Margaret, This is a great question, and you may find Joan's response helpful, but I'd like to expand on it. Joan is right that your possibilities for furthering McConnell research by having your own DNA tested depend on how you are related to your McConnell family. She also mentioned Y-DNA, autosomal DNA, and mitochondrial DNA. It may be helpful to cover these separately: Y-DNA - This is the focus of the Clan Donald DNA project, but you have already approached a male relative about this and haven't received a response. This is not uncommon, and I guess there are several reasons for it. One of the main reasons is probably that it takes some time to understand how genetic genealogy works, and if people are busy, they may not have time to really consider it. I have had the same experience of not receiving a response from a McConnell male that I approached about testing. My approach now is to decide in advance whether I want to offer to help pay for a test. If so, I make it clear that I am willing to do so. If not, I explain my situation of having a lot of possibly related McConnell families to investigate and state that I am hoping to avoid paying for all of the required tests, but ask the person to consider testing. I also explain that it took me a long time after learming about the Clan Donald DNA project to decide to participate, and I understand that they may want to think about it for a long time before making any decision. This makes it comfortable for us to remain in touch about our McConnell research even if they don't decide to participate. Autosomal DNA - We all receive autosomal DNA from both of our parents, and what they pass onto us comes from both of their parents. You undoubtedly carry some autosomal DNA from your McConnell ancestors, but it is impossible to identify it based on just your own test results. If you were able to persuade a number of relatives to test, it would be possible to get some idea of which autosomal DNA is from which ancestor by looking at the common ancestors of people sharing the same autosomal DNA. Careful! Other families that may not be closely related may share some of the same autosomal DNA. If many of your ancestors lived in one geographic area, they may share autosomal DNA from common ancestors several generations back. I think that this sort of research will become more and more useful as the technology develops. It will be very interesting to see the new autosomal DNA database that Sorenson is developing now. When that is released, it may be possible for researchers to establish new DNA links. If you try the approach of having several members of your family test through Sorenson, you may be able to get some new information on some of your ancestry. This information could concern your McConnell ancestry, or your ancestry from other families. I certainly don't see much harm in trying this approach if you are comfortable with sharing 4 generation charts for your family members. If you take this approach, it will also be helpful to recruit cousins of your cousins, even if those people are not related to you. Then you can get an idea of whether some DNA sequences that run in some of your families also run in these other families. If they don't seem to, that gives you more certainty that your family members all inherited the same sequences from the same "recent" common ancestors. Mitochondrial DNA - Joan covered this well. Here is a hypothetical example. Let's say you trace your ancestry to a James McConnell, and there are two possible fathers for James McConnell. Each possible father had just 1 wife. You also know that James had a sister. Let's say that you are lucky enough to find 3 people to test: A child of James' sister's daughter's daughter. This child carries mitochondrial DNA from the mother of James and his sister. A child descended from possible father #1 and his wife. This child may be male or female, but must descend from an all female line between him/herself and the possible father #1 and wife. Then this child carries the mitochondrial DNA of the wife of possible father #1. Another child descended from possible father #2 and his wife, just as the above child was descended from possible father #1 and his wife. This child carries the mitochondrial DNA of the wife of possible father #2. The mitochondrial DNA of the descendant of James' sister should match the mitochondrial DNA of one of the other two people. As long as the DNA of the latter two doesn't match, then it will be possible to conclude which wife was James' mother, and that will tell you which of the two men was James' father. Margaret, this is a complicated subject, and I hope that this response helps more than it confuses! Kirsten On Sat, 18 Aug 2007 12:37:49 +0000, margaret4389 wrote > I have my McConnel line all the way back to the mid 1800's, but, > being female, do not know if it would work or not with the DNA. I > do have a male relative whom I have forwarded the information to, > but, either he didn't get it or he doesn't want to participate. Is > there a way the females can give DNA to make the line more "friendly"? > > -- > Margaret Sessions > > -------------- Original message -------------- > From: mcconnell-request@rootsweb.com > > > > > > > When replying to a digest message, quote only the specific message to which you > > are replying, removing the rest of the digest from your reply. Also, remember to > > change the subject of your reply so that it coincides with the message subject > > to which you are replying. > > > > Today's Topics: > > > > 1. Sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation (gc-gateway@rootsweb.com) > > > > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > > > Message: 1 > > Date: Fri, 17 Aug 2007 23:47:43 -0000 > > From: "gc-gateway@rootsweb.com" > > Subject: [McConnell] Sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation > > To: > > Message-ID: <1187394465.141047@rootsweb.com> > > Content-Type: text/plain; > > > > This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. > > > > Author: ksaxe > > Surnames: McConnell, McConnel, MacConnell > > Classification: queries > >