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This information-sharing website has been created to share the recent developments in the Maxwell-DNA project. These new developments are possible due to the following key elements:
The multitude of records that Donald P. Maxwell, Jr., M.D., Maxwell-DNA project administrator, has laboriously put together over many years of researching the Maxwell and associated families earlier and more recent lines;
His careful categorization of people in groupings based on STR marker tests of varying marker levels;
The number of Big-Y SNP test results already in the group, and the additional ones that have been ordered, to serve as a "backbone" for the rest of the kits in the Maxwell-DNA project;
The ancient line descendants whose unbroken lineages back to the 1100s allow us to use them as points of comparison to see where our own results fit in;
The use of Dave Vance's SAPP Analysis tool to serve as an additional source of data analysis to compliment Dr. Donald Maxwell's classifications (and indeed, the "by-hand" analysis and the computer analysis are in agreement).
These key elements enable the Maxwell-DNA group to begin to do what Y-DNA testing has long hoped to do - bridge our more current day records to any existing records of the past - and situate our family lines in a historical context that stretches back, in the Maxwell and associated families lines, nearly one thousand years.
Genetic genealogy is not just the one birth/marriage/death record leading to another birth/marriage/death record approach of traditional genealogy. It certainly includes that as a critical component, but it adds the use of DNA data in order to bridge the gaps left by genealogical records that no longer exist. Genetic genealogy does not necessarily result in a completely filled-in line of descent - the names of some of the men and women in our direct lines may well continue to be unknown - but it is a method that definitively links the present with the distant past through comparing our DNA signatures.
We are tremendously fortunate to have more than one man in the Maxwell-DNA project that can trace his unbroken line back to the 1100s, which give us more than one yardstick against which to measure our own results. By comparing the STR and SNP signatures of the men who are descendants of these ancient lines, we can compare our own STR and SNP results to them, and thereby discover more of the story of our own ancient lines.
The SAPP Analysis program developed by Dave Vance combines genealogical data with STR and SNP data analysis and presents it in a visually compelling manner. It adds an additional way of understanding the groupings that Dr. Don has compiled on the http://www.maxwell-dna.com/ website. Combining the work of Dave Vance and Dr. Don Maxwell allows us to gain a deeper understanding of this shared journey that we are all on together.
March 28, 2018
Jennifer P. Maxwell, Ph.D.
Emeritus Professor, Political Science
Kent State University, Kent, OH
The following chart adds additional information on the four "ancient line" kits (3 Oct 2021):
Page updated
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