DNA AND GENEALOGY - What is real? What is truthful?

In order to confirm DNA matching, a scientist requires live dna.  This can be from saliva, bone marrow, the pulp of teeth, - L I V E tissue.  So do you find it confusing when someone lists

Smith, John (DNA PROVEN!) 
Born 3-16-1532 Northumberland,
England Died 12-1-1600 Massachusetts

How is it possible unless they went to Massachusetts and dug up his grave only to find dust and very brittle, non viable pulp in the marrow?  Can they add water and reconstitute it like hot cocoa?  Well actually they CAN - but they don't.  They pay it forward,  So when I am wrong, I admit it.  At Roots Tech today I learned that basically what they do is take the paper genealogies of those people who claim lineage to someone famous, for example.  Then they do DNA tests on them.  When they find a chain leading back 10 generations of Y haplo groups, apparently that is all that is needed.  It's getting to be a more amazing world each day.  I hope I always learn something new every day of my life - especially with Family History.

However, I still stand firm that it is inappropriate to label your ancestor with (DNA PROVEN!) or use anything other than a first name or last name in the appropriate fields.  If you feel the need to add this note.  You can, in Ancestry add an EVENT - and choose other - then write how it was proven.  In Family Search, you can add a Story - and document how you personally know that DNA has been proven.

Good Luck
Karen Meyer - updated 2-8-2017


LiveScience.com says "Several companies now claim that for as little as $100 and a swab of the inner cheek, they can reveal a person's family tree and ancestral homeland.

But more than a dozen scientists from various backgrounds say such "recreational genetics" or "vanity tests" have significant scientific limitations and rely on misconceptions about race and genetics.

"If a test-taker is just interested in finding out where there are some people in the world that share the same DNA as them, then these tests can certainly tell them that," said Deborah Bolnick of the University of Texas in Austin. "But they're not going to tell you every place or every group in the world where people share your DNA. Nor will they necessarily be able to tell you exactly where your ancestors lived or [what race or social group] they identified with."

Exactly my thoughts....Since D n a cannot be proven for a link between say for example, me and King Louie IIX, because I don't have a live hair root from his crypt or fresh bone marrow to submit as evidence, I can see this technology doing marvelous things for finding lost or abandoned siblings or cousins in the future by emailing us with,"we have a match with your T34 variant. Here's the email of someone you may or may not know with a T36 variant!!"  So I am intrinsically annoyed at anyone who puts -in their tree-....in the last name field..". Mr John Smythe DNA PROVEN 1536-1580", as if it's his last name and now causing a duplicate record. Does this bother anyone else?  Thanks for replying to genealogymama1@gmail.com