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Singletons and NPEs

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Category: Latest
Created: Saturday, 02 July 2022 12:41
Last Updated: Saturday, 02 July 2022 12:43
Published: Saturday, 02 July 2022 12:41
Written by Nancy Kiser

In addition to the Phillips men in our family groups, we have 262 Phillips men in the project who do not match any other Phillips men in the project. We call these men Singletons and they represent approximately 25% of the membership with the surname Phillips. The percentage of unmatched Singletons has been remarkably stable right from the beginning of the project and may partially reflect the accumulated impact of non-paternal events over the course of time. Although population scientists believe non-paternal events such as illegitimacy, adultery and adoption only occur at a rate of approximately 2% to 3% per generation, the effect of that 2% - 3% snowballs over time so that at the end of 10 generations, as many as 18% to 26% of the men in any given family group may no longer carry the Y-DNA of that group even though they still carry the surname.

Using Y-DNA for genealogy

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Created: Sunday, 17 July 2022 16:29
Last Updated: Sunday, 17 July 2022 16:32
Published: Sunday, 17 July 2022 16:29
Written by Nancy Kiser
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 and these types of assumptions can be wrong. Not every Phillips is related just because they lived in the same town or county.

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?

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. Y-DNA testing and Y-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

Triangulation

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Created: Monday, 25 July 2022 15:07
Last Updated: Monday, 25 July 2022 15:09
Published: Monday, 25 July 2022 15:07
Written by Nancy Kiser

Sometimes people ask how their Y-DNA can be matched to someone who is deceased if there is no Y-DNA from the deceased person for comparison purposes. The method is called triangulation and it works like this. You identify and test two living men who each claim descent from a certain paternal ancestor through two different sons of that paternal ancestor and compare their Y-DNA. If it matches and there is a good paper trail, you can be fairly certain they both descend from that paternal ancestor. The more men you can find and test who descend from different sons of that ancestor, the better.

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