Gordon, Gordon Banks wrote: >Well, you'd have to get the article to see what the evidence is. >Lindsay Brook is a reputable genealogist. All genealogy except that >proven with DNA is probabilistic. The further back you go, the less >certain things get. But it's fun to read about and consider. > > It doesn't matter who it is, I'd still like to verify it with other (good) sources. I'll put her article on my "to get" list however. Certainly all genealogy is problematic in the abstract. How many know with absolute certainty, for example, that the baby their parents brought home from the hospital wasn't inadvertently switched at birth? Other than a great grandmother's tacit approval, how would anyone know with absolute certainty that her husband was the father of all of her children? Fortunately, genealogists and family historians don't operate in the abstract, nor could they. They operate using the best information available that meets established genealogical standards. As for the DNA issue, only an extremely minute fraction of 1% of your entire family tree can be verified by a DNA test (Y-DNA or mtDNA), and then only for an indication of a match. It doesn't prove anything in the sense of providing the names, dates, marriages, other siblings, etc., between either test subject. And it can't tell you the name of a MCRA, when or where he or she lived. Add to that the fact that potential testers have it only on good faith (or polished advertising) that the facility itself employs high chain of custory standards (most send the samples out to a third party lab). One of the larger criminal DNA test facilities in the country was in the news just last week. The charges were poor handling procedures, undertrained staff members, sample degradation and cross-contamination (and no, it wasn't the LAPD lab again). I don't know about you but these stories don't give me a warm fuzzy feeling about a test that, at best (and done in a clean facility under stringent conditions), can only provide an indication of relatedness. I agree, it is fun to consider who _might_ possibly be an ancient ancestor. But it's far better to have some confidence in the connections based on sound genealogical research. And to have guidelines to tell you when it's not possible to make such a determination. Keep in mind that, courtesy of the Human Genome project, we've learned that all humans on the planet are from a common pair. So even if you can't prove a direct line back to King David (or other famous persons in history), at least there's the compensation that such individuals are probably indirect ancestors. Jim

I think Lindsay is a male. On Tue, 2003-08-05 at 16:03, JF wrote: > Gordon, > > Gordon Banks wrote: > > >Well, you'd have to get the article to see what the evidence is. > >Lindsay Brook is a reputable genealogist. All genealogy except that > >proven with DNA is probabilistic. The further back you go, the less > >certain things get. But it's fun to read about and consider. > > > > > It doesn't matter who it is, I'd still like to verify it with other > (good) sources. I'll put her article on my "to get" list however. > > Certainly all genealogy is problematic in the abstract. How many know > with absolute certainty, for example, that the baby their parents > brought home from the hospital wasn't inadvertently switched at birth? > Other than a great grandmother's tacit approval, how would anyone know > with absolute certainty that her husband was the father of all of her > children? Fortunately, genealogists and family historians don't operate > in the abstract, nor could they. They operate using the best information > available that meets established genealogical standards. Exactly. What do you suppose the percentage is of cases where the biological father isn't the father of record? 1%? Probably higher. Given how long are lines are, that makes it pretty probable that for any one line, it is hard to have too much confidence it, isn't it?

Hi Jim, Mostly I am busy at the moment and staying well out of this. I couldn't resist a brief remark on the following however... > Add to that the fact that potential testers have it only on good > faith (or polished advertising) that the facility itself employs > high chain of custory standards (most send the samples out to a > third party lab). One of the larger criminal DNA test facilities in > the country was in the news just last week. The charges were poor > handling procedures, undertrained staff members, sample degradation > and cross-contamination (and no, it wasn't the LAPD lab again). I > don't know about you but these stories don't give me a warm fuzzy > feeling about a test that, at best (and done in a clean facility > under stringent conditions), can only provide an indication of > relatedness. Reliability isn't really a problem. One can always get the test done with another testing Laboratory and see if the results are the same. In fact that is what we are currently doing with the Plant(agenet)-like name project, though mainly with the objective of measuring more markers to limit the generation-range of the MRCA. I do not really expect the results to be different, as others have cross checked many times before and they report that, with reliable companies, discrepancies are essentially non-existent. It is always good to be able to double-check important results however. One of the main strengths of the scientific method is that people can always repeat an experiment to check its validity (unlike the situation with an old report by one person about events). I am not claiming that the DNA method is the answer to everything. Far from it. In my experience the main problems are the limited range of the situations for which DNA can give an answer, the expense of the test (even if one doesn't repeat it), and the difficulty finding volunteers to take the test. I do not think that the reliability of the test is an issue however. Far from it. Thank you again for your contributions to the interesting debate that is going on. Being busy I am not reading all of it but I am enjoying the bits that I do read. John -- . . John S Plant PhD MBCS MIDI KLUO . Chartered Information Systems Practitioner .......unifying cerebral creativity with intelligent algorithms Tel.(01782)58 3064 : j.s.plant@isc.keele.ac.uk :: Computing Services, Fax.(01782)58 3636 : helpdesk@isc.keele.ac.uk ::: Keele Information Services. .....Dr.J.S.Plant,Computing Services,Keele University,Staffordshire,ST5 5BG.