In my opinion, 12 marker matches are not worth even checking. I personally think anyone testing should go for a minimum of 37 markers and if finances allow for the full 67. Yes, at 12 markers most people (but not all) will match many different surnames. Last names were only being taken about 600 yrs. ago and these people who show up as 12 marker matches do share a common ancestor with you in or before that time frame. On your member page, you can click that you only want to be identified when there is a surname match or at which levels you want to be notified. Of course, if you check that you only want to be compared within your surname project, if somewhere in the past generations some one in your family was adopted or had a child outside of marriage, you could miss an important match. What if you came up with 65/67 with someone with a different surname? That would mean there was a common ancestor not too far back in time, and you would want to correspond with that participant! If you match someone 37/37, you have a common ancestor within a much closer time frame. There are many test results variations that one could get and each would be looked at separately. A Y-12 DNA test will mainly just predict your haplogroup. At Family Tree DNA, it does not cost $200 to test 12 markers in a surname project. When joining a project, it is $99 for Y-12 markers, $148 for Y-25, $189 for Y-37 and $269 for Y-67. The fact that you aren't matching someone with your last name is because no one else from your particular group has tested with Family Tree DNA yet. The database is growing at a very fast rate. For example, I started the Henry Surname DNA Project with one man. We now have 116 participants. We have people from several haplogroups. Unexpected matches are coming in frequently now. Also there is no guarantee that anyone will ever have a significant match. Mr. Greenspan the owner and originator of familytreedna had never had a significant match as of a few years ago. He may have found once since I talked to him. I didn't get to go to the yearly conference last year. Also he and others who work at familytreedna, are very easy to contact. They answer questions that arise and are very nice people! When attending the yearly conferences, one gets to meet the scientists and others who work there. At our project pages, we post (with permission) the proven ancestry of each participant as verified by traditional records of census, land records, will, tax lists, etc. Along with the DNA, we are sorting all the Henrys into different groups. Almost all Henrys coming out of the South believed (and had been told by their families) that they were descended from an uncle, grandfather or some male relative of Patrick Henry. This has proven almost entirely false for all. We have the DNA of a descendant of Patrick Henry (The participant has been verified through the organization of descendants at Red Hill VA). The closest Henry match to the descendant of Patrick Henry still does not have a very strong match but he does at least share a common ancestor back in time: 4 generations is .03% 8 generations is 1.39% 12 generations is 8.98% 16 generations is 25.32% 20 generations is 46.25% 24 generations is 65.68% DNA testing can disprove easier than it can prove one's relationship. For example, if one is Haplogroup R (R1a, R1b, etc.) and another person in the surname is haplogroup J (J2, etc.), then there is zero percent chance of having a common ancestor in 600 yrs., regardless of what grandma or any printed genealogy said. Extensive family research combined with Y-DNA testing results is an awesome way to sort one's family. If the results don't mesh, it will be the paper trail and/or legend that is wrong! Once a family locates others who have a common ancestor, the researchers can start to work together and can rule out families that don't match. It helps one tailor one's research to be more effective. Like you, Cliff, I was a school teacher. I taught school for 30 yrs. and I personally have seen the value of Y-DNA testing! I started this project with one Henry man. Thank goodness, I have a wonderful Co-administrator Judy Henry who does the website, is a great researcher, and keeps me in line! But you must also realize that I have done genealogical research intensively since 1977, and Judy has done remarkable research for years also. She has published a great book on her husband's Henry family. You can look at our Henry project to see how we have helped many Henry men find, share, or verify their roots using paper traditional research and Y-DNA results, Each tab is clickable and on the lineage page each separate group is clickable: http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~henrydna/ It is very likely that your relatives who want you to test, have done a lot of traditional research and need your results to see if their theories are correct! Doris Noland Parton ----- Original Message ----- From: Judy Lock To: Doris Noland Parton Sent: Monday, July 14, 2008 6:32 PM Subject: Fw: [NYRENSSE] Is DNA testing worthwhile? Want to respond about Patrick Henry and the many claimants that think they are related? I'm not knowledgeable enough, but you are! ----- Original Message ----- From: Cliff Lamere To: NYRENSSE-L@rootsweb.com Sent: Monday, July 14, 2008 5:11 PM Subject: [NYRENSSE] Is DNA testing worthwhile? I have long been skeptical about the benefits of having a DNA test done for myself. Few genealogists understand much about DNA testing. I taught science for 27 years, but I could not understand how a DNA test would help me with my family tree. I read the websites of many testing companies, but their claims were vague and never mentioned that they would help me identify whether or not I had correctly chosen my 4th greatgrandfather. I phoned Family Tree DNA, but the owner could not assure me that the test could find any ancestors for me. I decided that I would be wasting my money. Later, a genealogy friend brought up the subject after he had participated in a DNA surname study with the same company. After the test was completed, he wrote to me saying the following. "I Hope you haven't been tempted to get one of those DNA tests to show your ancestoral matches. One of my old [surname deleted] correspondents did so. They paid $200 for it and had me send in saliva samples for comparative analysis. Not one person of my surname turned up as a match. My genes and theirs show up in every country in the world! It appears all of the matches are prehistoric. They keep sending readouts of "new" data with a handful of surnames but still no family matches. It may be scientific but I believe they're guilty of deception." Take a look at the results of the surname study in which my friend participated. ------------------ "An exact 12 marker match has been found between you and another person in the Family Tree DNA database. You and the other person match in all 12 loci. If you share the same surname or variant, this means that there is a 99% likelihood that you share a common ancestor in a genealogical time frame. If you match another person without the same surname or variant, you still probably share a common ancestor, but this ancestor most likely lived in the time before surnames were adopted. The link below will take you to your Family Tree DNA Login. From there, click on the "Y-DNA Matches" tab to see a list of your matches. Newer matches will be at the top of the list. Additional emails will be sent to you as we find new matches between you and your "genetic cousins."" ------------------ That is apparently what you get for your money. Everyone on this mailing list is probably related. Any two of us are probably "genetic cousins" because we are both related to some unnamed person born in Europe a thousand or ten thousand years ago or to someone in prehistoric times. If you and I both took the test, we might learn that. Is it worth spending money to find that out? The Times Union, Albany's newspaper had an article today ("Relative Connections") that described the experience of one person who learned about the ancient migration route of some unnamed person. He also quoted someone who said that the mtDNA test detects only one of thousands of ancestors. Since it tests the female line, and surnames change with every marriage, it can't tell you a surname. If I understand correctly, the test will not help you add anyone to your family tree. The article will be online for seven days before you have to pay to read it. http://timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=703086&category=LIFE&newsdate=7/14/2008 If you have had some experience with the DNA testing, please tell us if it helped you identify any relatives or not. Cliff Lamere