Hi folks (lots of ole friends),
I'm a subscriber to the list now but I don't know how active I will be or how
long I will stay. As most of you know I'm the Chapman Family Association
founder and corresponding secretary. I'm not a Chapman, but my wife's mother
was. I've been collecting Chapman data for about 25 years and from August 83 to
September 94 I published "Chapman Chatter." Our Chapman Family Association
grew out of that.
That is not what I came here to tell you. I've been observing the Chapman
DNA thing almost from the beginning. I first met Dan Chapman, our DNA project
officer, at the CFA meeting in Richmond VA. At the time he still lived there
in the DC area, but not long after he moved to Missouri and we have met at
other meetings and he has visited here at our home.
Well, what I really wanted to tell you is about my plan to try to link our
DNA results to our Chapman data base. This is information on tens of thousands
of Chapmans that I'm still collecting and is still far from complete. To a
great degree, those of you who have your DNA done, have one or more Chapman kin
in the data base. My plan is to create a new field in the database format for
the DNA kit# and when I come across a record for a Chapman who I know is kin
to you then I'll add your kit# to the record. Perhaps there is a better way
to do it and if you have any ideas I'd like to hear from you on that. I
suppose I could just as well use my REF for the ultimate Chapman ancestor such as
SAM700VA, for example, instead of the kit#. That would overcome the problem of
two kit#'s applicable to the same untimate ancestor.
I've noticed that some of you do not have your data at
www.ysearch.org and I
encourage you to place it there. I expect you have all visited ysearch where
there are a total of 26 Chapman DNA results as opposed to just the 11 posted
for the "Americas Region." One big advantage of having data at ysearch is the
ability to select subjects for comparison and pulling just their data up on an
isolated screen.
As I understand DNA results and the concept of the Most Recent Common
Ancestor (MRCA), many of you are going to have results that thrust you so many
generations back into history that you will surely wind up with an English (or UK)
ancestor as your MRCA. You may find kin on that expanded ysearch list of 26
Chapmans.
By the way, I have done the DNA thing and have results from my 67 marker
test. The Alfords are way behind the Chapmans on this and I have no one to
compare with. To date we have not found any of my wifes living male kin- if there
are any. If and when we do we will get his results there even if we have to
pay for the test.
I need to mention one other thing while I am here. I've noted in some of
your messages the frustration about not getting more folks involved with the DNA.
Some of you have said that pushing the idea on this mailing list where most
are already in the program does no good. For those of you who are CFA members
(and that includes inactive [dues not current] as well as active) you can
subscribe to the CFAPartyLine which is a Yahoo mailing list for CFA members
similar to this one. You can "talk" [email] and push your heart out there about
DNA. You can also submit somekind of DNA oriented article to the CFA Monthly
OnLine Newsletter which is also available to all CFA members - active and
inactive. The OLNL currently has many more subscribers than does the Party Line.
If you are a CFA member, and I know several of you are, then you can subscribe
to one of both of these by sending an email to the addresses below and no
subject or content is necessary. They are FREE!
CFAPartyLine-subscribe(a)yahoogroups.com
CFA_Newsletter-subscribe(a)yahoogroups.com
Of course you can also push the DNA thing on Chapman-L.
If you are not a CFA member then you might consider joining. The quarterly
publication done by Kathleen Tovar is worth more than the $26 annual dues. It
is normal now for each issue to exceed 100 pages of pure Chapman information.
It is indexed, and commercially printed & bound. That works out to $6.50
per 100 page issue, and remember CFA has a hefty postage expense that the member
must cover (it is included). If you are inactive- all you need do to remedy
that is send $26 dues to the treasurer. If you remember your CFA # that will
help. If you don't I'll be happy to look it up for you.
Enough for now. Thanks for listening.
.. Gil Alford, CFA Corresponding Secretary