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From: "Cecelia Clancy" <>
Subject: [DNA] Cecelia's Mother's DNAPrint 2.0 Results - a big surprise
Date: Mon, 1 Sep 2003 20:54:01 -0400
References: <20030901235741.14496.qmail@web41204.mail.yahoo.com>


Hello All,

I got back my mother's DNAPrint 2.0 results. Her result was 100%
Indo-European.

This is a strange result, given that mine were (first test) 94% IE and 6%
Native American and later, (second test) 92% IE, 2% NA, and 6% East Asian.
Since my father immigrated straight from western Ireland (strongly
suggesting his results would have been 100% IE), and also because my mother
thinks that her father was "part Indian", I presumed that my NA and/or EA
signals were coming from my mother's side instead of my father's.

But now, DNAPrint estimates her to be 100% IE.

This can mean one of at least three things (or some combination):

1) DNAPrint is inaccurate to begin with when it comes to minority ancestry.
(Many people on this list now believe this.)

2) DNAPrint has made changes to the algorithm (formula) between my tests and
my mother's test. In other words, if my mother's data were run through the
algorithm used on my first and second tests - my mom would show up with
significant NA.

3) I have very unexpected NA and/or EA signals coming from my father's side.

But with this new result, it would be interesting to know what my father's
DNAPrint results would be, but that is impossible, for he is deceased. (Yes,
it might be still possible to get something with "his DNA" on it, but for
now, I'm presuming we won't be able to.)

But by comparing mine and my mother's results, I can partially reconstruct
my father's. And when I get more money, I'll get more of my sibblings
tested - with their results, I will be able to reconstruct more of my
father's. When I reconstruct much of it (I have seven sibblings - all of the
same father and mother), I'll ask DNAPrint to run the reconstructed results
through their formula - and use the same formula*S* they used to calculate
my first and second results.

Why do I write "formula*S*" above?

There is a very good reason - something I had forgotten about when I posted
awhile back about the differences between my first and second DNAPrint
results.

Here it is. I recall speaking on the phone with somebody at DNAPrint - to
inquire as to why after months, I have not yet had back the results of my
second test. They looked it up, and told me over the phone that this time,
there were no failures. (On my first test, there were several failures.) But
the rest of what that man said was very important - that I'm sharing here
for the first time.

He said that DNAPrint also changed the algorithm!

I forget his exact words, but they contained terms on the order of
"adjusted" or "changed" or "played around with" and "formula." (He did not
use the term "algorithm".)

So, the differences between my first and secon DNAPrint test are accounted
for not only by differences in the data itself, but also in the statistical
formula or algorithm they used to estimate my results!

I wonder now, if DNAPrint had again changed the algorithm sometime after my
second test and before my mother's test???? If so, would running my mother's
data through the same two formulas used for mine yield significant NA/EA
results for my mother? And would running my results through whatever
algorithm was used for my mother's results yield a 100% IE result for me???

It is possible that DNAPrint - after seeing in this forum (and elsewhere, no
doubt) the many complaints about NA and EA showing up unexpectedly - had
concluded privately that "Yeah, they're right. We gotta fix the algorithm."
And when and if they "fixed" it, they "fixed" it so the results would show
less NA and EA for people who have majority IE results?????

Regards,
Cecelia Clancy

Researching:

Blechinger,
Brabeck (with an umlaut),
Burnett,
Clancy,
Conneely or Connelly,
Conway,
Dunlay
Jacob,
Kearney,
King,
Loritzen (and spelling variations),
Mader,
Maher,
Meder,
Meeder,
Miller,
Mueller (with or without an umlaut),
O'Toole,
Plechinger,
Prabeck,
Schmotzer,
Schuster,
Shumate,
Toole, and some more I have not listed yet.


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