Cliff, I must say I agree that if you are just wanting to match to the world it is largely a waste of money, especially at the 12 marker level. I got involved in testing when trying to see if I matched up to the St. Kew, Cornwall Miter clan. I paid for test for myself and a male descendent from St. Kew and we failed to have a single match in the 12 marker test. What's more, his historic roots went back to Asia Minor and mine were purely Western Europe and the UK. Of course, as my 'pseudo cousin' pointed out, it only takes one female in the line to 'step out of the house' and it messes up the lineage! I have had a couple of 12 marker matches with folks that I couldn't possibly match up to in recorded history. Brad Miter -----Original Message----- From: nyrensse-bounces@rootsweb.com [mailto:nyrensse-bounces@rootsweb.com] On Behalf Of Cliff Lamere Sent: Monday, July 14, 2008 6:11 PM To: NYRENSSE-L@rootsweb.com 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&news date=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 ====NY-RENSSE Mailing List==== Check out the mailing list's website at: http://www.connorsgenealogy.com/NYRensse/ Don't forget the Rensselaer County Message Board: http://boards.rootsweb.com/localities.northam.usa.states.newyork.counties.re nsselaer/mb.ashx ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to NYRENSSE-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message