The 8% Error?

[Singlemalt]

Genealogy is NEVER a waste of time. It just gets a bit more interesting from time to time.
We have started a MacGillivray DNA study, and already an interesting development. A gentleman with a decidedly German surname tested identical with my McGilvry cousin! Now, the fun begins. With these kinds of challenges, it revives the old geno juices and gets me on the move again!! An adoption, or, as FTM calls it, a " non paternal event"? On we go!!!
In my Hyde DNA testing, we have reunited 8 different lines that were unknown to each other before. Makes the family tree grow quickly!
Dan

Perhaps a new tartan "MacGottenburg"?

[Chirs]

My lineage leads me to call myself a UK-57 (I hope Heinz doesn't mind). My father immigrated to Canada when he was 16 and told us he was of pure English blood (a true WASP). He didn't much like it when I pointed out that, to be an Anglo-Saxon meant to be German (both the Angles and the Saxons) and Roman mixed with the indigenous Celt, a group that roamed widely throughout the Isles and the continent. Add to that the many migrations throughout Europen history, most especially the large migration of the Aryans from the northern part of India (it's hard to imagine that not being part of my heritage too although, judging by the way I tan, that line is not strong in me!). My mother said her family was part of the Event That Must Not Be Spoken (Glen Coe). So, as far as I can tell, I am Celt, Mediterranean, Indian and Scandinavian...

I like the idea that it is best to imagine that everyone is a cousin. Even people who look nothing like me I see as part of my personal family. Why bother drawing a line?

[Lyle1]

The further back we trace our families, the more likely it is that we are all related. I recently read several articles of genealogical bent about people trying to prove descent from Charlemagne (apparently the gold standard of ancestors). A common theme of the articles was that each of us is more likely to be descended from Charlemagne than to not be. If you count back the generations each person living today would have in excess of 40,000 great grandparents in Charlemagne's generation. Given the population of Europe at that time, the authors argued that it is likely that most living people have a link to Charlemagne even if they can't prove it.

As to blood ties, my maternal grandfather died as the result of wounds received in WWI (way before I was born). My grandmother eventually remarried (shortly before I was born), and her second husband was the only maternal grandfather I ever knew. Even as a very young child, I knew that we did not have common blood, but to this day, some 30 years after his death I think of him as my grandfather rather than a step-grandfather. I am actively involved in genealogical research of my family, and the man with no blood tie is more meaningful to me than the blood link to several historic ancestors.

[Joshua]

I have the opposite situation. Almost all of my ancestors came over between 1607 and 1750 with a very few around 1800. Like many of you I'm a European mutt with a few drops of Native American blood.

I actually mistyped (damn whiskey!) - I meant to say "Post-revolutionary war" as in, it seems that the majority of my distant ancestors were Americans before America was America. Including a very distant great grandfather William Davis, aide to Gen. George Washington and 2nd generation Welshie.

[skauwt]

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[O'Callaghan]

If you get back as far as when people actually lived as a clan, on common land, many were not blood related, but merely joined the clan. In Scottish clans they may have been defined as a sept (same clan, different surname in that context), but in Irish clans (called septs by some, to confuse us) I'm told they often took the surname of the clan. However, over time, they would most likely have intermarried with other clan members, and wound up related by blood after all. And those 8% may have had the 'wrong' father, but that might not have affected whether they were related by blood to the clan.

Of course, in more modern times, it's all different.