Thanks for the heads-up to look at isogg.org—will do that. The non-matches those in the group are worrying about aren't really non-matches at all—they are matches but with an appropriate number of mutations. However, lack of pre-knowledge means that these mutations 'throw' some people, thinking that since they share a g5 grandfather there should be no differences. The admins could provide some even 'canned' info to new testers but I guess they are just volunteers who do't do much. Not enough Linda Merles around. If I were an admin of a DNA project, I can think of a whole bunch of useful newbie emails that could go out to new project members—all canned but sounding personal that would leave the testors feeling much less abandoned. I like YOUR explanation of the mutational differences, Linda, "like sperm on the fly" and will share that with the group. I've been working with the concept of a lottery and how when you end up with 63 matches out of 67... you haven't 'lost the lottery' at all... blah blah bah... I am reasonably familiar with Newbie-DNA too. Glad to have mentioned a book you didn't know ie. the Fitzpatrick & Yeiser one called DNA & GENEALOGY. It's 2005 and I figured everyone would know about it. It is really interesting with sidebars and the like and yet forces you to think it through in the more technical parts. It's only $15 at Amazon. Ruth On Thu, Apr 8, 2010 at 8:19 PM, <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi Ruth, it takes effort, like anything worth doing, but at least you probably won't get Alzheimers > due to the mental activity. > > You can find some friendly people at ISOGG (www.isogg.org I think) as educating people on > this is their bailiewick. You should also search for someone, maybe a project admin, who > knows some information. Barra McCain at the Ulster Heritage Project is one, but he's very > busy and it is hard to attract his attention. Some pay him a retainer -- and he writes a report > that explains what he sees. You can hire others at ISOGG. But my experience has been that > it is difficult to even find people to write you a report. > > So you join lists and ask questions. > > I don't know if your non-matches are due to one of two situations. The first is 'non-paternity event'. > The total non-match. The Indian in the woodpile. People frequently adopted children and in > days of yore there was no formal adoption process. In fact just a year ago I learned my aunt > wasn't my aunt. According to her death certificate she was born 3 months after my other au nt. > My grandparents must have adopted her. No one alive knows the story now. Another famly > member did adopt a son, that my mother knew about. The further on back you go the less > oral history or paperwork you have, but people did often adopt a child if they had none. Maybe > the sister of the wife had 3 sons. The son she gave to her childless sister would inherit a > farm. That's what my one relative did: gave a sister a son and he did inherit her farm. Otherwise > he'd been in the coal mines. > > Also you have situations where a child is born out of wedlock and the father's surname > is not known. So he has the mother's surname. Or the mother fingered the wrong man as > the father. > > The partial matches are caused by mutations. A woman is born with all her eggs formed but > a man creates sperm on the fly, all his life. As he ages the likelihood of a mutation goes up. > So his sons may not match 100%. Over time these mutations accumulate. Each marker > mutates at a certain rate -- some fast, some slow. Some are very unstable (I learned on the > list). There are statistical averages, used in creating software like at ftdna to calculate matches, > but every family's dna mutates at its own rate. Some have fast mutating DNA and some slow. > My one client's mutates fast. He doesn't 'match' according to statistical software at Ftdna, > his own known cousins! This is why you need to do both genealogy and DNA -- need both. > Need to study the DNA and see how fast or slow it moves, too, which you don't know when yo u > can only afford to test one person in the family. For all you know that man may not represent > the family DNA due to a NPE (non paternity event). > > Thanks for the lead on the book, too! Have you tried Newbie DNA? > http://lists.rootsweb.ancestry.com/index/other/DNA/DNA-NEWBIE.html > > I had one client whose DNA results were very late. Finally FamilyTreeDNA explained that his > one marker was so weird that they had rerun the test 3 times. Then they had to have their > geneticist look at it. He said it was one really wild marker. This guy is in the large Campbell > group that seems to comprise most Campbells in Virginia and PA, at least. But for this one > wild marker. Whatever happened to make such a wild mutation? We don't know. Apparently > it happened between eastern PA and western though. It was comforting to know that they > consulted with the geneticist. > > Linda Merle > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Ruth McLaughlin" <[email protected]> > To: [email protected] > Sent: Thursday, April 8, 2010 7:43:11 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern > Subject: Re: [S-I] Sample posts from the genealogy-dna list > > It's encouraging, in a backhanded way, to know that someone like you, > Linda, with so much more experience than the rest of us even says, > "Arrg?" by times. > > I keep looking for somebody to talk to me and tell me what I am > seeing, or not seeing, in language I understand. But we're privileged, > I guess, to be able to watch a whole field of genetic science > developing and we can't expect to understand it all. Not having even > high school or undergrad courses on which to fall back is tough for > those of us who finished school "a while ago," when DNA was unknown, > doesn't help!! > > If only there was somebody who 'understands it all' but is, at the > same time, a real teacher at heart and would start up a website whose > main goal was **communication** to those of us wanting to understand, > but we can't quite break into the 'in talk.' Then we could ask > questions and get answers we understand, and not have to go three > years like Diane without any progress. Your help here on this List, > Linda, has been the most useful I've seen anywhere. But you're a > born-teacher par excellence—that's why! And... a very generous & > gracious one. If only there was a Mailing List with a > Geneticist-Linda-Merle as admin, then we'd all have something! > > Right now, I'm dealing with a certain level of concern among men in > one project who can't understand why, when they know they are related > with super paper trails, they have mismatches. They expected a full > match but don't have it and nobody provided them much help after they > paid their money and got their results. It leaves them wondering if > this DNA thing all it's cracked up to be. I realize they started off > with misconceptions and no understanding of the science, and I'm > trying to explain it but what do I know!!! ;-) > > No answers to be had, methinks. Just need to vent sometimes when the > List is quiet! > > Ruth > > P.S. I be remiss if I didn't say I've found Colleen Fitzgerald's > inexpensive little book DNA & GENEALOGY very helpful and one that > attempts to get around the 'in talk.' > > > On Thu, Apr 8, 2010 at 5:57 PM, <[email protected]> wrote: >> Hi folks, I just got a digest .....two samples: >> >>>In that subset of 257 there are 139 SRY2627+ which would be 54%. >> >> [follows up on a discussion on how much Visogothic DNA there is in Iberia] >> >> And the next guy says: >> >>>Now....you're not going to tell me 54% of R1b in Iberia is SRY2627+ are you? >> >> Arrrg! These guys are working on it right now....I usually just want to know what they decide. >> >> The way it goes then is they publish and post the URL of the paper on the web. The listers >> all read it ten minutes after publication, so within 20 minutes the publisher could be debunked and >> the rest of us getting 3 digests per hour or more as he/she is totally shredded. But luckily >> only a few people can understand any of it so .... However you have to be careful because >> the group could come to a completely different conclusion a week later.... >> very dynamic. Today you're Irish; next week German. The week after that who knows? >> >> I delete a lot of it unread. Many publish here: http://www.jogg.info/ >> >> Linda Merle > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message