Some young whippersnappers may call me elderly. I don't know why. I am only 75. I looked up the Thomas DNA Study and found the chart that has a column that heads Ancestor. There was an Isaac and John in South Carolina, both names appearing in the 1790 Newberry census, but how do I know if Nathan Thomas was related to one of them. Also, the long line of numbers tells me nothing. No doubt they are important to any one trained to deciiipher them. But what do they mean? Another question, what DNA evidence is available from my ancestor 200-300 years ago to match up with me? I can see how the bones of one who is known can be exhumed and match up with someone living today but obscure peasants of eons ago left no physical evidence of their having been on earth. Perhaps some of the younger more enlightened can help me out on this. Thank you all. Jim Thomas

If Nathan Thomas is your relative and you or someone in your family tested and then matched the men that are from Isaac and John in SC then you both probably had a common ancestor. It is hard to understand why DNA people say you connect to that person when they didn't test that person but it is like the Bible - you have to have faith in what the researchers have learned as to how that y-DNA is passed down from father to son generation after generation with very few changes. It doesn't make it any easier but it is just the way it all works that allows us the freedom to say that you are a representative sample of your oldest male in your research that bears the Thomas name so if you are kin to Nathan and have been tested then your y-DNA is what we would from research expect to be very close to if not the very same as the y-DNA that Nathan would have given us in a sample. Hope that this helps. Laura At 10:49 AM 6/2/2007, you wrote: >Some young whippersnappers may call me elderly. I don't know why. I am >only 75. >I looked up the Thomas DNA Study and found the chart that has a column >that heads Ancestor. There was an Isaac and John in South Carolina, both >names appearing in the 1790 Newberry census, but how do I know if Nathan >Thomas was related to one of them. >Also, the long line of numbers tells me nothing. No doubt they are >important to any one trained to deciiipher them. But what do they mean? >Another question, what DNA evidence is available from my ancestor 200-300 >years ago to match up with me? I can see how the bones of one who is known >can be exhumed and match up with someone living today but obscure peasants >of eons ago left no physical evidence of their having been on earth. >Perhaps some of the younger more enlightened can help me out on this. >Thank you all. >Jim Thomas > >------------------------------- >To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to >THOMAS-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes >in the subject and the body of the message Laura Cowan Cooper of Kodak, TN lauracowancooper@comcast.net