Saturday, July 5, 2014

Not spam email or a scam at all but a new DNA cousin, Ivandro Nelson Zego!

Wow! Did I get that wrong. And If I'm wrong I'm glad to post a correction, so here goes. I would have bet it was a scam, but not so. Read on.

It all started when I got an email that went into my spam/junk mail folder from Nelson Zego. You can read my last post about this here.

There were a couple of features about his first email that seemed like spam. You know what they look like because I'm guessing that you get them too. Poor English and sentences that don't quite make sense. Additionally, the writer mentioned his FamilyTree DNA test and I haven't tested there so that set off a big alarm bell. Plus he signed his name with one given name and invited me to check out his Facebook page with a different given name. I would have sworn it was spam. But not so.

Finally, in the second email, he mentioned GEDmatch so I emailed and asked him for his kit number. I figured that he'd prove himself a fake and I'd never hear from him again, but not so. He emailed right back with his kit number. My doubts about him were starting to disappear. When I checked GEDmatch, yup, there he was, just as advertised. Here's what GEDmatch said about our match, below.

GEDmatch.Com Autosomal ComparisonComparing Kit M094320 (Diane Weintraub) and F327809 (Nelson Zego)

Minimum threshold size to be included in total = 700 SNPs
Mismatch-bunching Limit = 350 SNPs
Noise Reduction Threshold = 0.85
Minimum segment cM to be included in total = 7.0 cM


Chr Start LocationEnd LocationCentimorgans (cM) SNPs
2057307333593267408.9740
Largest segment = 8.9 cM
Total of segments > 7 cM = 8.9 cM
Estimated number of generations to MRCA = 6.4


So I was wrong. Nelson / Ivandro is now mad at me because of what I posted on this blog about him perpetrating a new kind of scam involving DNA matches. And I'm sorry about that truly, because my assessment wasn't accurate. But I'm not alone in looking at his email and thinking it was spam. But bottom line is that I was wrong about him. Sorry Nelson.

As you can see, the opinions expressed here are just my own. Sometimes right and sometimes not so right. Hey, no one's perfect. We just try.


The URL for this post is: http://nutsfromthefamilytree.blogspot.com/2014/07/not-spam-email-or-scam-at-all-but-new.html

3 comments:

  1. Very nice of your to do this.

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    Replies
    1. It needed to be done. And thanks for your input too. It helped:)
      Cheers, Diane

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  2. Not sure. Same thing happened to me, except it was a different kit number than illustrated above.

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