Ardis <AEParshall@aol.com> wrote: > But surely from all of your happily burbling satisfied customers, > you have gathered a single genealogical case study where someone > used your DNA test to prove a specific chain of descent from a given > person. Gee, Ardis, apparently you missed the Wall Street Journal article last month which gives all sorts of goodies that DNA testing has brought to genealogists. Not the least of which is that it found the roots of the reporter! Honest. ['DNA Testing Helps Find Family Roots' (From The Wall Street Journal), By Ken Wells; uncertain date (possibly 6 Mar 2003), but a cached copy of the story can be found if you seach in Google for this comgination of words: Wall Street Journal DNA Wells] The story begins: "Jim Wells, a longtime University of Kentucky mathematics professor, went to bed one night pondering a maddening and fruitless decades-long search for the origins of an ancestor. He woke up the next day to have his history handed to him in an e-mail. 'It's astonishing,' says the 70-year-old Mr. Wells of the recent revelations regarding his fifth great-grandfather, John Wells, who turned out, as Mr. Wells had suspected but could never prove, to be a Pennsylvania Quaker with British roots. 'It just didn't seem possible we would ever find his origins.'" The story says that Mr. Wells found out all this because he was a participant in a Y-chromosome Wells family DNA study. It later says that "Mr. Wells not only verified his theories about John Wells but found out his roots actually go all the way back to one Henry Wells, an English Quaker who immigrated to Pennsylvania around 1684." The story is vague on this part, but it says that Mr. Wells was able to do this "by comparing what he knows of his genealogy with the new data, [and then] fill in missing pieces." [I was disappointed in this, because I was hoping they had identified some new DNA markers for Quakerism or Pennsylvanianism. That apparently is not the case, so I am still puzzled at how Mr. Wells zeroed in on the Pennsylvania Quaker who came from England - especially when the literature tells me this kind of a conclusion is not possible with this kind of testing.] Here's another "success" story, Ardis. This one concerns Kevin Duerinck, "a Rochester, N.Y., genealogy enthusiast": "He organized his own surname DNA project about two years ago to answer a question unanswerable by conventional means because ancient records that might have shed light had been destroyed in fires: Was his family related to one or more of some 28 ancient Germanic clans with surnames spelled similarly to his? He rounded up a dozen volunteers representing a range of those names. "To date, the tests, conducted by Family Tree DNA [free plug, Max!], show that the Duerincks are relatives of at least two of those clans, the Durincks and the Diericks. 'We're talking about establishing a relationship to thousands of people,' says the 46-year-old Mr. Duerinck." Aside from the fact that there is no explanation of how Family Tree DNA was able to use "about a dozen" contemporary DNA samples to reach its reported conclusions concerning relationships to "ancient Germanic clans," my mind is reeling from Mr. Duerincks comment: "We're talking about establishing a relations to thousands of people." [Let's gve him some slack and say he must have been quoted out of context.] It seems to matter not that there is no way on earth to know who any of these thousands of people are and exactly how you are related. Those finer points are what consititute genealogy. Being related to "thousands" is a known fact for everyone! Perhaps we should introduce Mr. Duerinck to Mr. Wells, the U-Ky mathematics professor. The latter perhaps could explain to the former some of the theories of probabilities. The WSJ story didn't say how ancient thes early clans were, but given the facts of "pedigree collapse" (in short, when you go back far enough, there aren't enough living people to fill all of the theoretical spots in an ancestor chart), the chances are pretty good he is a descendant of practically everyone alive at the time! Now that's really news! We're talking in the millions, not just the thousands! Pump those into your genealogy program! But, Ardis, here is the most outstanding success story of them all. In case you missed it, an accompanying story to the above in the Wall Street Jorunal is headlined: "Reporter Uses DNA Method To Find His Family's Roots." [The story isn't all that complicated, but you can see the details for yourself by doing the Google search suggested above.] Reporter Wells professes to be a family historion who has searched "on and off" for the last 22 years for the roots of his great grandfather, Rufus Henry Wells, who lived in Arkansas. The only clues he had stemmed from a hand-written genealogy prepared by a great aunt. This gave information on the father and grandfather of Rufus, including their given names, a possible place of residence, supposed maiden names of their wives and said they were Virginians. Reporter Wells said that all efforts to follow up on that were in vain. The reporter then participated in the Wells Family DNA study, got word that he matched some cousins in a known "baseline" group (one with sound genealogical records) and was put in touch with one of them. This fellow had "the Wells Book" that includeed the details on the reporter's Virginia ancestors! There's no doubt that one of the best uses of DNA testing is in surname studies like this one. They can identify those who may descend from the same progenitor OR HIS MALE KIN. But what the headline said was that "Reporter Uses DNA Method To Find His Family's Roots." Nope. What the DNA study did, in fact, was provide him with the name of the cousin. It was the cousin who "found" the reporter's family roots. One does not have to have a DNA test to make these sorts of connections! I'm not sure how much money Reporter Wells invested in his DNA test (maybe he put it on his expense account?), but I have a tip for him right out of Genealogy 101: "Review of the Literature Is an Early Step." It would have been a whole lot cheaper to wander into a Family History Center, maybe 20 years ago, examine the Family History Library Catalog and then order a few microfilms. Doing the "review of the literature" is pretty standard stuff and with the names the reporter alreaady knew, he would have had no trouble finding his own family in the index and in "the Wells book" itself. Then he could have been busily at work doing the fun part for the past 20 years: verifying and amplifying the details! There you have it, Ardis. I guess you and I are just too skeptical. The success stories are all around us. What I am looking for now is where to sign up for the graduate course that tells you how to find your Pennsylvania Quaker ancestor "with British roots" through a DNA surname study! Wow. (I wonder if it works for Pennsylvania Dutch?) Regards, Richard "Richard A. Pence" <richardpence@pipeline.com>