This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Author: ksaxe Surnames: Beatty, McConnell, McDonald Classification: queries Message Board URL: http://boards.rootsweb.com/surnames.mcconnell/183.712.1.1.2.1.1/mb.ashx Message Board Post: Hi, Colleen. Somebody recommended your book to me in the past, but I'm not sure that I ever managed to get in touch with you. Where to begin about the Clan Donald DNA Project? It is one of the oldest genetic genealogy projects, and now has 569 men on the project tables. Most, but not all of those men have surnames that are variants of the name MacDonald. DNA results prove that these men are from a number of different family groups that took MacDonald variant surnames. The project has the most informative website I have seen for any genetic genealogy project. It can take a while to figure out what the results mean as one learns about genetic genealogy, because there is a lot to learn. The project webmaster is Doug McDonald, and he is able to sort men into related family groups. Their test results are listed on the project results tables, and there are also some diagrams called network charts, which are computer generated family trees of sorts. Generally, the DNA technology is very good at determining whether two men are closely related in their all male line. One of the tested Lancaster County McConnells traces his line back to Alexander or within a generation or so of Alexander. Another traces his back to David born around 1792. They have a very close match, so now they know for certain that their families are related. Another descendant of David recently began testing, and his nearly complete results match the first descendant of David's results. There is a McDonald who traces his line to Wilmington, Delaware, which is only about 30 miles from Philadelphia. You probably know that both cities are on the Delaware River. His results also match those of the others extremely closely, and he reports that an ancestor used the name McConnell when he was in the military. There are other interesting matches. One is with a Mack. For this researcher's family, finding the McDonald and McConnell matches seems to tell us that ! their family name was originally MacDonald or a variant. There are other matches, including one with a French Canadian McDonald. This family has more distant matches with families tracing their line to Dumfriesshire. One of those families is a Beatty family. The degree of match is about what you would expect for a family sharing common ancestry shortly before the adoption of surnames. If any male McConnell with a solid line back to Alexander or one of his male line relatives in Dumfriesshire could be found and tested, this would really help solidify the family connection. It's hard to explain this project and how much has been learned from it, so I will give you a link to the project website and ask you to check it out and ask any questions that come to mind. The site has several pages to explore. The top page is at http://dna-project.clan-donald-usa.org/. I am interested in your book, but you should give priority to anybody who traces their line to your McConnell family. My Dennis born about 1802 was not closely related to the tested Lancaster County McConnell family members. Kirsten Saxe, McConnell researcher 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.