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Not even sure if they are paradoxes but here they go
1) I repeatedly read claims/statements/etc like "I am from XYZ origin" etc - and I think by myself, what? a) in the end we're all "african" (50k+ years ago), b) ancestry based on one (or more) particular ydna or snp mutation is just one out of 10'thousands of ancestors - in reality it doesn't mean anything other than for one (1) very limited line of descend. Whether you are an R1b or an R1b1 etc isn't really relevant to who you really are, isn't? And claims like 10% african, 20% asian, 70% european (or something along those lines) sounds equally parodoxial, because in reality everyone is 100% african (ignoring recent claims of Neanderthal ties) and between african and asian there was eurasian and every piece of land between this strech of 1000's of miles. Or is there a very specific time limit implied as: from your 1000 ancestors within the last 10 generations, X% was from here and Y% from there etc - don't think so?!
2) Looking for matches. Unless you are trying to work out recent-time family ties (name groups, kinship etc, say last 5-10 generations max) looking for matches seems a paradox. First, if a "random" person takes a ydna test, how likely is that an unknown family members with a common (male) ancestor within say the last 10-20 generations also has taken a test? (i.e. giving a high chance of a close match?, 10-20 generations covers the period that surnames came into being): VERY small, it's not even difficult to calculate.
As you go further back in time and the pool of related male familymembers increases - and thus the chance of a match, the problem becomes that due to mutations the chance of a match actually decreases again. I'll have to do the math but beyond a certain # of generations back in time the change of say 66/67 is > than 67/67 if you see what I mean. My point is that there seems to be a paradox in the sense that "random" people are looking for matches whereas in reality maybe one should be looking for non-matches.
I am not saying dna testing is no good, quite to the contrary, it's interesting, can be helpful (take all the successstories) but at the same time it seems some people are reading way more into it than is actually there. It probably sells though...
1) I repeatedly read claims/statements/etc like "I am from XYZ origin" etc - and I think by myself, what? a) in the end we're all "african" (50k+ years ago), b) ancestry based on one (or more) particular ydna or snp mutation is just one out of 10'thousands of ancestors - in reality it doesn't mean anything other than for one (1) very limited line of descend. Whether you are an R1b or an R1b1 etc isn't really relevant to who you really are, isn't? And claims like 10% african, 20% asian, 70% european (or something along those lines) sounds equally parodoxial, because in reality everyone is 100% african (ignoring recent claims of Neanderthal ties) and between african and asian there was eurasian and every piece of land between this strech of 1000's of miles. Or is there a very specific time limit implied as: from your 1000 ancestors within the last 10 generations, X% was from here and Y% from there etc - don't think so?!
2) Looking for matches. Unless you are trying to work out recent-time family ties (name groups, kinship etc, say last 5-10 generations max) looking for matches seems a paradox. First, if a "random" person takes a ydna test, how likely is that an unknown family members with a common (male) ancestor within say the last 10-20 generations also has taken a test? (i.e. giving a high chance of a close match?, 10-20 generations covers the period that surnames came into being): VERY small, it's not even difficult to calculate.
As you go further back in time and the pool of related male familymembers increases - and thus the chance of a match, the problem becomes that due to mutations the chance of a match actually decreases again. I'll have to do the math but beyond a certain # of generations back in time the change of say 66/67 is > than 67/67 if you see what I mean. My point is that there seems to be a paradox in the sense that "random" people are looking for matches whereas in reality maybe one should be looking for non-matches.
I am not saying dna testing is no good, quite to the contrary, it's interesting, can be helpful (take all the successstories) but at the same time it seems some people are reading way more into it than is actually there. It probably sells though...
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