An adopted person is family, but still not a descendant. Adopted persons are legally Davenports, but not physically Davenports. What good are the DNA projects if they are ignored when it is not convenient to inclusiveness? Jim Crownover-

At 10:19 PM 9/1/2005, rabbit wrote: >An adopted person is family, but still not a descendant. Adopted persons are >legally Davenports, but not physically Davenports. What good are the DNA >projects if they are ignored when it is not convenient to inclusiveness? Perhaps a better question is: what is the purpose of genealogy? If it is merely to determine who is a lineal blood descendant of someone else, then we'd better find a way to eliminate all the spouses and stepchildren and adopted children and results of what are euphemistically called "paternity events" and the like. If on the other hand the purpose is to tell the history of a family, then inclusion should be the rule: those who acted like family should be treated like family. DNA testing can bring someone into a family who isn't known before to be part of the family. So it can serve a legitimate genealogical purpose (i.e. a family history purpose) to INCLUDE. But -- for genealogy (family history) purposes, if our purpose is to tell the story of a family -- it shouldn't be used to EXCLUDE someone who acted like family and was treated like family just because the blood results don't show it. I might note that the DNA results suggest a "paternity event" (usually an illegitimate child, if not an adoptee or stepchild who took the name), but I wouldn't exclude someone from the family on the basis of DNA alone. My interest is not descendancy, per se. It's in the family history. So, I repeat, I vote for inclusion: if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck and is treated as a duck by other ducks, it's a duck. -- jgr