Hello All, Welcome back, Clay! There have been no updates to make to the Daniel DNA project page in the past year because no one has submitted a biography of their MRCA in that time. I am no longer updating the results page because FTDNA notifies all participants when they have a match. If anyone is curious about matches outside of their own lines, they can post to Daniel DNA list or to this list to see if folks from other lines care to share their information. Many participants have selected the option to not share their data on the FTDNA web site, and I am respecting everyone's privacy. I have been having email problems for the past week, but got it straightened out with my Domain provider yesterday. Still wading through emails and probably have lost many and will not be able to retrieve them. Clay, you may want to resend your email request to me, in case it is among the lost. Thanks, Kevin On Fri, 2009-08-28 at 04:29 -0700, Clay Daniels wrote: > Hello All > > Been off the list for a while. Too busy, but now me and the wife are retired. I looked briefly through the archives, but know I missed a lot. > > We have made a lot of progress on our North Carolina/Tennessee/Mississippi Daniel clan we tract back to Hiram Daniel b. circa 1770 d. 1821 Rhea Co Tenn. In the first half of this year we have had DNA matches with two separate new participants who track their roots back to Georgia. We assume the hills of western North Carolina precede Georgia. More later on the Georgia connection, and hoping that Anne O'Brian will fill us in a bit on this as her participant is one of the matches. > > For now I'm a bit concerned about the Daniel DNA project. It doesn't seem to have been updated in over a year. I'm having trouble reaching Kevin to get an upgrade for one of the Georgia Daniel bunch. Is Kevin Daniel OK? We certainly hope so as his work has been so important to the Daniel family history project, whatever your clan may be. > > Hello again & Best Wishes > > Clay Daniels > Fort Worth, Texas > clay.daniels@sbcglobal.net > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to DANIEL-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message

Hi to all, Kevin, I was already working on this reply today; it's crossing paths with your second recent posting, but I'm not editing it based on your new one, it's the flour and water theory in action. ---- You've described a change in policy for the project and I'd like to put in a plea here to find some middle ground about updating the results. --Of all the dna projects that I participate in and/or track, it is the "private" ones that have now gone somewhat defunct and have, more unfortunately, lost the input of researchers. The Daniel project was always one of the best for the longest time because it kept access to results and kept up constant reminders to people about testing and recruiting. I know it was work for you, but it's what really made the project such a success. --It is the public page that helps in recruiting new testers and it also helps encourage further solid research of records. --I am in contact with many Daniel folk from many lines (lots are non genealogists) and I encourage/request testing. When I send them to the danieldna.50g.com site to see how it works they now frequently reply that it is so out of date, etc., and I lose them. For those non genealogists we need the public page to let them see it's for real, active and ongoing. I now also have to send potential Daniel testers to other surname projects that are updated, but it's not quite the same. You wrote: "no updates...because no one has submitted a biography of their MRCA..." I do so hope it's not a requirement because it would discourage testers who may not be active in research but willing to test to help others (I've also seen serious slowdowns at a couple other projects who do "require" it and I now only occasionally check them). Either way it's a big change in policy as far as updating the results page and doesn't seem to me to be a necessary requirement. I'm worried we're losing out on the people who don't care one way or the other, but whose test results would be of great interest to many others. The privacy of the few can be protected while allowing others to see the project publicly. The obvious option is to toggle the admin prefs at the ftdna GAP page and make the results page that they provide public. That would also save you the trouble of updating the results page at 50g.com: it could just go to that page at ftdna. Most of the larger projects do this and Daniel is definitely still in the top half of project sizes (only just, but it's still a good sized project). You wrote: "Many participants have selected the option to not share their data on the FTDNA web site, and I am respecting everyone's privacy." Not posting their ancestor info is precisely what gives them privacy, but it is not necessarily a formal decline to have the results posted. There hasn't been a public reminder to people to do that nor an email notification to test reps, at least that I've seen. For the first many years when people joined the project they knew the number results would be public at 50g.com. No one who sees 50g.com or ftdna results pages can get in touch with people based on kit# and results. It's also not all that obvious on the ftdna personal page that putting the earliest ancestor is a good idea, especially since the results page at ftdna is not public. It's also not necessarily all that easy for new folks. I'd bet that if the page were made public many more people would throw their ancestor up there. Aren't there people who have put their earliest ancestor on via their ftdna page whose results haven't been put up at 50g.com? I know my recent testers' results name the ancestor at ftdna, but they haven't been put up on the 50g.com results page, but we do want them added there as they had been in the past. Diane has kept the participants blurb page updated (she just did a great job of helping my line's blurbs get coordinated and more useful), but now it's with references to tests whose results do not show up on the results page. There are workarounds for testers who do not want to share their ancestor or even their results: --1. Those who do not want to post their earliest ancestor info via their ftdna personal page don't anyway. If someone requests info on the list about a certain test number they simply need not answer. Many testers are not members of this list or active on the boards, but there are distant cousins who might be active who are losing out on the benefits of seeing those results (that's the major thing happening on other projects that are "private": no info so no research or input). This is especially important for searchers who are far removed from their closest Daniel surnamed ancestor (I'm 6 generations away!). On other projects I'm involved in I've been put in touch with testers by asking the administrator to ask them if they want contact and they've often become more enthused and active. There have also been a couple who declined contact through the admin, so obviously their privacy was honored. You've done right as you described in being the middleman for people asking to be put in touch, whether it is fruitful or not. --2. When you get the ftdna spreadsheet that you've been using to post results at danieldna.50g.com you can first pull the results of those who have requested no public presence. --3. A tester who does not want their kit number or results showing can simply withdraw from the Daniel project. They will still be notified of matches by ftdna, i.e. no loss to them but a great gain to those who follow all the lines at the project. I've noticed at least four withdrawals from the Daniel project over the years. If you've already promised some testers not to publish, then I realize #2 and 3 above would take a general email from you to all the test reps to request their current prefs regarding making their results public, explaining that it would only be the kit# and results, no other info that they haven't authorized. Actually it would only have to go to the latest testers since July 08 (the last update), everybody before that understood the results were public. The admin page makes a mass mailing very simple. I do hope that you would make it on the basis of "no reply means consent to publish the number results". As you noted there are currently 185 members at the Daniel DNA project. Over the years there have generally been about 20 fewer results (kits not actually submitted), so I guesstimate there are currently about 40 or so results that are not now showing at danieldna.50g.com. Many testers who aren't now showing at danieldna.50g.com have submitted their results to ysearch.org, so they do apparently want a public presence. I also track ysearch, but it's cumbersome to track and it's also not so easy or obvious there for testers to submit further info. The recent rise in McDaniel testers has been very interesting, I must say. Another loss for me is that it has been those matches and potential matches I've seen and tracked at the project that have inspired me to grab info on other Daniel lines when I'm doing research. It's one small way I've been able to contribute to general Daniel research, the Essex/Caroline traditional line errors have been somewhat helped, as well as some help in the Elbert/Wake revelations, to name a couple. People who are learning about DNA can see so many examples of how it works by studying the results from other lines, with or without ancestor info. When I first started I was tight on what I wanted to accept as a match, but seeing and checking on other groups helped me understand the acceptability and desire for mutations. Another example is the need to rearrange the 464a-d markers as needed to see matches move closer: I don't have it in my line, but learned it for sure after seeing it at work in other Daniel groups. Working in isolation and not comparing across groups blocks seeing and understanding several aspects of matching. People new to DNA are losing out on this. The Daniel project was one of the top 2 projects where I learned the most about all the different aspects of DNA. Another risk of letting the ftdna Daniel project go so under-the-table is that people may turn to other companies (looks like it's already occurring). While I respect people's decision to test where they want, it will dilute the value of having one major umbrella project. A couple of names I follow are scattered in this way and it's a royal pain, we know we are still missing people in the correspondence because they are in companies that don't publish. Keeping the 50g.com site up to date lets people know this is the best place to participate. A lot of answers have come from DNA and I know there have also been some problems that you have had to deal with due to some of the surprises; while it was wonderful that you tried to help, the fact is you shouldn't have had to referee those problems (no doubt exhausting and discouraging at times). Public results don't mean people have to discuss publicly, but it allows it for those who want to. This mail list has gone pretty inactive, that's why more people now post to rootsweb and let it gateway here. Even this discussion is going to be seen only by members of this list, many testers and non genealogist testers won't even see it (especially in regard to getting more people's input about all this). I guess the other way I would ask the question is: Has the number of people who have requested that their results not be published been so great that it's better to hide all the results as opposed to just theirs? If you make the ftdna results page public, you can block them yourself as admin from showing up. I sure hope some middling way can be found to keep the public project current. If there's anything I can do to help in any area of updating, I'd be more than happy, e.g. sorting the spreadsheet, or working with the html to make it more reader friendly, collating replies if you do a survey of the test reps about this issue, etc. I am already contacted by and also do lots of outreach to people I find on other boards and from public records, so I'm very much interested in this question! Regards, Pam in CA

Pam has a number of good points and I think we need to consider them: Let me first digress to my personal experience. I became the admin for the White DNA project several years ago when they had some twenty some odd members. I stole Kevin's scheme and for a few years I had a little Notepad file that I kept track of the participants and was displayed on the website with the little "Contact" tag that listed the email address. Later I helped form the Hale DNA project and kept the same basic scheme. By now the White project has over 220 results, while the Hale project is just at about sixty. A while back, I was taken by the collar and led to restructure the huge White project. We now go by Haplogroup, with color coding. The Africans get the appropriate green color. White is a very common surname. Some Poles chose it at Ellis Island as they did not know how to spell their real name in English. The point of all this is that it is a matter of scale. Please feel free to look at these two sites: www.familytreedna.com/public/white www.familytreedna.com/public/hale Kevin, we certainly appreciate all your efforts over these years and do not want to replace you. I have two suggestions: 1. Convert to the free website at FTDNA. No point in you keep paying for web hosting. Adjust your scheme to fit their layout. 2. Let us help you. Keep Diane Bradford to update the family history page which can probably go under the "Background" section. Let Pam help with the haplogroup assignment. (The real tricky bunch is the Vikings, or I1 haplogroup. FTDNA's prediction routine is a bit flakey here. If they don't do an SNP test, known relatives are often left out in the cold as "Unassigned") Respectfully, and with great respect for your contributions, Clay Daniels

Thanks for your input, Clay A couple of observations. The grouping and color coding of haplogroups looks slick and useful on the surface, but can actually be very misleading and possibly counterproductive, especially on common surnames like Daniel and White, where many unrelated lines took the same surname and lived in the same areas for many generations. Many of these groups are likely related but in a time frame that is not genealogically meaningful. With both projects, there are many folks who only have 12 or 25 marker tests which does not necessarily indicate a relationship within a genealogical meaningful time frame but are grouped together. The emphasis on pages like the White Many folks assume connections that will not prove out after higher marker tests but stop testing when they see such a match. So why is this useful? I think this is more of a gee whiz factor for some folks to see this, but it is really not useful from a genealogical perspective, which is the purpose of the project. It also leads folks to try to interpret results in the same way that folks once and still try to make connections based on proximity and other factors. I cannot count the number of times that folks have contacted me trying make connections based on what they perceive as meaningful similarities between their results and the results of other participants. In the overwhelming majority of cases this type of analysis is best left to the professionals at FTDNA, which each participant has paid for by purchasing a their kit. On Sat, 2009-08-29 at 01:52 -0700, Clay Daniels wrote: > Pam has a number of good points and I think we need to consider them: > > Let me first digress to my personal experience. I became the admin for the White DNA project several years ago when they had some twenty some odd members. I stole Kevin's scheme and for a few years I had a little Notepad file that I kept track of the participants and was displayed on the website with the little "Contact" tag that listed the email address. Later I helped form the Hale DNA project and kept the same basic scheme. By now the White project has over 220 results, while the Hale project is just at about sixty. A while back, I was taken by the collar and led to restructure the huge White project. We now go by Haplogroup, with color coding. The Africans get the appropriate green color. White is a very common surname. Some Poles chose it at Ellis Island as they did not know how to spell their real name in English. The point of all this is that it is a matter of scale. Please feel free to look at these two sites: > > www.familytreedna.com/public/white > www.familytreedna.com/public/hale > > Kevin, we certainly appreciate all your efforts over these years and do not want to replace you. I have two suggestions: > > 1. Convert to the free website at FTDNA. No point in you keep paying for web hosting. Adjust your scheme to fit their layout. > > 2. Let us help you. Keep Diane Bradford to update the family history page which can probably go under the "Background" section. Let Pam help with the haplogroup assignment. > > (The real tricky bunch is the Vikings, or I1 haplogroup. FTDNA's prediction routine is a bit flakey here. If they don't do an SNP test, known relatives are often left out in the cold as "Unassigned") > > Respectfully, and with great respect for your contributions, > > Clay Daniels > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to DANIEL-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message