History of Traditional Genealogical Research

Over the years, many well-meaning amateur genealogists and family historians have made guesses about their ancestors and published these guesses in books and on the internet.  Some of these guesses were well-informed, based on what was known at the time after careful research.   Unfortunately, some of these guesses were not well-informed but made by assumptions based on surnames found in a general area.  "There are 5 families named Phillips in Richmond County Virginia, they all must be related."  Unfortunately, these type of assumptions can be wrong.  Hundreds of years ago, not every Phillips was related just because they lived in the same town or county.  As a perfect example fast forward to today, not every Smith in a phone book listed in "Anytown" would be related.   

Now the Really Bad

In addition, some unscrupulous professional genealogists have purposely sold erroneous information simply to make a buck.  To make matters worse, the internet has caused a wide dissemination of much faulty and downright wrong genealogical information.  As a result, you will find many examples on the internet of one Phillips family that has been scrambled up with another, or maybe several others.  How can we ever straighten all these families out and determine who belongs to which family?

Y-DNA Testing! - A Tool For Genealogist's

DNA has become the tool of choice that allows us to scientifically test various theories in an unbiased manner and discover which Phillips lines are related and which are not.  DNA testing and DNA validated family connections are our best and perhaps our only chance for countering the disastrous accumulations of un-validated and non-correctible ancestral misinformation collected and presented on many internet sites.