Let me reflect one of the seeming paradoxes in this type of argument. If we agree that tracing families and ethnicity percentages back does not work beyond a certain number of generations (let's say 5th-8th generations / cousins for the sake of argument). How can the scientists then come up with the amount of Neanderthal and Denisovian DNA sitting in your genome - when clearly their genetic contribution happened way, way back before this in any genealogical timescale? Brian -----Original Message----- From: helen duer <h.duer2@q.com> Sent: 16 October 2018 15:27 To: genealogy-dna@rootsweb.com Subject: [DNA] Re: Elizabeth Warren's Homemade DNA Test Result Will not Satisfy Anybody Hey Sam You must be aware that most of the commercial DNA test go back only 5-6 generations at the most. It is common knowledge that a No result for a particular ethnicity cannot and should not be equated with the non-existence of that ethnicity in one's paper-trail ancestry. This is due to genetic factors as random selection, the number of generations ago that relative lived, and the gender distribution of the inheritance. For example, if the ethnicity was passed down in the female line, a simple FTDNA mitochondrial test would suffice. Most lineages are not so traceable directly back to this ethnicity. My son-in-law's family is on the Indian Roles in Oklahoma through his great-grandmother. The line traces back to North Carolina Cherokees, to the Revolutionary War. This lineage is a female one all the way to my son-in-law's great, great-grandfather (father of his great grandmother). So, the female line was broken at that point unless there is a sister whose female line continues uninterrupted to a living descendent. As far as Elizabeth Warren, do we know her paper trail in this regard? If my memory serves me correctly, I believe Elizabeth Warren did take a commercial DNA test that indicated a lack of Native American ancestry. She then went to Stanford University to a DNA specialist to delve deeper into why her Native American did not show up. Most of the commercial kits were developed by affiliated universities. FTDNA has close ties to the University of Arizona at Tucson. So Elizabeth Warren was correct in her choice to pursue further DNA analysis. Remember the technology of DNA analysis is a dynamic one and is advancing daily. Best regards, Helen Duer Binkleys in America DNA Administrator

Brian, What you say may be true for autosomal DNA, but is not true for mitochondrial and Y DNA. Ancestry only tests autosomal. Family Tree DNA tests all 3. But they are separate tests. Y DNA mutates roughly every 100 years. Mitochondrial DNA mutates roughly every 1000 years. Mitochondrial follows the maternal line. Trained scientists can figure a lot more out about ancestry from mitochondrial anf Y than you will get from autosomal only. These scientists have serious credentials and high credibility. I believe them. John -----Original Message----- From: bps@norvic8.force9.co.uk To: genealogy-dna@rootsweb.com Sent: Tue, 16 Oct 2018 11:50 Subject: [DNA] Re: Elizabeth Warren's Homemade DNA Test Result Will not Satisfy Anybody Let me reflect one of the seeming paradoxes in this type of argument. If we agree that tracing families and ethnicity percentages back does not work beyond a certain number of generations (let's say 5th-8th generations / cousins for the sake of argument). How can the scientists then come up with the amount of Neanderthal and Denisovian DNA sitting in your genome - when clearly their genetic contribution happened way, way back before this in any genealogical timescale? Brian -----Original Message----- From: helen duer <h.duer2@q.com> Sent: 16 October 2018 15:27 To: genealogy-dna@rootsweb.com Subject: [DNA] Re: Elizabeth Warren's Homemade DNA Test Result Will not Satisfy Anybody Hey Sam You must be aware that most of the commercial DNA test go back only 5-6 generations at the most. It is common knowledge that a No result for a particular ethnicity cannot and should not be equated with the non-existence of that ethnicity in one's paper-trail ancestry. This is due to genetic factors as random selection, the number of generations ago that relative lived, and the gender distribution of the inheritance. For example, if the ethnicity was passed down in the female line, a simple FTDNA mitochondrial test would suffice. Most lineages are not so traceable directly back to this ethnicity. My son-in-law's family is on the Indian Roles in Oklahoma through his great-grandmother. The line traces back to North Carolina Cherokees, to the Revolutionary War. This lineage is a female one all the way to my son-in-law's great, great-grandfather (father of his great grandmother). So, the female line was broken at that point unless there is a sister whose female line continues uninterrupted to a living descendent. As far as Elizabeth Warren, do we know her paper trail in this regard? If my memory serves me correctly, I believe Elizabeth Warren did take a commercial DNA test that indicated a lack of Native American ancestry. She then went to Stanford University to a DNA specialist to delve deeper into why her Native American did not show up. Most of the commercial kits were developed by affiliated universities. FTDNA has close ties to the University of Arizona at Tucson. So Elizabeth Warren was correct in her choice to pursue further DNA analysis. Remember the technology of DNA analysis is a dynamic one and is advancing daily. Best regards, Helen Duer Binkleys in America DNA Administrator _______________________________________________ _______________________________________________ Email preferences: https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__bit.ly_rootswebpref&d=DwIGaQ&c=kKqjBR9KKWaWpMhASkPbOg&r=uTQwOhmj3JkRB4Gmryx6HiZJgPnzlhJIPpPONi4iROc&m=1JfHsEpCQubPJls0zdBWxI3eq5GcMUk9owRMPxL1VXY&s=q-scBQZuba0iVOED0UX_MeY0cHadbBXuDzAflArNqZM&e= Unsubscribe https://lists.rootsweb.com/postorius/lists/genealogy-dna@rootsweb.com Privacy Statement: https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__ancstry.me_2JWBOdY&d=DwIGaQ&c=kKqjBR9KKWaWpMhASkPbOg&r=uTQwOhmj3JkRB4Gmryx6HiZJgPnzlhJIPpPONi4iROc&m=1JfHsEpCQubPJls0zdBWxI3eq5GcMUk9owRMPxL1VXY&s=EWJsyRMCmBQfTNIkSOqo-jw2_hEHjrHi5HQQZSaHqbw&e= Terms and Conditions: https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__ancstry.me_2HDBym9&d=DwIGaQ&c=kKqjBR9KKWaWpMhASkPbOg&r=uTQwOhmj3JkRB4Gmryx6HiZJgPnzlhJIPpPONi4iROc&m=1JfHsEpCQubPJls0zdBWxI3eq5GcMUk9owRMPxL1VXY&s=nQPgCLN9ndn84U98COpZheYg4Us9Y0E2gDW-g-l4ZJQ&e= Rootsweb Blog: http://rootsweb.blog RootsWeb is funded and supported by Ancestry.com and our loyal RootsWeb community

Brian you are correct. The idea that the Autosomal is *only* showing you matches within the past six generations is old science. When you take the test and come up with 2000 matches of 25cms or more, it's pretty clear this is much much more than six generations. It's just probability. I will give a million dollars to your favorite charity, if anyone can show me that have 2000 sixth cousins who have all just coincidentally taken a DNA test. -----Original Message----- From: bps <bps@norvic8.force9.co.uk> To: genealogy-dna <genealogy-dna@rootsweb.com> Sent: Tue, Oct 16, 2018 8:50 am Subject: [DNA] Re: Elizabeth Warren's Homemade DNA Test Result Will not Satisfy Anybody Let me reflect one of the seeming paradoxes in this type of argument. If we agree that tracing families and ethnicity percentages back does not work beyond a certain number of generations (let's say 5th-8th generations / cousins for the sake of argument). How can the scientists then come up with the amount of Neanderthal and Denisovian DNA sitting in your genome - when clearly their genetic contribution happened way, way back before this in any genealogical timescale? Brian -----Original Message----- From: helen duer <h.duer2@q.com> Sent: 16 October 2018 15:27 To: genealogy-dna@rootsweb.com Subject: [DNA] Re: Elizabeth Warren's Homemade DNA Test Result Will not Satisfy Anybody Hey Sam You must be aware that most of the commercial DNA test go back only 5-6 generations at the most. It is common knowledge that a No result for a particular ethnicity cannot and should not be equated with the non-existence of that ethnicity in one's paper-trail ancestry. This is due to genetic factors as random selection, the number of generations ago that relative lived, and the gender distribution of the inheritance. For example, if the ethnicity was passed down in the female line, a simple FTDNA mitochondrial test would suffice. Most lineages are not so traceable directly back to this ethnicity. My son-in-law's family is on the Indian Roles in Oklahoma through his great-grandmother. The line traces back to North Carolina Cherokees, to the Revolutionary War. This lineage is a female one all the way to my son-in-law's great, great-grandfather (father of his great grandmother). So, the female line was broken at that point unless there is a sister whose female line continues uninterrupted to a living descendent. As far as Elizabeth Warren, do we know her paper trail in this regard? If my memory serves me correctly, I believe Elizabeth Warren did take a commercial DNA test that indicated a lack of Native American ancestry. She then went to Stanford University to a DNA specialist to delve deeper into why her Native American did not show up. Most of the commercial kits were developed by affiliated universities. FTDNA has close ties to the University of Arizona at Tucson. So Elizabeth Warren was correct in her choice to pursue further DNA analysis. Remember the technology of DNA analysis is a dynamic one and is advancing daily. Best regards, Helen Duer Binkleys in America DNA Administrator _______________________________________________ _______________________________________________ Email preferences: http://bit.ly/rootswebpref Unsubscribe https://lists.rootsweb.com/postorius/lists/genealogy-dna@rootsweb.com Privacy Statement: https://ancstry.me/2JWBOdY Terms and Conditions: https://ancstry.me/2HDBym9 Rootsweb Blog: http://rootsweb.blog RootsWeb is funded and supported by Ancestry.com and our loyal RootsWeb community

With admiration and respect for the congenial discussion, if the phrase "just probability" held water we wouldn't have this discussion list in the first place, because as you note, genetic genealogy is "just" probabilities. I do think you've made a safe bet though, given the probabilities.... --Robert Wjhonson via GENEALOGY-DNA wrote: > Brian you are correct. > The idea that the Autosomal is *only* showing you matches within the past six generations is old science. > When you take the test and come up with 2000 matches of 25cms or more, it's pretty clear this is much much more than six generations. > > > It's just probability. I will give a million dollars to your favorite charity, if anyone can show me that have 2000 sixth cousins who have all just coincidentally taken a DNA test. > >

The name Bustemante comes to mind. That's your answer! I've MET the man! Not only that, but I was on a committee tasked to decide if we would offer him a tenure track position in our department. We were impressed, to say the least. The very least! He just "felt" like he would become a big important, and justifiably so, person. We've been very right about these things. Then we found out that he already had offers from big coastal universities with med schools attached. We had no hope of getting him, and indeed, he turned us down. Of course he didn't personally do her results ... some post-doc did ... but he hires really good post docs with really good infrastructure. I'd trust his results. Doug McDonald -----Original Message----- From: Sam Sloan <samhsloan@gmail.com> Sent: Monday, October 15, 2018 11:02 AM To: DNA-NEWBIE@yahoogroups.com; DNAAdoption@yahoogroups.com; genealogy-dna@rootsweb.com Subject: [DNA] Elizabeth Warren's Homemade DNA Test Result Will not Satisfy Anybody Elizabeth Warren's Homemade DNA Test Result Will not Satisfy Anybody Today Elizabeth Warren released a report which she says is the result of a DNA test proving that she is part Native American. She took a test and released the report because for years Trump had been calling her “Pocahontas” by her claiming to be Native American. But Senator Warren did not take any of the commercially available DNA tests costing less than $99. Instead she took a home made test as interpreted by her self-appointed expert. One has to wonder why she went to the trouble to hire someone to give her a homemade test. Why not blow $99 and give us the results we can see and interpret? Millions of people have taken these DNA tests. There are three main testing companies: ftdna.com and 23andme.com and ancestry.com She should take one of those tests and also have one of her three brothers take the same test to establish it is really her and she should also upload the results to Gedmatch and then we and the world will be able to see if she is really part native American or not. The claim she made that Native Americans have not taken DNA tests because tribal leaders told them not to is also nonsense. One of my own step-sons is part Mexican and I gave him the test and his DNA matches with hundreds of Mexicans South of the Border down Mexico Way who have taken these tests. Did you know that Mexicans are native Americans? Did you know that these DNA tests all come from Utah where they have millions of Native Americans? Sam Sloan _______________________________________________ _______________________________________________ Email preferences: http://bit.ly/rootswebpref Unsubscribe https://lists.rootsweb.com/postorius/lists/genealogy-dna@rootsweb.com Privacy Statement: https://ancstry.me/2JWBOdY Terms and Conditions: https://ancstry.me/2HDBym9 Rootsweb Blog: http://rootsweb.blog RootsWeb is funded and supported by Ancestry.com and our loyal RootsWeb community