Sorry about pulling the trigger on this email before it was finished. I bought a new lap top and the touch pad is very quirky. Have to run a cat to the vet but will pick this up later. I will finish my thought on the cutoff line however. Best, Kevin On Sat, 2009-08-29 at 07:47 -0500, Kevin wrote: > 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 page is too skewed towards the markers, > in my opinion given the large number of folks who don't include any information about their earliest known ancestor, include only the minimal information about their earliest ancestor (which due to the sparsity of information often does not indicate if this is a proved or fancied connection), and the number of folks who stop at the 12 marker test even though the results often show potential matches to others in their haplogroup. The same can be said for any presentation of DNA marker results. I don't really find the canned reports provided by FTDNA to be that useful and are maybe more aimed at maintaining customer satisfaction than providing genealogical useful information. This information is available to each participant on their personal FTDNA page. The great majority of FT > 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