DNA testing - genetic genealogy

[marcie dean]

I know I started this part of the conversation off, and therefore I think as Redroger does, that someone, somewhere at sometime is going to force the issue.
I do not know what the answer is, but I think that we ought to consider our position and look at our options before its too late. For our offsprings future privacy. If they want to share that is personal choice, but like facebook you cannot look at this retrospectively.
marcie
nb. currently I do not think that anything worrying can come from this, but people are already suffering from intellectual property theft, we just want to ensure that we do not give this type of person more ammo.

[DevonCruwys]

Marcie and all

The police would have no reason to request a DNA sample from someone who has tested with a commercial DNA testing company. For a start the police are not able to identify an individual from the Y-DNA results displayed on a project website. A person's name is never displayed, and if the name is not there how are the police going to know the person they are looking for is in the database? Y-DNA and mtDNA test results are not unique. Genetic genealogy tests are designed to establish which people are closely related. They do not identify an individual. Several hundred if not several thousand people could potentially share the same DNA result.  With Y-DNA results it is common to have matches with several different surnames, and this is with a database of just over 200,000 Y-DNA samples from around the world. I have some people in my projects who have literally hundreds of matches. With the HVR1 and HVR2 mtDNA tests I have some people who have thousands of matches. The forensic DNA tests look at completely different markers. They are trying to establish a unique DNA signature found in one in a million people not thousands in a million. Even then, the DNA test is only used in police work in conjunction with over evidence.

Debbie
If the police require a DNA sample they would be able to get you to supply one anyway and it would have to be done under controlled conditions so that they can prove the chain of custody.

Debbie

[DevonCruwys]

My family paper trail is mackenzie however i decided to have the 67 marker dna test carried out by ftdna after joining a mackenzie project 

It is common to find matches with different surnames, and it is still possible to have matches with different surnames at 67 markers, especially if you belong to one of the common haplogroups such as R1b1b2 or I1. Surnames are a relatively recent invention and these matches could indicate shared ancestry prior to the introduction of surnames. In Scotland you have the clan system and surnames did not always follow the paternal line. It might just be that no one else from your line has tested yet. You should try and get another Mackenzie from your line to take a DNA test, and preferably someone who is more distantly related to you such as a fifth or sixth cousin. Once you have two matching results you have confirmed the paper trail back to the point where you both share a common ancestor.

Debbie

[DevonCruwys]

Have just come across this interesting site and read through (instead of doing my voluntary 'work').
My BillyBlue was a black man transported from England to Australia 1801.  No-one knows where his origins are, but the family think it was Jamaica or, less specifically, the West Indies. 
Some other people who have documented his life think his roots are American Indian.
A few years ago, a Canadian cousin descended from Bill had his DNA tested and it showed "Deep West African roots" - which to us puts paid to the idea of him being American Indian.
Dawn M

Dawn, What DNA test did your Canadian cousin take and which company did he use? The old autosomal DNA tests which give ethnic origins are very unreliable. Does Billy Blue have a direct male line descendant who could take a Y-DNA test? The Y-DNA haplogroup would provide information on his ancestral origins. There are certain haplogroups which are only found in American Indians and there are others which are specific to Africa.

Debbie 

[Billyblue]

Debbie (et al)
Sorry but I have no idea what company my cousin took, and it was a few years ago.  I only know this cousin by email contact.  He is a direct descendant of Billy Blue.
Billy Blue does not look like an American Indian, either; he looks like a Negro.  We are fortunate that he was such a character that people painted his portrait, back in the 1820s, and we have been able to get a photographic copy of one of them.  We are quite happy with what the DNA test my cousin had done, told us.
Thanks for your interest.
Dawn M.

[marcie dean]

Debbie,
Clans are not necessarily made up of related people.  History states that unrelated people are given protection by being a member of a clan or sect of a clan.  So would it not be best to find one McKenzie and one of the relatives from the other name to compare them to each other and also to your own markers.?

And would that not apply to anyone in the same position.

[DevonCruwys]

Marcie

I understand in this case that the gentleman already has matches with other surnames. The matches were close enough to indicate shared ancestry in the recent past. I'm not too familiar with the Scottish clan system but I know that people of Scottish origin often have matches with lots of different surnames. I understood that people often adopted the clan surname. I was suggesting this as one possibility. Ideally he should test other Mackenzies who are known to be related so that he has a baseline to work from.

Debbie

[Navn]

I recently Y-DNA tested (which as part of my surname project is free to British men) after hitting brick walls with my Phillips line in the 1800's. I didn't get any matches to any Phillips' (not surprising as relatively few British Phillps males have been tested) but I got close matches to living members of a Phelps line in the US (from the tests it's calculated we share a common ancestor about 16 generations ago - which puts it possibly in the 1500's). Their ancestry is well documented back to the early pilgrim Phelps colonists of the New England area of the US, who came from the Somerset (and possibly Gloucestershire) area of England in the early 1600's, and probably directly to a William Phelps b. c1593 in Crewkerne. Phelps is one of the rarer variations of the Phillips surname (or vice versa) but now knowing the link due the the DNA test adds a new, and exciting, angle to my research, and leapfrogs 300-400 years into the past. The hard part of course is filling in the missing years, which will probably only be possible if more people test.

[Annie65115]

Arrgghhhh! I so wish I had a male relative who could be tested!