On Wednesday, August 30, 2017 at 6:40:40 PM UTC+2, wjhonson wrote: > On Wednesday, August 30, 2017 at 9:33:04 AM UTC-7, Andrew Lancaster wrote: > *If* those people who *think* they have a strong paper trail to Edward III have *not* done Autosomal DNA testing to even show that they are related to the grandparent or great-grandparent in that line that they purport to reach back to Edward III, then they *need* a swift kick in the head. > > Have a nice day. So are you saying that it is of the highest importance that genealogists start with recent generations BEFORE they work on older generations who might not in the end really be direct ancestors? Hmm. That seems to be a judgement about how to enjoy yourself, not required in order to make the research work better at finding out what really happened. Apparently you think it is important to only study people you are directly descended from? Well, I suppose that in reality we all enjoy a bit of animal pleasure when we know we are working on someone who we might descend from. But if we are not ignorant we of course know that it is only a probability, and these are not close relatives anyway. I think the only answer is the old de gustibus etc. But I can not imagine that this method could, if followed, make genealogy more enjoyable, nor more effective as a form of research.

On Wednesday, August 30, 2017 at 11:43:18 AM UTC-7, Andrew Lancaster wrote: > On Wednesday, August 30, 2017 at 6:40:40 PM UTC+2, wjhonson wrote: > > On Wednesday, August 30, 2017 at 9:33:04 AM UTC-7, Andrew Lancaster wrote: > > > *If* those people who *think* they have a strong paper trail to Edward III have *not* done Autosomal DNA testing to even show that they are related to the grandparent or great-grandparent in that line that they purport to reach back to Edward III, then they *need* a swift kick in the head. > > > > Have a nice day. > > So are you saying that it is of the highest importance that genealogists start with recent generations BEFORE they work on older generations who might not in the end really be direct ancestors? Hmm. > > That seems to be a judgement about how to enjoy yourself, not required in order to make the research work better at finding out what really happened. Apparently you think it is important to only study people you are directly descended from? > > Well, I suppose that in reality we all enjoy a bit of animal pleasure when we know we are working on someone who we might descend from. But if we are not ignorant we of course know that it is only a probability, and these are not close relatives anyway. > > I think the only answer is the old de gustibus etc. But I can not imagine that this method could, if followed, make genealogy more enjoyable, nor more effective as a form of research. Nope. Genealogists can work on whatever they want. My family, you family, the Queen's family. However if the point of your genealogy is to trace *your own* family, and after forty years of that you finally break down and take a test and discover that you were apparently adopted, then where are you exactly? As to me, clearly you know very little about my work if you think I work on my own family. You're just throwing mud at a wall there my friend. I'm just pointing out how ridiculous most Y-DNA research is, when applied to the paper family of the tester, since that tester has not even confirmed that their paper family, is their biological family. It's cart in front on donkey and that's not the way to travel to Scarsborough.

On Wednesday, August 30, 2017 at 8:49:47 PM UTC+2, wjhonson wrote: > However if the point of your genealogy is to trace *your own* family, and after forty years of that you finally break down and take a test and discover that you were apparently adopted, then where are you exactly? There would be the point indeed, but it is NOT the point at all for most genealogists. Let me explain your position better than you have above: You are effectively saying (I will not cut and paste all the different quotes) that it is not genealogy or it is bad genealogy, and absolutely to be avoided, that we should spend any time on anyone who might not actually be a direct ancestor. You have expressed horror of this in many ways, over and over. On this basis real genealogy has never existed and still does not exist. We will need to wait for better technology. But I will just keep doing what I call genealogy. I am not too worried about researching people who possibly are not direct ancestors. In fact I like that. If you ever get to understand more about the autosomal DNA you will realize that once you get back a few generations, the ancestors you are studying (even if definitely your direct ancestors) are not more like you genetically than lots of random people with a similar geographic/ethnic ancestral mix.