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From: "Harold" <>
Subject: [DNA-R1B1C7] Y-DNA test results versus desired outcomes
Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2007 09:52:41 -0500


My Y-DNA test results (41848) has located one third cousin, but conventional searching had already characterized that line. The test also suggests put does not prove an origin in Donegal.

My understanding of the test is that the number of samples are far too few in number and skewed by selection bias to be a statistically valid proof for any one sample. If the tests were universal, kinship lines could be determined with a high degree of confidence. Determination of a particular ancestor via DNA may be an impossible dream.

If there is some particular historical person one wishes to connect to, there are tried and proven ways to do so: pick a particular path from that remote desired ancestor, fill in gaps in the records (after all, records are incomplete, and we might as well assume what's best for us) and reference many scattered public documents
in support of this construction. That stokes the ego, but has no meaning otherwise. It has been done many, many times in the past, but now we can do better than that.

Y-DNA testing is totally impersonal and will document the results of war, slavery and rape as well as well as legitimacy. And that is both the strength and peril of Y-DNA testing.

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