How to go about things.
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In reply to:
Re: Will start a Hyde DNA project, need help.
steve hyde 2/24/02
The following is in answer to your questions.
Q. What is the procedure and cost of such a project?
A. The procedure is just a cheek swab that is immediately put into a tube and mailed to a company called Oxford Ancestors, a company founded by a British scientist. A person's DNA is replicated and the length of certain segments of "trash" DNA from the Y-Chromosome (which, unlike the other chromosomes, only men possess and can only be passed from father to son) is measured and given a numerical value. Trash DNA is not used to make up any gene. It's only purpose is to separate genes from each other. Nevertheless, it is inherited like any other DNA and subject to mutation. In total, among the segments tested, one mutation can be expected every five hundred years or so. This test cannot be used to prove paternity, nor does it show any potentially damaging information about defective genes, etc. In fact, it's only use is in identifying whether two or more males have a common male ancestor which could be as recent as one generation before or as distant as 1000 years or so. Because of this, a knowledge of the historical record regarding each lineage tested is important when comparing information. However, even if incomplete or defective historical information is available when a comparison is made, it can easily serve to produce fairly dramatic leaps in genealogical knowledge.
As for the test, itself, the information can be best gained at http://www.oxfordancestors.comhttp://www.oxfordancestors.com. The current cost for the necessary y-chromosome signature test is $220.
Q. How would the results be published?
A. They would be uploaded to my domain http://family.nfhttp://family.nf, where I would create a separate Hide/Hyde/Hite/Hight page. The reason for the two sets of surnames is because some Americans of German ancestry whose name was originally pronounced as Hite, anglicised the spelling and pronunciation of their names to the more English-sounding Hyde, whereas others became Hites or Hights. Likewise, as Queen Mary II and Queen Anne both had a Hyde mother and the Hydes related to these two queens as a result become members of the high nobility, this may have induced a certain number of English Hites to make the change over to Hyde, too. Later, when there are more participants and, if the results justify a separation, I will make two separate web sites on the http://family.nfhttp://family.nf domain, one for the Hide/Hydes and another for the Hight/Hites. To see what the pages would look like please look at my Cotten/on pages.
Anyway, thanks so much for your interest. By the way, I will have in approximately two months my first volunteer's results posted on the Hide/Hyde/Hight/Hite pages that I am proposing to make. I hope I can eventually add yours, too.