John write back to me with the following response:
My comments are in red underlined.
Bob wrote:
> I participated in the original Sweet DNA project.
...
> I keep thinking some one must have either changed their name or was
> in hiding. On my DNA site I have some Sweet names pop up but there
> are many that are not Sweet's. Hmm I copied this to show you what I
> mean.:
>
> This is the list of names without their contact info.
>
> 12 Marker - Exact Match 29 Match(es)
>
> Mr. Ricardo Enrique Vela
> Bill Ray Hampton
> Mr. Walter Blair Murray MacFarlane
...
> As you can see none of the family names match. So there is either a
> split way back or we just are not Sweet's. Meaning a name changed
> from the real name?
You shouldn't stop after looking at the first category in the match
list. Next comes a batch of 12-marker comparisons with a distance
of 1, including a Sweet. The fact is that you have a mutation on
the second marker, not shared by anyone else in your Sweet group, and
so you actually do not have any exact 12-marker matches among your
nearest kin in the project. There is a further complication, though.
Your group's DNA pattern (designated as "Pattern 1" in the project)
is so common in the European population, that most people with that
pattern have chosen to prevent any 12-marker comparisons from being
made to their test results. As a result, even if you *did* have an
exact match, he might very well not show up on your list because
he would have seen the same list of matches with all different
surnames and would have opted out of 12-marker comparisons before
you arrived on the scene. Indeed, that is the explanation of why
your distance-1 list has only one Sweet on it, instead of the 28
who can be seen at the Sweet project web site -
http://mysite.verizon.net/vzeeg680/dnasweet/
If you then look at the next category on your list, the 25-marker
matches at distance 1, you'll find there are five of them, and *all*
five are named Sweet. Actually, if you go to the Sweet project
site, you will find 18 such matches in all -- the rest are simply
"invisible" to you at your private DNA site for one reason or another.
> Maybe I do not understand how to interpret the DNA system.I do know
> that I probably will have to muster up some intestinal fortitude and
> write to all the contacts that have an exact match of my DNA to find
> out more about this. I at one point thought I may have a connection
> to the NY or Rode Island Sweet's but now I am not sure.
No, you really shouldn't focus on the 12-marker exact matches, for the
reasons I gave above. It would truly be a waste of time to write to
any of the non-Sweet matches you see, for a very important reason:
not a single one of them is confirmed as being genetically close in
the 25-marker comparison. To put it another way, most of them have
been tested at 25 markers and confirmed to be *not* genetically
close after all.
The take-away message is that you do indeed have a close affinity with
the Rhode Island Sweets (but it's still up to you to find the paper
trail that shows what the exact connection is).
John Chandler
I am again indebted to John for helping me understand and I will be having the next DNA test done this month. Also I will check the site mentioned and take a closer look at the names and see if contact will be fruitfull; but first do some reading and studying before I step forward. I guess my statement about not understanding the DNA results was right. I feel stupid not ignorant but this too shall pass.I am in great spirits and hopes this is going to lead to a clear breakthrough for many other Sweet's.
Make this note to all my relatives especially cousins and uncle's! You should get the DNA tests for the Sweet's as the more that take the tests the more information to work with for positive results.
