[RASEY-DNA] Ancestry.com partners with Sorenson Genomics

[Diana Gale Matthiesen]

Hello Jim,

I suspect that, because these are criminal matters with significant impacts, the
labs and the prosecutors want to emphasize their "due diligence" by supplying
two sets of results.

FamilyTreeDNA runs a test until they get a clear result.  If one or more markers
in a panel is unclear or if one or more markers in a panel has an "odd" result,
they will run the entire panel again.  My CARRICOs have such bizarre results
that they take forever to return because FTDNA runs them two or three times:

http://dgmweb.net/genealogy/DNA/Carrico/CarricoDNA.shtml#J2a1b 

Now that we have three members with the same results, I suspect they'll stop
re-running the tests on future CARRICOs.

I'm a big fan of testing a brother, father, uncle, or first cousin, as a
double-check on the accuracy of results.  It would be unrealistic to suppose
that no error was ever made.  On the other hand, just because this is testing
for genealogy, not forensics, doesn't mean the standards are lower.  FTDNA has a
reputation to maintain, and if they were found to be reporting unreliable
results, they would get shredded on the GENEALOGY-DNA mailing list.  There's at
least as much at stake for them as us in having accurate results.

Ancestry.com will undoubtedly have nothing to do with the actual testing at
Relative Genetics; they are simply hosting the results database.  Ancestry is
looking for databases to tout, and RG need an advertising boost.  It's a logical
partnership.  But having access to the database is less useful than people seem
to think, and will probably muddy the waters more than clarify them, because the
results will be misused.  The only people whose results you're really interested
in are ones with your own surname, and presumably you all belong to the same
project, already.  However, anything that popularizes DNA testing is OK by me.
It's pretty obvious that most genealogists haven't a clue, yet, how useful DNA
testing would be to them (not you, of course!).

As for Ancestry's databases, the same caveats apply to the LDS database,
WorldConnect, and all other databases built with patron submissions:  CAVEAT
EMPTOR!  At least with WorldConnect and OneTree, you can post corrections, which
you cannot do with the LDS databases.  I never pass up an opportunity to correct
the errors I find at WorldConnect and OneTree.  That's the only remedy I can
see.

On the RASEY front, I'm rather disappointed that no one else has joined.  Maybe
I'm so hated for debunking the MacLEOD legend, we'll never get another member!
I truly hope not because I'd so much like to find our origin.

Diana

P.S.   By the way, the markers tested for the FBI's CODIS (Combined DNA Index
System) database are entirely different markers than the ones tested for
genealogy. 


> -----Original Message-----

> From: rasey-dna-bounces at dgmweb.net On Behalf Of Jim Tyler

> Sent: Friday, August 03, 2007 11:23 AM

> To: rasey-dna at dgmweb.net

> Subject: Re: [RASEY-DNA] Ancestry.com partners with Sorenson Genomics

> 

> Greetings,

> Is there a difference in reporting criminal DNA and genealogy DNA?

> A couple of weeks ago on 60 Minutes (CBS) a story on DNA showed two

> measurements at each locus. We only have one. Why?

> I hope this partnership is better than some of the stuff that comes up on

> Ancestry. During the Winter our daughter started a Family Tree that I

> expanded with the known information at hand. Then the Ancestry lines were

> added following their input from genealogies in their database. OK. So far

> so good. Go to the search for "Famous Ancestors". I have found a number of

> impossibilities; i.e. links to Peter the Great and Catherine the Great via

> the Rasey line that includes the MacLeods! Another one linked me to a

> Mayflower Passenger by way of an unmarried woman! However, a closer more

> plausible link turned up in examining the Mayflower genealogies through five

> generations. I can thank gr-grandmother Ermina Hale Rasey for that.

> Best regards,

> Jim

> 

>