DNA AND GENEALOGY:
UNDERSTANDING EXACTLY HOW TESTS REINFORCE FOLK IDEOLOGIES
Tom Tinney, Sr.
Who's Who in America, Millennium Edition [54th] - 2004
Who's Who In Genealogy and Heraldry, [both editions]
Genealogy and Family History Internet Web Directory
Genealogy and Family History Internet Web Directory
DNA testing for Genealogy
The tests are not yet accurate enough to prove 100% the exact generation in
the family tree. By using average (or soon, individual) marker mutation rates
it is possible to compare two profiles and back-calculate how long ago their
most recent common ancestor lived. This method is derived
from anthropological science and although of some use, has a margin of error
that reduces its usefulness in individual family history studies.
DNA Testing for Genealogy
by Ian Kennedy
Showing Who They Really Are: Commercial
Ventures in Genetic Genealogy
[Paper presented at the American Anthropological Association
Annual Meeting November 22, 2003, by Deborah A. Bolnick, University of California,
Davis
[Ph.D. Candidate, UC Davis (Biological Anthropology), Lecturer in Anthropology,
University of Texas, Austin.]
"Over the past decade, a number of private companies have
been established that make genetic testing available to the general public.
At least 17 such companies currently exist in the United States and Britain,
and additional ones can be found elsewhere in Europe. These companies provide
a wide array of services and products, but the most common are genetic tests
for reconstructing one's personal genealogical history. These genetic genealogy
tests will be the focus of my paper today. After briefly describing the variety
of tests available, I will discuss three specific examples in more detail to
illustrate how such tests reinforce a number of folk ideologies about the structure
of the human gene pool."
[They oversimplify and misrepresent the pattern of human genetic variation,
and they suggest that genetic units are more congruent with racial and cultural
ones than they actually are.]
Showing Who They Really Are: Commercial Ventures in Genetic Genealogy by Deborah A. Bolnick
Native American DNA? Tests: What are the Risks to Tribes?
The science of Native American DNA testing. . .The tests can fail to detect
Native American ancestry in individuals with Native American ancestors, and
incorrectly identify it in others who do not have such ancestors.
Native American DNA Tests: What are the Risks to Tribes?
Genealogy and DNA Limitations
". . . the limitations of the genetic technology. Two main techniques are
currently being used: mapping polymorphisms on the Y chromosome to trace paternal
ancestry and on mitochondrial DNA to trace maternal lines. . . . Both techniques
take advantage of the fact that some genetic material is passed down unchanged
from parent to child-in the case of the Y chromosome, from father to son; and
in the case of mitochondrial DNA, from mother to child (both male and female).
The problem is that mapping Y chromosome and mitochondrial DNA polymorphisms
will trace only two genetic lines on a family tree in which branches double
with each preceding generation. For example, Y chromosome tracing will connect
a man to his father but not to his mother, and it will connect him to only one
of his four grandparents: his paternal grandfather. In the same way, it will
connect him to one of his eight great grandparents and one of his 16 great-great-grandparents.
Continue back in this manner for 14 generations and the man will be still be
connected to only one ancestor in that generation. The
test will not connect him to any of the other 16 383 ancestors in that generation
to whom he is also related in equal measure."
. . .
Identify and Genetic Ancestry Tracing by Carl Elliott & Paul Brodwin, Associate Professors
Alan Savin has an article on the subject, [Genetic Genealogy: An Introduction],
posted 14 Jan. 2005. Alan Savin "has been a genealogist since 1986 and
initiated the world’s first DNA surname study in 1997."
Genetic
Genealgoy: An Introduction by Alan Savin
PLEASE NOTE: "as long as there has been an unbroken father to son transmission
throughout the lines." Thus, scientific DNA studies appear to be subject
to historical marital happiness within the set of any
given ancestry. [DNA testing relies on unbroken male lineages. It can be foiled
by unknown breaks in the blood line. Sources of breaks include:
(1) hanky-panky with the neighbor,
(2) a pregnant bride marrying the wrong man
(3) unrecorded adoptions.
Martin DNA Project
Again, if the husband had been absent from his wife for a number of years, and
she had a child in his absence, was it a bastard? According to Coke, as long
as the father was alive and in England, the child was his and legitimate (Burn,
I, p. 110). Or, what was the position of a woman impregnated by one man who
then proceeded to marry another man and the child was born after the wedding
to the latter? It was apparently believed that the child was legitimate and
must be accepted as his by the man who married the pregnant woman. (16) If there
was doubt about the paternity, but both 'paters' were legitimate, when a husband
died and the wife remarried, for example, then the child could choose which
husband was to be his lawful 'father' (Burn, I, p. 110). Thus there seems to
have been an attempt to ensure that the child had a legally recognized father
wherever possible, even though it might be well known that he was not the genitor.
The situation is quite different in certain African societies where the physical
genitor is of very little importance and where illegitimacy in the European
sense is practically impossible since the child is always welcome and always
belongs to somebody. (17)] PAGE 4 AND PAGE 5
Illegitimates and Illegitimacy in English History by Alan Macfarlane
A study of the List of extinct states suggests also that the family was reshaped
by powerful outside forces: changing national boundaries [even down to modern
times].
REFERENCE: REGIONAL GENEALOGY - WORLDWIDE
Regional Genealogy and Local History - Worldwide
CONCLUSION:
Early Church - Civil LAWS and historical common group
PRACTICES present a great hindrance in accepting DNA projections as conclusive
or genealogically practical.
Respectfully yours,
Tom Tinney, Sr.
Who's Who in America, Millennium Edition [54th] - 2004
Who's Who In Genealogy and Heraldry, [both editions]
Genealogy and Family History Internet Web Directory