The original Keach Family Project. To reunite family members sometimes we need to go deep and a DNA test has the potential to link living relatives. This can only be achieved through DNA when there are enough others in the family who want to re-connect and are willing to have their DNA tested. Then, that person needs to be willing to share what information they have on their Most Distant Ancestor. Having a DNA test done, by itself can tell many things about the person ... depending on which parts of the DNA is looked at. I will be using DNA only to supplement and support traditional genealogy, where the paper trial has ended or cannot be found. So, by examining one man's Y-chromosome one can compare relatedness to other males in the same family. By looking at a woman's X-chromosome one can find relatives connected to her mother's female side. Of course the number of matches will vary depending on how many people actually take a DNA test. For groups where only a small number test, the pool of DNA from which to search is limited. This need not be discouraging if one sees the use of DNA as a tool for genealogy is both a long term project and also a fairly new concept. In addition, it costs money to have the tests done. The more you want out of the test the more the test will cost. Unfortunately this means that people who suspect they have an uncommon family will spend more money on tests designed to give them the most accurate matches from a very limited DNA source pool. I feel it would not be uncommon for the uncommon family to not have many exact matches -- that would show a common ancestor within 3 - 5 generations. I believe that the best an uncommon family member could hope for was to match closely at a very high marker rate (67 or 111) which could give clues to a common ancestor in the thousands - perhaps tens of thousands - of years. I think this is the case because when a family has endured over thousands (or tens of thousands) of years and has migrated millions of miles, and has lived in many different environments many things happen and the XY chormosomes of an "original parent", which imparted certain information to their children has the potential to change radically. DNA copies itself and is passed on to the nest generation, but the copies are not exact. Changes occur that are called mutations. This mutation might not be seen if two living brothers were to take a DNA test (or a father and son), however there would most likely be more than one mutation for two living male's DNA of the same family where there is a distance of thousand of years. Thousands of years means more than 10 generations and, let's face it, most serious genealogists spend most of their life finding data past 6, 7 generations. There are many difficulties and written documentation (or lack of) is a major roadblock. One aspect in written documentation (when written documentation exists) is the spelling of a person's surname. The further back in history one goes, the more one finds that most could not read and write. To compound this difficulty are the variety of dialects. Even when two people speak the same language there can be a strong accent (such as the Irish brogue). Over 15 years I have seen Keach spelled as Keach, Keech, Keetch and many others variations in the US Census. I have followed different family groups who have lived in the New England area since the earliest US Census, 1790. Much has been debated by a few Keach/Keech researches, but connections cannot be made (or disproved) until there is sufficient (more than 11) Keach.Keech/Keetch (MacKeachan, etc.) DNA at at least the 67 marker level. There are other good reasons to have a DNA test; One can detect cancer in DNA, which is hereditary. Many health issues can be known (or know to be on the look out for) when one knows one's #family #history.