Thanks Andrew. So, do I understand correctly, that a test would likely tell me nothing because I descend from William through my mother and grandmother? Dave White ---------- > From: Andrew Bond <Andrew.Bond@banyan.ummed.edu> > To: CHASE-L@rootsweb.com > Subject: [CHASE-L] CHASE DNA > Date: Saturday, June 20, 1998 11:17 AM > > Hello Rex (and group), > > Some of what has been stated by other people is wrong. Somebody wrote that the odds of having > the same DNA as a cousin is slim, since the DNA gets mixed and divided every generation. That is true > if we are talking about any cousin, but it is not true if we are talking about male cousins linked by > a surname (I'm sure there are many on this list). Assuming no infidelity, two male CHASEs who > are descendents of William will have the same Y chromosome. The chromosomes from each parent > are put together and jumbled when eggs and sperm are made, this does not happen to the Y chromosome, > which means that every man has "exactly" the same Y chromosome as his father, his father's father > and so on. So if the Y chromosome never changes then you would think that every man in the world > would have the same one, since we are all related if you go back far enough. Actually, the Y > chromosome does change a tiny bit because of random mutations. So if the Y chromosome changes > enough, but not too much, then you should be able to correlate surnames with Y chromosome DNA. The > problem is that we (scientists) do not know how much it changes. > > Currently, the same group that showed that a man in Cheddar, England is a descendent of a 10000 year > old mummy found there, is also checking to see if Thomas Jefferson fathered any children through one of > his slaves. > > Keith's point about infidelity is important. Infidelity is the nightmare of most genealogists. That is > assuming that you are interested in exactly who your ancestors were. We all enjoy (are addicted too) > genealogy for a number of reasons (investigating, learning about personal histories and interesting > characters, etc.), but one thing I hope we have in common is to find out as much truth as we can. > Eventually DNA will allow us to find the mistakes and infidelities in our genealogies. Personally, I love to > find tidbits of scandal in my family, it makes the investigating that much more interesting. >