On 2011/10/26 01:04, Edie wrote: > If all else fails you could try one of your Gould male lines for a ydna test > Jackie. You never know. That pre-supposes that she has identified a 'live' descendent of the male line in question that can be used as The Reference. Usually we don't have that luxury. We do genealogy in order to find these unknowns. Working backwards to find the ancestors and then forwards to find the distant relations. DNA as a research tool, is next to useless for genealogical purposes. [Just my personal opinion] -- Regards, Mike Fry Johannesburg

Hi Mike/All The use of yDNA testing for it's own sake can be pretty meaningless, and I would never recommend it's use in isolation as a genealogical tool. Where it does come into it's own is to augment missing paper based evidence. It can be extremely useful if there is circumstantial evidence suggesting that two lines are related, but there is no surviving paper record (ie: missing baptism records). It does of course require a (reliable) direct male line to a living male descendant in each branch who are both willing to be tested. The caveat here is the same with paper based records and with DNA testing, and has always been the case. Undiscovered extra-marital liasons by wives which result in a pregnancy render the subsequent entries in the family tree false. When I look at how many married couples I have in my own tree, I cannot believe for one minute that all the wives were 100% faithful to their husbands, any more than I could hold the converse to be true. ;-) All the best Dave Dixon BA (hons) - Economic & Social History - University of Kent - Canterbury 1997 www.fadedgenes.co.uk > DNA as a research tool, is next to useless for genealogical purposes. [Just my > personal opinion] >

There appears to be a lot of success stories Mike. I had my brothers dna tested still waiting but it depends on how many have tested for a particular surname. I am a bit of a sceptic also but nothing ventured nothing gained. Have just paid for a familyfinder test for myself to see what happens. I have a brickwall so this is what I am doing as a last resort. As you say Lesley needs a male Gould to get started. Edie ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mike Fry" <fredbonzo@iafrica.com> To: <london@rootsweb.com> Sent: Wednesday, October 26, 2011 7:10 PM Subject: Re: [LON] BRICK WALL : GOULD > On 2011/10/26 01:04, Edie wrote: > >> If all else fails you could try one of your Gould male lines for a ydna >> test >> Jackie. You never know. > > That pre-supposes that she has identified a 'live' descendent of the male > line > in question that can be used as The Reference. Usually we don't have that > luxury. We do genealogy in order to find these unknowns. Working backwards > to > find the ancestors and then forwards to find the distant relations. > > DNA as a research tool, is next to useless for genealogical purposes. > [Just my > personal opinion] > > -- > Regards, > Mike Fry > Johannesburg > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > This mailing list works in parallel with the London surname interest list > on the web at http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~hughw/london.html . Check for > matching interests and add your own ! > > Any problems, please contact the List Admin: LONDON-admin@rootsweb.com > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > LONDON-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes > in the subject and the body of the message