This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Author: ksaxe Surnames: McDonald, MacDonald, McDaniel, McConnell, Donaldson, MacConnell, Donald, McDonnell, Donnell, MacDonnell, McDanold, McDanolds, MacKinnell, Kinnell, MacOnill, MacWhannel, and Whannell Classification: queries Message Board URL: http://boards.rootsweb.com/surnames.mcconnell/2466.1.1/mb.ashx Message Board Post: How Robert, Belinda, and others can narrow down long lists of matches One technique that Robert and Belinda have in effect already used is to make sure that they have results for enough markers to narrow things down. With Robert's results for 67 markers and Keith's results for 37 markers, they are able to compare results for at least 37 markers with others who have results for the same markers. Belinda recently reported that Keith's closest matches at the 37 level were 9 35 for 37 matches, and she was able to check out all of those matches, although none have led to any breakthroughs for her so far. Keith also has 34 for 37 matches with 35 men, and a lot more 33 for 37 matches. That is a lot of matches to check out, and one of the first things that Belinda should do to narrow down the list is to restrict it to matches with McDonald surname variants. Two ways to find some of those types of matches quickly are to use the project tables or use Keith's match page at FTDNA to display only those matches within the Clan Donald project first. Belinda reported that she didn't have very many McDonald-type name matches at the 37 marker level, and that she has just 6 at the 25 marker level. Of course, most or all of those 25 marker matches will be with people who also match Keith at the 37 marker level, so the list is now down to a much more manageable size. She may even find that the list of McDonald-type matches at the 12 marker level is also short enough to make contacting those individuals practical. Some of the closer matches that Robert and Belinda have found within that Clan Donald project are with individuals whose names are not variants of McDonald. My recommendation is that they attempt to contact these individuals. The fact that they joined the Clan Donald project may be a sign that they do not match other men with their surnames, and they may in fact be relatives whose lines include non-paternity events. Keith's closest match within the project is a very close match to a McKeen. This is not normally a McDonald name variant, although in this case one wonders if the name was changed just a little more than usual over time. Belinda and Robert may possibly find a handful of individuals who match them at the 25 marker level and have results for 37 markers, but do not match them at the 37 marker level. Some authorities would probably advise that they ignore these particular matches, but based on a recent example within the Clan Donald study, I would recommend contacting ALL of the 25 marker matches with McDonald type names. Two cousins, each with paper trails back to a common ancestor, joined the project and matched on 33 of 37 markers, which would normally cause them to be listed as 33 for 37 marker matches of each other on their match pages. However, one of those mismatches was 3-step mismatch, i.e. their values at that marker differed by 3, and this caused them not to be listed as matches of each other. It turns out that that marker is a faster-mutating marker, and Doug McDonald confirmed that this sort of mismatch is somewhat improbable, but not extremely unlikely. To me, it makes more! sense to contact another 1 or 2 people than it does to risk missing such a connection. There are many McDonald surname variants and there are men with these surnames who have been tested outside the Clan Donald project. Those who were tested through FTDNA and chose to have matches set against the entire database can be found using the FTDNA match page. Robert and Belinda would just need to set the page to display matches from the entire database to find these. It makes sense to check back from time to time, to find newly tested men, men who only recently learned about the Clan Donald project, and others who may not have had their match pages set up for Clan Donald matches. Of course, it is important to be able to recognize the many variants of McDonald. Using the Clan Donald USA general and DNA project websites, the FTDNA website, and records from the area where my McConnell ancestors lived, I came up with a very long list. You can make it longer by changing or omitting "Mc" and "Mac", singling or doubling "n"s and "l"s, and changing some vowels. The! names are listed roughly in order of frequency of use, with most of the names/spellings at the end of the list being quite rare: McDonald, MacDonald, McDaniel, McConnell, Donaldson, MacConnell, Donald, McDonnell, Donnell, MacDonnell, McDanold, McDanolds, MacKinnell, Kinnell, MacOnill, MacWhannel, and Whannell Some FTDNA customers will not have their match pages set to allow them to be found in this way. In some cases it may be possible to connect with some of these men by joining additional projects, such as the Ireland Heritage project, the Scotland project, the Great Britain 2 project, or the Fraser (clan) project. Another way to connect with men in other projects, and some men who were tested through other testing companies, is to use other databases, such as Y-Search (http://www.ysearch.org/), the Sorenson database (http://www.smgf.org/ychromosome/search.jspx), and the Relative Genetics database (http://www.relativegenetics.com/relativegenetics/surname_landing.jsp). Because each of these databases has its own quirks and is potentially useful to all members of the project and not just those with large numbers of matches, I will cover them separately. Important Note: The author of this message may not be subscribed to this list. If you would like to reply to them, please click on the Message Board URL link above and respond on the board.