Monday, March 31, 2008

What I have learned from doing Genetic Genealogy

1) It is easier to get Y DNA donors than to get mtDNA donors. 2) The person you want to test will not test. My two maternal Uncles refuse to test. This means I can't verify my Mother's paternal line. My half-cousin will not test. This means I can't verify my Father's maternal line. 3) Creating lists of mtDNA bearing descendants of target females is difficult to do. 4) I believe I know 14 Y DNA signatures from my 16 GGG-Grandfathers. I only know 3 mtDNA signatures of my 16 GGG-Grandmothers. 5) At 12 markers, three of my Y DNA lines are exact matches. They vary considerably when taken out to 37 markers. 6) My line of Perkins ancestors is closely related to the line of Somerled, King of the Isles. 7) Genetic Genealogist need to be more careful in the methodology used to support the assignment of a haplotype and a haplogroup to an ancestral line. 8) By itself, genetic genealogy, can not prove a relationship, but it can definitely prove that two people of the same surname are NOT related.

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