"Max Blankfeld" <max@familytreedna.com> wrote: > I don't know if you had your DNA tested for genealogy purposes, so I > am sure what makes you affirm that "testing is more expensive than > it's worth". I certainly would like to hear your substantiation. Well, Max, how much do you think I ought to spend to find out that there is a 50 percent chance that I and some other person with the name PENCE are related within 7 generations? You are the marketing director of a firm that is in this business, so you tell me. I always thought that even 1 percent wrong gives you a serious genealogical problem. > Although this is a short paragraph, I hope it will shed some light > into the use of genetics in genealogy. While we say that DNA > testing is one more tool to be used in conjunction with traditional > genealogy, there are many people who have tested, and who said that > one test done to compare two individuals solved a 20, 30 or even 45 > year puzzle which included many thousands of dollars spent in travel > and research. Unfortunately, what is a "solution" to an old problem depends on the problem. I suppose it is a "solution" of sorts to know that two people of the same name do have a common ancestor, either 7 generations back, or 23 generations back, or 30 geneations back. But that doesn't provide a solution to the genealogical puzzle facing the two individuals. I am reminded ot the lady who posted an enthusiastic testimonial to the power of the Internet - it had helped her and her cousins solve a problem they had been working on "for more that 40 years." It was 40 years ago that one of them had discovered the marriage record of a great great grandfather to a great great grandmother in a published index. The cousins spent the next 40 years trying to find out the names of the parents of this couple, but failed. Finally, a chance remark in an email to a a person who lived in the county of the marriage caused this person to go to the court house, where she found not only the marriage record that had been included in the published index, but - since both the bride and groom were underage - consents signed by the parents of both! Indeed, it was a 40-year old puzzle, but the solution didn't have to wait for the Internet. It was in the court house all the time, waiting for someone to write and aske for it - and no one ever did. One wonders how many other "puzzles" that no one bothered to actually research will now be solved. I went to your web site and read several of the testimonials. Nothing I saw there convinces me that this is the time I should round up all the requisite group of PENCEs, gather funds from each, and find out which ones are related to which others. It would be nice to know that the descendants of John Pence of Hocking County have ancestors in common with those of Frederick Pence of Pennsylvania / Maryland / (West) Virginia, but that really wouldn't tell us a whole lot. The puzzle of "how" would still remain a puzzle. Another enigma is that those PENCEs who are the hardest to classify are also the ones without known male descendants - which is one major reason they got "lost" in the first place. You're in the business of selling DNA tests. I invite you to visit my web site at http://www.pipeline.com/~richardpence/ and look around. I have been collecting PENCE data for more than 35 years and what you will see is a slice of what I have been able to put together. Perhaps you can look over what is there and design a study that will actually add to our knowledge. Please note that at this point in a great many instances I can do as well as giving someone a 50 percent chance that they are related in the last 7 generations. I am sure there is something PENCE researchers could gain from it, but I already see too many stories that take DNA "facts" and make genealogical jumps that are unwarranted on the basis of these facts. Just over a year ago, a major on-line newsletter reported that some male descendants of three men with the same surname from early colonial Virginia did a DNA study. This study, the report said, "proved" that the three men these people were descended from were all the sons of one man, a also early in Virginia. I challenged that conclusion, but the editor said he had "verified" it with an "expert" and the conclusion was accurate. I still don't think so, but the name of the "expert" is not known to me and I have been unable to obtain a copy of the study that reached this remarkable conclusion. I have been told, and continue to believe, that the best that can be done in cases like this is to reach a conclusion that the persons involved descend from "a common male ancestor." To me this means that the three progenitors may not have been sons of one man, but grandsons or great grandsons or 8th great grandsons. For a time I participated in a DNA mailing list, but even there the "experts" kept extending the borders by saying things like "the study "proved" that Thomas Jefferson was the father of at least some of the children of Sally Hemings. It didn't, but people seem to jump to that conclusion, even "experts" anxious to prove a point. BTW, there indeed may be a more scientific basis for the fact that most studies are in male-line descendancy father than in the female line, but I stick with my reasoning: How are you going to identify the population for the female study when all will no doubt have different surnames? At least a major impediment. Regards, Richard A. Pence, 3211 Adams Ct, Fairfax, VA 22030 Voice 703-591-4243 Fax 703-352-3560 Pence Family History <http://www.pipeline.com/~richardpence/> "Richard A. Pence" <richardpence@pipeline.com>