Amen Amen John....:) As to the 12 marker test though...that will fit you into a group initially...we have one Coats group that all have exact matches...at 12 markers...so that can help narrow the groups...the other 25 or 37 marker tests then give you subgroups within a group...is that the way you understand it John? I just know those DNA tests really help and when it comes to costs....start there, you can then spend your fortune documenting it....:) Char ----Original Message Follows---- From: "John R. Clarke" <jclarke@rose.net> Reply-To: GAJEFFER-L@rootsweb.com To: GAJEFFER-L@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: [GAJEFFER] DNA Tests at FamilyTreeDna Date: Wed, 4 Aug 2004 23:29:33 -0400 Charlotte, Thanks for your comment. I will ask you a question about your COATS family in a private post. DNA is not a complex matter. All of the garbage that is out there concerning a the layout of lot of our families, is a complex matter. <grin> Some of these incorrect assignments were done because someone wanted a DAR ancestor, some were done because there were no civil records to guide them in their research and some were done just to attach their family to some famous family of the same name. I have always said there are probably as many Tory descendants in the DAR as there are those who descend from Patriots, such was the pressure on so many to gain admittance into this organization in the early days of last century. <grin> This pressure caused a lot of fudging with Revolutionary War records and it was not until about 1970 that the DAR started cleaning up this mess. The stuff at the LDS libraries did not help, either, because there were many fraudulent genealogies incorporated into the stuff from LDS and these lies have been told, over and over again until just about everyone believes them. DNA tests will put a stop to this mess. Let me tell you what we found in my DANIEL bunch. Since the early days of the last century the DANIELL family of Middlesex County, VA was pretty well documented. Capt. William DANIELL (1625-1698) had four boys (William, Jr, Robert, Richard and James) by two different wives. The line my DNA matches is that of the children of Capt. Robert DANIELL through his son, Capt. James DANIELL (1709-1761) who married a Jane HICKS. However, this is where it gets sticky. The DNA of the descendants of James DANIELL (1680-1748) does not match that of the descendants of his supposed older brother, Robert DANIELL (1660-1721). The children of James basically say they are the true descendants of Capt. William and we are not, however we have seven DNA matches from different lines in Robert's family and they only have one DNA test in their line. I think we will bear out in the end and theirs is the "problem" line. My line may well be a key in breaking all of this wide open because I never had any known connections to this family in Middlesex. In fact, all of my links are to eastern NC -- Pitt, Beaufort, Greene and Wayne County, NC. None of my DANIELL bunch ever lived anywhere near Middlesex County, VA that I can tell. Personally, I have felt I descend from either Capt. Robert Lanier DANIEL (1718-1794) of Pitt County, NC, Capt. Robert DANIEL (1718-1782) of Martin County, NC or Col. Robert DANIELL (1646-1718) of Charleston. Of these three I have always leaned towards Robert DANIELL of Charleston due to my many Charleston family links. Regardless, my family's DNA will break this particular DANIELL family's stated genealogy wide open because it breaks their preconceived notion and well documented information about how this family was laid out. Worth RAY of Dallas, TX, a well known DANIEL family researcher of some 50 years ago wrote an article in which he stated the Middlesex DANIELL family, some of the DANIEL boys in eastern NC and the DANIELL family of Charleston were one in the same family. Since then, other DANIEL Family researchers have ripped him to shreds, especially after his death. I think you can see, these are exactly the DNA results we are getting, today. I also think they all rolled out of Barbados after then end of the English Civil War (1663) and some rolled into VA, some into NC and some into SC. I think they were all heavily engaged in commerce or commerce related endeavors -- shipping, etc. My line's DNA supports this -- right down the line, Anglo-Saxon, a perfect match. As for something Charlotte stated -- the $99 test. Do not take this test because this is the 12 marker test. The 12 marker test only shows you to whom you are "not" related, and not to whom your "are" related. The first test that shows you "to whom" you are related is the 25 marker test and it costs less than $200, according to which project you get in. DNA tests are going to rip the guts out of some of these family book authors because they will not be able to spin their garbage, anymore. They may not provide all of the answers but they will break your family out into its natural order. They will not tell you who your actual ancestors were but they will narrow down your research to the right family. Most of you who know me, know that I strongly believe in family profiles. Something I know after all of this is -- the profile I wrote some half-dozen years ago of my family matches the DANIELL family of Middlesex County, VA to a tee. It also matches that of the Charleston DANIELL family, too. I do not know from which of those boys my Robert C. DANIELL (ABT 1765-AFT 1830) descends from but now that I have narrowed down my research to one family, I am a lot closer to home than I was a few months ago, especially since we now have identified some 25 distinct DANIEL lines in this country via of this DNA test. John R. Clarke Thomasville, GA ----- Original Message ----- From: "Charlotte Coats" <coats@hotmail.com> To: <GAJEFFER-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Wednesday, August 04, 2004 12:08 PM Subject: Re: [GAJEFFER] DNA Tests at FamilyTreeDna I could not agree with John more!!!! The other major problem also includes lack of records from which to put families together, not to mention errors in the transcribed records, not to mention the number of assumed connections.... In our Coats DNA project we have found at least 3 or 4 unrelated Coats lines out of SC, we thought they were all related because they were there about the same time...but without documentation how would you tell? We've also found that some connections in print form didn't match in the DNA project....so the DNA projects are really worth their while...also focuses your research!! But as John says, the old research has just made things more complex i.e. if several of the same named lived in the same area about the same time, they were all assumed to be related, but when you try to check the references or documents, there just isn't anything to support, say those 16 kids, Thomas and Mary had....so where did all those kids come from...in a lot of cases they were guessed at...but once published boy, it's hard to break that wall again...:) Also in the old research, a lot of times they didn't distinquish the difference between say, Johns, they were just lumped all together... I also had an ancestor married twice and each wife named a son William...so he had two sons named William...now without the Bible record, we'd probably never have figured that out... So the up shot is: if you don't have a DNA record, you should get one...someday, that will be the only way to determine family relationship...the records for those early years are getting so old a lot of the archives will not make microfilm copies etc....and it is really getting expensive...SS applications from $7.00 to $47.00 dollars I think it was... But for $99.00 you can plug instantly into a group!!! and then focus your research after that if you wish!!! Family Tree DNA is here: http://www.ftdna.com Charlotte Coats Digital Archive http://www.rootsquest.com/~coatsfar ----Original Message Follows---- From: "John R. Clarke" <jclarke@rose.net> Reply-To: GAJEFFER-L@rootsweb.com To: GAJEFFER-L@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: [GAJEFFER] DNA Tests at FamilyTreeDna Date: Wed, 4 Aug 2004 10:30:35 -0400 Margie, We did it and the results surprised me. My research said my DANIEL line was probably out of the Thomas DANIEL the First of IOW County, VA line and it was not. In fact, it really surprised me with its results and it has thrown a lot of DANIEL lines in disarray because these lines were built on the research of others and this mess was all wrong. I guess you might say, my DANIEL bunch were in locations they never should have been located and with no strong links to those folks with whom they are 25/25 marker matches with - descendants of Capt. William DANIEL (1625-1698) family of Middlesex County, VA. I will tell this list the same things I told the DANIEL list -- DNA is the only definitive proof of a family relationship, these days and research not backed up with DNA is useless in my opinion. The problem is folks re-used so many given names in the early Colonial Period a lot of these folks have been assigned, incorrectly. I do not think these errors occurred in later periods (AFT 1850) but early (before 1800). Once you go down the wrong road, it is hard to get back on track, as we have all found out. I am not saying these folks that wrote these family histories did not do the best they could with the information they had in hand, they did, but there is only so much you can do with primary source information and a lot of what you do in your research is a "guess, at best." DNA takes the guesswork out of it by showing you, exactly, who you are related to. I also believe that only 25/25 marker matches should be even looked at as family in the Colonial American timeframe. I know that others will say that "one or two markers off are still family" and they are correct but they do not say "when you shared a common ancestor" and that is what you want to know. Statistically, with a 25/25 marker match to an identical surname means you have a 90% chance of sharing a common ancestor in the Colonial American time frame (14.4 generations) with someone's whose DNA matches, perfectly, that of your line. Any match less than 25/25 means you probably shared a MRCA (most recent common ancestor) before the Colonial American time frame. One marker off means you probably shared a MRCA in the 12th century and 2 markers off means you probably shared a MRCA in the Dark Ages. The actual figures used by FamilyTreeDNA is a 25/25 marker match means you have a 50% probability to share a MRCA in the past seven generations. However, statisticians will not even look at probabilities less than 90% to establish relationships, which is why I used this figure - 14.4 generations. John R. Clarke Thomasville, GA _________________________________________________________________ Don't just search. Find. 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