Genetic Genealogy

[mommymilkies]

Has anyone else jumped on the DNA bandwagon to investigate their genealogy?  I don't really know my father's side, so I did the Ancestry DNA test and I've also used Promethease and Ged Match.  Anyone else want to discuss results and the research? I've just been mumbling to myself about it because nobody in my house cares.  :lol:

[Spryte]

DH did it to find out about his heritage, before finding his birthfamily.  So almost 10 years ago.  He used the best at the time - Family Tree DNA. We did a lot of testing, and he has info on birthmother/fathers' sides.  Through it, he's gotten a ton of contacts, and we get almost weekly emails about new matches, along with how closely matched they are.  He's in a study of his haplogroup, and several other groups for his surname and other random stuff.  All have sent him gobs of info on his heritage, in fact when he met his birthfamily - he is much more informed than they are.   :lol: Of course, they have more recent family lore, but as far as the connection to particular famous ancestors, and other info ... DH knew a lot more.  Kind of funny.

 

Does Ancestry DNA do any connecting for you?  Maybe you could find some studies involving your haplogroup, family, etc, and get involved?  It's been fascinating!  

[mommymilkies]

Yes, they do. :)  The problem is a lot of my matches have their trees set to private, and even though I email them, they refuse to share information (mine is public outside of living individuals).  So I can't truly compare and I'm not sure what the point is in joining the test and taking other peoples' information, but refusing to reciprocate is about.  I have also found NO matches with my father's surname, so I'm really confused.  

 

I did the Mito test through National Genographic Project wayyyyy back when and got Haplogroup H-very generic European.  :lol: But I have found a lot of matches with people who are descended from my mother's known ancestors, so that is very neat.  

 

Has your husband tried the free databases on Ged Match?  According to my known genealogy (almost entirely documented on my maternal side going back 300 years), I should be nearly entirely from the UK on that side and my maternal grandfather's Y group is I1.  But I'm showing 15% or so Italian/Greek and a good percentage of Asian which doesn't make sense with what I know of my Dad's side. So I'm just really confused now!  I told my Mom there must have been a hospital mix up. :p

[shawthorne44]

... But I'm showing 15% or so Italian/Greek and a good percentage of Asian which doesn't make sense with what I know of my Dad's side. So I'm just really confused now!  I told my Mom there must have been a hospital mix up. :p

 

Well..., Dads who think they are the birth father are wrong 12% of the time.  That is based on a metastudy of a great many individual studies.  Even in the individual studies the percentage didn't vary that much.  It didn't vary by income, race or country studied.  Although, for obvious reasons western countries were more heavily studied.  So, there may have been a mixup but before the hospital.  

[displace]

I would love to do some research like this. I really liked regular ancestry.com but didn't have time to research what I wanted. I still don't but find it fascinating. I love that show who do you think you are ( or similar title?).

[Spryte]

Yes, they do. :)  The problem is a lot of my matches have their trees set to private, and even though I email them, they refuse to share information (mine is public outside of living individuals).  So I can't truly compare and I'm not sure what the point is in joining the test and taking other peoples' information, but refusing to reciprocate is about.  I have also found NO matches with my father's surname, so I'm really confused.  

 

I did the Mito test through National Genographic Project wayyyyy back when and got Haplogroup H-very generic European.  :lol: But I have found a lot of matches with people who are descended from my mother's known ancestors, so that is very neat.  

 

Has your husband tried the free databases on Ged Match?  According to my known genealogy (almost entirely documented on my maternal side going back 300 years), I should be nearly entirely from the UK on that side and my maternal grandfather's Y group is I1.  But I'm showing 15% or so Italian/Greek and a good percentage of Asian which doesn't make sense with what I know of my Dad's side. So I'm just really confused now!  I told my Mom there must have been a hospital mix up. :p

 

What a bummer that people are not sharing.  We got so much info - it was overwhelming.  Interspersed with stories and family histories, and ... just too much to process, really.  I wonder if there's someone else you can contact?  

 

On the surname, doesn't that usually follow the y chromosome, so your brother (if you have one) might find those matches, or your father, but not you?  That was my understanding.  

 

Do you know if you might have adoptions in your history?  That might affect your ancestry info, too.  And, of course, there's the "who's the birthfather" stuff that happens.  :)

 

We haven't tried the Ged Match site, I think DH ended up feeling overwhelmed by all the info, in fact, he still gets so much info, and I'm not sure he reads it all, just sort of looks and thinks, "Oh, there's more!"  ... I think this is in part because he did the test to get heritage answers while his adoption was closed.  Once he had those answers, then had them confirmed by birthfamily - he sort of had the info he wanted.  

 

I might be able to find out what groups he uses, and pm you some info.  Maybe some of the Family Tree stuff can be used with your tests.  I would imagine so.  

[Woodland Mist Academy]

In some places it was common for adoptions to be unofficial, especially within the family. That adds to the trickiness. Sometimes adoptions were secrets the children didn't find out about until adulthood, if then!

[mommymilkies]

. 

 

[Spryte]

I will ask DH to forward me some info on his groups, so I can pm it to you.  :)  

 

Has your father had any dna testing done?  That might answer some questions quickly, though he may not want to do it.  Not everyone does.  My own father didn't want to do it, though I'm not sure exactly why.  There are plenty of unofficial adoptions on his side of the family, I think, so the results would have been interesting.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[PeacefulChaos]

This is fascinating. I have never really looked into it because I wasn't sure of the accuracy... But I'd be very interested to find out more, as I only know my maternal biological family!!

[mommymilkies]

I will ask DH to forward me some info on his groups, so I can pm it to you.   :)

 

Has your father had any dna testing done?  That might answer some questions quickly, though he may not want to do it.  Not everyone does.  My own father didn't want to do it, though I'm not sure exactly why.  There are plenty of unofficial adoptions on his side of the family, I think, so the results would have been interesting.

Great! Thanks!

 

I don't think he would.  

[mommymilkies]

A good source for people interested in this: http://dna-explained.com/2013/06/02/the-autosomal-me-summary-and-pdf-file/

 

Especially this one: http://dna-explained.com/2013/03/03/the-autosomal-me-rooting-around-in-the-weeds-using-third-party-tools/

[Χά�ων]

this is all very fascinating thank u for shearing I'm going to have looking the bus

[mommymilkies]

Interpretome is back up, too!  It's been down for awhile.  http://esquilax.stanford.edu

[DawnM]

I have done the 23andme.com test and plan to do the Ancestry.com one soon.

[Kathryn]

What is the reasoning behind doing multiple tests?

[helena]

I did the 23andme. It was fun to see the results! I've always called myself Mexican and Irish and that's basically what it showed. My mom's side is purely Irish/English, on my dads side I come from everywhere else on the planet (except India and Australia). :) More or less, you know. Mexico really is a melting pot! Haha!

 

It cleared up some racial questions I've always had. 

I was surprised by the asian part, but mostly by my itty bitty dash of Yakut!! I told my girls that this fall's go to look is going to be all about reindeer herder chic.  :lol: They'll be seeing faux fur, shamanistic accessories, and lined boots. I've been working my Yakut! 

 

It made me feel glad to be alive as the result of people all over the world. :)

[DawnM]

For me it is to find more relatives.  I was adopted.

 

My genealogy shows I am assumed to be 79% Irish/English and the rest is undetermined Western European.  (if you don't have a father/brother/male who has taken the test, and you are female, it can only definitively tell you your mother's line.)

 

Dawn

 

 

What is the reasoning behind doing multiple tests?

 

[Χά�ων]

For me it is to find more relatives.  I was adopted.

 

My genealogy shows I am assumed to be 79% Irish/English and the rest is undetermined Western European.  (if you don't have a father/brother/male who has taken the test, and you are female, it can only definitively tell you your mother's line.)

 

Dawn

What about son?

[mommymilkies]

What is the reasoning behind doing multiple tests?

23andMe, Family Tree, and Ancestry are the big autosomal tests and they each actually have different numbers of SNPs they test for.  I think Ancestry's is up to 700,000, but I will have to double check.  Plus the way they interpret it is different.  Check this page for examples. Also, price.  I got my last Ancestry tests (for family) for $46 including shipping, on sale.  The other two testers are much more expensive.  I partly chose Ancestry's also because it links to Ancestry.com trees which helps with my genealogy search and ancestry has a huge database.  

 

The other testing places I've mentioned also seen here are free or very cheap ($5 or donations) and compare to scientific journals (Promethease) to help with medical questions, just fun/Neandertal genes (Interpretome), or match to other testers outside of your testing company and see more detailed software programs for ancestry results by geography (Ged Match).  So if you test at Ancestry, you can download the raw data and upload it to another free program for more info. :)

[mommymilkies]

For me it is to find more relatives.  I was adopted.

 

My genealogy shows I am assumed to be 79% Irish/English and the rest is undetermined Western European.  (if you don't have a father/brother/male who has taken the test, and you are female, it can only definitively tell you your mother's line.)

 

Dawn

That's not necessarily true.  A Y-DNA test would not work for a female who only has two X chromosomes.  But a female can do an X-DNA test, mitochondrial test (direct female ancestors), and autosomal test.  Autosomal tests are the ones I've referenced above that can be done by female or male and show you both sides as they reference your autosomal DNA.

[Kathryn]

It can't tell maternal vs. paternal lines though right? So instead of doing one of our children, DH and I would each have to do it if we wanted to know our own?

[mommymilkies]

Yes.  It's a sort of random mixture of your genes, so it's entirely possible you can have something like Cherokee ancestry and it not come up because it's been a couple generations and you just happened to not get those certain gene mutations to mark them out.  It's not extremely likely, but possible.  So to know which of the mutations/genes/SNPs you got from one side of the family, you'd have to rule out the other.  My mother took her test, so once the results are in, it will tell me which did NOT come from her, so process of elimination show me about what I can expect from my paternal line.  Y-DNA will tell you direct male ancestry, mito will show you direct female.  Autosomal will NOT tell you which side unless you test your family.  Some of these sites even have where you can insert the two tests to compare and show which you have in common.  Ged Match is a good one for that.

[DawnM]

ACK, I still don't understand all those terms.

 

 

That's not necessarily true.  A Y-DNA test would not work for a female who only has two X chromosomes.  But a female can do an X-DNA test, mitochondrial test (direct female ancestors), and autosomal test.  Autosomal tests are the ones I've referenced above that can be done by female or male and show you both sides as they reference your autosomal DNA.

 

[mommymilkies]

ACK, I still don't understand all those terms.

:lol:   I spent hours this week staring at the admixture programs and explanations and I'm still totally confused. 

 

Female = X X

Male = X Y

 

Both have an X from the mother and so that can be traced back with what's called mitochondrial DNA.  So my Haplogroup H in my Mitochondria goes direct back over 5000 years ago to that DNA group.  

 

The Male only can trace his Y back from father to father to father through time the same as mitochondrial, but male instead.  Females can't do this because they don't have a Y chromosome. 

 

http://www.isogg.org/wiki/Autosomal_DNA

[DawnM]

I am not sure if that works or not.

 

What about son?

 

[Mom-ninja.]

Holy cow. That's a lot of research. Milkies, how about you just figure my stuff out for me?

[mommymilkies]

Holy cow. That's a lot of research. Milkies, how about you just figure my stuff out for me?

I can't even figure my own out.   :lol:

 

I think my job would be a little easier if my family had some better communication skills.

[rebbyribs]

:lol:   I spent hours this week staring at the admixture programs and explanations and I'm still totally confused. 

 

Female = X X

Male = X Y

 

Both have an X from the mother and so that can be traced back with what's called mitochondrial DNA.  So my Haplogroup H in my Mitochondria goes direct back over 5000 years ago to that DNA group.  

 

 

Not quite.  The mitochondrial DNA is not from the X chromosome, but it does trace your maternal line.  At conception, the egg cell is much bigger than the sperm cell and it contains all the machinery for growing and dividing to make new cells.  Part of that "machinery" is mitochondria, which are little organelles that contain their own DNA, separate from your 23 pairs of chromosomes.  Since mitochondria are generally passed down through the eggs and not the sperm, the mitochondrial DNA can be used to learn about the maternal line.

[rebbyribs]

What about son?

 

The son's Y-DNA will tell you about the son's father (the son's father's father's father's... line). It cannot tell you anything about the son's mother (or the son's maternal grandfather) because the son got his Y chromosome from his father.

[Farrar]

Dh did it and I found it to be...  a little dubious. For example, we know that he has Native American ancestry.  His grandmother's grandmother, who we have photos of, was Native American.  But the test came back no Native American.  And his grandfather's family immigrated from Italy.  They all had Italian names.  Dh has a very Italian name.  We know that's his ancestry.  But the test came back that he had almost no southern European/Italian ancestry.  I think it was something like less than 5%.  The whole thing just struck me as very odd.

[rebbyribs]

I have done 23andMe and am waiting on results from Ancestry DNA.  My mom is estranged from her family (for good reasons), so I didn't know much about them and had been afraid to ask my mom much and dredge up a lot of bad memories for her.

 

My most interesting 23andMe results were:

(1) I'm 3.7% Neanderthal, which is in the 99th percentile for people of Northern European descent.

(2) I was contacted by someone who is a 3rd cousin once removed.  I knew that my mom's family was from the same part of the country as her family, but the only other thing I could tell her about that side was my mom's maiden name.  She figured out how we were related and showed me the family tree for that branch.

(3) I found out that fraternal twins run in that branch of the family.  This was especially amusing for me because when I found out I was carrying twins and shared the news with my mom, her reaction was, "Well, twins don't run in my family!"   :laugh:

[mommymilkies]

Dh did it and I found it to be...  a little dubious. For example, we know that he has Native American ancestry.  His grandmother's grandmother, who we have photos of, was Native American.  But the test came back no Native American.  And his grandfather's family immigrated from Italy.  They all had Italian names.  Dh has a very Italian name.  We know that's his ancestry.  But the test came back that he had almost no southern European/Italian ancestry.  I think it was something like less than 5%.  The whole thing just struck me as very odd.

The Native American-there is a very shallow DNA sample group from Native American populations.  Also, I hate to say it but some were not actually Native American.  Like some that people call Melungeons around Appalachia that have been shown to be more Portugese than anything.  The Native American testing is definitely still being refined.  If you look at the above third party tests, you might find much better ways of refining the test.  As for Italian-lots of immigrants and travelers out that way.  It's not terribly uncommon for "very" seemingly pure lines to not be so at all, or for there to have been adoptions or infidelity that watered it down.  I'd try the third party testing. 

 

Also, Ancestry drastically changed their results from all tests a few months ago, so I'd recheck. :)

 

Not quite.  The mitochondrial DNA is not from the X chromosome, but it does trace your maternal line.  At conception, the egg cell is much bigger than the sperm cell and it contains all the machinery for growing and dividing to make new cells.  Part of that "machinery" is mitochondria, which are little organelles that contain their own DNA, separate from your 23 pairs of chromosomes.  Since mitochondria are generally passed down through the eggs and not the sperm, the mitochondrial DNA can be used to learn about the maternal line.

Doh!  I was getting my explanations screwed up.  I was thinking about the new X-choromosome tests they now have, as well.  

[Ravin]

Not quite.  The mitochondrial DNA is not from the X chromosome, but it does trace your maternal line.  At conception, the egg cell is much bigger than the sperm cell and it contains all the machinery for growing and dividing to make new cells.  Part of that "machinery" is mitochondria, which are little organelles that contain their own DNA, separate from your 23 pairs of chromosomes.  Since mitochondria are generally passed down through the eggs and not the sperm, the mitochondrial DNA can be used to learn about the maternal line.

 

In future generations this might be less useful for giving ancestry information than it is now:

 

http://www.nature.com/news/dna-swap-technology-almost-ready-for-fertility-clinic-1.11651

 

Or, when it's done you can just think of it as a child having a third (lesser contributing) genetic parent.

[shawthorne44]

This is probably a stupid question, but here goes.  When pregnant with DD, we had an amnio.  So, somewhere there are test results with DD's DNA numbers, right?  Would this be sufficient to submit to one of these?  I am curious what she got from DH.  His family has been in America for a LONG time, sometimes wealthy sometimes poor, so likely an interesting hodge-podge.  

[Liz CA]

Wow. This would be very interesting. What is the procedure and cost?

[mommymilkies]

This is probably a stupid question, but here goes.  When pregnant with DD, we had an amnio.  So, somewhere there are test results with DD's DNA numbers, right?  Would this be sufficient to submit to one of these?  I am curious what she got from DH.  His family has been in America for a LONG time, sometimes wealthy sometimes poor, so likely an interesting hodge-podge.  

Probably not.  You need specific file types for the third party databases and the "big" companies want you to use their tests. 

 

Procedure and cost-I think spit or a cheek swab for all three.  Ancestry's you just spit in a little tube and mail it back in the prepaid mailer box.  I'm assuming it's similar for the others.  They just had a sale for $49 (plus use code socialdna for a bigger discount!), which is 1/2 off.  I think the other two are $99/test plus shipping.