While DNA testing is a great leap forward in genealogy, all it really does is tell you how closely you MIGHT be related to others in your paternal (or maternal if you do mitochondrial testing) line. It's a probability game. If you have no more than a certain number of variations in markers with another person, the testers can give you the PROBABILITY of your sharing a most recent common ancestor five generations (or whatever) back with that other tested person. The probability comes from an assumed constant rate of mutation on the Y Chromosome or M-DNA. The probability is pretty accurate over a large number of runs but each individual run is open to considerable doubt since no one knows when the mutations in your particular line took place - only the likelihood that they took place in a space of several specified generations. And, of course, the mutation is not constant. Think of it as tossing a coin. The chance of tossing a head in one try is .5, in two tries .75, etc. But you might toss no heads in ten tries. (i.e. no mutations.) It's not likely on any particular day but it will happen to someone if enough try the toss. You might be the someone in the DNA toss that has the unlikely mutation rate purely from chance. That will give you a completely false sense of being a direct descendant of someone who is actually only your cousin 5 times removed. The testing agencies all have graphs to show you the probability that you and another person share a most recent common ancestor. While the probability may be 95 percent that you share a common ancestor within the last 5 generations, if the mutation rate was lower for your line, that ancestor could have been many generations farther back than the charts would indicate. Still, it's a good tool to keep you motivated until single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) testing comes on line. That will narrow the odds considerably. But at a higher cost initially. The thing DNA testing is best at is showing that you are NOT kin to another person at all within thousands of years. And we all know people we would like to get results like that on. Jerry Merritt L.L. Scott wrote: > I know some of you have had your DNA checked, > but I don't remember who other than Ron P. > I had a caller today ( Carol Rowe) who wanted some input, > her brothers are skeptical. > So if you have had it done please reply to the list and what you thought of the results. > Thank you. > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message > > >