May chitchat

[agate]

I had no idea that DNA testing was so involved or that it wouldn't tell you whether your ancestry was French or German or whatever.

[Prot]

I had no idea that DNA testing was so involved or that it wouldn't tell you whether your ancestry was French or German or whatever.

It will tell some people they have such ancestry, but there are more than a few false positives and false negatives within those results.

[agate]

So actually anyone can't ever really know for sure? For all I know someone among my ancestors might have become pregnant by some man and not been truthful (to her husband or parents or anyone) about who the actual father of the child was. Or maybe she didn't know herself. And the records showed the father to be someone who wasn't the real father. Sounds to me as if it's something that could happen now and then.

I'm not saying that there's no point in studying up on genealogy. Tracing your family history is a valuable activity. You find out what you can. Knowing what kind of people you come from and where they were and what they were doing--it's interesting to have a handle on that information. I found out most of my ancestors that anyone knows anything about were farmers but then a lot of people were farmers back then.

[Prot]

Non-paternity event is a term used in Only registered and activated users can see links., Click Here To Register... to describe any event which has caused a break in the link between an hereditary surname and the Only registered and activated users can see links., Click Here To Register... resulting in a son using a different surname from that of his biological father.^{Only registered and activated users can see links., Click Here To Register...} The definition excludes minor changes in the spelling of the surname, and is implicitly limited to events after the relevant branch of the surname became hereditary.