Re: 12 vs 25, 25 vs 37 Marker Test
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In reply to:
Re: 12 vs 25, 25 vs 37 Marker Test
Richard Cottrell 2/23/04
Richard Cotrell wrote:
"Most individuals that do genealogy that want or will try to get into the DNA testing for an ancestor will be looking for a test that can tell them exactly about a parental line."
This cannot be done with DNA testing. It cannot show exact relationships of ancestors. Any genealogist who shares your expectation is wasting his time delving into the matter.
However, a person willing to accept its limited role as an adjunct to traditonal research will profit from the information it can provide.
For all families, there will be some utility in quickly focusing the research of those trying to connect orphan branches. Sometimes, an ancestor can be shown to be biologically unrelated to the main line.
In many cases testing will resolve questions which cannot be answered with paper research alone. In our project we were able to ascertain the progenitor of a major branch. The problem had vexed researchers for many years. It took a combination of DNA and traditonal records to accomplish this. His line appears to be unrelated to ours, as the children were born to a woman who appears to have been the widow of a man from our line.
I must, however, emphasize that traditional research is still the most important component of genealogical research.
(Note: I use genealogical in the usual sense to mean connecting people in a stepwise descent or ascent. I do not include ancient ancestry in its meaning, as some of the testing firms do. This is really in the area of population genetics. However, genealogy has a wider appeal than population genetics.)
More Replies:
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Re: 12 vs 25, 25 vs 37 Marker Test
Richard Cottrell 3/01/04