The Family Tree Guide to DNA Testing and Genetic Genealogy & the “Ethnic Mix” Results

To get me up to speed, I’ve purchased The Family Tree Guide to DNA Testing and Genetic Genealogy by Blaine Bettinger. It’s another book to add to my reading list, but I do want to make good use of the results of the DNA test I’m having done.

In response to a some emails that I have received behind the scenes, I do know that:

  • DNA won’t solve every question I have
  • DNA may ask more questions than it answers
  • Every “submitter” to the Ancestry.com database does not answer inquiries
  • Paper records still matter

My real reason for taking the test (as mentioned in the earlier post) is to make some connection to my elusive Irish forebears. My great-great-grandparents, the Irish immigrants, have been researched extensively in the area where the settled and while the father could be traced to a specific location in Ireland the mother could not. Any other information or conclusions that reached will just be an additional benefit.

The “ethnic mix” part of the test is not something in which I have a particular interest. I realize that others are interested in these results. I am not. The results go back to a time where I will not be able to trace specific individuals. I like to have a name of a person that somehow connects to me. While I sometimes am not able to locate very much information, I have enough specific people I can find information on, learn about, study, etc. I don’t need to occupy myself with a time where everyone is nameless. Others are and that is fine. Others are interested in the ethnic mix results and that’s fine as well.

But it’s perfectly fine to not be interested in those results as well.

So the mention here of the ethnic mix results of my test will be minimal as I only write here about what interests me.

As usual, your opinion and your mileage may vary.

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