"Within the genealogical time frame "

[gatty]

How far back is this reckoned to be ? Are we talking the average person who might have a tree going back 300-400 years or including those who can trace noble/royal connections back to the middle ages or earlier?

[MMaddi]

The most common understanding of "genealogical time frame" is the period of time in which the use of surnames became common. This differs from one society to another, even within Europe. I believe that in the British Isles the common use of surnames, even for those who weren't nobles, goes back 800-1,000 years. In the Scandinavian countries and some other European areas the use of surnames if fairly recent, in some cases just the last 200 years.

Since genealogy databases and FTDNA's database are dominated by people with British Isles ancestry, I think that FTDNA is using "genealogical time frame" to mean the last 800-1,000 years.

[gatty]

So it would include matches going back to the 11th -13th century?
Thus possibly impossible to prove through a paper trail.

[John McCoy]

I think the phrase is "genealogically MEANINGFUL time-frame". That means, to me at least, within the period for which at least some records exist for the places where your ancestors were living. Yes, there are some records in some places back to the 11th Century, but their use a genealogical proof in the modern sense of the word is another subject entirely.

[Biblioteque]

I think the phrase is "genealogically MEANINGFUL time-frame". That means, to me at least, within the period for which at least some records exist for the places where your ancestors were living. Yes, there are some records in some places back to the 11th Century, but their use a genealogical proof in the modern sense of the word is another subject entirely.

Yes, it is humorous to see some of the trees at Ancestry who take their line back to Adam and Eve.

[keigh]

In the concept of a time frame don't each of the various tests, Y-DNA, mtDNA, and FF have their own reference scales. Since mtDNA usually changes the least in the passage of time, it becomes the least usable for current geneanlogy, unless you are testing people who you suspect of being related down the maternal line. The Y-DNA changes a bit slower, but then can throw out mutations which will knock a potential match right off the markers and again make it's use for current genealogy a bit less than perfect. Unless again you are working with perhaps closely connected individuals down the paternal lines. But simple random fishing for matches can be worthless.

With the autosomal DNA we again face the problem of rapid change of the DNA pattern thus causing DNA segments to disappear with ancestral lines then going completely disappearing in recent generations. A person can develop an excellent paper trail in to Colonial America but not have the DNA to "prove" a connection between families on those same lines. Connections from a 6th to 8 cousin level and sometimes even closer. All you have to do to show that is have a set of siblings test DNA and look at the differences in the match lists that are given to each of them. However, if you have no siblings or parents to test, you definitely have less information to go on for matching within the genealogical time frame.

And when it comes to family trees, I'm very much inclined to laugh hysterically over "Adam and Eve" trees, even ones that go back to the 1300's can cause a good chuckle. If you want to take a peek over at Ancestry, for one of my supposed ancestress, you can do a search of all US collections, records, pictures, maps, family trees, for Sarah Bokavar, from around 1710 or so, an "Indian princess/Shawnee". I list her on my tree as simply "Sarah" MNU/Friend as the only real record of her was her name "Sarah". I show no NA DNA and come down from her and her husband by two lines in my family. All the trees that have her ancestry going back to her NA family and their names and dates, set me to ROTFLMHO.