this is how I visualize the Y-chromosome test:
Let's suppose your last name is Coon and that you have a complete Coon genealogy chart that goes back thousands of years. Nobody is missing. And in this genealogist's dream world:
• The original surname was "Coon" and it never changed,
• No other line except yours ever had the surname of
Coon, and . . .
• No one ever married a blood relative of any sort, no
matter how distantly related.
Let's suppose, also, that your chart is arrayed like an upside down pyramid with your Coon father and your Coon grandfather and all your Coon greats and Coon great-greats, etc., always positioned on the extreme right side of your pyramid, like this:
Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Great Grandfather Coon
Great-Great-Great-Great-Great Grandfather Coon
Great-Great-Great-Great Grandfather Coon
Great-Great-Great Grandfather Coon
Great-Great Grandfather Coon
Great-Grandfather Coon
Grandfather Coon
You Coon
Now think about this. In our perfect genealogist's dream world, if you added together all the ancestors you would have in 20 generations (over 2 million), only 20 of them would be born with the surname Coon and they would all be men.
It is these men that the Y-chromosome test is after. I don't understand it all, but it has something to do with dominant and recessive genes and XX vs. XY chromosomes that somehow enables the test to track DNA from male to male to male, etc.
I hope you'll all consider coughing up the $79 and cornering one of your Coon male relatives to get samples of his saliva. I notice that Ancestry.com said on their website that some people are including DNA results about their line in their published genealogies. Not personal information, I'm sure, but rather, how the line may have flowed from its origins (usually in Africa) to Western Europe to Russia or Scandinavia or South America or etc., etc, etc.
If you go to http://dna.ancestry.com/dnaAnswers.aspx , you can read all about it and, hopefully, buy a kit. Remember, the truth shall set you free! And, with any luck, you might find out that you're not related to me which at this point you might consider to be a good thing.
Regards,
Joan Coon
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