Introduction and first thoughts

[Bill Atkinson]

Hi All and thanks Chris

I live in the Cariboo Country of B.C. on a small ranch with about 40
head (and declining as I get older) of cows and a passel of horses.
I've been working at my genealogy for over 30 years and there are
certain points throughout the tree, the classic roadblocks, where DNA
testing might well help to resolve issue and provide the most likely
research direction. In addition I have started a one name study on the
Bassingthwaighte name and long term DNA will figure into that as the
family has spread to every early British colonial sphere.

I do not as yet have any personal experience with DNA testing so I am
not sure how we would build that into our trees. However it would
seem that we simply have another line of evidence, another "citation"
if you will, that needs to properly documented and then reported. When
you do DNA testing does the testing company report to you only,
privately, or is there an accessible data bank of results that can be
accessed over time as a reference?

Thanks Chris for inviting me, long term this will be an important
aspect of genealogy. The Guild of One Name Studies already has a
fairly extensive discussion going and many of them are using DNA
testing.