Has anyone out there received queries >from total strangers who claim to be related because of their DNA results? Has anyone dealt with requests to be invited to join a family tree so they can pursue their research?

I need help with the ethical as well as a practical questions regarding queries that have come to me >from someone who says his DNA test results mean he is related to a branch of the family tree I have spent years creating. He asks that I allow him access so he can pursue his research. I am reluctant to grant his request.

He has sent me a link to a GEDMatch.com kit, but I don't know how to evaluate it. Can anyone help me with this?

I would like to hear privately form others who may have received queries >from total strangers who feel they are related and expect permission to research in depth a family tree. How have you dealt with this?

I am troubled by the tone of the request, the writer's sense of secrecy and drama, his claim that he's searching for his birth father and that finding my site suggests that his hunches about his true identity were correct, etc.

As the creator of a tree that includes families in Israel, Argentina, and Canada as well as the US, I take seriously my responsibility to protect everyone's right to privacy.

Any stories or guidance or help reading a DNA result would be greatly appreciated.


Patricia Klindienst
Guilford, CT
USA

SPIWAK /SPIVAK of Orgeyev & Kishinev, Bessarabia; Mendoza, Argentina; and Queens.
SCHAPOSCHNIK / ZAPOSNEK of Orgeyev, Kishinev, Elisavetgrad, or Mendoza, and their related names, SHAPIN, SHAPIRO of Mendoza, Argentina, Chile, Canada, and the US. SCHOCHETMAN of Odessa (who became SCHACHT in the US). MILSTEIN of Orgeyev & Kishinev. WOLMAN / VOLLMAN of Orgeyev, Kishinev, Capresti. TSAREVKAN/CIRIFCAN/SARAFCONN of Orgeyev, Teleneshti, Uruguay, becoming COHEN in the US. BELINKSY of Odessa and Philadelphia. KALIK of Orgeyev, Kishinev, Argentina. LICHT of Briceva.