Dennis, I saw a reference to this site on another list today. http://www.smgf.org I keyed in David L. Dover's Zephaniah DNA results. If I'm reading this correctly, he's a perfect match to a Harris family in Missouri. Admittedly, I'm somewhat scientifically challenged so I thought I'd let someone else look at it.

The DNA is challenging for anyone except rocket scientists. I haven't looked at these markers yet but will comment on what I have read and what I was told in a couple of conversations with the DNA people. It's only the male Y chromosome that passes down to males within the surname. There are two exceptions with unrelated surnames. The Harris you mention could have been a Dover son that was adopted by a family. The other exception is an oops by a male Dover (not female) where the son did not take the Dover name. There are many people with other surnames that are coming close to matching some of the Dover's. Even so, they don't all connect. The key there is that they can be off, if they were a Dover, in only the DNA markers that can change (only several), not the hard markers that can't move over the generations. Time and place is a key in figuring out that kind of coincidence. Both David and I were not originally in the current group of connections. That was a scientific generation issue. As soon as more results came out it became obvious to the DNA people that "we" as a group tend to move in the movable markers. That's about the time that Max Dover's results pulled the whole thing together which resulted in "our" genetic footprint ... the one common ancestor which now predates both Zephaniah and Francis J. Dover (mid 1700's). For the list members who have wondered about the DNA tests it's the smartest thing you can ever do to find a male in your Dover family to take the DNA test ... 25 or 37 marker. DNA is very accurate, but what goes equally with it is the proven paper trail. I will use myself as an example. I can't prove/prove anything (100 percent) before 1850 and probably 1840. I know now that all I have to do is follow Francis J. Dover and Zephaniah Dover because of their proven facts. It got to the point with my results that not knowing anything more than I do for hard facts that either Francis J. Dover (1760) or Hezekiah Dover (abt 1764)(proven brothers) could have been the father of my John Dover b. abt. 1793. The markers were close enough for that in the overall ancestral footprint. The other couple of things that come out of the DNA are where your genetic origins were before the families came to America (if you have family here) and a scientific guess at how many generations you go back to with other living males. My Grandpa was convinced that we were German and not English/Scots/Irish. Grandpa was wrong :-( The generation separation was the big shock to the DNA people ... how few generations connect both the living descendants of Francis J. Dover and old Zeph. One of the other benefits of DNA is that the test results will do the same for you as it did for me, disprove other research theories. There have been some major surprises so far. What I'm saying is that you have a major advantage by taking the DNA tests even with little information so far on your ancestors. Your results would likely tie into others for which there is a proven paper trail to point you in the right direction for time and place. It's a win/win. At the same time there are seven or eight totally different Dover families in the Dover DNA results. Only one has a proven connection so far with both England and the US. For those interested, go to this link and type in Dover. http://www.familytreedna.com/default.asp http://www.dovertree.com/pages/5/index.htm -----Original Message----- From: Terry Jackson [mailto:jacksont@otelco.net] Sent: Monday, February 13, 2006 8:16 PM To: DOVER-L@rootsweb.com Subject: [Dover] Sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation Dennis, I saw a reference to this site on another list today. http://www.smgf.org I keyed in David L. Dover's Zephaniah DNA results. If I'm reading this correctly, he's a perfect match to a Harris family in Missouri. Admittedly, I'm somewhat scientifically challenged so I thought I'd let someone else look at it. ==== DOVER Mailing List ==== If you need to contact the Listmanager, please send your message to, Patricia at mmanson@snet.net