GENEALOGY-DNA-L Archives

Archiver > GENEALOGY-DNA > 2001-01 > 0979268561


From: "Orin R. Wells" <>
Subject: Re: [DNA] reporting of results
Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 19:02:41 -0800
In-Reply-To: <a7.abccba9.278fbdc7@aol.com>


At 08:54 PM 1/11/01 -0500, Linda Chesson wrote:

>It is NOT a good thing to have ANY kind of lab-imposed limits upon
reporting, and non-standard
reporting appears to me an excellent euphemism for "partial reporting".<<

I have to put my two bits into this. I fully agree with Linda. The labs
who take the stand that this is restricted information and will not give
out concise and complete information freely are cutting of their own
resources. It will only be a matter of time before an organization comes
along with the approach that they will reveal everything and they will blow
away the competition because what the potential customers are after is
information, not that they are related to one of the "ancient Tribe". In
my humble opinion any restriction in this area is poorly conceived. If
they want to delay release of important information for months or years on
the basis of the "publish or parish" criteria, then maybe they should
parish as they are clearly inhibiting the advancement of this science.

>Genealogy INFORMATION (names, dates etc., never mind the DNA!) being
restricted! It seems there is a group of "researchers" who believe that
information should be restricted and that information dealing with who we
are and where we came from belongs to someone ELSE!<<

Only in their minds. There is not a shred of information they have found,
save for some personal family information, that someone else either has
not already found or will find. To consider it "theirs" is very narrow
minded and they greatly limit their own chances of enhancing their
information by not sharing what they have. If they did share, they would
surely soon find others with complimentary information in our internet age.
I believe all genealogical information should be considered public domain
by everyone involved. Anyone who thinks they are protecting their material
until they can publish clearly is confused unless their intent is to be
able to take credit for publishing public domain information with their
name on it which I feel is pretty selfish and self serving. They certainly
are unlikely to make any money at it unless they are publishing public
records that are of wide interest and not readily available. The other
excuse I hear often is "I have spent years and thousands of dollars doing
this research and I am not going to give it away to people who can do the
same". What do they think the rest of us have been doing, watching The
Beverly Hillbillies and playing the stock market? None of us is able to
get everywhere and find all the records. Only by sharing and working
together can we accomplish what none of can achieve alone.

I view the DNA area the same way. If we share, we all win. If we
restrict, we all lose.


Orin R. Wells
Wells Family Research Association
P. O. Box 5427
Kent, Washington 98064-5427
<>
http://www.rootsweb.com/~wellsfam/wfrahome.html
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