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ITV confirms the line up for the brand new series of DNA Journey

Post here for your queries about DNA, or help fellow researchers understand theirs.
Chiddicks
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ITV confirms the line up for the brand new series of DNA Journey

Post by Chiddicks »

New series on ITV following celebrities (yet again!) on a DNA journey.

https://www.itv.com/presscentre/press-r ... na-journey
Thunder
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Joined: 14 Jun 2020, 01:43

Re: ITV confirms the line up for the brand new series of DNA Journey

Post by Thunder »

But surely any family history research could uncover their histories without DNA.
Mick Loney
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Re: ITV confirms the line up for the brand new series of DNA Journey

Post by Mick Loney »

Thunder,
Just because documents say who your ancestors were, doesn’t make it so! People lied and had affairs and illegitimate children, but DNA will hopefully cut through to the truth.
For example, my own grandmothers marriage certificate shows her father to be Robert Howard, but I’ve found reasonable evidence to say he was actually born Robert Banks. His father died and his mother moved in with the lodger called Howard, and Robert took on his surname! Only DNA could prove this to be the case :D
meekhcs
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Joined: 02 Jun 2020, 18:19
Location: Lincolnshire, but Hampshire born and bred!

Re: ITV confirms the line up for the brand new series of DNA Journey

Post by meekhcs »

Agreed I doubt there is a person alive who doesn't have illegitimacy or "lies" buried somewhere in their past.

Thanks for the heads up Paul.
Sally
Mick Loney
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Joined: 15 Jun 2020, 07:27

Re: ITV confirms the line up for the brand new series of DNA Journey

Post by Mick Loney »

Too true, lots of short gestation periods in my tree, some even negative! :D
phsvm
Posts: 81
Joined: 07 Jun 2020, 15:51
Location: Oxfordshire

Re: ITV confirms the line up for the brand new series of DNA Journey

Post by phsvm »

One of the celebs is Alan Carr who was featured on WDYTYA some while ago. He was one of the few celebs they had who I really didn't like. He seemed to be proud of an ancestor who was a deserter from what I remember.
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Guy
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Re: ITV confirms the line up for the brand new series of DNA Journey

Post by Guy »

Mick Loney wrote: 14 Dec 2020, 23:41 Thunder,
Just because documents say who your ancestors were, doesn’t make it so! People lied and had affairs and illegitimate children, but DNA will hopefully cut through to the truth.
For example, my own grandmothers marriage certificate shows her father to be Robert Howard, but I’ve found reasonable evidence to say he was actually born Robert Banks. His father died and his mother moved in with the lodger called Howard, and Robert took on his surname! Only DNA could prove this to be the case :D
Sorry but you are assuming too much about DNA, DNA cannot prove any specific relationship any more than written records can prove a relationship.
Read about the Lydia Fairchild case here
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lydia_Fairchild

Research can show change of name even if the change of name has not been recorded at the time it occurred, take my brother George. He was born George John Gittins in 1939, after my mother remarried (1946) he was known as Etchells but the first "official" recording of this name I have come across (though I have not looked for his school records, though teachers at the school did mention him and my other siblings to me when I was at the same school) is when he enrolled in university in Edinburgh and also with a doctor in Edinburgh, in 1957 (this shows on his 1939 entry).
DNA may not even suggest who his father was because George died in 1958 so could not be tested, he had no issue so no chance of a test there either.
Both his father and stepfather died before testing became available though there are children from subsequent marriages of both of them.
This shows there is the same possibility of written records recording lineage as DNA.
DNA can be useful but it is no better and no worse than written records.
Cheers
Guy
As we have gained from the past, we owe the future a debt, which we pay by sharing today.
meekhcs
Posts: 468
Joined: 02 Jun 2020, 18:19
Location: Lincolnshire, but Hampshire born and bred!

Re: ITV confirms the line up for the brand new series of DNA Journey

Post by meekhcs »

by Guy » 16 Dec 2020, 09:26

"Mick Loney wrote: ↑14 Dec 2020, 23:41
Thunder,
Just because documents say who your ancestors were, doesn’t make it so! People lied and had affairs and illegitimate children, but DNA will hopefully cut through to the truth.
For example, my own grandmothers marriage certificate shows her father to be Robert Howard, but I’ve found reasonable evidence to say he was actually born Robert Banks. His father died and his mother moved in with the lodger called Howard, and Robert took on his surname! Only DNA could prove this to be the case :D"


Sorry but you are assuming too much about DNA, DNA cannot prove any specific relationship any more than written records can prove a relationship.
Read about the Lydia Fairchild case here
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lydia_Fairchild
You are both correct to a point.
DNA can help to sort out relationships if you have the correct people to test to prove the line eg illegitimate person and presumed parents/siblings/half siblings, and certainly results will throw up a list of people you have never heard of if it is the case.
In the case Guy quotes however, it could not prove anything as both persons in question have passed away, but there is documentary evidence.

DNA has to be used in conjunction with documents in the hope that it adds further proof to your research.

People venturing out on DNA testing think it will provide definitive answers but there are many variables to be taken into account eg
Have other relatives tested to help your results.
There is not a set amount of DNA that links generations. If two siblings tested their DNA against both their parents they would each end up with different amounts shared between themselves and their Father, and the same for their Mother, because we each inherit different parts of DNA from our parents, g parents etc.
Add to that the possibility of intermarriage or endogamy and you could end up being none the wiser having tested.
The result is if you look at a DNA relationship chart https://thegeneticgenealogist.com/wp-co ... -Chart.png you will see that for every relationship there is a wide variance in the known level of matching.

The above is a very simple explanation, and I hope the above programme explains this in more detail, but as it is celebrity based I am guessing it may be more of a wow factorof "here are the results,look what we have discovered, without really explaining how they were arrived at".
Sally
Hardwork
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Joined: 14 Jun 2020, 14:15

Re: ITV confirms the line up for the brand new series of DNA Journey

Post by Hardwork »

Yet again, everyone seems to only be talking about autosomal DNA. Y DNA (male) in particular can help illustrate the people who have a shared male ancestor, even if that ancestor cannot necessarily be determined by paper record. That is why Y DNA is so useful for getting through "brickwalls" in male line research and particularly if you believe, or know, a false paternity occurred in a family. And that is also why every male interested in genealogy should consider taking a Y DNA test, because where records are missing from parish registers, DNA can potentially fill the gap, but once a line leaves no male issue, it is lost for good, as Guy alludes to. Y DNA mutates very slowly, generally. Mitochondrial DNA even more slowly, but because female lines are harder to pursue, it is generally less useful - unless you happen to find the bones of someone like Richard III, in which case it can be a clincher!
devonliz
Posts: 60
Joined: 13 Jun 2020, 20:31

Re: ITV confirms the line up for the brand new series of DNA Journey

Post by devonliz »

Silly me! I watched the first edition of the series on BBC with a similar title, and then the Rednapp/Flintoff show on ITV last night --- what a huge disappointment!

Given the chance to explain, even in very simple terms, what is entailed in taking a DNA test, and then the laboratory tests and the computer comparisons, both BBC and ITV just treated it as a 'black box'. The Beeb even had Trudi King, a world expert on it, for heavens sake, and allowed her to say very little!

As a retired biochemist, I really thought that this was a huge missed opportunity.
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