I know that some people...I'm am thinking of a great fellow here, locally, whom I like very much and who is much involved in Clan Cian.... swallow the DNA testing ideal, hook, line and sinker without really understanding how it works, both from a technology standpoint and a historical standpoint.

A whole, whole lot of genetic theory goes into the background on genetic testing, especially when someone starts trying to pinpoint any actual times or dates onto divergence points.


Truth is, IMHO...and this is just my humble opinion, I'll tell you in a few minutes why my humble opinion might be worth listening to....but my opinion is that DNA testing should be corroborated with "paper trails". Just because you share a certain number of polymorphisms with 100 people who have the last name "MacDonald" does not mean that you are particularly closely related to any of them. Yes, the general rule holds....as a GENERAL RULE, the more polymorphisms you share with another person, the more likely you are to be closely related. However, if you are keen to use DNA testing to corroborate lineage to a specific Highland Clan, I think you're spending money on an exercise in futility.

The Clans in the Highlands intermarried for generations. They fathered children by each others women, both legitimately and illegitimately, for generations upon generations. Surnames got changed, dropped, assumed assumed for all sorts of reasons. Many people who came across to the Colonies took on slightly different names, as part of their "New Start".

I would be VERY careful about claiming too much regarding your supposed Highland Heritage based on DNA testing. Understand it well from both the technological standpoint, and also the historical standpoint.

Why should anybody give two hoots what I think about DNA testing?

Well...I currently work as tech wonk in the Center for Molecular and Genetic Medicine, at the Beckman Center at Stanford University Medical Center. I'm the associate "main dude" in the Computational Services and Bioniformatics Center. I've taught undergraduate genetics at several community colleges, I've taught Human Biology at community colleges and Santa Clara University. I"ve taught Human Genetics at the Pscych Tech training program at Mission College in Santa Clara. I also happened to be married to the Luminous Joan, who has a 30-year career working in Genetics, and I was telling my students about polymorphism links and lineages....papers that Joan showed me...back in the late 1980's when the work was first coming out and it was done by hybridization, not sequencing.