This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Author: ksaxe Surnames: McConnell Classification: queries Message Board URL: http://boards.rootsweb.com/surnames.mcconnell/183.713.2.1.1.1/mb.ashx Message Board Post: Hi Diane, I was thinking about your grandchildren doing family tree assignments at school. Hopefully they are not too old to have done all of those already. Of course it will be hard for you to help much if they are too busy to spend much time on those assignments. You are right that there is a lot of concern about privacy and DNA results. For some kinds of DNA testing, there is the possibility of uncovering medically relevant information, so people have worried about this information being available to health insurance companies. My understanding is that laws in all or most of the states protect people against this theoretical possibility, and there is national legislation before Congress to do the same thing. Even without such legislation, Y chromosome DNA testing seldom uncovers any hint of medical problems. The only such problems that I am aware of are infertility problems, and even if a man has those sorts of problems, it's very unlikely that this would be clear from their Y chromosome test results. I think it would take a missing segment of DNA on a man's Y chromosome to give a clear signal of such a problem. If this lead to a null result for one of the markers tested, then I think the testing company would contact the individual to explain the possible medical implications so that the man could make informed decisions about sharing his results with others, including his physician. The bottom line is that even if it were legal for insurance companies to use DNA test results to help set rates, there isn't enough medically relevant information in Y chromosome test results to make it worth the expense of examining results. People who order complete mitochondrial DNA testing do need to be aware that mutations in the coding region can have a medical significance, and they need to do some research, or have somebody else do some research, before they share their coding region test results. The standard tests for the HVR 1, HVR 2, and HVR 3 regions don't include the coding region, so it's OK to share results from those freely. As far as I know, FTDNA is the only company to offer a complete mitochondrial DNA test, and they don't publish coding region results in public databases, but they do offer a matching service, so that only matches learn of their matching results. Of course there is an option to opt out of the matching service. I think that the situation with autosomal DNA testing is more complicated, and people interested in that sort of testing may want to ask some questions. They can ask testing companies and this would be a good subject for the Genealogy-DNA list here on Rootsweb. You mentioned how many people share DNA. This will depend on the family. Male line relatives will share identical or nearly identical Y chromosome results if tested. How many matches men will find in DNA databases depends on a number of factors. If their male line has done well long-term, then they will have many distant cousins. There will be some matches with distant cousins who have experienced some of the same mutations since the common ancestor. There is also the randomness due to men's being aware of DNA testing options or not, their ability to afford testing, and their interest in testing. Some men are finding hundreds of DNA matches, while others are finding few or even none. Of course, the number of men with no matches is very small, and the chances of finding matches keep increasing as the databases grow. In the Clan Donald DNA Project, many of the matches between McConnells occur within large family groups with interesting histories, but there are also significant DNA matches for participants who don't have large numbers of matches. 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.