It's now been a while that I have had my DNA in circulation on AncestryDNA. Every week there are a number of 'matches' ... quite a few at the 'moderately' (about 50%) or 'slightly' distant (probably less than 10% at 6th-9th cousin),
But a smaller number ... about 20 so far ... are 96% probable matches in the 4th to 6th cousin range. Two have been confirmed. One is Jean Southworth, who is already a member of the 'reunion', and that proved that the method really does work.
The most recent confirmed match is in the line of our Naas ancestors. Here is the matching report that Ancestry sent. I have sent a message to the matching person, and met her 'online'. Here is the match that Ancestry sent:
But a smaller number ... about 20 so far ... are 96% probable matches in the 4th to 6th cousin range. Two have been confirmed. One is Jean Southworth, who is already a member of the 'reunion', and that proved that the method really does work.
The most recent confirmed match is in the line of our Naas ancestors. Here is the matching report that Ancestry sent. I have sent a message to the matching person, and met her 'online'. Here is the match that Ancestry sent:
click to enlarge
I am currently working with Barry Thompson, who is also going to turn out to be be related, probably two or three generations back from KTN (1760) ... our patriarch. We already know so much about our Telemark line, that we should be helpful to anybody who 'matches', but new members of the Reunion will be more than welcome, and will hopefully also add new information.
I've been thinking about doing the ancestry.com dna test. As a female, what antecedents will I be able to link to? Only matrilineal?
ReplyDeleteHi Vicki There are three kinds of DNA testing. The original two that were available commercially for genealogical purposes were the Y-DNA, which accurately passes back through the father<GF<gr GF etc. That was the one I did first, and have taken it about as far as I can. I have had no 'matches', but was interesting in that it showed that my Y chromosomes originated in the eastern mediterranean, and aren't very common in Denmark or Scandinavia where my paternal line comes from. The female line is similar, but also different. The DNA that is tested (as in the YDNA) passes via the mother <GM <gr GM etc. The mitochondria only exist in the female egg, but the mt_DNA passes to both sons and daughters since both have an X chromasome, and the X Chromosome is in every cell line the body in both sexes. I've only done the first level testing for mt_DNA, but it is so non-specific that I get thousands of 'matches' which can't be sorted out, and which I find useless to me. One can push the testing further, but it's not cheap and I haven't done it.
ReplyDeleteThe DNA testing, that resulted in the match that I used on the blog, tests 'somatic' DNA ... the DNA that is present in every cell. We get 50% of our DNA from each parent, and then (more or less) 25 % form each grandparent etc. They do not do a complete genome, but concentrate on short sections called SNPs that are especially useful for tracking back 4-10 generations. It is highly predictive only back for 4-5 generations, and a 'true' familial linkage becomes less and less likely in lower degrees of similarity in the SNPs measured. In the example I showed, AncestryDNA (part of Ancestry.com) compared known trees in their system, and looked for substantial overlap, as shown by the descent from my and the 'match's common 7th Grandfather and Grandmother. I'm still waiting for the person I matched with to respond to my message. In only one other match did I know for sure that we were 4th cousins ... but we already knew that. The somatic DNA is equally useful for males and females
There are several places to do the testing. I have only used FamilytreeDNA. Another is 23andMe (there are 23 human chromosomes), and I think that you can also arrange the test through National Geographic. Ancestry just had a short 'sale' and the DNA test which usually costs $99 and was on sale for $79. I sent off my wife's sample (a very small volume of saliva) to add her side of the family.
There are some over hyped 'systems' that claim to tell you 'where your line started' to a small area, but in all cases you get a profile of where your DNA originated.
This was a good question to ask ask on behalf of all the 'cousins'.
Hi Vicki: I've tested at FTDNA, 23&Me and Ancestry. At this point, if I were to do a single test at one laboratory, I would choose FTDNA's Family Finder for $99. I've had some good matches at this site and think it's the best lab and has good tools...cousin matching, a chromosome browser and some cousins upload family trees...they are good help. You can read about the FF test at FTDNA.
ReplyDeleteI wanted to do the 23&Me test because it gave statistical information on one's health but they are not offering that information at this time. I purchased Ancestry solely to see if I could find any "cousins" and have extended one part of my family tree at that site. I've uploaded my FTDNA results to GEDmatch (free) and have learned and benefited using the GEDmatch tools. I guess the question is, what do you want to accomplish with a DNA test? If the answer is, "To find cousins within the last 4 to 5 generations" then I'd do FF at FTDNA. Yvonne