I had to smile when I recently heard of the new personal DNA tester one can purchase, tongue in cheek, for about $14,000. I think that must rate right up there with the purchase of beta recorders. Buy a brand new piece of technology without a clear idea of its application or its limitations, as the field passes it by onto a later generation of technology. I think we have some shares in the Brooklyn Bridge we can also sell. DNA genealogy has been in the news lately, particularly with regard to limitations, foibles and the perennial attempt to boost one's ego by establishing connection to an ancient famous or infamous historical character. The real application is more in extending the boundaries of known personal history just beyond known history or medical applications, rather than the very ancient connection to an ancient character in the distant past. Richard Conniff writes an interesting article in the July 2007 Smithsonian, the Family Tree Pruned. Interesting points, "The temptation is to pay attention only to the good news, and look on the family linage as a golden thread leading from some glorious ancestor straight down to the lucky modern-day descendants. But no family linage is a single thread. It is more like a broad fan of a thousand, or more a million, threads coming together from all over the world to weave the fragile patch of material representing the generations of family immediately around us. And here's the curious thing about this ancestral fan: it doesn't follow the simple mathematical rule of doubling with each generation back in time. If it did , we would have between 4 billion and 17 billion ancestors at the time of Charlemagne, in A.D. 800, when there were only a few hundred million people alive on earth. Instead , because of intermarriage, the same ancestors start turning up in any linage over and over." Social scientists conservatively estimate that "misassigned" paternity occurs in about 10% of all human births. Seems a bit high to me, but go with the argument. Conniff continues, " Virtually all families practiced some degree of inbreeding, often without realizing it. It was the natural byproduct of marrying people who lived within walking distance." The elites did so by design , to consolidate and maintain power and wealth. Conniff concludes, " when they (scientists) calculated the overlapping ancestry in both the paternal and maternal lines, they concluded that everyone on earth today shares a common ancestor who lived just 2,000 to 3,500 years ago". OK , interesting points about ancient deep ancestry. Yet haplogroup migration does point to ancient migration patterns that appear more remote than the 3,500 figure. But for my purposes, recognizing that my humble "family crest" might include a farmer's or servant/ groom's tools or a chamber pot , I do recognize that the intermediate DNA search may define connectedness, just beyond the horizon of known history, the intermediate history, rather than the ancient illustrious personage. And the medical applications are astounding. Last week the Journal of the American Medical Association published an article pointing to DNA mutations which suggest that half of women's genetic breast cancers are inherited from their father, rather than the mother. Failure to recognize this has caused the insurance industry to withhold the $3,000 genetic testing which would identify these persons. The study linked breast and ovarian cancer in their study controls. This became very personal to me, and moved far beyond genealogy for ego alone. On my paternal line, I have an aunt and her daughter who died of ovarian cancer, another first cousin suffering from ovarian cancer, and a sister who died of breast cancer. Further back in this paternal tree I note a female 2nd cousin, once removed, who died of cancer (possibly stomach?) and her daughter who was recently diagnosed with ovarian cancer. This genetic testing will be pursued with my granddaughter as well as my various nieces. Frank Jacobs, Topeka