Billie Harris - Jun 20, 2008
This news from FamilyTree DNA that does our genealogical DNA testing:
Family Tree DNA has been an industry leader in helping families find lost connections. As a result, the size of our database is unmatched and has achieved critical mass, allowing more and more family members and even adoptees or descendants of adoptees to find their biological paternal lines, including the surname of the original family. Are there missing Randolph/Randall/Ran's among these adoptees looking for their connection to this direct paternal line?
In an effort to help answer that question Family Tree DNA is offering, for the first time ever, a discount on all Y DNA upgrades! We will be notifying each participant in the database who qualifies for this offer by email, and will provide them a direct link they may use to take advantage of this upgrade. There will be no need for participants to contact us directly in order to receive the reduced price; our prices will be adjusted in the system accordingly.
The offer will be from June 20th to June 30th. During this time, Family Tree DNA will reduce all of our Y-DNA upgrade prices. On average, the reduced prices will be 25% lower than the original upgrade price.
This is a great opportunity to increase the data in your surname project. Are there members who have been hesitant to upgrade due to price? This rare discount is an opportunity for them to upgrade and help both their group and potential lost relatives at the same time. When encouraging members to upgrade, you may wish to note that genetic matches allow people to find their biological lines rather than a specific individual.
This promotion is for upgrades only and does not apply to new kit orders. It’s our way to thank past customers for their patronage.
As always, we appreciate your continued support.
Family Tree DNA
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The 25% discount reduces the upgrade pricing to this:
12 markers to 25 markers $35.00
12 markers to 37 markers $69.00
25 markers to 37 markers $35.00
25 markers to 67 markers $99.00
If anyone is interested, please let me know.
Billie
Jenny Rice - Jun 25, 2008
Billie,
Y DNA is for the male lineage, is that correct? Since my gggrandmother was a Lewallen and then passed through her daughter does this eliminate testing for me. Also, will the DNA tests show Native American blood? I finally got into the website-it is very interesting. Thank you for the invitation.
Jenny Rice
Billie Harris - Jun 25, 2008
Jenny, glad you've joined us.
Yes, the Y DNA is for males and to date, we've only had two Lewallens test for us. A male has a certain Y chromosome which he passes to his sons and those sons pass to their sons, on down. It doesn't go through the females.
I'll be the first to admit that I'm not all that well versed on DNAs but as we get more participants, I'll certainly have to do more research so I can answer questions. Right now the best I can do is tell you from the marker numbers if they match enough that we have connecting families. Other than that, I have to look up answers myself.
Does a DNA show Ntive American blood? I'm certain it does but the best place to find the answer is on the FamilyTreeDNA site. Go to www.familytreedna.com and there are many questions with answers pertaining to these types of things. As a female, my aunt has done our DNA. We had been under the impression my grandmother had a lot of Native American blood in her but the results surprised us and told us there was none. DNAs do come up with surprises. For instance my husband - Harris - had a 12 marker test. I wanted to get it done because of (1) his age and (2) in case one of the family wants to pursue genealogical research sometime down the road and if so (3) it can be upgraded from 12 markers to 25 or 37 without being retested. Generally with a 12 marker test, there are many, many matches and most of them aren't to people with the same surname so the chances of a connection are remote. That's why it's important to get at the very least a 25 marker test. In his case, however, he didn't match anyone, not one single person. FamilyTreeDNA does provide information on Haplogroups which tells you what part of the world you originate. Here's what my husband was provided with to give you an idea:
"HAPLOGROUP R1a1
R1a1: "The R1a lineage is believed to have originated in the Eurasian Steppes north of the Black & Caspian Seas. This lineage is thought to descend from a population of the Kurgan culture, known for the domestication of the horse (circa 3000 B.C.E.). These people were also believed to be the first speakers of the Indo-European language group. this lineage is found in central and western Asia, India, and in Slavic populations of Europe...."
These tests are interesting though and I'll give you a couple more examples that I've come across. In 2000 I started a MyFamily site on Randolphs. The site started with just three individuals and is now over 500 members. At that time DNAs were just getting started for genealogical testing and in 2001 we started ours. For years it was handed down that Pocahontas was one of our ancestors, through the Randolphs. We had a couple fellows on the site who could actually trace their lineage back to the Randolphs that married into the Bollings who descend from Pocahontas. They tested, as did several who descend from my Randolph ancestors. There wasn't a match. We also found after starting that MyFamily site that the same Pocahontas connection had been passed down through other Randolphs and those DNAs didn't match either. The results of the tests (there are about 70-80 who've tested) have amazed us. From them, we've discovered some Randolphs were actually FitzRandolphs, some Randolphs were actually Randalls and vice versa. We've proven books to be wrong, But one thing of interest was one particular Randolph researcher, now deceased. He and his uncle who had written a book which is still being used as a resource tool in libraries and on the internet were dedicated Randolph researchers. Their book connects the family to the uncle of the one who married into the Pocahontas family. The DNA test turned out that there is no connection and, in fact, they descend from what he thought to be one of the twelve tribles of Israel. Whether it is one of the twelve tribes or not, the results do show them to have originated in the Middle East and there are Jewish surnames that match.
I've been rather long-winded here and hope this makes sense. It's just that I'm a firm believer in genealogical DNA testing to help prove some of our family connections and would really like to see more Lewallen, Llewellyn, Lewelling, etc. tests. They'd really help in establishing our connections, if any.