Hi Linda, please recommend a book/site that spells out how to read DNA results (especially Y-DNA); something understandable, please. Heather

Hi Heather, gee, understandable? I haven't read any of these books, so if anyone else has found a good one, let us know. I have read some older ones (whose names I forget). I saw in a blog this one, highly recommended and that seemed clear and comprehensive. http://scottishdna.blogspot.com/2011/11/dna-and-social-networking-guide-to.html I tend to read a lot of what is on line, like info at www.familytreedna.com as well as lurking on various lists. The DNA Newbie list at rootsweb is good too. It is interesting that the review for the book, above, indicates it is the one of its type to discuss autosomal testing, which has been around for years. This is the main reason why I haven't read the books-- they are a couple years behind what you can learn on the Internet. Still I thought the one above looked great from an outline of it I saw posted somewhere. ISOGG (I'm a member as I admin a project) has many resources: http://www.isogg.org/ (Join their DNA Newbie list). One of their pages lists Kerchner's book list. He knows about DNA genealogy and is light years more knowledgable than I am: http://www.kerchner.com/books/dnabooks.htm You also may need to sort out some chaff. Posting Y results to ysearch, for example, is like baiting a hook and sticking it in the pond. Sometimes you snag Charles Kerchner but you also get catfish. Catfish can be hard to identify. I am on the main ISOGG list so I know who is well thought of though I can't understand their posts <grin>. Of course there are others who don't 'play' in that particular 'sandbox' who have valid projects underway. If it is is rude, impatient, lacking credentials, and attempting to crowbar your DNA into a particular obsession, throw it back. Like the BI's, trying to use DNA to prove the ancient Israelites came to Britain and the folks trying to prove all the Scotch Irish are Irish or all the Irish are Scots. The latter two we do run into, or rather, I do. Even if your most ancient ancestors were M222 positive, we don't know where it originated and actually, it doesn't matter at all. Ethnic identity is not a Y chromosome. I don't even have one, but I do have ethnic identity, though it is weird <grin>. We are not the sum total of our DNA. We're a lot more. Or in some cases, less <grin>. Like my cat: he has a gene for a tail but he got no tail anymore. People trying to win ethnic wars using DNA ... gee, maybe someday we'll discover a pill for that. It's even hard to find an authority who will review your results and give you an answer you can understand and that is right, today. This stuff changes rapidly, so the expert's conclusions could be wrong tomorrow when the current theories on the human genome are debunked again. Though it is not 100% true, in this area, the principals do battle on various Internet lists. They do tend to go silent before publishing since they don't want to spill the beans to their competitors. After they publish, by which I generally mean articles in peer reviewed journals like this one: http://www.jogg.info/ -- it's like tossing fish into a pond of sharks. I've watched a few of these on the genealogy-DNA list. Wow! Many people don't publish their results. I had someone send me a spreadsheet and expect me to analyze it and come up with the same results as he did. Actually, I was an English major. I can talk to fairies a lot easier than I can run macros in speadsheets. I suggested perhaps he should send me a write up of what he found and he got angry. This is definitely an old stinky catfish I had snagged on my line. I tried to toss it back fast before it slimed my boat and took a chunk out of me <grin>. When it comes to analyzing specific results, it's difficult. The folk in the Newbie lists, your admin (if you are the admin, join the ISOGG list), folk on the type of DNA you have. For each type there are significant markers. You need to know what those are. There are often fast moving markers as well that sometimes people 'throw out'. Some do not believe they are of any value. Others think they are. You cannot use the software provided by www.familytreedna.com except to 'eyeball' results. This is a constant theme on lists I lurk on because it assumes a common average of mutations across all the tested markers, while each one mutates at a unique rate. So I have known cousins that I know are related but with 67 markers they are so far off (7) that the FTDNA software says they're not related. This is because they only differ on fast moving markers and also this is fast mutating DNA. We only know that because we tested multiple men descended from several brothers who live din the 1700s, of varying, known degrees of relatedness, as well as some who were not related. You can get the theories from a book, but a lot of information you can only learn on the lists. Kerchner, in particular, has produced tools for analyzing DNA that may be better than ftdna's. I don't know ..... Not even an intermediate spreadsheet user. Hopefully someone can make some more specific suggestions. Linda Merle ----- Original Message ----- From: "Heather Dau" <dau@interlog.com> To: SCOTCH-IRISH@rootsweb.com Sent: Monday, November 28, 2011 1:50:29 PM Subject: [S-I] DNA Made Simple Hi Linda, please recommend a book/site that spells out how to read DNA results (especially Y-DNA); something understandable, please. Heather ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to SCOTCH-IRISH-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message