"Shopping list" response
When inquiring to a person who inputted a fake lineage, I eventually got this response:
"You are right the lines don’t belong to me …They are the shopping list for the Mormon church."
I asked him for details about such a shopping list but he hasn't responded. Is there really such a thing?
Since becoming an expert in Y chromosomal analysis, I've managed to bust a number of myths, not just genetically but, in the process, I've learned a lot of new genealogical tips (despite my nearly 50 years in the field). For example, church records in England were not regularly kept until 1538. Indeed, I've long become aware that most of the pre-colonial lineages are fakes. Most of them aren't intentional but too many people accept speculation as fact. And it's not well understood that uncited trees are not legitimate records.
I've managed to nearly kill the nonsense about my own Cooleys (and several other Cooleys), but others are too widespread and are nearly impossible to straighten out. (But I never give up.) But battling stupid GEDCOMs is one thing. Is there really a more concerted effort, such as an LDS "shopping list" out there?
I can answer, by the way, any questions about the utter reliability of Y chromosomal testing. — and that as opposed to the autosomal testing that Ancestry and others do. (They'd good for finding 3rd cousins, birth families, and mass murderers. The Y follows only the paternal lineage — forever. It follows the surname, despite the number of times it changes.)
Here are two of my blogs:
http://blog.ancestraldata.com
http://bogusgenealogy.com
Answers
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I am suspicious that what he means as a 'shopping list' is that individuals that are input into FamilySearch Family Tree area the individuals that we do ordinance work for. I guess the question that I would ask is whether the lineage is entirely fake or if it is a valid line but connected to the wrong person.
I know I have spent a lot of time fixing lines that I have researched. In some places, I only know what my line is, so I can't untangle all of what shows in FamilySearch because I don't know enough about the other people to put them in the right families. So I keep my research separately until I have enough to untangle the whole mess.
I love using DNA to validate research and vice versa. Turns out my great-grandmother wasn't the daughter of her mother's husband…who knew? But once we had the DNA markers, we were able to sift through the research and pinpoint what was going on with that family.
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There are no actual records for the three or four generations involved (too early) and are, therefore, invalid.
What does ordinance work involve and do you look for validation of the lineages through primary sources?
Autosomal results are great but are good for only 5 to 7 generations. People take it back further by hooking onto a genealogy, but all too often that genealogy is bogus. Generally, autosomes won't fix that. The great thing about the Y is that it's passed as a clone from one generation to the next. What I have, my 10th great-grandfather had. It doesn't work, of course, for woman but I'd hazard to guess that most women had brothers, uncles, male paternal cousins, etc.
Anyway, I'm curious how this "shopping list" thing might work.
Thanks for your response, Anne.0 -
There are those individuals who delight in "messing up" lines of research. There is always the possibility that person A has an argument with person B and as a result person A goes into the tree of person B and adds false information and deletes other information. Many are unaware that this is happening. At FamilySearch we always advise individuals to "Follow" their direct line . To do this, you will see a white star with the word Follow. Click on the star and it will turn black. When any additions or changes are made, you will be notified. The bell will show a red dote, indicating you have a message.
I realise than many of you will already know this so this is for the new individuals here,
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I, also, have never heard the term "shopping list" before in regards to genealogy so I can't comment to that other than to say it sounds concerning that the user you contacted is rather cynical and doesn't really care about the accuracy or inaccuracy of what he or she is doing.
However, I've followed to links you posted, read a few of your blog posts, and am quite impressed with the professionalism and care shown there. So if you don't mind, I'd like to bring up some thoughts that have been concerning me for some time now regarding DNA and ask for your comments.
Basically, I've been see too many comments here and there on the internet where it seems people have gotten the idea that DNA, whether autosomal, Y, or mitochondrial is a magic wand that solves incontrovertibly all questions in genealogy with no further discussion or dispute possible. It seems that DNA has a acquired an aura of infallibility because it is so "scientific" which ignores the fact that scientific conclusions can be quite fluid at times.
I'll admit the trend seems to be changing some with autosomal DNA as people realize just how fuzzy and limited results can be. I've seen recently that e-mails from My Heritage regarding DNA matches have changed from, for example, "is your 4th cousin" to "is probably your 3rd cousin's daughter, 4th cousin's daughter or 11 other possible relationships." So that is a step forward.
But regarding Y-DNA, it seems to be that while Y-DNA is great at disproving one very specific type of relationship and is very good at answering one specific question, it is pretty useless in determining how two men are related and abysmal at determining if any two people are genealogically related.
Point 1: Y-DNA is great at disproving one very specific type of relationship.
If two men have different Y-DNA results they do not share a direct paternal common ancestor. That, I agree, is very straight forward.
Point 2: Y-DNA is very good at answering the one specific question of "do two men share a direct paternal ancestor."
If two men have matching Y-DNA results then they must have somewhere at some unknown point in time a common direct paternal ancestor. I'm pretty comfortable with this statement as well but this one is very closely related to my next point.
Point 3: Y-DNA is pretty useless in determining how two men are related.
If two men have matching Y-DNA, you cannot determine from the DNA alone if they are brothers, 1st cousins, 2nd cousins, 5th cousins, or some type of cousin several times removed within the the expected range of point mutation clocks.
Even if the two men claim to be brothers and you have tested their supposed father who also has the same Y-DNA, you cannot be 100% certain that the men are not each the son of a different 2nd cousin of that third man and the three of them match because they all descend in different ways from the supposed father's grandfather.
Point 4: Y-DNA is abysmal at determining if any two people are genealogically related.
Going back ten generations and assuming there has been no generational collapse, a person has 512 direct ancestors. If two people who do truly share a common ancestor in that tenth generation wish to confirm their relationship, this is too far back to expect much from autosomal testing. Y-DNA testing can easily show a relationship that far back but only if looking at just one of those 512 ancestors. It ignores 99.8% of the ways those two people could be related.
I'm not even all that comfortable with the statement that Y-DNA can show if two families with the same surname are related or not based on the following theoretical example:
A couple, Mr. Roundtree and his wife have two children, a son and a daughter. The son has a son who takes the last name of Roundtree. The daughter has a son with an unknown scoundrel who takes off so her son also takes the last name of Roundtree. Generations later, a researcher does Y-DNA testing of all the male Rountrees in the area and incorrectly concludes that there were two Rountree families with no connection to each other because there are two different Y-DNA groups when in reality all of the men tested are equally descendants of that founding couple.
In conclusion, I'm pretty uncomfortable with the way genetic testing is sometimes presented and I think people need to be very clear over exactly what this valuable tool can and cannot do.
Your thoughts?
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Well thought out email, Gordon. Yes, there are always limitations, degrees, and probabilities. As you pointed out, autosomes have a number of limitations — essentially, you can go back only so far. And, yes, that Y is very black and white and on a very limited topic — general paternal descent. It tells us nothing about maternal mixing, multiple marriages, etc. After all, our Y doesn't come with individual names engraved on them. Genealogy remains is a must. But there are some tools available that will allow us to make some pretty good guesses.
But first, it's terrific for breaking myths. For example, my Cooleys having Scandinavian markers are not of the Dutch Kools — at least patrilineally, which is all the Y can do. We're separated by tens of thousands of years, as can be judged by a deep comparison of the markers.
SNP markers can be set on a timeline by arranging them into a SNP tree. Like any phylogenetic tree, the SNPs are older as you move up. You can't get precise with that but the more testers you have the better you can home in on the era — and place. (It's all comparative analysis.) Very broadly speaking new SNP mutations come into a lineage every four generations or so. That's not to be counted on, though. Mutations are random and not wholly predictable. So we need to rely on the law of large numbers. Again, more testers. But ny SNP counting across a large number of lineages a fairly good estimate can often be made.
There's a concept I call anchor SNPs. If you have a good genealogy and sufficient testers and you have determined that x person had s SNP, look for that in their brothers by testing their Y descendants. If none of them had the SNP and all the SNP holder's sons do, then you know the SNP originated with that man. If all the brothers had it, then they got is from their father. With that, you can begin to establish father-son relationships. However, that's rare and can tell us nothing about those generations in which no new SNPs emerged. (YSEQ.net is working on a technology that they believe might be able to yield new SNPs for every generation. If that happens, it'll be a game changer.)
Another thing is that Y-SNP mutations are produced in the making of the sperm that creates a man. Of course, given the huge number born together at the same time, only one gamete, if any, wins the lottery and the chances are that the result will be a mere clone of the others. But one a happy SNP meets it's marker, it becomes absolutely unique to that individual and will then be cloned to virtually all Y-lineage descendants.
The problem with MT-DNA is that is mutates on average about once every thousand years so you don't get the resolution you get with the Y. Typically, you cannot determine parent-child relationship, only ancient tribal relationships.
Well, I can go on and on. Each test has their limitations and strengths. Choosing one over another depends on the tester's goals. Here, by the way, is the SNP tree for my most successful project to date. It attempts to describe the relationship of a large number of families going back about a thousand years and includes my Cooleys. The relationships between the various "nodes" can be quite telling. From this I've been able to *estimate* the likely origins of John Cooley and have even found a *candidate* genealogy. But I need not only more testers, I need the right testers, and they can be very hard to come by.
The alphanumerics are SNP names and the blocks are frequently broken down through new testing (as as just happened again last week).
https://dna.ancestraldata.com/YP4248/graphics/tree.png
I hope this answers some of your concerns. Generally, all of your points are accurate, but math and statistics can garner otherwise non-apparent data.
Sorry for any typos. I have to get to the doctor and not take the time to proofread! :)
-Michael2 -
Thanks for your insights.
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@Michael-Cooley Just to clarify, there is no such thing as a "shopping list" in FamilySearch.
You also asked, "What does ordinance work involve and do you look for validation of the lineages through primary sources?" It is the responsibility of each individual member to verify the information and check the sources that were added. However, just as users on the FamilySearch site adopt different approaches when adding sources, individual members have different approaches as well.
You might want to consider joining our Genetic Genealogy Research group. We are always looking for experts to help answer questions and would love your help in the group.
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Their use of the term "Mormon" suggests that they aren't a member of the church, and their admission that they knowingly created a false lineage specifically directed for the church implies malicious intent.
Honestly? It sounds to me like the person may be inputting fake lineages to waste people's time, specifically those doing temple ordinances. The term "shopping list" used in this context was completely made up by the person you contacted, but temple ordinances are the only thing I can think of that would fit into the context. My theory is that by creating the false lineages, they are making ordinances available for those fake people, thereby wasting the time of anyone searching for temple work to do that doesn't take the time to verify their information. Essentially, it's a wild goose chase.
I could have gotten that wrong, but it's all I can come up with.
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Thanks, Ashlee. I had a Y-DNA discussion group for a while but it went nowhere — and people want to argue with me.
Brayden, yes, I've had to deal with a lot of malicious people here and people who want stop for even a second to consider that the uncited tree they read somewhere could be wrong. It try to be informative when changing things back but few are polite. Just a week or two ago, someone cursed me out. He's no longer with us. But most of these folks are innocent, they simply have no idea as to what they're doing. It's nice, though, to be chatting now with reasonable, honorable, and knowledgeable people! :)0
