[Hooper] Hooper DNA project fall news

[WadeGlasck at aol.com]

Hello friends and relatives,

The Hooper family DNA project is now more than a year old and in the last 
year we've learned so much.
We now have results for 46 Y-chromosome DNA tests and have several more on 
order. We've also just gotten an order from our first international participant. 
Welcome to Gary from Australia!  Maybe some of the American Hoopers will soon 
have a new cousin Down Under.
All of the received results are from American Hoopers and they fall into 
eleven different families. One recently received result is a fairly close match to 
one of the families but there isn't enough information to classify this 
result. It's possible this result may end up constituting a unique twelfth family. 
You can see all the results and other information about the project on the 
website at http://www.hooperconnections.com/dnaintro.html
Several of the participants are finding that they have DNA matches with 
people with surnames other than Hooper and are wondering if these may be relatives. 
The answer to this is somewhat tricky. Technically these Hoopers and 
non-Hoopers are related but only in the sense that everyone is related if you go back 
far enough. Participants end up with non-Hooper matches for a couple of 
different reasons. One possible explanation is that there is a relationship but it 
goes back to before surnames became hereditary. In Europe surnames became 
hereditary between 500 and 1000 years ago. By example let's say that 500 years ago 
Bob the farmer and John the hooper were brothers. In 2003 Bob's descendant, 
Tom Farmer, and John's descendant, Mike Hooper, take the Y-DNA test. There's a 
good chance that Tom and John's results will come out very similar. Tom and 
John are genetically related but there's no way to prove it. With DNA testing as 
with standard genealogy the first sorting tool is the surname. You're always 
going to look for possible relatives amongst those with the same surname.
Another possible reason for matches between people with different surnames 
has to do with the DNA itself. For each of the DNA markers there are several 
possible values. However one value for each will be the most common. If you end 
up with a set of marker values where most or all have the most common value 
then you will end up with erroneous matches and near matches. Once again the 
solution is to look for matches with people of the same surname.
I would also like to remind everyone that there is funding available for 
those of you who are interested but don't feel you can pay the full amount of the 
test. Persons with confirmed genealogical ties to Europe and those from U.S. 
lines that haven't been explored or that are poorly represented have the best 
chance of receiving funding. You can find details at 
http://www.hooperconnections.com/fundingfrontpage.html
That's all for now.
Take care.

Wade Glascock