I haven't read all of the threads to this topic. The problem that has
confronted me with DNA is the fact that my paternal grandmother had 3 boys
and 1 girl.. All of them have passed on. All of the boys i.e. my father and
his brothers had one girl.  The daughter had 3 boys and one girl.  With my
last name of "Cox" with my gggg-grandfather living in Buckingham County and
married to Rachel Watkins, I have wished upon all wishes that I could trace
my paternal DNA... My maternal line is Hastings out of Nottoway County..I
haven't traced that yet; but I had better get on the stick.

As far as DAR...I am with you, Bill.  I started to join the DAR and my gut
told me to investigate and confirm my own lineage first.  The DAR listings
are a nice little hint (like Ancestry.com); but nothing is better than DNA
and a little shoe leather..


On Mon, Mar 14, 2011 at 12:06 PM, Bill Davidson <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> While it is only part of the solution, I wish that more people would have a
> man....with the surname of interest....take the DNA test.  DNA has already
> shown that some "approved" DAR lineages are "flat wrong," and many such
> other "myths" have also been "busted" by this technology.  It is not an "end
> all/be all answer," but to not take advantage of it, where such a male with
> the correct surname can be found, is a huge omission in most cases.  It
> amazes me that people will spend thousand of hours (and who knows how much
> money?) researching in courthouses and libraries (and Ancestry.com) for
> years and years, but they won't spend a few minutes and $150 for a 37 marker
> DNA test.
>
> My own DNA test confirmed that my Davidson family in Cumberland Co.,  VA
> was part of the same Davidson family as the one in Buckingham Co., VA....and
> that helped me to "trace" the overall family back to James City Co., VA by
> at least the 1680s.  I also learned that I have a "Viking heritage" versus
> the more common "Celtic heritage" for my surname.  I never could find
> anything in "conventional documentation" that proved a "connection" between
> the families in those two counties in VA.
>
> My mother's family had even more interesting results.  Her male cousin with
> the surname of "Brown" took the DNA test, and we found that he was actually
> a "blood Smith" versus a "blood Brown."  Since my maternal gg-grandfather
> was named Smith W. Brown, I guess that we should not have been too surprised
> by that result....but nothing other than the DNA test would have ever shown
> this.  My "biological maternal Smith family" has been in VA since at least
> the 1650s, and I am proud to be a member of that family (and I am happy to
> finally know the truth....that only DNA testing could have provided).
>
> In closing, when I get frustrated with all of the bad data that is "out
> there," I remind myself that it is "just genealogy."  Compared to what is
> going on in the world these days (like in Japan), trying to prove who my
> gggggggg-grandfather was seems far less critical.
>
> Bill Davidson
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