Ant & Dec DNA

[MB]

The first of the programmes on Ant & Dec's DNA last night, had more
waffle than I think any of other programme that I have seen. It took 15
minutes to actually get started.

Apart from there being twenty minutes of adverts in the one and half
hour programme, I am sure it could have been edited down to well under
half an hour.

Come back Who Do You Think You Are, all is forgiven!

Second half tonight and at the same the crisp salesman is telling the
story of some of his ancestors.

[Ian Goddard]

Post by MB
The first of the programmes on Ant & Dec's DNA last night, had more
waffle than I think any of other programme that I have seen. It took 15
minutes to actually get started.
Apart from there being twenty minutes of adverts in the one and half
hour programme,

That's why you record anything on ITV.

Nice to see Slieve Gallion. A very long time ago I drove up it in the
QUB Botany Dept. Mini to get peat samples for a colleague.

Ian

[Ian Goddard]

Post by MB
Second half tonight and at the same the crisp salesman is telling the
story of some of his ancestors.

Oh dear. Just getting to the end of part 2 and they've gone into deep
DNA nonsense. There's this daft assumption that if you can trace DNA
back to some prominent person - or just towards them - in the past then
everyone with that marker was descended from them. I encountered this
some years ago with McKees on my wife's side and their origins in O'Neil
territory. Suddenly they're all supposed to descend from Niall of the
nine hostages (who, was described in the relevant paper along the lines
of "on the cusp of being historical"). (Interestingly enough the
families surveyed in that paper didn't include either an O'Neill or a
McNeil.)

Clearly it never seems to have occurred to people that the said
prominent ancestor is very unlikely to have originated a particular DNA
variant but shared it with contemporaries and ancestors. In the O'Neill
example the geographical bi-modal distribution fits with the northern &
southern Ui Neill but the pollen evidence suggests a substantial
depopulation in that area at the end of the Bronze Age. It's not
surprising to find that a large number of the subsequent population
shared DNA markers - whether they derive from a few survivors or from a
repopulation it's likely that many derive from a descend few individuals
and Niall - if he existed - would be just one of those descendants
somewhere along the line.

[MB]

Post by Ian Goddard

Post by MB
Second half tonight and at the same the crisp salesman is telling the
story of some of his ancestors.

Oh dear. Just getting to the end of part 2 and they've gone into deep
DNA nonsense. There's this daft assumption that if you can trace DNA
back to some prominent person - or just towards them - in the past then
everyone with that marker was descended from them.

I have worked up any enthusiasm to watch second programme after reading the
hype in the newspapers.

I am sure they spun it in the first programme to suggest they found the
village with all "cousins" using DNA when I think it was done using good
old fashioned genealogical searching then confirmed using DNA - if only we
could all afford to get a whole village tested!


MB

[Gordon]

Post by MB

Post by MB
Second half tonight and at the same the crisp salesman is telling the
story of some of his ancestors.

Oh dear. Just getting to the end of part 2 and they've gone into deep DNA
nonsense. There's this daft assumption that if you can trace DNA back to
some prominent person - or just towards them - in the past then everyone
with that marker was descended from them.

I have worked up any enthusiasm to watch second programme after reading the
hype in the newspapers.
I am sure they spun it in the first programme to suggest they found the
village with all "cousins" using DNA when I think it was done using good
old fashioned genealogical searching then confirmed using DNA - if only we
could all afford to get a whole village tested!
MB

I think they mentioned in the programme that they used the phonebook and
then DNA tested as Ant's surname was common in that area.

Gordon