> From: [email protected] (John Chandler) > Date: October 27, 2005 1:19:33 PM CDT > To: [email protected] > Subject: The immigrant Williams and their relationship - another > thought > > > I wrote: >> Mathematically, the best guess at the interval would >> be 8 generations, but the range of plausible values goes from 2 to 50 >> generations (based solely on the DNA comparison). > > After sending that message, I realized I had left out the follow-up. > The original question was what whether the DNA results had shown that > the Williams were *close* relatives in the usual sense, but there is > more to be considered than that. The important thing is not the DNA > test in isolation -- it's the combination of DNA and conventional > research. Since we cannot ever expect to get DNA samples from the > immigrant Williams, it will remain forever impossible to use > "paternity test" technology to prove or disprove a *really* close > relationship. However, we must remember the context of the DNA > testing that has been done. We have demonstrated clearly that there > are many different and "completely unrelated" Carpenter families. > (Note that I have used quotes around that phrase to emphasize that > only the male-line relationships are examined by the DNA project -- we > cannot test for female connections.) Some of the Carpenters are of > German origin and were originally Zimmermanns, but many are evidently > English, and it is therefore remarkable that the two Williams are > related at all. This is the "nugget" to carry away from the DNA > testing. > > Bottom line: it is now all the more important to pursue the lines of > conventional genealogical research for the immigrant Williams. If > their respective families were well-to-do in the 15th and 16th > centuries, we probably already have documentation of various sorts > going back to their common ancestor. Therefore, the DNA tests give > us reason to hope that the whole problem can be solved if only we > can find proof of where the Williams themselves fit into the picture. > > John Chandler John, You are right in that conventional research is absolutely necessary. There must be at least one rock-solid conventionally verified line back to a certain ancestor for the DNA tests to work. That person then becomes the "keeper" of that official line, and others link into it. I have not joined in this DNA thing myself. There seem to be discrepancies in what I have been told about my ancestor Benjamin Samson Carpenter b ca 1771 NC? and his son William Bailey Carpenter (not my ancestor) b ca 1808 SC, and the results posted on the ftdna Carpenter website. I may be reading the site wrong, but it doesn't seem to show that WBC was the son of BSC. Without that rock-solid conventional line established, all a DNA test would do is show that I am descended from someone else. Rick (descended from someone, I already know that... :) )

Rick wrote: > You are right in that conventional research is absolutely necessary. > There must be at least one rock-solid conventionally verified line back > to a certain ancestor for the DNA tests to work. In fact, you can never get by with just one person because, no matter how solid the public documentation, there is always the chance of a break behind the scenes. Indeed, with two people to test, the DNA line can be verified only as far back as the most recent common male-line ancestor of the the test subjects. > discrepancies in what I have been told about my ancestor Benjamin > Samson Carpenter b ca 1771 NC? and his son William Bailey Carpenter > (not my ancestor) b ca 1808 SC, and the results posted on the ftdna > Carpenter website. According to the people who *are* descendants of WBC, they don't have proof that WBC was the son of BSC, even though they tend to think it's so. If you have proof, I'm sure they and we all would be interested to see it. This is particularly interesting because of the conflict seen in the DNA test results. Let me explain... We have three matching descendants of WBC in the project, and we can recontruct the DNA of their common ancestor (WBC's son Cary C. Carpenter). That stops just one generation short of reconstructing WBC's own DNA, but we do know that the three descendants also match a large group of additional Carpenters, and so it seems unlikely that there is any disconnect between our testees and WBC. That's one side of the story. On the other side, we have one descendant of BSC by way of his son John. This descendant matches a *different* large group of Carpenters. Conclusion: *either* BSC and WBC were unrelated, *or* there is a mistake somewhere in the lineages. > to show that WBC was the son of BSC. Without that rock-solid > conventional line established, all a DNA test would do is show that I > am descended from someone else. Suppose you took the test and found that you matched Group 7 or Group 8. If your link to BSC were through a son other than John, that would make you the tie-breaker. You would be helping to settle a long-standing research problem and also getting some independent corroboration of your own descent from BSC. On the other hand, if you found you did not mather either group, you would be opening up the question all the more and making life more interesting for everybody concerned. John Chandler