Some days, it seems nothing is as simple as it should be.

If you recall, I in my article, “Now What, 23andMe and the FDA,” one of my suggestions was to download your raw data file from 23andMe.  You can then upload it to both www.gedmatch.com and to Family Tree DNA.  This gives you the added benefit of fishing in multiple ponds, regardless of what happens to 23andMe relative to the FDA situation.

I also mentioned that I was having a customer support nightmare with 23andMe trying to figure out what was wrong with 3 of my 5 files that I downloaded.

GedMatch had not been accepting new file uploads for a couple weeks, so I couldn’t upload there, but I did attempt to upload them to Family Tree DNA, unsuccessfully.  I checked today, and they are accepting files again now.

I subsequently discovered that the problematic files were short a significant amount of data.  In some cases, in the past, the upload problem has been that the file in question was a build 36 file that had been downloaded earlier.  The solution, in that case, is easy, simply redownload the file from 23andMe and it will be in the current built format.

However, this was not the problem with these three files.  They were build 37 as confirmed by the header records in each file.

You can see in an earlier file, downloaded in 2009, my data was in build 36 format.

Finally after 2 very frustrating weeks working with their customer support, 23andMe confirmed that indeed, the 3 files in question were not the same length as the other 2 files, and that they were an earlier version of their product, known as v2.  This information, unfortunately, was not reflected in their product revision history, shown below.

August 9th, 2012. We updated our database to report SNP positions using the NCBI Build 37 (also known as Annotation Release 104) genome assembly. Users will see changes in their raw data positions. Read more here.

September 29th, 2011. Analysis of our data has allowed us to improve the interpretation of several SNPs. In the next week, customers may see changes in their raw data.

January 13, 2011. We updated our database to incorporate data from a more recent build of dbSNP. Some rsids have changed location and/or flanking sequence in dbSNP such that our probes are no longer meaningful to assay them. The names of these rsids have been changed in the raw data to internal ids starting with “i499…”. We have also improved the interpretation of a number of SNPs and removed others that had poor data quality. In the next couple of days, customers may see changes in calls for those SNPs.

March 25, 2010. Analysis of our data has allowed us to improve the interpretation of several dozen SNPs. A portion of the SNPs are on the mitochondrial chromosome. In the next couple of days, customers may see changes in calls for those SNPs.

October 8, 2009. Analysis of our data has allowed us to improve the interpretation of over 1500 SNPs. A portion of the SNPs are on the mitochondrial chromosome. In the next couple of days, customers may see changes in calls for those SNPs.

June 4, 2009. Analysis of our data has allowed us to improve the interpretation of over 500 SNPs. Most of these SNPs are on the Y chromosome. In the next couple of days, customers will see calls for SNPs that previously had a no-call or appeared not genotyped.

April 9, 2009. Analysis of our data has allowed us to improve the interpretation of 10 SNPs: rs4420638, rs34276300, rs3091244, rs34601266, rs2033003, rs7900194, rs9332239, rs28371685, rs1229984, and rs28399504. In the next couple of days, some customers will see calls for SNPs that previously had a no-call or appeared not genotyped.

In late 2010, 23andMe added functionality to their product that included, among other things, Alzheimer’s risk information.  I was particularly interested in this information, so even though I had tested on an earlier platform, v2, at that time, I updated to the v3 test.

In December 2010, 23andMe began using the v3 chip, so everyone who tested after December 2010 will be on the v3 chip platform.  If you tested in December 2010, you might be on either one.   If you’re on the v3 chip, no worries.  If you are on the pre-December 2010 v2 chip, your data will not be able to be uploaded to Family Tree DNA because of compatibility issues.  Family Tree DNA utilizes significantly more SNP locations, over 700,000 in total, which is 125,000 more than the v2 23andMe file.

However, GedMatch continues to accept v2 files according to site creator, John Olson.   Keep in mind that GedMatch is a free (donation based) volunteer site run by two project administrators, so when they get overwhelmed with file uploads, they shut the gate for a week or two as a means of preserving their sanity.  They are accepting files again as of today.

For me, this means I have two files uploaded to GedMatch, an earlier v2 file and now a later v3 file as well.  It will be interesting to see the differences between the matches to the two files.

In any case, if your results are v2 at 23andMe, you will have to retest to join the Family Tree DNA customer pool because the earlier 23andMe files can’t be used.

It’s relatively easy to tell whether your file is v2 or v3..  After downloading your file from 23andMe, if your zipped file is about 5K or smaller, it’s v2, while v3 files will be about 8K.  If you open the files and download them from Notepad to Excel, a v2 file will have about 575,000 rows in the spreadsheet, where the v3 file will have about 950,000.

Now that we’ve said all of that, we’re not even going to speculate about what the v4 chip that 23andMe is planning will do.  It’s not getting larger, it’s getting smaller again…so compatibility bets are off…that is….if there is a v4.  If 23andMe doesn’t get squared away with the FDA, it’s a moot point, which brings us back to why we were downloading our files in the first place.

During and after the 9^th Conference hosted by Family Tree DNA in Houston, TX November 8-10, several administrators collectively submitted a list of “wants and needs” that the genetic genealogy community felt could improve their experience and Family Tree DNA’s product.  A small team worked diligently together afterward to refine the plans and help prioritize.  Today, the fruits are already ripening on the tree.  Thank you Family Tree DNA!!!

During the conference, Bennett Greenspan said he was committing “whatever resources it takes,” followed by a groan (his), and the statement “I can’t believe I just said that.”  Of course, all of us heard it…and Family Tree DNA is indeed coming through, very quickly.  Two weeks ago there were some changes and additions, and again, today, more.

I’m personally very glad to see the common matches ”crossover” link on the main screen now as well as the much requested,”download all matches,” item 6 below.

Here’s a note from Bennett Greenspan about today’s six new features.

Today we are releasing some great updates that were requested during our 9th International Conference on Genetic Genealogy.  Here is a quick summary with some screen shots of what to expect.

1. The timeout for myFTDNA has been increased from 30 min to 2 hrs.  This will benefit everyone but will especially be appreciated by our Group Admins when they are impersonating into a kit.

2. Changed the word “Triangulation” to “Common Matches” for Family Finder matching.

3. Instead of using the word “Steps” on the matching pages we will now use “Genetic Distance.”  This will effect both the Y-DNA and mtDNA matching pages.

4. Fixed the Interactive Tour.  It was getting stuck at the Family Finder section but will now complete.

5. Updated the Profile Pop up on matching pages with a new design and restored the “About Me” section and badges.  This profile is available on all matching pages:  Y-DNA, mtDNA, Family Finder, and Advanced Matching.

6. Added the ability for a user to download chromosome browser data for all of their matches.  This new option is towards the top right side of the chromosome browser page and will be in Excel format.

I recommended a couple of days ago that everyone contact their matches at 23andMe and make sure, at least, that they have your e-mail in light of the current situation with the FDA deadline occurring about mid-month.  It looks like the genealogy data is safe for the time being, hopefully, but I didn’t know that when I started.

I wrote a nice message, including at least some genealogy information of course, and set out to do the same thing, and it has taken the better part of 4 days.  No, I’m not kidding.  I have 1030 matches.  Let me say, this was not fun.

The most frustrating part for me is that it really doesn’t have to be this difficult.  Think of it this way, all of this effort was just to get to the point where you start out with Family Tree DNA matches.

When you receive a match at Family Tree DNA, you can contact them without sending a request to match, and you already have their e-mail (the blue envelope box by the pink graphic, above,) and they already have yours.  So the effort expended this past 4 days, just in case 23andMe’s messaging system (i.e. entire website) disappears in light of 23andMe’s FDA issues was spent to get to common ground with Family Tree DNA.  Until I had 1030 people to contact, this difference didn’t seem terribly important, but believe me, it is, especially when those 1000 matches are whittled to one third that number by non-responses.  At Family Tree DNA, 1000 matches are 1000 matches, not 1000 maybes.  As you can see below, at 23andMe, many, many introduction requests go unanswered.  Those would be reflected in all of the blank spaces above “male” and “female” where a name shows after an introduction has been accepted, shown below.

If you have already invited people to communicate with you at 23andMe, and they haven’t replied, you have to go through the extra steps of cancelling that first invitation and then re-inviting them.  Public Matches?  You have to invite them differently.  So let’s look at it this way, every invitation is a minimum of 5 clicks, that’s if you don’t have to look at anything else in the process, and 1030 people times 5 clicks is 5150 clicks and then another hundred or so that I have to be uninvited to be invited, so maybe another 500 clicks.  Public matches are another 5 clicks, so that’s another 1270 for a total of almost 7000 clicks.    Let’s just say this system was never designed with the genealogist in mind, or even with anyone nearby with any genealogical experience.  The more I use it, the more I dislike it.

There is, however, a good news aspect.  I did contact everyone – which I should have done before, and now they have my e-mail if they want it, now or in the future.  The bad news is that the response rate is just painfully low, which is why I got frustrated and stopped contacting people several months ago.

So let’s look at some raw data.

23andMe cuts off your matches at 1000, meaning your lowest matches fall off the list, unless you have outstanding invitations or communications.  In that case, those people who would otherwise fall off the list if they weren’t sharing or had some form of communications are preserved.  Hence, my 1030 matches instead of 1000.

Of those, 683 matches received first time new invitations, along with about 100 or so re-invitations and 254 Public Match invites.  I had last invited new matches in August.  It’s worth noting that I had not received any match invitations myself in this timeframe.

When someone receives an invitation, they can do one of 4 things.

1. Ignore it and do nothing (this is what most do)
2. Decline the invitation (they could simply opt out of genealogy matching instead)
3. Accept the invitation for contact, but not share any DNA information
4. Accept the invitation with DNA sharing

I only have 4 outright declines, but 14 people accepted the intro, but declined to share any DNA information.  Clearly their goals are not connecting through genealogy/genetics.

I currently have 365 people sharing in total.  Of those, 254 are public matches, meaning 111 others actually accepted a contact request and are sharing genomes, about 10%.

It appears that Public Matches are already sharing genomes with you, because there is no link to invite them to do so, but they aren’t.  You have to invite public matches in an entirely different, and not obvious, way.

To invite a Public Match to share, click on their name, in this case the name is “My Uncle.”.

You will then see their profile page.  At the top, you’ll see one of two messages.  One is “Why can’t I invite this user to share genomes?” and the other is “Invite My Uncle to share genomes.”  If you get the invite message. click and invite.  If you get the “why can’t I” message, you’re dead in the water.  By the way, the answer to why can’t I is because either you’ve invited them before and the invitation is still outstanding, you’re already sharing (duh) or they have blocked all share requests.  Many Public Matches have blocked share requests.

In total, between public matches and those who have opted to accept a share invitation, I can actually send a message to about 35% of my matches, but only hear from or share with less than one third of those, or about 10%..

Of those 365, I’ve actually received a reply message from 91 people, or about 25%.  I’m not counting another 10 people or so who are my close cousins, which would bring the total to just over 100.  I communicated with them before they tested.  In total, that also is about 10% of the total matches.

I sent a different, individual message to each of the people already sharing with me, depending on what we have previously discussed.

Of my 1030 matches, there are about 100 people, 10%, that actually communicated with me after hours and hours of inviting.   This includes all communications, from 2009 through today, not just new contacts.  This tells me that most people at 23andMe simply are not interested in genealogy and of those who are, most are just minimally interested..

Several people were very nice, but simply said that they didn’t know much about their family or were adopted.  I tried to help these folks as much as I could.

I have to laugh, several said they had to ask their mother, and a few more said they had to ask their grandmother.  My grandmothers were born in 1874 and 1888, respectively, but I digress…..

The 23and Me crowd is clearly not the normal genealogy crowd, but that’s exactly why we fish in different pools.  Maybe we can recruit some new genealogists!

I did have some genealogy success.  One woman has done genealogy for 54 years, and although we did not connect our family lines, working with her was a breath of fresh air.  I also ran into two seasoned genetic genealogists that are well known in the community who provided information on their family members.

I do have a half dozen positive connections where we were able to identify a common ancestor or a common line, and a few more that I think would be positive if we could nail down their genealogy, based on location.  In total, about 1% of the matches with a 2% potential with some added elbow grease.  My very endogamous Brethren, Mennonite and Acadian ancestors continue to haunt me by providing me with connections that are traceable to those groups, but not to individual ancestors.  That’s what happens when people intermarry for generations and just pass the same DNA around and around.  But even so, knowing that much is helpful.

So, is it worth 4 days of time to communicate with 90 people you’re related to, and to try to communicate with another 900+ that you’re related to but who aren’t interested in genealogy?  I guess that depends on your goals.  For me, yes, because if this opportunity disappears (meaning if the 23andMe database disappears,) I now have as much information, for the most part, that could be retrieved out of this resource at this time.  Hopefully it won’t disappear, but if it does, I’m ready, or as ready as I can get under the circumstances.  Having said that, 23andMe made the process much more difficult than it had to be and the actual success rate of 1-2% is terribly low for the amount of effort expended.

And maybe, just maybe, since I’m apparently a glutton for punishment, now that I’m finished with this,  I’ll go over to Family Tree DNA and send e-mails to the rest of my 490 matches there.  That might be useful.  At least I don’t have to send invitations first.

Or better yet, I could practice self-flagellation by going over to Ancestry where there is another message system and no genetic tools and try to contact my 5,950 cousins, only six of which are third cousins, none closer, and the rest of which are more distant.  Nah…..I think I’d rather clean the bathroom….

This article really should be called “Identifying Prodigal Great-Grandpa by Ancestor Mapping Your Chromosomes,” because that’s what we’re going to be doing.  It’s fun to map your ancestors to your chromosomes, but there is also a purpose and benefit to be derived.  So you can have guilt-free fun because you’re being productive too!  Oh, and yes, you can work on finding Prodigal Great-Grandpa.

I constantly receive questions similar to this:

“How can I find the identity of my mother’s mother’s father?  My great-grandmother went to her grave with this secret.  That’s one eighth of my ancestry.  What can I do?  How can I find out?”

The answer is that it’s not easy, but it is sometimes possible.  Note the word sometimes.  A good part of the definition of “sometimes” is how willing you are to do the requisite work and if you are lucky or not.  Luck favors those who work hard.  And let’s face it, you’ll never know if you don’t try.  I mean, Prodigal Great-Grandpa is not going to text you from the other side with his name and date of birth.

What we’re going to do is basically work through a process of elimination.  The term for what we are going to do is called chromosome mapping your ancestors or more simply, chromosome mapping or ancestor mapping. In essence, you are going to map your own chromosomes based on which ancestor contributed that part of your DNA.

I have simplified this process greatly in order to explain the concept in a way you can easily follow.  I’m going to use my own pedigree chart as an example.  We’ll pretend we don’t know the identity of Curtis Benjamin Lore.  And yes, for those of you wondering, all of these people are deceased.

I realize that you are going to have more than the 32 autosomal matches shown on my example spreadsheet.  You’re also not going to be able to find common ancestry with many of your matches due to things like dead ends, incorrect ancestry, segments identical by state (IBS) or DNA that comes from older ancestors that is not recognizable today after name changes in many generations when descended through females.  There are lots of reasons why you might not be able to find genealogy matches.  It’s the other matches, the ones where you can decipher and determine your common ancestor that help a great deal, and that is where we’ll focus.  These are the ones that matter and the keys to identifying Prodigal Great-Grandpa.

In my example here, we live in a perfect world.  We are looking to map the DNA of my 8 great-grandparents in order to figure out the identity of mother’s mother’s father.  Of course, there is no Y-DNA to test in this instance, so we must rely on autosomal DNA.  Ok, so maybe it’s not such a perfect world.  In a perfect world, you’d be a male trying to find the identity of your father’s father’s father and you could test your own Y-DNA – but then we wouldn’t have a good story nor would we need autosomal DNA.  And most people aren’t that fortunate.

Three generations isn’t that far back – or four – if you count yourself as the first generation.  If you’re quite lucky, you can test one or both of your parents, and maybe even a grandparent or great-aunt or uncle.  Failing that, you should be able to find some cousins from your various lines to test.  This entire exercise will be much MUCH easier for you if you can test multiple people descended from each of the 4 couples involved because you’ll be able to tell which lines your matches do, and don’t, match based on which cousins they also match.  Take DNA test kits to family reunions!

Obviously, you won’t be able to test anyone directly descended from your unknown great-grandfather, except perhaps his children.  The more of his children you can test, either directly or through their children, if deceased, the better your chance of identifying your Prodigal Great-Grandfather because each child inherits some different DNA from their parents.  In my case, we’re going to presume that there are no other known children, other than my grandmother.  So how do we find Prodigal Great-Grandpa?

First, download all of your matches with corresponding segment data from your testing vendor, either 23andMe or Family Tree DNA, into a spreadsheet.  Ancestry does not allow you to do this, which is a significant drawback in terms of testing at Ancestry.  You can do this today at 23andMe and at Family Tree DNA most easily by utilizing www.dnagedcom.com download software.  You can also do this directly at Family Tree DNA on the Chromosome Browser page.

Your spreadsheet will look something like this, but without the colors.  That’s what you’ll be adding, along with the Common Ancestor column.

Step 1 – Identify a common ancestor with those individuals you match on common DNA segments.  This is really two steps, the common ancestor part, and the common DNA segment part.  If these people are on your match list, we already know you have a common DNA segment over the vendor’s match threshold.  The presumption here is that if you have 3 people that match on the same segment from the same ancestor, that’s a confirmed “yes” that this particular DNA segment is descended from that ancestor.  You can also label these with only two confirmed descendants from the same ancestor, but I like to see three to be sure, especially if here is any doubt whatsoever that you’re dealing with the same ancestral family.  For example, if you are dealing with 2 people who carry the same surname from the same location, but you can’t quite find the common ancestor – you’ll need 3 matches to identify this segment.

In this case, I was able to test cousins so I know that on chromosome 1, Sue, Joe and John all match me on the same segment and they are all descended from Lazarus Estes.  I know this because one of them descends from Lazarus Estes and his wife, Elizabeth Vannoy, but the other two, Joe and John descend from an Estes upstream of Lazarus, let’s say, his father, John Y. Estes, through another child, which allows me to positively identify this segment as coming not just from the couple, Lazarus Estes and Elizabeth Vannoy, but from Lazarus specifically.

I’ve colored this segment mustard to represent Lazarus and so that you can visually see the difference between the 8 ancestors we’re working with.

2.  Repeat the same process with your other matches, hopefully utilizing cousins, to identify DNA segments of your other ancestors.  I’m only showing a very small subset of all of my DNA on my spreadsheet, and all matches are the exact same 10,000 cM blocks and only on one chromosome, for illustration purposes, but as you work through your matches, you’ll be able to color more and more of your DNA and assign it to different ancestral couples.  Each of your chromosomes will have different colors as different parts of each chromosome come from different ancestors.

Kitty Cooper released a tool to utilize AFTER you do this hard grunt-work part that paints a pretty picture of your ancestors mapped on to your various chromosomes.  Here’s her example.  Notice that each chromosome has 2 sides, Mom’s and Dad’s inheritance side.  We’re going to use that to our advantage and it’s one facet of how we’re going to find Prodigal Great-Grandpa .

In my case (not this example), I have several segments that I can’t identify to a particular couple, but I can assign it to a group.  This is my Acadian group and is terribly admixed because of extensive intermarriage.  I also have a “Mennonite” segment labeled in the same way for the same reason.  So while I don’t know specifically who, I do know where and that helps a lot too.  But in our perfect world in our example, we don’t have any of that.

3. Now that I have most of my genome colored in and assigned to ancestors, except for Prodigal Great-Grandpa, I can see where all new matches fall.  Let’s say I get a new match on chromosome 1 in the segments between 10,000 and 20,000 and they also match Sue, Joe and John.  Even if the new match is an adoptee and has no genealogy, I can tell them which line they descend from.  And let me tell you, there is no greater gift.  This is exactly how we told new cousin Loujean she descended from the Younger line.

However, if someone matches me on this chromosome 1 segment but NOT Sue, Joe and John, since Sue,Joe, John and I all match on the entire segment from 10,000-20,000, then the new match has to be matching me on my other parent’s side (or is IBS – identical by state, a circumstantial match.)  Never forget that you have two “sides” to each chromosome – Mom’s and Dad’s (except for the X chromosome in males which we are not addressing here.)

4.  The only part of my match spreadsheet left uncolored, since this is a perfect world, would be the part that would probably come from my Prodigal Great-Grandfather.  So let’s look at chromosome 8 and map it.

What we don’t know, and have to determine, is whether or not some of these parts of chromosome 8 really belong to ancestors identified in color above.  However, remember that we are dealing with fairly close matches, only 3 generations, and in some cases, only 2 generations, depending on which cousins tested.  So let’s say you found several cousins to test because grandma had a large family.  Based on the test results of several of your aunts and uncles along with other people descended from great-grandma’s ancestral lines, you are able to map most of the DNA of your great-grandmother.  In this case, we mapped this segment of chromosome 8 to my three cousins, Derrell, Darrell and Daryl.  (Yes, I really do have those cousins.)

The result is that now I have 8 matches that do match me, and based on other cousin matches, do descend from Great-Grandma/Great-Grandpa but don’t match the Derrell trio indicating Great-Grandma’s line.  What this tells me is that the people who aren’t assigned, because they don’t match my cousins Derrell, Daryl and Darrel, or any other distant groups, must then be from Prodigal Great-Grandpa’s side or are “problem matches.”  Problem matches are those that are IBS (Identical by State) or have a technical issue and we’re not going to deal with that here, because this is a perfect world and we’re only concerned with people whose genealogy we have and that match each other.  By this definition, problem matches are automatically eliminated.  So let’s look at the 8 people above who don’t match me or the Derrell cousins on Great-Grandma’s/Great-Grandpa’s side, beginning with Bobbi and ending with Isabel.

5.  Now we turn to genealogy.  We know that these 8 people all share a common ancestral line with Prodigal Great-Grandpa, we just don’t know who that is.  Let’s say that of this group, we discover that Bobbi, Harold and Buster are all related to each other, and glory be, they all know who their common ancestor is, or at least the common ancestral line.  Let’s say that Bobbi and Buster are first cousins in the Lore line and that Harold matches them closely as well, but he is descended from a Lore ancestor further upstream from Bobbi and Buster.  Therefore, we can now say, positively, that Prodigal Great-Grandpa descended somehow from the Lore line.

We still don’t know how Sarah, Ronald, Garret, Nina and Isabel connect to Prodigal Great-Grandpa, and that’s OK.  We can simply leave them uncolored for now.  We can select a color for Bobbi, Harold and Buster and assign then to Prodigal Great-Grandpa who descends from the Lore line.

6.  Now it’s time for that luck to kick in.  We don’t know that Prodigal Great-Grandpa carried the surname Lore.  His mother could have been a Lore, or any of his ancestors.  All we have is a common surname and a common ancestor between three people who all match me on the same segment.  So, let’s assemble a tree of our cousins to see if we can narrow the scope of maybe who and where and then let’s get busy with the census and other records.  Geography is important.  Begatting requires proximity and many times, we can find the begatter in the neighborhood.  Also, check your genealogy software data base for this surname.  You may find the surname in an allied line.  Remember, families married their neighbors and often intermarried as well.

Sure enough, look there, in our perfect world, we discover that Nora Kirsch is working in her parents inn named the Kirsch House on the Ohio River in 1880.  The Kirsch House was also a boarding house, and a restaurant and pub.  One of their boarders in 1880 was none other than Benjamin Lore.  Hmmm.  Surely makes you wonder.  Further research on Benjamin Lore shows that he was a wildcat oilfield well driller working in the county where Nora lived and became something of a local legend for discovering the “Blue Lick” water well.  Well, now we have a name, proximity and maybe an opportunity.

7.  Well, peachy, but what next?  Further research on Benjamin Lore shows that he was married in the census, but where was his wife?  In previous census records, we find Benjamin Lore in Warren County, PA with his parents.  In the Warren County records, we find that he married Mary Bills, and additional research shows in 1880 a Mary Lore with 2 children, but no husband.  Court records show they later divorced, with 4 children.  Find those children!!!  They are the key to confirming the identity of Benjamin Lore as Prodigal Great-Grandpa.  If Benjamin’s other children had children about the same time as grandmother, each line should have 3 generations between Benjamin and the current generation.  Benjamin’s great-grandchildren through his first wife would be half-second cousins to me which would be the same as second cousins once removed.  They of course would be a generation closer to my mother whose DNA I also happen to have.

ISOGG has a wonderful Autosomal DNA Statistics page, and here you can see that second cousins once removed would share about 1.5% of their DNA in what is hopefully a large enough segment to match some of the cousins that have already tested.   My mother’s generation, first cousins once removed would share approximately 6.25%.

Benjamin’s descendants through his first wife may not match all of my cousins, but they will, hopefully, match some of the descendants of Prodigal Great-Grandpa, confirming, as best we can, that Benjamin Lore was grandmother’s father.  The best litmus test of course is how closely they would match the closest generations, like mother or great-aunts/uncles, if they were living.

Full Disclosure Note:  I used my own ancestors for purposes of illustration, even though Curtis Benjamin Lore (shown at right) was not prodigal in quite the way I portrayed in this article, well, at least not from my family’s perspective.  However, he was no saint either and he may well have other descendants looking for him in this exact situation.  Aside from what we do know, there is the rumor of an illegitimate son showing up on his widow’s doorstep looking for him, albeit, a little too late.  We know that Curtis Benjamin (known as C.B.) Lore did marry Nora Kirsch in Dearborn County, Indiana, in 1888.  These photos are their “wedding photos” but interestingly, there is no photo of them together.

We also know that Curtis Benjamin Lore married Mary Bills in Warren County, PA., had four Lore children, 3 males (Sid, John Curtis and Herbert Judson Lore) and one female (Maud who married a Hendrickson), none of whom we have never been able to find.  Also, Curtis Benjamin Lore was not divorced from Mary until, ahem, after he was married to Nora Kirsch when Mary filed for divorce on the grounds of desertion.

Apparently, his marriage to Nora Kirsch (pictured at right) fell, literally, according to the secret family story, into the “shotgun” category, so one has to understand that his choice of marriage versus death was fairly defensible.  I’m sure Nora’s father, a crusty old Civil War veteran, had no idea that he was already married or Curtis Benjamin would have been on the business end of that shotgun and marriage would not have been a choice.

The family took great care that this “uncomfortable” shotgun marriage situation never be discovered, to the point of falsifying the marriage date in the family Bible and also by “adjusting” the birth of the child by a year, also recorded incorrectly in the family Bible.  Were it not for the fact that I checked the church records in Dearborn County, I would never have discovered the discrepancy.  A child cannot be baptized months before it is born.  I might note that it was only AFTER this discovery that my mother was forthcoming with the “family secret” about the shotgun wedding.  Birth certificates were not issued at that time and my grandmother’s delayed birth certificate was issued based on the falsified family Bible information.

Benjamin probably would not have been bothered by this revelation at all, given what we know about him, but I’m sure Nora’s parents rolled over in their grave once or twice when I made the discovery and now that I’m, ugh, discussing it, and publicly at that.

Rogues and handsome scoundrels.  They are colorful and interesting aren’t they and provide a great amount of spice for family stories.  Hopefully these tools will help you find yours!!!

Wow, today is a great day in genetic genealogy-land.  After the conference in Houston, which ended just a month ago today, a small group met with the Family Tree DNA team and explained what we, as users, need, and why.  We walked through lots of scenarios and everyone did a lot of explaining.  The whiteboard was full.  We were hopeful.

Bennett made a commitment, publicly, at the conference, to do whatever it took.  However, I never expected this feature, the Family Finder Match Matrix, which was very high on the priority list, to make it out the door this soon.  Less than one month later.  Hats off to the Family Tree DNA team!  YOU ROCK!!!

Why is this so important?  Because you have two halves to your chromosome, and there is no magic zipper to divide Mom’s half from Dad’s half.  So you’re going to match with people who come from Mom’s side, Dad’s side, and some who just happen to match because of random recombination.  The best way to figure this out is to see which of your matches match each other as well.

So, in a nutshell, here’s how this works.

• If your matches match you, but not your other matches as revealed in the “In Common With” feature, they are questionable matches.  To find who you match in common with one of your matches, use this crossover icon on your matches page:

• If your matches match you and each other, then they are very likely important genealogical matches.
• If your matches match you and each other, and you can identify the lineage based on which of your cousins or other family members they match, you’ve got a hugely valuable piece of information.  I discussed this in yesterday’s article, Chromosome Mapping aka Ancestor Mapping.

Here’s the release today from Family Tree DNA.  And even better news, they have promised to keep us apprised on new features to come ON A WEEKLY BASIS!!!

From Family Tree DNA:

Today, we are happy to release our new BETA Family Finder – Matrix page. The Matrix tool can tell you if two or more of your matches match each other. This is most useful when you discover matches with wholly or partly overlapping DNA segments on the Family Finder – Chromosome Browser page.

Due to privacy concerns, the suggested relationship of your two matches (if related) is not revealed. However, we can tell you whether they are related according to our Family Finder program. To use it, you select up to 10 names from the Match list on the left side of the page and add them to the Selected Matches list on the right side of the page. A grid will populate below the lists. It will indicate whether there is a match (a blue check mark) or there is not a match (an empty white tile).

You access the BETA Family Finder – Matrix page through the Family Finder menu in your myFTDNA account.

The page starts out with two list areas: Matches and Selected Matches. You add Matches to the Selected Matches list by clicking on a name and then on the Add button.

Here is a screenshot of the BETA Family Finder – Matches page with a few matches added to the Selected Matches list.

You can change the order of names in the matrix by clicking on a name and then either the Move Up or the Move Down button.

To remove someone from the Selected Matches list, click on their name and then the Remove button.

Recently, one of my cousins told me that she was utterly mystified by her results at Family Tree DNA.  I could tell that she was confused between Y line testing and autosomal testing and what each of them could, would or might do for her.  Because she was confused, she saw no value in testing.  Ouch!

These conversations distress me, greatly, especially when people don’t understand the value they do receive – because they tell other people.  I know that if people really do understand how to utilize these tools, they will only have good things to say about genetic genealogy and testing.  It has broken down so many walls for so many people.  Ironically, it’s how I found that cousin.

Genetic genealogy is a word of mouth field – and the more people who test and participate in the various data bases – the more answers will be found by all of us.

Given this, I am particularly pleased to see that Family Tree DNA has teamed up with Elise Friedman, of Relative Roots, to offer free educational webinars focused on the basics of genetic genealogy and how to understand and use your results.

The live webinars will be recorded and uploaded to any-time format after the live sessions.  I don’t know how long these will be available (in the past, about a month,) so if you are interested, do watch them now.  The first live session took place last week, and it’s available now as a recording.

I also understand that Family Tree DNA will be offering monthly educational Webinars, so stay tuned for more.

*Introduction to Family Tree DNA*

Any Time Recording

Registration: http://bit.ly/1cGd447

This FREE Online Seminar will help you learn the basics about Family Tree DNA’s Y-DNA, mtDNA and Family Finder (autosomal DNA) tests. Elise explains what each of these tests can tell you about your ancestry and how to decide which test to order based on your personal interests and goals. She shows the basics of personal myFTDNA account where all of your results are reported as well as example results from each test. Elise will also gives a brief overview of our group projects and other resources available at Family Tree DNA.

*Family Tree DNA Results Explained, Part 1: Y-DNA*

(Live) Thursday, 12/19/2013, 12pm Central (10am Pacific, 11am Mountain, 1pm  Eastern, 6pm GMT)

Registration: http://bit.ly/JCF4vn

In this information-packed webinar, Elise focuses on how to read and understand your Y-DNA results. Learn where to find your Y-DNA results in your personal myFTDNA account, how to read your Standard Y-STR Results and what they mean, how to analyze your Y-DNA matches, what your Y-DNA haplogroup means and much more. She also provides tips for making the most of your Family Tree DNA experience

*Family Tree DNA Results Explained, Part 2: mtDNA*

(Live) Monday, 12/23/2013, 12pm Central (10am Pacific, 11am Mountain, 1pm Eastern, 6pm GMT)

Registration: http://bit.ly/1kcnRqk

In this webinar, Elise focuses on how to read and understand your mtDNA results. Learn where to find your mtDNA results in your personal myFTDNA account, how to read your mtDNA Results page and what the results mean, how to analyze your mtDNA matches, what your mtDNA haplogroup means and much more.  She also provides tips for making the most of your Family Tree DNA experience.

Last year I wrote a column at the end of the year titled  “2012 Top 10 Genetic Genealogy Happenings.”  It’s amazing the changes in this industry in just one year.  It certainly makes me wonder what the landscape a year from now will look like.

I’ve done the same thing this year, except we have a dozen.  I couldn’t whittle it down to 10, partly because there has been so much more going on and so much change – or in the case of Ancestry, who is noteworthy because they had so little positive movement.

If I were to characterize this year of genetic genealogy, I would call it The Year of the SNP, because that applies to both Y DNA and autosomal.  Maybe I’d call it The Legal SNP, because it is also the year of law, court decisions, lawsuits and FDA intervention.  To say it has been interesting is like calling the Eiffel Tower an oversized coat hanger.

I’ll say one thing…it has kept those of us who work and play in this industry hopping busy!  I guarantee you, the words “I’m bored” have come out of the mouth of no one in this industry this past year.

I’ve put these events in what I consider to be relatively accurate order.  We could debate all day about whether the SNP Tsunami or the 23andMe mess is more important or relevant – and there would be lots of arguing points and counterpoints…see…I told you lawyers were involved….but in reality, we don’t know yet, and in the end….it doesn’t matter what order they are in on the list:)

Y Chromosome SNP Tsunami Begins

The SNP tsumani began as a ripple a few years ago with the introduction at Family Tree DNA of the Walk the Y program in 2007.  This was an intensively manual process of SNP discovery, but it was effective.

By the time that the Geno 2.0 chip was introduced in 2012, 12,000+ SNPs would be included on that chip, including many that were always presumed to be equivalent and not regularly tested.  However, the Nat Geo chip tested them and indeed, the Y tree became massively shuffled.  The resolution to this tree shuffling hasn’t yet come out in the wash.  Family Tree DNA can’t really update their Y tree until a publication comes out with the new tree defined.  That publication has been discussed and anticipated for some time now, but it has yet to materialize.  In the mean time, the volunteers who maintain the ISOGG tree are swamped, to say the least.

Another similar test is the Chromo2 introduced this year by Britain’s DNA which scans 15,000 SNPs, many of them S SNPs not on the tree nor academically published, adding to the difficulty of figuring out where they fit on the Y tree.  While there are some very happy campers with their Chromo2 results, there is also a great deal of sloppy science, reporting and interpretation of “facts” through this company.  Kind of like Jekyll and Hyde.  See the Sloppy Science section.

But Walk the Y, Chromo2 and Geno 2.0, are only the tip of the iceburg.  The new “full Y” sequencing tests brought into the marketspace quietly in early 2013 by Full Genomes and then with a bang by Family Tree DNA with the their Big Y in November promise to revolutionize what we know about the Y chromosome by discovering thousands of previously unknown SNPs.  This will in effect swamp the Y tree whose branches we thought were already pretty robust, with thousands and thousands of leaves.

In essence, the promise of the “fully” sequenced Y is that what we might term personal or family SNPs will make SNP testing as useful as STR testing and give us yet another genealogy tool with which to separate various lines of one genetic family and to ratchet down on the time that the most common recent ancestor lived.

http://dna-explained.com/2013/03/31/new-y-dna-haplogroup-naming-convention/

http://dna-explained.com/2013/11/10/family-tree-dna-announces-the-big-y/

http://dna-explained.com/2013/11/16/what-about-the-big-y/

http://www.yourgeneticgenealogist.com/2013/11/first-look-at-full-genomes-y-sequencing.html

http://cruwys.blogspot.com/2013/12/a-first-look-at-britainsdna-chromo-2-y.html

http://cruwys.blogspot.com/2013/11/yseqnet-new-company-offering-single-snp.html

http://cruwys.blogspot.com/2013/11/the-y-chromosome-sequence.html

http://cruwys.blogspot.com/2013/11/a-confusion-of-snps.html

http://cruwys.blogspot.com/2013/11/a-simplified-y-tree-and-common-standard.html

23andMe Comes Unraveled

The story of 23andMe began as the consummate American dotcom fairy tale, but sadly, has deteriorated into a saga with all of the components of a soap opera.  A wealthy wife starts what could be viewed as an upscale hobby business, followed by a messy divorce and a mystery run-in with the powerful overlording evil-step-mother FDA.  One of the founders of 23andMe is/was married to the founder of Google, so funding, at least initially wasn’t an issue, giving 23andMe the opportunity to make an unprecedented contribution in the genetic, health care and genetic genealogy world.

Another way of looking at this is that 23andMe is the epitome of the American Dream business, a startup, with altruism and good health, both thrown in for good measure, well intentioned, but poorly managed.  And as customers, be it for health or genealogy or both, we all bought into the altruistic “feel good” culture of helping find cures for dread diseases, like Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and cancer by contributing our DNA and responding to surveys.

The genetic genealogy community’s love affair with 23andMe began in 2009 when 23andMe started focusing on genealogy reporting for their tests, meaning cousin matches.  We, as a community, suddenly woke up and started ordering these tests in droves.  A few months later, Family Tree DNA also began offering this type of testing as well.  The defining difference being that 23andMe’s primary focus has always been on health and medical information with Family Tree DNA focused on genetic genealogy.  To 23andMe, the genetic genealogy community was an afterthought and genetic genealogy was just another marketing avenue to obtain more people for their health research data base.  For us, that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.

For awhile, this love affair went along swimmingly, but then, in 2012, 23andMe obtained a patent for Parkinson’s Disease.  That act caused a lot of people to begin to question the corporate focus of 23andMe in the larger quagmire of the ethics of patenting genes as a whole.  Judy Russell, the Legal Genealogist, discussed this here.  It’s difficult to defend 23andMe’s Parkinson’s patent while flaying alive Myriad for their BRCA patent.  Was 23andMe really as altruistic as they would have us believe?

Personally, this event made me very nervous, but I withheld judgment.  But clearly, that was not the purpose for which I thought my DNA, and others, was being used.

But then came the Designer Baby patent in 2013.  This made me decidedly uncomfortable.  Yes, I know, some people said this really can’t be done, today, while others said that it’s being done anyway in some aspects…but the fact that this has been the corporate focus of 23andMe with their research, using our data, bothered me a great deal.  I have absolutely no issue with using this information to assure or select for healthy offspring – but I have a personal issue with technology to enable parents who would select a “beauty child,” one with blonde hair and blue eyes and who has the correct muscles to be a star athlete, or cheerleader, or whatever their vision of their as-yet-unconceived “perfect” child would be.  And clearly, based on 23andMe’s own patent submission, that is the focus of their patent.

Upon the issuance of the patent, 23andMe then said they have no intention of using it.  They did not say they won’t sell it.  This also makes absolutely no business sense, to focus valuable corporate resources on something you have no intention of using?  So either they weren’t being truthful, they lack effective management or they’ve changed their mind, but didn’t state such.

What came next, in late 2013 certainly points towards a lack of responsible management.

23andMe had been working with the FDA for approval the health and medical aspect of their product (which they were already providing to consumers prior to the November 22^nd cease and desist order) for several years.  The FDA wants assurances that what 23andMe is telling consumers is accurate.  Based on the letter issued to 23andMe on November 22^nd, and subsequent commentary, it appears that both entities were jointly working towards that common goal…until earlier this year when 23andMe mysteriously “somehow forgot” about the FDA, the information they owed them, their submissions, etc.  They also forgot their phone number and their e-mail addresses apparently as well, because the FDA said they had heard nothing from them in 6 months, which backdates to May of 2013.

It may be relevant that 23andMe added the executive position of President and filled it in June of 2013, and there was a lot of corporate housecleaning that went on at that time.  However, regardless of who got housecleaned, the responsibility for working with the FDA falls squarely on the shoulders of the founders, owners and executives of the company.  Period.  No excuses.  Something that critically important should be on the agenda of every executive management meeting.   Why?  In terms of corporate risk, this was obviously a very high risk item, perhaps the highest risk item, because the FDA can literally shut their doors and destroy them.  There is little they can do to control or affect the FDA situation, except to work with the FDA, meet deadlines and engender goodwill and a spirit of cooperation.  The risk of not doing that is exactly what happened.

It’s unknown at this time if 23andMe is really that corporately arrogant to think they could simply ignore the FDA, or blatantly corporately negligent or maybe simply corporately stupid, but they surely betrayed the trust and confidence of their customers by failing to meet their commitments with and to the FDA, or even communicate with them.  I mean, really, what were they thinking?

There has been an outpouring of sympathy for 23andme and negative backlash towards the FDA for their letter forcing 23andMe to stop selling their offending medical product, meaning the health portion of their testing.  However, in reality, the FDA was only meting out the consequences that 23andMe asked for.  My teenage kids knew this would happen.  If you do what you’re not supposed to….X, Y and Z will, or won’t, happen.  It’s called accountability.  Just ask my son about his prom….he remembers vividly.  Now why my kids, or 23andMe, would push an authority figure to that point, knowing full well the consequences, utterly mystifies me.  It did when my son was a teenager and it does with 23andMe as well.

Some people think that the FDA is trying to stand between consumers and their health information.  I don’t think so, at least not in this case.  Why I think that is because the FDA left the raw data files alone and they left the genetic genealogy aspect alone.  The FDA knows full well you can download your raw data and for $5 process it at a third party site, obtaining health related genetic information.  The difference is that Promethease is not interpreting any data for you, only providing information.

There is some good news in this and that is that from a genetic genealogy perspective, we seem to be safe, at least for now, from government interference with the testing that has been so productive for genetic genealogy.  The FDA had the perfect opportunity to squish us like a bug (thanks to the opening provided by 23andMe,) and they didn’t.

The really frustrating aspect of this is that 23andMe was a company who, with their deep pockets in Silicon Valley and other investors, could actually afford to wage a fight with the FDA, if need be.  The other companies who received the original 2010 FDA letter all went elsewhere and focused on something else.  But 23andMe didn’t, they decided to fight the fight, and we all supported their decision.  But they let us all down.  The fight they are fighting now is not the battle we anticipated, but one brought upon themselves by their own negligence.  This battle didn’t have to happen, and it may impair them financially to such a degree that if they need to fight the big fight, they won’t be able to.

Right now, 23andMe is selling their kits, but only as an ancestry product as they work through whatever process they are working through with the FDA.  Unfortunately, 23andMe is currently having some difficulties where the majority of matches are disappearing from some testers records.  In other cases, segments that previously matched are disappearing.  One would think, with their only revenue stream for now being the genetic genealogy marketspace that they would be wearing kid gloves and being extremely careful, but apparently not.  They might even consider making some of the changes and enhancements we’ve requested for so long that have fallen on deaf ears.

One thing is for sure, it will be extremely interesting to see where 23andMe is this time next year.  The soap opera continues.

I hope for the sake of all of the health consumers, both current and (potentially) future, that this dotcom fairy tale has a happy ending.

Also, see the Autosomal DNA Comes of Age section.

http://dna-explained.com/2013/10/05/23andme-patents-technology-for-designer-babies/

http://www.thegeneticgenealogist.com/2013/10/07/a-new-patent-for-23andme-creates-controversy/

http://dna-explained.com/2013/11/13/genomics-law-review-discusses-designing-children/

http://www.thegeneticgenealogist.com/2013/06/11/andy-page-fills-new-president-position-at-23andme/

http://dna-explained.com/2013/11/25/fda-orders-23andme-to-discontinue-testing/

http://dna-explained.com/2013/11/26/now-what-23andme-and-the-fda/

http://dna-explained.com/2013/12/06/23andme-suspends-health-related-genetic-tests/

http://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog/2013/11/26/fooling-with-fda/

Supreme Court Decision – Genes Can’t Be Patented – Followed by Lawsuits

In a landmark decision, the Supreme Court determined that genes cannot be patented.  Myriad Genetics held patents on two BRCA genes that predisposed people to cancer.  The cost for the tests through Myriad was about $3000.  Six hours after the Supreme Court decision, Gene By Gene announced that same test for $995.  Other firms followed suit, and all were subsequently sued by Myriad for patent infringement.  I was shocked by this, but as one of my lawyer friends clearly pointed out, you can sue anyone for anything.  Making it stick is yet another matter.  Many firms settle to avoid long and very expensive legal battles.  Clearly, this issue is not yet resolved, although one would think a Supreme Court decision would be pretty definitive.  It potentially won’t be settled for a long time.

http://dna-explained.com/2013/06/13/supreme-court-decision-genes-cant-be-patented/

http://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog/2013/06/14/our-dna-cant-be-patented/

http://dna-explained.com/2013/09/07/message-from-bennett-greenspan-free-my-genes/

http://www.thegeneticgenealogist.com/2013/06/13/new-press-release-from-dnatraits-regarding-the-supreme-courts-holding-in-myriad/

http://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog/2013/08/18/testing-firms-land-counterpunch/

http://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog/2013/07/11/myriad-sues-genetic-testing-firms/

Gene By Gene Steps Up, Ramps Up and Produces

As 23andMe comes unraveled and Ancestry languishes in its mediocrity, Gene by Gene, the parent company of Family Tree DNA has stepped up to the plate, committed to do “whatever it takes,” ramped up the staff both through hiring and acquisitions, and is producing results.  This is, indeed, a breath of fresh air for genetic genealogists, as well as a welcome relief.

http://dna-explained.com/2013/08/07/gene-by-gene-acquires-arpeggi/

http://dna-explained.com/2013/12/05/family-tree-dna-listens-and-acts/

http://dna-explained.com/2013/12/10/family-tree-dnas-family-finder-match-matrix-released/

http://www.haplogroup.org/ftdna-family-finder-matches-get-new-look/

http://www.haplogroup.org/ftdna-family-finder-new-look-2/

http://www.haplogroup.org/ftdna-family-finder-matches-new-look-3/

Autosomal DNA Comes of Age

Autosomal DNA testing and analysis has simply exploded this past year.  More and more people are testing, in part, because Ancestry.com has a captive audience in their subscription data base and more than a quarter million of those subscribers have purchased autosomal DNA tests.  That’s a good thing, in general, but there are some negative aspects relative to Ancestry, which are in the Ancestry section.

Another boon to autosomal testing was the 23andMe push to obtain a million records.  Of course, the operative word here is “was” but that may revive when the FDA issue is resolved.  One of the down sides to the 23andMe data base, aside from the fact that it’s not genealogist friendly, is that so many people, about 90%, don’t communicate.  They aren’t interested in genealogy.

A third factor is that Family Tree DNA has provided transfer ability for files from both 23andMe and Ancestry into their data base.

Fourth is the site, GedMatch, at www.gedmatch.com which provides additional matching and admixture tools and the ability to match below thresholds set by the testing companies.  This is sometimes critically important, especially when comparing to known cousins who just don’t happen to match at the higher thresholds, for example.  Unfortunately, not enough people know about GedMatch, or are willing to download their files.  Also unfortunate is that GedMatch has struggled for the past few months to keep up with the demand placed on their site and resources.

A great deal of time this year has been spent by those of us in the education aspect of genetic genealogy, in whatever our capacity, teaching about how to utilize autosomal results. It’s not necessarily straightforward.  For example, I wrote a 9 part series titled “The Autosomal Me” which detailed how to utilize chromosome mapping for finding minority ethnic admixture, which was, in my case, both Native and African American.

As the year ends, we have Family Tree DNA, 23andMe and Ancestry who offer the autosomal test which includes the relative-matching aspect.  Fortunately, we also have third party tools like www.GedMatch.com and www.DNAGedcom.com, without which we would be significantly hamstrung.  In the case of DNAGedcom, we would be unable to perform chromosome segment matching and triangulation with 23andMe data without Rob Warthen’s invaluable tool.

http://dna-explained.com/2013/06/21/triangulation-for-autosomal-dna/

http://dna-explained.com/2013/07/13/combining-tools-autosomal-plus-y-dna-mtdna-and-the-x-chromosome/

http://dna-explained.com/2013/07/26/family-tree-dna-levels-the-playing-field-sort-of/

http://dna-explained.com/2013/08/03/kitty-coopers-chromsome-mapping-tool-released/

http://dna-explained.com/2013/09/29/why-dont-i-match-my-cousin/

http://dna-explained.com/2013/10/03/family-tree-dna-updates-family-finder-and-adds-triangulation/

http://dna-explained.com/2013/10/21/why-are-my-predicted-cousin-relationships-wrong/

http://dna-explained.com/2013/12/05/family-tree-dna-listens-and-acts/

http://dna-explained.com/2013/12/09/chromosome-mapping-aka-ancestor-mapping/

http://dna-explained.com/2013/12/10/family-tree-dnas-family-finder-match-matrix-released/

http://dna-explained.com/2013/12/15/one-chromosome-two-sides-no-zipper-icw-and-the-matrix/

http://dna-explained.com/2013/06/02/the-autosomal-me-summary-and-pdf-file/

DNAGedcom – Indispensable Third Party Tool

While this tool, www.dnagedcom.com, falls into the Autosomal grouping, I have separated it out for individual mention because without this tool, the progress made this year in autosomal DNA ancestor and chromosomal mapping would have been impossible.  Family Tree DNA has always provided segment matching boundaries through their chromosome browser tool, but until recently, you could only download 5 matches at a time.  This is no longer the case, but for most of the year, Rob’s tool saved us massive amounts of time.

23andMe does not provide those chromosome boundaries, but utilizing Rob’s tool, you can obtain each of your matches in one download, and then you can obtain the list of who your matches match that is also on your match list by requesting each of those files separately.  Multiple steps?  Yes, but it’s the only way to obtain this information, and chromosome mapping without the segment data is impossible

A special hats off to Rob.  Please remember that Rob’s site is free, meaning it’s donation based.  So, please donate if you use the tool.

http://www.yourgeneticgenealogist.com/2013/01/brought-to-you-by-adoptiondna.html

I covered www.Gedmatch.com in the “Best of 2012” list, but they have struggled this year, beginning when Ancestry announced that raw data file downloads were available.  GedMatch consists of two individuals, volunteers, who are still struggling to keep up with the required processing and the tools.  They too are donation based, so don’t forget about them if you utilize their tools.

Ancestry – How Great Thou Aren’t

Ancestry is only on this list because of what they haven’t done.  When they initially introduced their autosomal product, they didn’t have any search capability, they didn’t have a chromosome browser and they didn’t have raw data file download capability, all of which their competitors had upon first release.  All they did have was a list of your matches, with their trees listed, with shakey leaves if you shared a common ancestor on your tree.  The implication, was, and is, of course, that if you have a DNA match and a shakey leaf, that IS your link, your genetic link, to each other.  Unfortunately, that is NOT the case, as CeCe Moore documented in her blog from Rootstech (starting just below the pictures) as an illustration of WHY we so desperately need a chromosome browser tool.

In a nutshell, Ancestry showed the wrong shakey leaf as the DNA connection – as proven by the fact that both of CeCe’s parents have tested at Ancestry and the shakey leaf person doesn’t match the requisite parent.  And there wasn’t just one, not two, but three instances of this.  What this means is, of course, that the DNA match and the shakey leaf match are entirely independent of each other.  In fact, you could have several common ancestors, but the DNA at any particular location comes only from one on either Mom or Dad’s side – any maybe not even the shakey leaf person.

So what Ancestry customers are receiving is a list of people they match and possible links, but most of them have no idea that this is the case, and blissfully believe they have found their genetic connection.  They have found a genealogical cousin, and it MIGHT be the genetic connection.  But then again, they could have found that cousin simply by searching for the same ancestor in Ancestry’s data base.  No DNA needed.

Ancestry has added a search feature, allowed raw data file downloads (thank you) and they have updated their ethnicity predictions.  The ethnicity predictions are certainly different, dramatically different, but equally as unrealistic.  See the Ethnicity Makeovers section for more on this.  The search function helps, but what we really need is the chromosome browser, which they have steadfastly avoided promising.  Instead, they have said that they will give us “something better,” but nothing has materialized.

I want to take this opportunity, to say, as loudly as possible, that TRUST ME IS NOT ACCEPTABLE in any way, shape or form when it comes to genetic matching.  I’m not sure what Ancestry has in mind by the way of “better,” but it if it’s anything like the mediocrity with which their existing DNA products have been rolled out, neither I nor any other serious genetic genealogist will be interested, satisfied or placated.

Regardless, it’s been nearly 2 years now.  Ancestry has the funds to do development.  They are not a small company.  This is obviously not a priority because they don’t need to develop this feature.  Why is this?  Because they can continue to sell tests and to give shakey leaves to customers, most of whom don’t understand the subtle “untruth” inherent in that leaf match – so are quite blissfully happy.

In years past, I worked in the computer industry when IBM was the Big Dog against whom everyone else competed.  I’m reminded of an old joke.  The IBM sales rep got married, and on his wedding night, he sat on the edge of the bed all night long regaling his bride in glorious detail with stories about just how good it was going to be….

You can sign a petition asking Ancestry to provide a chromosome browser here, and you can submit your request directly to Ancestry as well, although to date, this has not been effective.

The most frustrating aspect of this situation is that Ancestry, with their plethora of trees, savvy marketing and captive audience testers really was positioned to “do it right,” and hasn’t, at least not yet.  They seem to be more interested in selling kits and providing shakey leaves that are misleading in terms of what they mean than providing true tools.  One wonders if they are afraid that their customers will be “less happy” when they discover the truth and not developing a chromosome browser is a way to keep their customers blissfully in the dark.

http://dna-explained.com/2013/03/21/downloading-ancestrys-autosomal-dna-raw-data-file/

http://dna-explained.com/2013/03/24/ancestry-needs-another-push-chromosome-browser/

http://dna-explained.com/2013/10/17/ancestrys-updated-v2-ethnicity-summary/

http://www.thegeneticgenealogist.com/2013/06/21/new-search-features-at-ancestrydna-and-a-sneak-peek-at-new-ethnicity-estimates/

http://www.yourgeneticgenealogist.com/2013/03/ancestrydna-raw-data-and-rootstech.html

http://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog/2013/09/15/dna-disappointment/

http://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog/2013/09/13/ancestrydna-begins-rollout-of-update/

Ancient DNA

This has been a huge year for advances in sequencing ancient DNA, something once thought unachievable.  We have learned a great deal, and there are many more skeletal remains just begging to be sequenced.  One absolutely fascinating find is that all people not African (and some who are African through backmigration) carry Neanderthal and Denisovan DNA.  Just this week, evidence of yet another archaic hominid line has been found in Neanderthal DNA and on Christmas Day, yet another article stating that type 2 Diabetes found in Native Americans has roots in their Neanderthal ancestors. Wow!

Closer to home, by several thousand years is the suggestion that haplogroup R did not exist in Europe after the ice age, and only later, replaced most of the population which, for males, appears to have been primarily haplogroup G.  It will be very interesting as the data bases of fully sequenced skeletons are built and compared.  The history of our ancestors is held in those precious bones.

http://dna-explained.com/2013/01/10/decoding-and-rethinking-neanderthals/

http://dna-explained.com/2013/07/04/ancient-dna-analysis-from-canada/

http://dna-explained.com/2013/07/10/5500-year-old-grandmother-found-using-dna/

http://dna-explained.com/2013/10/25/ancestor-of-native-americans-in-asia-was-30-western-eurasian/

http://dna-explained.com/2013/11/12/2013-family-tree-dna-conference-day-2/

http://dna-explained.com/2013/11/22/native-american-gene-flow-europe-asia-and-the-americas/

http://dna-explained.com/2013/12/05/400000-year-old-dna-from-spain-sequenced/

http://www.thegeneticgenealogist.com/2013/10/16/identifying-otzi-the-icemans-relatives/

http://cruwys.blogspot.com/2013/12/recordings-of-royal-societys-ancient.html

http://cruwys.blogspot.com/2013/02/richard-iii-king-is-found.html

http://dna-explained.com/2013/12/22/sequencing-of-neanderthal-toe-bone-reveals-unknown-hominin-line/

http://dna-explained.com/2013/12/26/native-americans-neanderthal-and-denisova-admixture/

http://dienekes.blogspot.com/2013/12/ancient-dna-what-2013-has-brought.html

Sloppy Science and Sensationalist Reporting

Unfortunately, as DNA becomes more mainstream, it becomes a target for both sloppy science or intentional misinterpretation, and possibly both.  Unfortunately, without academic publication, we can’t see results or have the sense of security that comes from the peer review process, so we don’t know if the science and conclusions stand up to muster.

The race to the buck in some instances is the catalyst for this. In other cases, and not in the links below, some people intentionally skew interpretations and results in order to either fulfill their own belief agenda or to sell “products and services” that invariably report specific findings.

It’s equally as unfortunate that much of these misconstrued and sensationalized results are coming from a testing company that goes by the names of BritainsDNA, ScotlandsDNA, IrelandsDNA and YorkshiresDNA. It certainly does nothing for their credibility in the eyes of people who are familiar with the topics at hand, but it does garner a lot of press and probably sells a lot of kits to the unwary.

I hope they publish their findings so we can remove the “sloppy science” aspect of this.  Sensationalist reporting, while irritating, can be dealt with if the science is sound.  However, until the results are published in a peer-reviewed academic journal, we have no way of knowing.

Thankfully, Debbie Kennett has been keeping her thumb on this situation, occurring primarily in the British Isles.

http://dna-explained.com/2013/08/24/you-might-be-a-pict-if/

http://cruwys.blogspot.com/2013/12/the-british-genetic-muddle-by-alistair.html

http://cruwys.blogspot.com/2013/12/setting-record-straight-about-sara.html

http://cruwys.blogspot.com/2013/09/private-eye-on-britainsdna.html

http://cruwys.blogspot.com/2013/07/private-eye-on-prince-williams-indian.html

http://cruwys.blogspot.com/2013/06/britainsdna-times-and-prince-william.html

http://cruwys.blogspot.com/2013/03/sense-about-genealogical-dna-testing.html

http://cruwys.blogspot.com/2013/03/sense-about-genetic-ancestry-testing.html

Citizen Science is Coming of Age

Citizen science has been slowing coming of age over the past few years.  By this, I mean when citizen scientists work as part of a team on a significant discovery or paper.  Bill Hurst comes to mind with his work with Dr. Doron Behar on his paper, A Copernican Reassessment of the Human Mitochondrial DNA from its Root or what know as the RSRS model.  As the years have progressed, more and more discoveries have been made or assisted by citizen scientists, sometimes through our projects and other times through individual research.  JOGG, the Journal of Genetic Genealogy, which is currently on hiatus waiting for Dr. Turi King, the new editor, to become available, was a great avenue for peer reviewed publication.  Recently, research projects have been set up by citizen scientists, sometimes crowd-funded, for specific areas of research.  This is a very new aspect to scientific research, and one not before utilized.

The first paper below includes the Family Tree DNA Lab, Thomas and Astrid Krahn, then with Family Tree DNA and Bonnie Schrack, genetic genealogist and citizen scientist, along with Dr. Michael Hammer from the University of Arizona and others.

http://dna-explained.com/2013/03/26/family-tree-dna-research-center-facilitates-discovery-of-ancient-root-to-y-tree/

http://dna-explained.com/2013/04/10/diy-dna-analysis-genomeweb-and-citizen-scientist-2-0/

http://dna-explained.com/2013/06/27/big-news-probable-native-american-haplogroup-breakthrough/

http://dna-explained.com/2013/07/22/citizen-science-strikes-again-this-time-in-cameroon/

http://dna-explained.com/2013/11/30/native-american-haplogroups-q-c-and-the-big-y-test/

http://www.yourgeneticgenealogist.com/2013/03/citizen-science-helps-to-rewrite-y.html

Ethnicity Makeovers – Still Not Soup

Unfortunately, ethnicity percentages, as provided by the major testing companies still disappoint more than thrill, at least for those who have either tested at more than one lab or who pretty well know their ethnicity via an extensive pedigree chart.

Ancestry.com is by far the worse example, swinging like a pendulum from one extreme to the other.  But I have to hand it to them, their marketing is amazing.  When I signed in, about to discover that my results had literally almost reversed, I was greeted with the banner “a new you.”  Yea, a new me, based on Ancestry’s erroneous interpretation.  And by reversed, I’m serious.  I went from 80% British Isles to 6% and then from 0% Western Europe to 79%. So now, I have an old wrong one and a new wrong one – and indeed they are very different.  Of course, neither one is correct…..but those are just pesky details…

23andMe updated their ethnicity product this year as well, and fine tuned it yet another time.  My results at 23andMe are relatively accurate.  I saw very little change, but others saw more.  Some were pleased, some not.

The bottom line is that ethnicity tools are not well understood by consumers in terms of the timeframe that is being revealed, and it’s not consistent between vendors, nor are the results.  In some cases, they are flat out wrong, as with Ancestry, and can be proven.  This does not engender a great deal of confidence.  I only view these results as “interesting” or utilize them in very specific situations and then only using the individual admixture tools at www.Gedmatch.com on individual chromosome segments.

As Judy Russell says, “it’s not soup yet.”  That doesn’t mean it’s not interesting though, so long as you understand the difference between interesting and gospel.

http://dna-explained.com/2013/08/05/autosomal-dna-ancient-ancestors-ethnicity-and-the-dandelion/

http://dna-explained.com/2013/10/04/ethnicity-results-true-or-not/

http://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog/2013/09/15/dna-disappointment/

http://cruwys.blogspot.com/2013/09/my-updated-ethnicity-results-from.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Cruwysnews+%28Cruwys+news%29

http://dna-explained.com/2013/10/17/ancestrys-updated-v2-ethnicity-summary/

http://dna-explained.com/2013/10/19/determining-ethnicity-percentages/

http://www.thegeneticgenealogist.com/2013/09/12/ancestrydna-launches-new-ethnicity-estimate/

http://cruwys.blogspot.com/2013/12/a-first-look-at-chromo-2-all-my.html

Genetic Genealogy Education Goes Mainstream

With the explosion of genetic genealogy testing, as one might expect, the demand for education, and in particular, basic education has exploded as well.

I’ve written a 101 series, Kelly Wheaton wrote a series of lessons and CeCe Moore did as well.  Recently Family Tree DNA has also sponsored a series of free Webinars.  I know that at least one book is in process and very near publication, hopefully right after the first of the year.  We saw several conferences this year that provided a focus on Genetic Genealogy and I know several are planned for 2014.  Genetic genealogy is going mainstream!!!  Let’s hope that 2014 is equally as successful and that all these folks asking for training and education become avid genetic genealogists.

http://dna-explained.com/2013/08/10/ngs-series-on-dna-basics-all-4-parts/

https://sites.google.com/site/wheatonsurname/home

http://www.yourgeneticgenealogist.com/2012/08/getting-started-in-dna-testing-for.html

http://dna-explained.com/2013/12/17/free-webinars-from-family-tree-dna/

http://www.thegeneticgenealogist.com/2013/06/09/the-first-dna-day-at-the-southern-california-genealogy-society-jamboree/

http://www.yourgeneticgenealogist.com/2013/06/the-first-ever-independent-genetic.html

http://cruwys.blogspot.com/2013/10/genetic-genealogy-comes-to-ireland.html

http://cruwys.blogspot.com/2013/03/wdytya-live-day-3-part-2-new-ancient.html

http://cruwys.blogspot.com/2013/03/who-do-you-think-you-are-live-day-3.html

http://cruwys.blogspot.com/2013/03/who-do-you-think-you-are-live-2013-days.html

http://genealem-geneticgenealogy.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-surnames-handbook-guide-to-family.html

http://www.isogg.org/wiki/Beginners%27_guides_to_genetic_genealogy

A Thank You in Closing

I want to close by taking a minute to thank the thousands of volunteers who make such a difference.  All of the project administrators at Family Tree DNA are volunteers, and according to their website, there are 7829 projects, all of which have at least one administrator, and many have multiple administrators.  In addition, everyone who answers questions on a list or board or on Facebook is a volunteer.  Many donate their time to coordinate events, groups, or moderate online facilities.  Many speak at events or for groups.  Many more write articles for publications from blogs to family newsletters.  Additionally, there are countless websites today that include DNA results…all created and run by volunteers, not the least of which is the ISOGG site with the invaluable ISOGG wiki.  Without our volunteer army, there would be no genetic genealogy community.  Thank you, one and all.

2013 has been a banner year, and 2014 holds a great deal of promise, even without any surprises.  And if there is one thing this industry is well known for….it’s surprises.  I can’t wait to see what 2014 has in store for us!!!  All I can say is hold on tight….

People are beginning to ask about how they can obtain some of the health information that they were previously receiving from 23andMe.  For $5, at Promethease,  you can upload any of the autosomal files from either Family Tree DNA, 23andMe or Ancestry.com.  They will process your raw data and provide you with a report that is available to download from their server for 45 days.  They also e-mail you a copy.

At Promethease, your raw data file is deleted within 24 hours of completion of your report, and your report file will be deleted after 45 days, so be sure to download your report for future reference.  Currently they process about 20,000 genotypes, or SNPs.  They do note that they update their data base regularly from SNPedia, fed from PubMed publications.  Therefore your report in the future will include SNPs that won’t be in your report today and what we’ve learned about those SNPs may differ as well.

They have also noted that you receive different items in your report based on which vendor’s full data file you submit.  That’s true.  I uploaded all 3 of my raw data files, from Ancestry, 23andMe and Family Tree DNA and ran Promethease against each of them.  While 23andMe optimized their chip for medical and health results, Family Tree DNA intentionally removed some medically relevant data in order to avoid any FDA type of issues.  It’s unknown how Ancestry treats medically significant SNPs, but I’m running all 3 vendor’s files to view differences.

• The Promethease report utilizing the 23andMe raw data file reported on 20,080 genotypes.

• The Promethease report utilizing the Family Tree DNA raw data file reported on 8179 genotypes.

• The Promethease report utilizing the Ancestry raw data file reported on 10,498 genotypes.

To start the process of uploading your file and running your report, visit:

https://promethease.com/ondemand

Of course, you’ll need to take care of housekeeping, sign up and pay.

You will then be asked to select an ethnicity.  I always hate this question, because I’m more than one and the categories never fit.  If you don’t fit any category well, select the closest.   Promethease says it only affects the sort order.  That was a relief to me, as I always wonder what I’m missing by making one selection over another.

While the report actually runs, which takes about 15-20 minutes, amuse yourself by watching the video about how to download, read and understand your results.  Or you could write a blog, like me!

You can review this video at any time by visiting the original link.  It does make more sense after you have your report in hand.

My report only took 8 minutes to run, and according to the front page of my report, they analyzed over 20,000 SNPs or known mutation locations.  I’m excited to see what my report holds.

One of the reasons I’ve been interested in this type of DNA reporting is that my mother was “diagnosed” with Parkinson’s Disease. I put diagnosed in quotes, because Parkinson’s is a diagnosis of exclusion, for which there is no specific diagnostic test, meaning the diagnosis is one made after other alternative diseases for which there are tests, are excluded.  However, she never had some of the traditional symptoms, like the specific walking gait typical in Parkinson’s patients, nor some of the other symptoms, nor were the Parkinson’s medications effective in controlling her hand tremors. Her father also had the same tremors, which I’ve always suspected was Familial Tremor, not Parkinson’s.  I wanted to see if Mom or I carried elevated risk for Parkinson’s.  Mom’s DNA was archived at Family Tree DNA, so I could run the Family Finder test even though she had passed away by the time autosomal testing was available.  So I uploaded and ran her file at Promethease too, and compared with my own.

So, let’s look at my report based on the 23andMe raw data file.

At this point, you have to choose to click on “Bad News” or “Good News” first.  Someone should do a study about whether you select bad or good is genetically influenced.

In my case, I was interested to see if my “bad news” was the same “bad news” that 23andMe provided.  My top “bad news” item is indeed the same item that is reported at 23andMe.  Having said that, there are a lot more and different items here that were not reported at 23andMe.  After looking at the varied results from Promethease, I suspect that 23andMe was trying to distill data on my behalf.

However, Promethease does not attempt to analyze your results.  Some mutations are known to be connected to multiple conditions, so they simply tell you that.  In some cases, you will have some negative and some positive mutations for the same disease.  Again, they simply inform you, complete with a reference.  It’s worth noting that for one disease I’m particularly interested in, Parkinson’s, I have a lot of conflicting data, pages worth.  This just goes to show how complex interpreting this information really is, and shows that genetic predisposition, positive or negative, with only a few exceptions, is not genetic predetermination.

My good news made me feel really good.  I’m at decreased risk of frontotemporal dementia or Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.  I’m optimistic and empathetic.  I wonder if this has anything to do with selecting the bad news option first – I knew I had the good news to look forward to.  Get the bad stuff over with and get on with it…

Ironically, some of my good news items are in direct conflict with some of my bad news items.  And yes, some are Parkinson’s, which has apparently been more heavily studied that some other diseases.  Hopefully, the decreased and elevated risks will cancel each other out and I’ll just be average.

However, when running my Ancestry data file at Promethease, one of my elevated risks was Parkinson’s, based on the SNPs discovered in the 23andMe research, which conflicts directly with the information provided based on the 23andMe raw data file.  Searching further, different SNPs have been reported to either be associated with increased or decreased incidence of the disease – and I carry some of each – but none are extremely elevated.

So where does this leave me in terms of whether Mom had Parkinson’s, or not?  There is nothing to indicate an extremely high risk of Parkinson’s.  Some indicators are for elevated risk, some for reduced risk.  Compared to the one condition I know she had, which has a very highly elevated risk in all 3 reports, the Parkinson’s risk is simply unremarkable and doesn’t stand out.  Bottom line – I still don’t know for sure, but I still don’t think she had Parkinson’s.  Had I found highly elevated risk factors,  I would have rethought my opinion.

Many diseases have multiple genetic components along with other external factors.  Of course, not all studies report the same findings, and this report is based on academic medical studies.

Rarely are genetic predispositions more than just that, a slightly increased or decreased probability.  Few are fatal and some are more of a life sentence than a death sentence.  Having said this, there are notable exceptions, and if you really don’t want to know a worst case scenario, or aren’t prepared to deal with the results, don’t participate in DNA testing or reporting for medical or health information.  If you have reason to suspect your family may carry one of the genetic terminal illnesses, visit your doctor for advice.

And speaking of physicians, much of this information, such as the information about how certain medications are metabolized could be critically important.  In my case, I’m actually taking one of the mediations that is referenced where I have a decreased sensitivity.  Yep, I knew that, but now I can provide this information to my physician.

For those who tend to worry and borrow trouble they don’t yet have, running this type of report might not be a good idea.  It’s certainly not for hypochondriacs – IMHO.  It’s a personal choice, and a very inexpensive one at that, so financially available to everyone.  If what it contains is going to worry you, don’t do it.  I noticed that there are several anxiety categories in these reports – but then you have to run the report to see if you carry them – kind of a catch 22 if you tend to be anxious and worry.

My personal perspective is that there may be information here that is valuable to me, or to my physicians, or to my children.  The worst “bad news” item I already knew about through 23andMe, but I also anticipated that condition, without genetic testing, because my mother had this same disease in old age.  I’m not referring now to the Parkinson’s, but a vision related condition that she definitely did have.  This item was also consistently reported at a high degree of risk utilizing the data files of 23andMe, Family Tree DNA and Ancestry.  Thankfully, it is an old age problem and one that can be treated, if not cured today.  The Promethease reports, along with 23andMe’s report, have simply reinforced that I need to be proactive and vigilant and to eat lots of veggies.  The good news is that many items include preventative measures in the verbiage or associated studies that your Promethease report links to at SNPedia.

How does this report compare to the 23andMe experience, assuming 23andMe was still an option or might be again in the future for health information?  The 23andMe customer interface is much smoother and more user friendly.  It seems to be focused on more “fun” and less “worry.”  The Promethease report is that, a report, although they do a great job making it interactive.  There is no sugar coating – just the facts Ma’am.  And I think it’s actually much easier to use.  You can easily search by disease, by category, and the searches actually work.

Promethease differs in another way too.  Personally I like the idea that my data is mine, I’m in complete control of it, and it’s not being sold by Promethease out the back door for studies or purposes I might not be too thrilled about.  I don’t want my DNA to be used to patent genes that cause the tests for the condition to be restricted to the patentee at dramatically inflated prices.  While the Supreme Court determined that genes can’t be patented in the case of the BRCA breast cancer genes, the fight continues with lawsuits being filed, and 23andMe holds a Parkinson’s patent that was obtained by utilizing customer data.   Nor do I want my data to be used to patent the technology for “designer babies.”  If my DNA is going to be utilized for research, I want the ability to authorize that use, specifically.

Therefore, I feel much better about uploading a raw data file from an autosomal test at a firm like Family Tree DNA, who NEVER sells or otherwise divulges my data without first requesting permission.  I thereby maintain complete control over my genetic results, rather than utilizing companies who either sell (or otherwise utilize) my results or reserve the right to do so.  This is the case with both 23andMe and Ancestry.com, and to be clear, they have never claimed otherwise.

And oh, I forgot to mention…I am just so relieved….I have a decreased risk of baldness….

Just as they promised, and right on schedule, Family Tree DNA today announced X chromosome matching.  They have fully integrated X matching into their autosomal Family Finder product matching.  This will be rolling live today.  Happy New Year from Family Tree DNA!!!

In the article, X Marks the Spot, I showed the unique inheritance properties of the X chromosome.  In a nutshell, men only inherit one copy from their mother, because they inherit a Y from their father, but women get a copy from both parents.  Still, you don’t inherit parts of your X from all of your ancestors, so knowing your own X inheritance pattern can help immensely to rule out common genealogy lines when you match someone on the X.

In their informational rollout, Family Tree DNA provided the following information about their new features.

Here is the menu link to the Family Finder Matches menu.

On the Family Finder Matches page, there is a filter to show only X-Matches.

When you use the X-Match filter on a male Family Finder kit, you should get only matches from the maternal X-Chromosome.

Next, like other Family Finder Matches you can expand the advanced bar for a match and click to add the match to the Compare in Chromosome Browser list.

Matches are added to the Compare in Chromosome Browser list. You could go right to the Chromosome Browser by clicking on the compare arrow at this point.

Next we can also go right to the Chromosome Browser.

The Chromosome Browser also lets you filter the match list by X-Matches.

Here are three immediate relatives. The first two share X-Chromosome DNA. The third (green) one does not.

When we scroll down to the X at the bottom, we see that X-Matching is displayed for the first two but not the third.

Moving to the Advance Matching page, X-Chromosome matches have also been integrated.

X-Match is an option that can be checked alongside other types of testing.

We have a brand new toy in our DNA sandbox today, thanks to Don Worth, a retired IT professional.  I just love it when extremely talented people retire and we, in the genetic genealogy community, are the benefactors of their Act 2 evolution.  Our volunteers make such a cumulative difference.

Drum Roll please.

Introducing…..the Autosomal DNA Segment Analyzer, or ADSA.

The name alone doesn’t make your heart skip beats, but the product will.  This tool absolutely proves the adage that a picture is worth 1000 words.

Don described his new tool, which, by the way, is free and being hosted by Rob Warthen at www.dnagedcom.com, thus:

I created this tool in an attempt to put all the relevant information available that was needed to evaluate segment matches on a single, interactive web page. It relies on the three files for a single test kit that DNAgedcom.com collects from FamilyTreeDNA.com. These files include information about your matches, matching segment locations and sizes, and “in common with” (ICW) data. Using these files, the tool will construct a table for each chromosome which includes match and segment information as well as a visual graph of overlapping segments, juxtiposed with a customized, color-coded ICW matrix that will permit you to triangulate matching segments without having to look in multiple spreadsheets or on different screens in FamilyTreeDNA. Additional information, such as ancestral surnames, suggested relationship ranges, and matching segments and ICWs on other chromosomes is provided by hovering over match names or segments on the screen. Emails to persons you match may also be generated from the page. The web page produced by this program does not depend on any other files and may be saved as a stand-alone .html file that will function locally (or offline) in your browser. You can even email it to your matches as an attachment. You can play with a working sample output here.

Who wants to play with sample output?  I wanted to jump right in.  Word of caution…read the instructions FIRST, and pay attention, or you’ll wind up downloading your files twice.  The instructions can be found here.

I can’t tell you how many times, when I’ve been working with matches, that I’ve wondered to myself, “How many other people match us on this segment?”  For quite a while you could only download 5 people at a time, but now you can download the entire data file.  I’m a visual person.  To me, visually seeing is believing and the ADSA makes this process so much easier.  Truly, a picture is worth 1000 words.

I knew right away there were three things I wanted to do, so I’m going to run through each one of the three by way of examples to illustrate what you can do with the power of this wonderfully visual tool.  I’ve also anonymized the matches.

1. Clusters of matches.

I know I’ve told you that I’m mapping my DNA to ancestors.  When I first saw Don’s output, I knew immediately that this tool would be invaluable for grouping people from the same ancestral lines.

Barbara, the second row, is my mother and her DNA in this equation is extremely useful.  It helps me identify right away which side of my family a match comes from.  If you don’t have a parent available, aunts, uncles, cousins, all help, especially cumulatively.

Before we begin working with the results, take a minute and just sit and look at the graphic below.  These two clusters shown on this page, one near the top and the other at the bottom….they represent your ancestors.  Two very different ones in this case. This may be the only way you’ll ever “see” them, by virtue of a group of their descendants DNA clustered together.  A view through the keyhole of time provided by DNA. Isn’t it beautiful?

All of these results in this “cluster of matches” example are my matches.  In other words, the file is mine and these are people who are matching me.  You can see that this tool provides us with start and end segments, total cMs and SNPs, and e-mails, but the true power is in the visual representation of the ICW (in common with) matrix.  The mapped segments are a nice touch too, and Don has listed these in progressive order, meaning from beginning to end of the segment (left to right.)

Look at this initial clustered group, shown enlarged below.  The first individual matches me and mother on one pink segment, but matches me on two segments, a pink and a black.  That means he’s from Mom’s side, or at least through one line, but probably somewhat distant since that one segment is his only match on any chromosome.  Because he also matches me on a segment where he doesn’t match Mom, he could also be related to me on my father’s side, or maybe we had a misread error on the black segment when comparing to Mom’s DNA. It is the adjoining segment.  In essence, there isn’t enough information to do much with this, except ask questions, so let’s move on to something more informative.

Beginning with the third person, the next grouping or cluster is entirely non-matching to mother, so this entire cluster is from my father’s side AND related to each other.

There are 6 solid matches here, and then they start to trail off to matches that aren’t so solid.

By flying over the match names with my cursor, I might be able to tell, based on their surnames, which line is being represented by this cluster of matches.  If I already have a confirmed cousin match in the group, then the rest of the group can be loosely attributed to that line, or a contributing (wife) line. Unfortunately, in this case, I can’t tell other than it looks like it might be through Halifax County, VA.  I do have an NPE there and some wives without surnames.

Let’s look on down this chromosome.  There is another very solid cluster, also on my Dad’s side.  In this second cluster, I have identified a solid cousin and I can tell you that this is a Crumley grouping.  My common ancestor with my Crumley cousin is William Crumley born about 1765 in Frederick Co., Va. and who died about 1840 in Lee Co., Va.  His wife is unknown, but we have her mitochondrial DNA.  Now this doesn’t mean that everyone in this group will all have a Crumley ancestor, they may not.  They may instead have a Mercer, a Brown, a Johnson or a Gilkey, all known wives’ surnames of Crumley men upstream of William Crumley.  But someplace, there is a common ancestor who contributed quite a bit of chromosome 1 to a significant number of descendants, and at least two of them are Crumleys.

At first, I found it really odd that my mother had almost no matches with me on chromosome 1.  Some of my mother’s ancestors came to the States later, from the Netherlands and from Germany.  Many of these groups are under-represented in testing.  However other ancestral groups have been here a long time, Acadians and Brethren Germans.  My father’s Appalachian, meaning colonial, ancestors seem to have more descendants who have tested.

However, looking now at chromosome 9, we see something different.

The second person, Doris, doesn’t match Mom anyplace, so is obviously related through my father, but look at that next grouping.

I can tell you based on hovering over the matches name that this is an Acadian grouping.  The Acadians are a very endogamous French-Canadian group, having passed the same DNA around for hundreds of years.  Therefore, a grouping is likely to share a large amount of common DNA, and this one does.

Based on this, I can then label all of these various matches as “Acadian” if nothing more.

Within a cluster, if I can identify one common ancestor, I can attribute the entire large group to the same lineage.  Be careful with smaller groups or just one or two rectangle matches.  Those aren’t nearly as strong and just because I match 2 people on the same segment doesn’t mean they match each other. However, when you see large segments of people matching each other, you have an ancestral grouping of some sort.  The challenge of course is to identify the group – but a breakthrough with one match means a likely breakthrough with the rest of them too, or at least another step in that direction.

2. Source of DNA

I have several cousins who match me on two or more distinct lines.  This tool makes it easy, in some cases, to see which line the DNA on a particular chromosome comes from.

I have both Claxton (James Lee Claxton/Clarkson born c 1775-1815 and Sarah Cook of Hancock Co., TN)  and Campbell (John Campbell b c 1772-1838 and Jane Dobkins born c 1780-1850/1860 of Claiborne Co., Tn.) ancestry.  My cousins, Joy and William do too.  In this case, you can see that Joy matches a Claxton (proven by Y DNA to be from our line) and so does William on the first green matching segment.  The second green segment is not found in the Claxton match, so it could be Claxton and the Claxton cousin didn’t receive it, or it could be Campbell, but it’s one or the other because Joy, William and I all three carry this segment.

What this means is that the light green segments are Claxton segments, as are the fuchsia segments.  The source of the darker green segment is unknown.  It could be either Claxton or Campbell or a third common line that we don’t know about.

3.  Untangling Those Darned Moores

I swear, the Moore family is going to be the death of me yet. It’s one of my long-standing, extremely difficult brick walls.  It seems like every road of every county in Virginia and NC had one or more Moore families.  It’s a very common name.  To make thing worse, the early Moores were very prolific and they all named their children the same names, like James and William, generation after generation.

The earliest sign I can find of my particular Moore family is in Prince Edward County, Virginia when James Moore married Mary Rice (daughter of Joseph Rice and wife Rachel) in the early 1740s.  By the 1770s, the family was living in Halifax County, Virginia and their children were marrying and having children of their own of course.  They were some of the early Methodists with their son, the Reverend William Moore being a dissenting minister in Halifax County and his brothers Rice and Mackness Moore doing the same in Hawkins and Grainger County, TN.  Another son, James, went to Surry Co., NC.  We have confirmed this with a DNA descendant match.

We have the DNA of our Moore line proven on the Y side through multiple sons.  At the Moore Worldwide DNA project, we are group 19.  Now there are Moores all over the place in Halifax County.  I know, because I’ve paid for about half of them to DNA test and there are several distinct lines – far more than I expected.  Ironically, the Anderson Moore family who lived across the road from our James and then his son Rev. William, who raised the orphan Raleigh Moore, grandson of the Rev. William Moore, is NOT of the same Moore DNA line.  Based on the interaction of these two families, one would think assuredly that they were, which raises questions.  This Anderson Moore was the son of yet another James Moore, this one from Amelia County, VA., found in the large group 1 of the Moore project.  If this is all just too confusing and too close for comfort for you, well, join the crowd and what we Moore descendants have been dealing with for a decade now.

This raises the question of why there are so few matches to our Moore line.  Was our Moore line a “new Moore line,” born perhaps to a Moore daughter who gave the child her surname.  However, the child of course would pass on the father’s Y chromosome, establishing a “new” Moore genetic line.  I’m not saying that is what happened, just that it’s odd that there are so few matches to a clearly colonial Moore line out of Virginia.  With only one exception, someone genealogically stuck in Kentucky, to date, all DNA matches are all descendants of our James.  We do know that there was a William Moore, wife Margaret, living adjacent to James Moore in Prince Edward County but he and his wife sold out and moved on and are unaccounted for.

I’ve seen this same pattern with the Younger family line too, and sure enough, we did prove that these two different Y chromosome Younger families in fact do share a common ancestor.

So you can see why I get excited when I find anything at all, and I mean anything, about the Moore family line.

A Moore descendant of Raleigh, the orphan, has taken the autosomal Family Finder test, and he matched my cousin Buster, a known Moore descendant, and also another Cumberland Gap region researcher, Larry.  Larry also matches Buster.  I was very excited to see this three way match and I wrote to Larry asking if he had a Moore line.  Yes, he did, two in fact.  The Levi Moore line out of Kentucky and an Alexander Moore line out of Stokes County, NC, after they wandered down from Berks Co., PA. sometime before 1803.

Groan. Two Moores – I can’t even manage to sort one out, how will I ever sort two?

Then Larry told me that he had 4 of his cousins tested too.  Bless you Larry.

And better yet, one of Larry’s Moore lines is on his mother’s side and one on his father’s.  Even better yet.  Things are improving.

Now I’m really excited, right up until I discover that my cousin Buster matches two of Larry’s 3 cousins on his mother’s side and my Moore cousin from Halifax County, Virginia, matches the cousin on Larry’s father’s side.

How could I be THIS unlucky???

So I started out utilizing the ICW and Matrix tools at Family Tree DNA.  Because these people all matched Larry on overlapping segments on the chromosome browser, my first thought was maybe that these two Moore lines were really one and the same.  But then I pushed the ICW matches through to the Family Finder Matrix, and no, Larry’s paternal cousin does not match any of the three maternal cousins, who all match each other.  So the two Moore families are not one and the same.

Crumb.  Thank Heavens though for the Matrix which provides proof positive of whether your matches match each other.  Remember, you have two sides to each chromosome and you will have matches to both sides.  Without the Matrix tool, you have no way of knowing which of your matches are from the same side of your chromosome, meaning Mom’s side or Dad’s side.

Just about this time, as I was beginning to construct matrixes of who matches whom in the ICW compares between all of the ICW match permutations, I received a note from Don that he wanted beta testers for his new ADSA application.  I immediately knew what I was going to test!

I started with my cousin Buster’s kit.  Buster is one generation upstream from me, so one generation closer to the Moore ancestors.

On Larry’s maternal line, descended from the Levi Moore (Ky) line, he tested three cousins.  Buster had the following match results with Larry and his maternal line cousins.

• Larry – match
• Janice  – no match
• Ronald  – match
• B.J.  – match

I have redacted the e-mails and surnames below, but want to draw your attention to the individuals with the red arrows, as noted above.

On the graphic below, I’m showing only the right side, so you can see the matching ICW (in common with) block patterns.  Larry is last, I’m second from last and Larry’s two cousins are the first and second red arrows.  We are all matching to my cousin, Buster.

You can see that all of these people match Buster.  Larry has blocks that are pink, red, fuchsia, gold, navy blue and lime green.  All of the group above, except me and two other people, one of which is my known cousin on another line, match Larry on these blocks, or at least most of these blocks.  I, however, match none of this group on none of these blocks, nor do my other known cousins who also descend through this same Moore line.  This means that this group matches Buster through Buster’s mother’s line, not through the Estes line, which means that this Moore line is not the James Moore line of Halifax County.  So the Levi Moore group of Kentucky is not descended from the James Moore group of Prince Edward and Halifax County.

Of course, I’m disappointed, but eliminating possibilities is just as important as confirming them.  I keep telling myself that anyway.

The male Moore descendant in Halifax Co., proven via Y line testing, does match with Chloa, Larry’s paternal cousin, and with Larry as well, as shown below.  Let’s see if we can discern any other people who match in a cluster, which would give us other people to contact about their Moore lines.  Keep in mind that we don’t know that the DNA in common here is from the Moore line.  It could come from another common line.  That is part of what we’d like to prove.

Let’s take a closer look at what this is telling us.

First, there’s a much smaller group, and this is the only chromosome where Chloa matches our Moore cousin.

So let’s look at each line.  The first person, John, doesn’t match anyone else, so he’s not in this group.

Larry and his cousin, Chloa are second and third from the bottom, and they form the match group.  You can see that they match exactly except Chloa has one brighter green segment that matches our Moore cousin in a location with no other matches.  However, the match group of navy blue, periwinkle, lime green and burgundy form a distinctive pattern.  In addition to Chloa and Larry, Virginia, and Arlina share the same segments, plus Arlina had a pink segment that Larry and Chloa don’t have.  Donald may be a cousin too, but we don’t know if Donald would also match the rest of the group.  Linda might match Donald, but doesn’t look like she matches the group, but she could.  At this point, we can drop back to Family Tree DNA and the matrix and take a look to see if these folks match each other in the way we’d expect based on the ADSA tool.

Just like we expected, John doesn’t match anyone.  As expected, Larry, Chloa, Arlina, and Virginia all matched each other.  As it turns out, Linda does not match the rest of the group, but she does match Donald, who does match Arlina.  Therefore, our focus needs to be on contacting Arlina, Donald and Virginia and asking them about their Moore lines, or the surnames of known Moore wives, such as Rice in my James Moore line or wives surnames in Larry’s Moore line.  Just on the basis of possibility, I would also contact Linda and ask, but she is the long shot.  However, like the lottery, you can’t win if you don’t play, so just send that one extra e-mail.  You never know.  Life is made up of stories about serendipity and opportunities almost missed.

If Larry’s Moore line is the same as our Moore cousin’s line, genetically, maybe we can make headway by tracking Larry’s line.  Larry was kind enough to provide me with a website, and his Moore line begins with daughter Sarah.  Her father is Alexander Moore born in 1730 who married Elizabeth Wright.  His father was Alexander born in 1710 and who lived in Bucks Co., PA.  The younger Alexander died in Stokes Co., NC in 1803.

Our next step is to see if this Alexander Moore line has been Y DNA tested.  Checking back at the Moore Worldwide project, this family line is not showing, but I’ve dropped a note to the administrators,  just the same.  Unfortunately, not everyone enters their most distant ancestor information which means that information is blank on the project website.

If this Alexander Moore line has been Y tested, then we already know they don’t match our group paternally.  The connection, in that case, if this genetic connection is a Moore line, could be due to a daughter birth.  If this Moore line has not been Y tested, then it means that I’ll be trying to track down a Moore descendant of one of these Alexander Moores to do the DNA test.  It would be wonderful to finally make some headway on the James Moore family.  We’ve been brick walled for such a long time.

If you descend from either of these Moore family lines, the James Moore (c 1720-c 1798) and Mary Rice line, or the Alexander Moore and Elizabeth Wright or Elizabeth Robinson line, please consider taking the Family Finder autosomal DNA test at Family Tree DNA.  If you know of a male Moore who descends from the Alexander Moore line, let’s see if he would be willing to Y DNA test.

There is a great deal of power in the combined results of descendants, as you can clearly see, thanks to Don Worth and his new Autosomal DNA Segment Analyzer tool.

Give it a test run at: http://www.DNAgedcom.com/adsa

Don wrote documentation and instructions, found here.  Please read them before downloading your files.

And Don, a big, hearty thank you for this new way to “see” our ancestors!  Thank you to Rob Warthen too for hosting this wonderful new tool!

You may have seen the headlines and the announcement this week by Illumina, manufacturer of gene sequencing equipment, that the $1000 genome is finally here.  Hallelujah –  jump for joy – right?  Sign me up – where can I order???

Well, not so fast.

It’s a great headline – and depending on how you figure the math – it’s not entirely untrue, but it’s a real struggle to get there.  Some marketing maven did some real spreadsheet magic!  What is that old saying, “lies, damned lies and statistics”?  Maybe that’s a little harsh, but it’s not too far off.

So, is the $1000 genome here or not?  Well, kindof.  It depends on how you count, and who you are.  You see, it’s a math thing.

It’s kind of like a mortgage.  How much did your house cost?  Let’s say $100,000 – that was the price on the “for sale” sign.  But by the time you get the mortgage paid off, 30 years later, the cost of that house is way more than $100,000, probably more than $250,000 and if you add in the cost of taxes, closing costs and maintenance, even more.  This will only depress you, so don’t think about, especially when you sell your house for $150,000 and declare that you “made” $50,000.  But I digress…

So, let’s translate this to the $1000 genome.

Dr. David Mittleman, Chief Scientific Officer for Gene by Gene, Ltd., parent company of Family Tree DNA, was at the conference this week where the Illumina announcement was made. I asked him several questions about this new technology and if it was ready for prime time yet.

His first comment shed some light on costs.

“The HiSeqX Ten system is actually a ten-pack of new HiSeq instruments, each costing 1 million dollars. So you have to spend $10 million on equipment before you can even get started.”

Ouch.  I guess I won’t be buying one anytime soon!

To begin with, without the cost of the kits or processing or staff or software or installation or financing or support contracts or profit, a company would have to sell 10,000 kits at $1000 to even bring the cost of the equipment to $1000 per kit.

So, how did Illumina figure the cost of the $1000 genome?  The $1000 is broken down as $800 on reagents, $135 on equipment depreciation over 4 years, and $65 on staff/overheads.

This means that to obtain that $1000 per genome price, you have to run the equipment at full capacity, 24X7, 18,000 kits per year, for 4 full years.  And that still doesn’t include everything.  You also need service contracts, installation, additional labor, etc.  You can read more about the math and cost of ownership here.

And sure enough, when I asked David about who has purchased one so far, there are two buyers and both are institutions.  This is an extremely high end product, not something for the DTC consumer marketspace.

Now this isn’t to say this announcement is a bad thing – it’s not – it’s just not exactly what the headlines suggest.  It’s the $1000 genome for those with deep pockets who can purchase a $10,000,000 piece of gear and then run 18,000 samples, for 4 years, plus expenses.  But yes, it does technically break down to $1000 per test as long as you hit all of those milestones and ignore the rest of the expenses.  If you can afford $10 million and have the staff to run it, you probably don’t care about the cost of installation, labor and support contracts.  They are just necessary incidentals – like gas for my lawn mower!

In spite of the fancy math, it’s truly amazing how far we’ve come when you consider that a single full genome sequence still cost about 3 million in 2007, and in November 2012 Gene by Gene was the first to offer full sequencing commercially and offered it to their customers for an introductory price of $5495.  Of course, with no analysis tools and few testers, I can’t imagine what one would do with those results.  This has changed somewhat today.  The full genome with some analysis is available today to consumers for $7595, but the question of what is available that is genealogically useful to do with these results still remains, and will, until many more people test and meaningful comparisons are available.

The Illumina announcement also raises the issue of software investment to do something useful with the massive amount of data this new equipment will generate…also nontrivial, and that software does not exist yet today.

There are other issues to be addressed as well, like open access libraries.  Will they exist?  If so, where?  Who cares for them?  How are they funded?  Who will have access?  Will this data be made available in open access libraries, assuming they exist?

Illumina has reported that entire countries have approached them asking for their population to be sequenced, which also begs questions of privacy, security and how exactly to anonymize the samples without them becoming useless to research.  This high tech watershed announcement may spur as many questions as answers, but these issues need to be resolved in the academic environment before they trickle down to the consumer marketspace.

This is not to minimize the science and technology that has propelled us to this breakthrough.  It is a wonderful scientific and technological advancement because it will allow governments or large institutes to do huge population-wide studies.  This is something we desperately need.  Think for a minute if our Population Finder ethnicity results were based on tens of thousands of samples instead of selected hundreds.

For genetic genealogists, we are poised to benefit in the future, probably the more distant than the near future.  The $1000 genome for consumers not only isn’t here, it’s not even within sniffing distance.  So put your checkbooks away or better yet, buy a Big Y or a Family Finder test for a cousin, something that will benefit you in the short term.

This next step in the world of genetic discovery is exciting for research institutes, but it’s not yet ready for consumer prime time.  We will be the beneficiaries, but not the direct consumers….yet…unless you want to move to one of those countries who wants their entire population sequenced.  Our turn will come.  Maybe the next time we see an announcement for the $1000 genome it will be calculated in normal home-owning-human terms.

If you’d like to see the product announcement and a cool video that Illumina created, take a look here.  The video is short and provides a neat way to look at genetic history.

Something is wrong with the X chromosome.  More specifically, something is amiss with trying to use it, the way we normally use recombinant chromosomes for genealogy.  In short, there’s a problem.

If you don’t understand how the X chromosome recombines and is passed from generation to generation, now would be a good time to read my article, “X Marks the Spot” about how this works.  You’ll need this basic information to understand what I’m about to discuss.

The first hint of this “problem” is apparent in Jim Owston’s “Phasing the X Chromosome” article.  Jim’s interest in phasing his X, or figuring out where it came from genealogically, was spurred by his lack of X matches with his brothers.  This is noteworthy, because men don’t inherit any X from their father, so Jim’s failure to share much of his X with his brothers meant that he had inherited most of his X from just one of his mother’s parents, and his brothers inherited theirs from the other parent.  Utilizing cousins, Jim was able to further phase his X, meaning to attribute portions to the various grandparents from whence it came.  After doing this work, Jim said the following”

“Since I can only confirm the originating grandparent of 51% my X-DNA, I tend to believe (but cannot confirm at the present) that my X-chromosome may be an exact copy of my mother’s inherited X from her mother. If this is the case, I would not have inherited any X-DNA from my grandfather. This would also indicate that my brother Chuck’s X-DNA is 97% from our grandfather and only 3% from our grandmother. My brother John would then have 77% of his X-DNA from our grandfather and 23% from our grandmother.”

As a genetic genealogist, at the time Jim wrote this piece, I was most interested in the fact that he had phased or attributed the pieces of the X to specific ancestors and the process he used to do that.  I found the very skewed inheritance “interesting” but basically attributed it to an anomaly.  It now appears that this is not an anomaly.  It was, instead the tip of the iceberg and we didn’t recognize it as such.  Let’s look at what we would normally expect.

Recombination

The X chromosome does recombine when it can, or at least has the capacity to do so.  This means that a female who receives an X from both her father and mother receives a recombined X from her mother, but receives an X that is not recombined from her father.  That is because her father only receives one X, from his mother, so he has nothing to recombine with.  In the mother, the X recombines “in the normal way” meaning that parts of both her mother’s and her father’s X are given to her children, or at least that opportunity exists.  If you’re beginning to see some “weasel words” here or “hedge betting,” that’s because we’ve discovered that things aren’t always what they seem or could be.

The 50% Rule

In the statistical world of DNA, on the average, we believe that each generation receives roughly half of the DNA of the generations before them.  We know that each child absolutely receives 50% of the DNA of both parents, but how the grandparents DNA is divided up into that 50% that goes to each offspring differs.  It may not be 50%.  I am in the process of doing a generational inheritance study, which I will publish soon, which discusses this as a whole.

However, let’s use the 50% rule here, because it’s all we have and it’s what we’ve been working with forever.

In a normal autosomal, meaning non-X, situation, every generation provides to the current generation the following approximate % of DNA:

Please note Blaine Bettinger’s X maternal inheritance chart percentages from his “More X-Chromosome Charts” article, and used with his kind permission in the X Marks the Spot article.

I’m enlarging the inheritance percentage portion so you can see it better.

Taking a look at these percentages, it becomes evident that we cannot utilize the normal predictive methods of saying that if we share a certain percentage of DNA with an individual, then we are most likely a specific relationship.  This is because the percentage of X chromosome inherited varies based on the inheritance path, since men don’t receive an X from their fathers.  Not only does this mean that you receive no X from many ancestors, you receive a different percentage of the X from your maternal grandmother, 25%, because your mother inherited an X from both of her parents, versus from your paternal grandmother, 50%, because your father inherited an X from only his mother.

The Genetic Kinship chart, below, from the ISOGG wiki, is the “Bible” that we use in terms of estimating relationships.  It doesn’t work for the X.

Let’s look at the normal autosomal inheritance model as compared to the maternal X chart fan chart percentages, above, and similar calculations for the paternal side.  Remember, the Maternal Only column applies only to men, because in the very first generation, men’s and women’s inheritance percentages diverge.  Men receive 100% of their X from their mothers, while women receive 50% from each parent.

Recombination – The Next Problem

The genetic genealogy community has been hounding Family Tree DNA incessantly to add the X chromosome matching into their Family Finder matching calculations.

On January 2, 2014, they did exactly that.  What’s that old saying, “Be careful what you ask for….”  Well, we got it, but “it” doesn’t seem to be providing us with exactly what we expected.

First, there were many reports of women having many more matches than men.  That’s to be expected at some level because women have so many more ancestors in the “mix,” especially when matching other women.

23andMe takes this unique mixture into consideration, or at least attempts to compensate for it at some level.  I’m not sure if this is a good or bad thing or if it’s useful, truthfully.  While their normal autosomal SNP matching threshold is 7cM and 700 matching SNPs within that segment, for X, their thresholds are:

• Male matched to male – 1cM/200 SNPs
• Male matched to female – 6 cM/600 SNPs
• Female matched to female – 6cM/1200 SNPs

Family Tree DNA does not use the X exclusively for matching.  This means that if you match someone utilizing their normal autosomal matching criteria of approximately 7.7cM and 500 SNPs, and you match them on the X chromosome, they will report your X as matching.  If you don’t match someone on any chromosome except the X, you will not be reported as a match.

The X matching criteria at Family Tree DNA is:

• 1cM/500SNPs

However, matching isn’t all of the story.

The X appears to not recombine normally.  By normally, I don’t mean something is medically wrong, I mean that it’s not what we are expecting to see in terms of the 50% rule.  In essence, we would expect to see approximately half of the X of each parent, grandfather and grandmother, passed on to the child from the mother in the maternal line where recombination is a possibility.  That appears to not be happening reliably.  Not only is this not happening in the nice neat 50% number, the X chromosome seems to be often not recombining at all.  If you think the percentages in the chart above threw a monkey wrench into genetic genealogy predictions, this information, if it holds up in a much larger test, in essence throws our predictive capability, at least as we know it today, out the window.

The X Doesn’t Recombine as Expected

In my generational study, I noticed that the X seemed not to be recombining.  Then I remembered something that Matt Dexter said at the Family Tree DNA Conference in November 2013 in Houston.  Matt has the benefit of having a full 3 generation pedigree chart where everyone has been tested, and he has 5 children, so he can clearly see who got the DNA from which of their grandparents.

I contacted Matt, and he provided me with his X chromosomal information about his family, giving me permission to share it with you.  I have taken the liberty of reformatting it in a spreadsheet so that we can view various aspects of this data.

First, note that I have sorted these by grandchild.  There are two females, who have the opportunity to inherit from 3 grandparents.  The females inherited one copy of the X from their mother, who had two copies herself, and one copy of the X from her father who only had his mother’s copy.  Therefore, the paternal grandfather is listed above, but with the note “cannot inherit.”  This distinguishes this event from the circumstance with Grandson 1 where he could inherit some part of his maternal grandfather’s X, but did not.

For the three grandsons, I have listed all 4 grandparents and noted the paternal grandmother and grandfather as “cannot inherit.”  This is of course because the grandsons don’t inherit an X from their father.  Instead they inherit the Y, which is what makes them male.

According to the Rule of 50%, each child should receive approximately half of the DNA of each maternal grandparent that they can inherit from.  I added the columns, % Inherited cM and % Inherited SNP to illustrate whether or not this number comes close to the 50% we would expect.  The child MUST have a complete X chromosome which is comprised of 18092 SNPs and is 195.93cM in length, barring anomalies like read errors and such, which do periodically occur.  In these columns, 1=100%, so in the Granddaughter 1 column of % Inherited cM, we see 85% for the maternal grandfather and about 15% for the maternal grandmother.  That is hardly 50-50, and worse yet, it’s no place close to 50%.

Granddaughter 1 and 2 must inherit their paternal grandmother’s X intact, because there is nothing to recombine with.

Granddaughter 2 inherited even more unevenly, with about 90% and 10%, but in favor of the other grandparent.  So, statistically speaking, it’s about 50% for each grandparent between the two grandchildren, but it is widely variant when looking at them individually.

Grandson 1, as mentioned, inherited his entire X from his maternal grandmother with absolutely no recombination.

Grandsons 2 and 3 fall much closer to the expected 50%.

The problem for most of us is that you need 3 or 4 consecutive generations to really see this happening, and most of us simply don’t have data that deep or robust.

A recent discussion on the DNA Genealogy Rootsweb mailing list revealed several more of these documented occurrences, among them, two separate examples where the X chromosome was unrecombined for 4 generations.

Robert Paine, a long-time genetic genealogy contributor and project administrator reported that in his family medical/history project, at 23andMe, 25% of his participants show no recombination on the X chromosome.  That’s a staggering percentage.  His project consists of  21 people in with 2 blood lines tested 5 generations deep and 2 bloodlines tested at 4 generations

One woman’s X matches her great-great-grandmother’s X exactly.  That’s 4 separate inheritance events in a row where the X was not recombined at all.

The graphic below, provided by Robert,  shows the chromosome browser at 23andMe where you can see the X matches exactly for all three participants being compared.

The screen shot is of the gg-granddaughter Evelyn being compared to her gg-grandmother, Shevy, Evelyn’s g-grandfather Rich and Evelyn’s grandmother Cyndi. 23andme only lets you compare 3 individuals at a time so Robert did not include Evelyn’s mother Shay, who is an exact match with Evelyn.

Where Are We?

So what does this mean to genetic genealogy?  It certainly does not mean we should throw the baby out with the bath water.  What it is, is an iceberg warning that there is more lurking beneath the surface.  What and how big?  I can’t tell you.  I simply don’t know.

Here’s what I can tell you.

• The X chromosome matching can tell you that you do share a common ancestor someplace back in time.

• The amount of DNA shared is not a reliable predictor of how long ago you shared that ancestor.

• The amount of DNA shared cannot predict your relationship with your match.  In fact, even a very large match can be many generations removed.

• The absence of an X match, even with someone closely related whom you should match does not disprove a descendant relationship/common ancestor.

• The X appears to not recombine at a higher rate than previously thought, the previous expectation being that this would almost never happen.

• The X, when it does recombine appears to do so in a manner not governed by the 50% rule.  In fact, the 50% rule may not apply at all except as an average in large population studies, but may well be entirely irrelevant or even misleading to the understanding of X chromosome inheritance in genetic genealogy.

The X is still useful to genetic genealogists, just not in the same way that other autosomal data is utilized.  The X is more of an auxiliary chromosome that can provide information in addition to your other matches because of its unique inheritance pattern.

Unfortunately, this discovery leaves us with more questions than answers.  I found it incomprehensible that this phenomenon has never been studied in humans, or in animals, for that matter, at least not that I could find.  What few references I did find indicated that the X seems to recombine with the same frequency as the other autosomes, which we are finding to be untrue.

What is needed is a comprehensive study of hundreds of X transmission events at least 3 generations deep.

As it turns out, we’re not the only ones confused by the behavior of the X chromosome.  Just yesterday, the New York Times had an article about Seeing the X Chromosome in a New Light.  It seems that either one copy of the X, or the other, is disabled cell by cell in the human body.  If you are interested in this aspect of science, it’s a very interesting read.  Indeed, our DNA continues to both amaze and amuse us.

A special thank you to Jim Owston, Matt Dexter, Blaine Bettinger and Robert Paine for sharing their information.

Additional sources:

Polymorphic Variation in Human Meiotic
Recombination (2007)
Vivian G. Cheung
University of Pennsylvania
http://repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1102&context=be_papers

A Fine-Scale Map of Recombination Rates and Hotspots Across the Human Genome, Science October 2005, Myers et al
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/310/5746/321.full.pdf
Supplemental Material
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/suppl/2005/10/11/310.5746.321.DC1

Well, it’s not exactly a what-if question, it’s a given.  You’re going to.  The only real question is when, and will you be prepared?

By prepared, I’m not talking about your will, I’m talking about your DNA.

The unspeakable happened this past weekend.  A long time researcher and close friend, Aleda, died, rather unexpectedly.  She has been chronically ill for some time, but not critically.  On Saturday, she read my blog, worked with her research group on the Autosomal DNA Segment Analyzer and ordered Emily’s book.  Then, in the afternoon, she said she didn’t feel well and got into her chair to take a nap.  Nothing unusual about that.  Aleda didn’t feel well a lot, but she persevered anyway, always helping and guiding her research group.  But this time was different.  Aleda was gone.

Her research group is wandering around like a group of lost souls.  It’s like someone shot a hole through the middle of all of us.  This isn’t a large well organized group with an official structure, but a small group of closely and not so closely related researchers trying to figure out their DNA and genealogy connections.

If you are a significant contributor, you will be sorely missed.  If you are reading this, and have had your DNA tested, you are one of the contributors.

The research group members are already asking, “What next?  How do we access the DNA records of the people Aleda had tested?”  Good question.  Let’s talk about preparing for the inevitable.

Aleda had given the kit passwords to a friend, who is now so upset she can’t find them.  As the project administrator of one of the projects that includes one of Aleda’s family member’s kits, I can see some of the information.

E-Mail

I can see that Aleda set up a special DNA e-mail address which I’m presuming she used for all of the kits.  Unfortunately, there is no alternate e-mail address.

When Family Tree DNA, and virtually all the companies, do a password reset, they send the password information to the e-mail address on file.

Does anyone, other than Aleda, have the password to that e-mail account?

Project administrators cannot change primary e-mail addresses.  Only the kit owner can do that.

If you change your password to your e-mail account, you’ll need to remember to provide the new password to your trusted other as well.

Passwords

If you share your password with someone, that’s fine, but if they can’t find it, or if you change it and don’t tell them, that won’t be helpful.  You might want to add their e-mail as an alternate.  You might want to provide this information to multiple people, just in case your chosen person predeceases you, or some other unfortunate situation exists, like a fire, system crash or losing the passwords.

At 23andMe, to download a raw data file, a password isn’t enough.  You also have to know the answer to the secret question.

Beneficiary Information

Family Tree DNA goes one step further and provides people with a beneficiary form for situations just like this.

Unfortunately, Aleda’s family member’s form is blank, and she protected his information by changing the setting to prevent project administrators from completing this form.

Covering all the Bases

Don’t forget about 3^rd party sites like GedMatch where you may also be registered.

What to do?

1. Family Tree DNA is the only company to provide the option of beneficiary information.  Take advantage of this and complete the form.  It’s only 3 lines – name, phone and e-mail of your beneficiary.  You can find it under the “My Account” tab on the blue/black bar at the top of your personal page.

2. Add an alternate e-mail address.

3. Provide password and e-mail password information to a trusted other, and maybe a few trusted others.

4. Remember to notify password holders when you change passwords to either e-mail or DNA kits.

5. If you are a project administrator, try your best to find a co-administrator and share information, such as genealogy provided by participants.

6. Provide a notification list for your family that includes important genealogy and DNA contacts, including Family Tree DNA if you are a project administrator.  Many times I’ve received an e-mail from someone’s account with their name as the subject.  I’ve learned to cringe when I see them, because I know what’s coming…but at least the family has taken the trouble to notify those of us who communicate electronically with that person instead of leaving us to wonder forever what happened.

7. Preparing for the inevitable doesn’t just apply to DNA testing, but to all aspects of online life.  Think about Facebook, for example.  My brother died 2 years ago, today, and no one has his password.  We post to his page from time to time, but like a ghost ship, his Facebook account will sail off into the indefinite captainless future.

One of the questions I receive rather regularly is about the difference between STRs and SNPs.

Generally, what people really want to understand is the difference between the products, and a basic answer is really all they want.  I explain that an STR or Short Tandem Repeat is a different kind of a mutation than a SNP or a Single Nucleotide Polymorphism.  STRs are useful genealogically, to determine to whom you match within a recent timeframe, of say, the past 500 years or so, and SNPs define haplogroups which reach much further back in time.  Furthermore SNPs are considered “once in a lifetime,” or maybe better stated, “once in the lifetime of mankind” type of events, known as a UEP, Unique Event Polymorphism, where STRs happen “all the time,” in every haplogroup.  In fact, this is why you can check for the same STR markers in every haplogroup – those markers we all know and love.

This was a pretty good explanation for a long time but as sequencing technology has improved and new tests have become available, such as the Full Y and Big Y tests, new mutations are being very rapidly discovered which blurs the line between the timeframes that had been used to separate these types of tests.  In fact, now they are overlapping in time, so SNPs are, in some cases becoming genealogically useful.  This also means that these newly discovered family SNPs are relatively new, meaning they only occurred between the current generation and 1000 years ago, so we should not expect to find huge numbers of these newly developed mutations in the population.  For example, if the SNP that defined haplogroup R1b1a2, M269, occurred 15,000 years ago in one man, his descendants have had 15,000 years to procreate and pass his M269 on down the line(s), something they have done very successfully since about half of Europe is either M269 or a subclade.

Each subclade has a SNP all its own.  In fact, each subclade is defined by a specific SNP that forms its own branch of the human Y haplotree.

So far, so good.

But what does a SNP or an STR really look like, I mean, in the raw data?  How do you know that you’re seeing one or the other?

Like Baseball – 4 Bases

The smallest units of DNA are made up of 4 base nucleotides, DNA words, that are represented by the following letters:

A = Adenine
C = Cytosine
G = Guanine
T = Thymine

These nucleotides combine in pairs to form the ladder rungs of DNA, shown right that connect the helix backbones.  T typically combines with A and C usually combines with G, reaching between the backbones of the double helix to connect with their companion protein in the center.

You don’t need to remember the words or even the letters, just remember that we are looking for pattern matches of segments of DNA.

Point Mutations

Your DNA when represented on paper looks like a string of beads where there are 4 kinds of beads, each representing one of the nucleotides above.  One segment of your DNA might look like this:

If this is what the standard or reference sequence for your haplotype (your personal DNA results) or your family haplogroup (ancestral clan) looks like, then a mutation would be defined as any change, addition, or deletion.  A change would be if the first A above were to change to T or G or C as in the example below:

A deletion would be noticed if the leading A were simply gone.

An addition of course would be if a new bead were inserted in the sequence at that location.

All of the above changes involve only one location.  These are all known as Point Mutations, because they occur at one single point.

SNPs

A point mutation may or may not be a SNP.  A SNP is defined by geneticists as a point mutation that is found in more than 1% of the population.  This should tell you right away that when we say “we’ve discovered a new SNP,” we’re really mis-applying that term, because until we determine that the frequency which it is found in the population is over the 1% threshold, it really isn’t a SNP, but is still considered a point mutation or binary polymorphism.

Today, when SNPS, or point mutations are discovered, they are considered “private mutations” or “family mutations.”  There has been consternation for some time about how to handle these types of situations.  ISOGG has set forth their criteria on their website.  They currently have the most comprehensive tree, but they certainly have their work cut out for them with the incoming tsunami of new SNPS that will be discovered utilizing these next generation tests, hundreds of which are currently in process.

STRs

A STR, or Short Tandem Repeat is analogous to a genetic stutter, or the copy machine getting stuck.  In the same situation as above, utilizing the same base for comparison, we see a group of inserted nucleotides that are all duplicates of each other.

In this case, we have a short tandem repeat that is 4 segments in length meaning that CT is inserted 4 times.  To translate, if this is marker DYS marker 390, you have a value of 5, meaning 5 repeats of CT.

So I’ve been fat and happy with this now for years, well over a decade.

The Monkey Wrench

And then I saw this:

“The L69/L159 polymorphism is essentially a SNP/STR oxymoron.”

To the best of my knowledge, this is impossible – one type of mutation excludes the other.  I googled about this topic and found nothing, nor did I find additional discussion of L69, other than this.

My first reaction to this was “that’s impossible,” followed by “Bloody Hell,” and my next reaction was to find someone who knew.

I reached out to Dr. David Mittelman, geneticist and Chief Scientific Officer at Gene by Gene, parent company of Family Tree DNA.  I asked him about the SNP/STR oxymoron and he said:

“This is impossible. There is no such thing as a SNP/STR.”

Whew!  I must say, I’m relieved.  I thought there for a minute there I had lost my mind.

I asked him what is really going on in this sequence, and he replied that, “This would be a complex variant — when multiple things are happening at once.”

Now, that I understand.  I have children, and grandchildren – I fully understand multiple things happening at once.  Let’s break this example apart and take a look at what is really happening.

HUGO is a reference standard, so let’s start there as our basis for comparison.

In the L69 variant we have the following sequence.

We see two distinct things happening in this sequence.  First, we have the deletion of two Gs, and secondly, we have the insertion of one additional TG.  According to Dr. Mittelman, both of these events are STRs, multiple insertions or deletions, and neither are point mutations or SNPs, so neither of these should really have SNP names, they should have STR type of names.

Let’s look at the L159 variant.

In this case, we have the GG insertion and then we have a TG deletion.

In both cases, L69 and L159, the actual length of the DNA sequence remains the same as the reference, but the contents are different.  Both had 2 nucleotides removed and 2 added.

The good news is, as a consumer, that you don’t really need to know this, not at this level.  The even better news is that with the new discoveries forthcoming, whether they be STRs or SNPs, at the leafy end of the branch, they are often now overlapping with SNPs becoming much more genealogically useful.  In the past, if you were looking at a genetics mutation timeline, you had STRs that covered current to 1000 years, then nothing, then beginning at 5,000 or 10,000 years, you have SNPs that were haplogroup defining.

That gap has been steadily shrinking, and today, there often is no gap, the chasm is gone, and we’re discovering freshly hatched recently-occurring SNPs on a daily basis.

The day is fast approaching when you’ll want the full Y sequence, not to further define your haplogroup, but to further delineate your genealogy lines.  You’ll have two tools to do that, SNPs and STRs both, not just one.

I want to thank Dr. Mittelman for his generous assistance with this article.

Drum roll…the big day is finally here.

Family Tree DNA held a webinar meeting today to explain the new Big Y product features for a number of us who blog or otherwise educate within the genetic genealogy community.

First, the results will begin rolling today, not tomorrow.  100 will initially be released today and the balance of the initial orders will be released as they finish QA over the next month, at which point, Family Tree DNA anticipates their backlog will be resolved.  There were thousands of tests ordered.  They aren’t saying how many thousands.

First, a little background.  There are 36,562 known Y SNPs in the Family Tree DNA data base that everyone is being compared to.  In the example we saw of the delivered product, 25,749 has been found and callable at a high confidence rate in the individual being tested and were reported.  Low confidence calls are not reported on this personal delivery page, but are included in the data download files.

On the customer’s personal page, there are two tabs.  The first Tab is for reporting against known SNPs.

The second is for Novel Variations, in other words, SNPs not on the list of 36,562 known and previously named SNPs.

In essence, Family Tree DNA has implemented a 4 step process.

1. An individual’s sequenced data is compared to the SNP data base and divided into two categories, known and previously unknown.  The customer’s data is delivered based on these two categories.
2. All customer data is being loaded into a mammoth size data base at which point it will be determined which SNPs (please see the definition of a SNP here) are actually undiscovered SNPs that will be named, and which are truly novel, family or clan variants.
3. New SNPs that are found in enough of the population will be named and will be added to the haplotree.
4. Novel variants will remain that, and will continue to be reported on client pages.

Family Tree DNA is still working on items 2-4.  In addition, they are working on a white paper which will be out in the next 6 weeks or so that will discuss things like the average number of novel SNPs per person being discovered, mutation rates, performance metrics and cross validation of platforms between the next gen sequencing Illumina equipment, Sanger sequencing and chip based sequencing, like the Geno 2.0 chip.

What’s Being Reported?

According to Dr. David Mittelman, the Y chromosome has about 60 million letters.  About half of those are inverted repeats and are therefore not sequenceable.

Of the balance, there are several with poor readability, for example, some that simulate the X, etc.  These are also not useful or reliable to read.

That leaves about 10 million, these being the gold standard of Y sequencing.  Family Tree DNA tries to read about 13.5 million of these base pairs.  They promised 10 million positions when they announced this product.  They are delivering between 11.5 and 12.5 million positions per person.  They also promised about 25,000 common variants, meaning known SNPs and they are delivering between 25,000 and 30,000 per person.  This is only counting medium to high confidence calls.  The low confidence calls are included in the download files, but not counted in this total or shown on your personal page.

Exactly how many locations are reported for any individual are shown on the bottom left hand side of the page.  This example is generic.  Yours might say something like, ”Showing 1 of 10 of 25,000 of 36,564.”  In this case, 25,000 would be the number of SNPs read and called on your test.

All 25,000 or so results are being shown, both positive and negative.  That way, there is no question about whether a specific location was tested, or the outcome.  Of course, the third and fourth outcome options are a no-call or poor confidence call at that location.

All novel mutations are being reported by reference number so that they can be compared to like data from any source, as opposed to an “in-house” assigned number.

Insertions and deletions are also in the download files, but not reported on the customer’s delivery page.

Personal data is also searchable by SNP.

Individual SNP Testing

After steps 2 and 3 have occurred, it has to be determined which SNPs are found in a high enough percentage of a population to warrant primer development to test individual SNP positions.

Family Tree DNA also clarified something from the November conference.  The 2000 SNP limit is only how many SNPs can be loaded at one time, not the total number they will ever develop primers for or test for.  They will do what makes sense in terms of the SNP being present in enough of the market to warrant primer development.  With the very large number of Novel SNPs being discovered, it wouldn’t make much sense to purchase 50 individual SNP tests at $39 each.  The break even point today, at $39, would be 17 individual SNPs, as compared to the $695 Big Y test.  I expect that eventually the demand for individual SNP testing will decrease substantially.

Downloadable Files

Available on everyone’s page is the ability to download 2 files, a VCF (variant call file) which lists the variants identified as compared to the human reference sequence and the BED file which is a text file which shows a range of positions that passed the QC.

They will also be making available the BAM raw data files within the next week or so, but are finalizing the delivery methodology due to the very large file sizes involved.

The Much Anticipated HaploTree

If I had a dollar for every time someone has asked when the new tree would be available, I’d be a rich woman.  As we all know, there have been a couple of problems with the tree.  The new tree is 7 to 8 times the size of the 2010 tree.  The tree, of course, has been cast in warm jello, an ever-moving target.  And with the SNP tsumani that has been arriving with the full sequencing of the Y chromosome, that tree will very shortly be much larger still.

Bennett Greenspan said today that an updated tree is, “Needed, desired and will be delivered.”  He went on to say that they have had two teams working together with Nat Geo for the past couple of months to both finalize the tree itself and to work on the customer interface.  Since the tree is much larger, it’s not as easy as the older trees which could be seen at a glance and easily navigated.  Furthermore, there is also the matter of integration with National Geographic.

Bennett says an updated tree will be delivered “within the next several weeks.”

New SNPs that are discerned to be SNPs and not novel/clan or family variations will then be named and added to the tree.

Integration

The initial release of Big Y data will be just that, a release of the results of the data, displayable on your personal page and downloadable.  The newly found SNPs will not initially update the current haplotree on your personal page.  This is the same issue we have today with the transfer and integration of Nat Geo data, because the tree is not current, so this is nothing new.  The implementation of the new tree however, will remedy both problems.

The Future

Never happy with what we have, genetic genealogists will want a way to match to other people on SNPs, just like we do today with STR markers.  In fact, we’ll want a way to integrate that matching and discern what it means to our own private family or clan situations.

Family Tree DNA is aware of that, planning for it, and welcomes feedback for how they can make this information even more useful in the future than it is today.

New Orders

I expect this delivery of new information via Big Y results will indeed spur a new interest in ordering this test from people who were waiting to see exactly what was being delivered.  For those people ordering now, they can expect an 8-10 week turnaround, so long as additional vials aren’t required for testing.

For More Information

Elise Friedman is holding the free Big Y Webinar tomorrow, Friday, February 28^th.  You can read about it, sign up and learn how to access this and other webinars after their initial showing at this link.

Family Tree DNA FAQ pages you’ll want to visit are here and here.

Family Tree DNA has launched a new Learning Center.  Meant to be much more comprehensive and interactive than their previous FAQs, with everything available in one centralized place, the new Learning Center encompasses a blog, the former FAQs, Webinar information including currently scheduled and archived past Webinars available,  FTDNA’s Forum, a link to group projects, Users Guides, Group Administrator Guides and tools, a glossary, links to scientific papers and more.

In fact, the site is so comprehensive that there is even a tutorial about how to utilize the Learning Center.

One of the best aspects of the Learning Center is that it’s fully searchable.  Just as a test, and because I’m a skeptic, I typed the word “heteroplasmy” into the search field.  This term, if you’re not familiar, is a relatively obscure term for mitochondrial DNA.  About 2% of the people who take a full sequence test will have a heteroplasmic mutation, which is really a mutation in process where two different nucleotides are discovered at a single location.

Sure enough, there were several results presented in a drop down box and then each one has a “read more” tab and the ability for questions and comments.  OK, FTDNA, you passed the pop quiz!

The Learning Center is a one stop shopping center.  You can also contact customer support through this page, or do things like look at career openings, if you’d like to live in Houston.

Family Tree DNA has made a renewed effort and commitment to stay in touch with their customer base.  I’m particularly encouraged with the “Latest News” tab.  And it’s not just because of my interview, although I was quite honored to be the first of several interviews with leaders in the genetic genealogy field published.  You can read the interview here.

Customers and project administrators have been asking for a central place to find information about products and announcements at Family Tree DNA, and it looks like the Latest News tab is going to be the new “market square” where everyone gathers to find the latest information.

Rebekah Canada, who is responsible for the Learning Center, has also been making a concerted effort to update several other lists and locations such as the genealogy-dna list at Rootsweb, the Family Tree DNA Forum and the FTDNA Facebook page with pertinent information, but it makes sense for the “go to” place linking everything together to be the Learning Center.

Best of all, you can also subscribe to new posts.  To subscribe, click on any of the “Latest News Posts” that you see on the main page.

On the right hand side of each article is a subscribe option.  This way, all the news comes directly to you – no signing on to check to see what’s new!  It’s delivered.  I love this!!!

My only negative comment…..that’s a really ugly lightbulb.  Just doesn’t seem to convey the same thing as….

Seems like the perfect opportunity for a bright idea, some creativity and a double helix design to me!

No, not PETA, the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, but PITA – Pain In The Arm….yes….arm…what are you thinking???

For most people, being a PITA doesn’t come naturally….so you might need some help knowing how to be one, or perhaps perfecting your PITA skills.  Yes, in case you’re wondering….my tongue is firmly implanted in my cheek.

For genetic genealogists, there are special ways to be a PITA.  Let me share some of these with you, just so you can fine tune and add to your PITA skills.

First and maybe the best ways to be a PITA, right off the bat.

1. Send e-mails with no subject or punctuation and an indecipherable topic, especially to someone you’ve never communicated with before.  Here’s an example.  You can just copy and paste this and send it to anyone you want to irritate or confuse.

“i would love to have any information you could give me…..thanks…..”

I so want to send this person something about penile implants.  Is this wrong?

2. Send e-mails with no capitals or punctuations.  This is always a wonderful way to impress people.

i just wanted to let you know that i have no idea how to type or how to use the period or comma keys or how to use the shift button i’m also using the fact that i’m using my phone as an excuse not to use punctuation however I can manage to type half of my life story for you to try to decipher so get out your special decoder ring

3. BETTER YET, SEND THE ENTIRE MESSAGE, INCLUDING SEVERAL PAGES OF YOUR ANCESTORS NAMES WITH NO DATES OR OTHER IDENTIFYING INFORMATION IN ALL CAPITALS.  THEN ASK FOR ANY INFORMATION THAT PERSON MIGHT HAVE ABOUT THOSE ANCESTORS.  THIS IS ESPECIALLY USEFUL WHEN FIRST INTRODUCING YOURSELF AND LETS YOUR NEW CONTACT KNOW JUST HOW IMPORTANT THEY ARE AND HOW MUCH FUN IT’S GOING TO BE TO COMMUNICATE WITH YOU.

4. When a match asks you for genealogy information, just send them a link to your Ancestry.com tree.  You can then sit back and laugh, knowing that they have no idea where to search in your 35,723 people for a common ancestor without looking for every surname they have.  Plus, you have the added benefit that Ancestry will help you be a PITA by attaching your tree to their account like a giant kudzu vine that they can’t disentangle without knowing the secret handshake.

5. When a match asks you for genealogy information, never, ever send them something actually useful, like a pedigree chart with an index.  Instead send them rambling e-mails with disconnected tidbits from both sides of your family, or that link to your Ancestry tree.  Go to sleep then, knowing they will be up all night trying to figure this out.

6. Ask for, or better yet, demand free consulting.  Select someone at random (not me please, I already receive more than my share – 17 yesterday alone) and send them a rambling stream-of-consciousness e-mail several pages long.  At the end, tell them that you can’t afford to pay anything, but ask if they would tell you “what they think.”  Before sending these to anyone in the genetic genealogy community, send several to other professionals, physicians or lawyers in your community and see how that works out?

Now, if someone is a project volunteer, that’s a bit different.  They still don’t “owe” you free consulting, but they have set themselves forth as a volunteer resource.  Still, try to be respectful of their time and be brief and concise in your requests.

In other words, the 21 page e-mail I received this week from Person Unknown demanding that I, as a project administrator, figure out how the “requester” was related to three people in the large Cumberland Gap project (also persons unknown) was, well, ahem, a bit over the top, to put it mildly.  No, I confess, I did not read all 21 pages and the only reason I know it WAS 21 pages long is because I wanted to use it as a bad example.  If that was your e-mail and I’ve just offended you, well, I’m sorry you’re offended, but that is not the way to win friends and influence people, nor to get your questions answers or your problems solved.  It is, however, a great way to be a PITA.  In fact, you win this week’s PITA award!

Here’s an example of a reasonable, concise question from my blog:

“Thanks for that explanation, I needed that information. Still would like to know what a “back mutation” is.”

And the answer:

“A back mutation is when a mutations happens, like from A to C, and then the reverse happens, a mutation from C to A. It initially looks like no mutation happened, unless you are aware of the intermediate step and that two mutations actually happened.”

There’s a big difference between a simple one or two line general DNA question and a multi-page personal epistle that the receiver has to read three times and make charts to even begin to unravel or understand, so, to be a PITA – always make yourself annoying and then you can wonder why you never receive replies from people.  Then complain about not receiving replies.

Oh, and if you do write to a project administrator, never, ever tell them how or why you are writing specifically to them – it’s much more fun to leave them guessing.  The sender of the 21 page epistle did not SAY it was the Cumberland Gap project – they left that for me to decipher.

7. Skim articles, don’t click on the links, and then ask questions of the author that would have been answered if you had clicked on the links they provided in the first place.  They love receiving several of these e-mails every day!

Now, if you have DNA tested at any of the three major testing companies, there special ways for you to be a PITA with each one.  Let me give you some fresh ideas.

At Family Tree DNA

8. Join a DNA project, any project.  Then, when the administrator sends you a welcome message, introducing themselves and asking for genealogy information, send them a nasty note.  Here’s one I received recently.  You can just use it.

“Who the hell are you and why are you contacting me.  Don’t ever contact me again.”

9. Family Tree DNA does you the very large favor of providing you with the e-mail addresses of your contacts instead of forcing you to go through a message system like at 23andMe and Ancestry.

When sending an e-mail to someone you match, be sure to never include the name of the person you match, or what kind of a test you took that matches.  This will confuse them and make them really want to answer your inquiry.  Many people manage test kits for several people and if you don’t put the name of the person you match in your e-mail, they will probably think it’s their kit, and then they will either spend a lot of time looking for matches and/or putting together genealogy info to send to you that is not useful.  Then, after you receive the info, tell them you’re sorry, but the match was to a different person.  That will truly endear you to them.

10. Don’t ever update your e-mail address…then complain online and loudly about how you never receive contacts from either your project administrator or your contacts/matches.

11. Don’t upload your GEDCOM file either, because someone might accidentally discover a common surname match or a common ancestor, and that would be just awful.  It would also provide Family Tree DNA with the information to bold matching surnames on your autosomal match list for you, AND you’d get a $10 coupon…all of which would be just terrible.

12. Volunteer to be a project administrator, then do nothing at all.  Leave your project entirely ungrouped, and refuse any assistance.  In this case, you really don’t have to DO anything to be a PITA.

Better yet, create an off-site (non-FTDNA) website instead of using the one at Family Tree DNA and remove any information that could be useful to someone searching for their ancestral line.  Here’s an example.

Don’t want to create your own website?  Well, you can be almost as large a PITA by using the Family Tree DNA page and simply disabling anything useful, like, you know, most distant ancestor.  That way people can see that there is a project and their line MIGHT be hidden in there, but they have no way to find out other than contacting you.  Then, don’t answer, of course.

At 23andMe

13. Give yourself a really innovative “screen name,” like, say “Your cousin” or “3^rd cousin” or better yet, “My Mother.”  That way when you send contact requests or sharing requests to people, it looks like it is coming from their mother…and if their mother has already passed over…well…let’s just say your contact request could be really startling.  Worse yet, if that person matches two people who are equally as creative and both named themselves “My Mother,” how will they ever tell you apart???  And can you really have two mothers?  OMG, I feel an identity crisis coming on…

14. Tell your contact that you are really interested in genealogy, provide a little bit of genealogy info, just a couple tidbits, maybe a juicy morsel, but then refuse to share your DNA.

15.  Don’t provide any surname or location information.  That might give someone a clue as to how you connect – so don’t ever do that.

16.  I’d tell you to never upload your GEDCOM file, or create one, but you can actually be a larger PITA by uploading your file at 23andMe, because their file reader interface works so poorly that your match will be more frustrated trying to read the file than by not finding one at all.  So you can be a PITA whether you upload your file or not.  How’s that for good luck!

17.  Don’t ever reply to contact or sharing requests.  I know this one is already quite popular.  About 90% of the people there already do this, so you’ll be in good company.  If people at 23andMe aren’t interested in genealogy, there is an opt-out, but don’t opt out because you can be much more of a PITA by leaving yourself in the genealogy pool but never replying to anyone, especially close matches.  Drives them crazy!

At Ancestry

18. First and foremost, never, ever reply to messages.  I know that this one is very popular, because many of my DNA matches, including my closest match at Ancestry has implemented this scheme.  She, I assume, due to the name (unless I’m related to the boy named Sue) and I share a common great-grandfather.  In this case, I have photos she might really like to have.  Too bad she is being a PITA.

19. Make your tree private, AND never reply to requests.  This is the ultimate tease, because your match KNOWS the information is there, right there, hiding just out of reach, and can’t get to it.

20. Copy and paste several trees together because, after all, the names match and, hello, it wouldn’t BE on Ancestry if it wasn’t RIGHT.  Right?  You can then scare the bejesus out of someone when they discover that their non-Mormon grandfather had 7 wives and 35 kids….all while married to their grandmother.  That’s always fun.  Then, when they frantically contact you to ask about it, don’t even think about replying to that message.

21. Insist that because you and your Ancestry DNA match have a shakey leaf and a common ancestor in your tree, that you KNOW that’s your DNA match because Ancestry SAYS SO.  When your match tries to explain that connection might be incorrect, may not be your DNA match and that there is no way to prove it, at least not without utilizing tools from either GedMatch or Family Tree DNA, don’t reply to them anymore.  That will certainly solve the problem!

22.  Send random people invitations to your Ancestry tree – and be positive your tree name has absolutely no identifying words in it.  Like the one I received recently, for example, named ”A Global Tree of Life.”  Yep, I can tell you right away who sent that to me and why!!!

23. Oh yes, and in true PITA-esque fashion, never, ever say “Thank you,” to anyone, ever, for anything.  Thank you is such an easy thing to say and it makes the person on the receiving end feel good about whatever it was they did for you – even if was “just” answering your question.  So don’t slip up and do this!  Otherwise, you’ll certainly be thrown out of the PITA Club!

Added PITAs

24. Instead of being grateful for free things, like blogs and webpages, and simply unsubscribing or ignoring them if you don’t like them, make nasty comments.  That will certainly confirm your PITA membership and make the person providing the free content feel warm and fuzzy about the time they invest.

“How about I unsubscribe to your boring emails about your family I have been getting the last year. Ms PITA.”

On Sunday, March 17^th, 2014, the Houston Chronicle features an article about Houston’s own entrepreneurs, Max Blankfeld and Bennett Greenspan who founded Gene by Gene, parent company of Family Tree DNA.  Below, in a photo from the Chronicle, they hold samples of DNA trayed and ready to run in their Gene by Gene lab.

How many of you know that the pair began as a photographic film salesman and a watchmaker?  This just proves what passion and innovation can and will do.  Impossible is not a word either man knows.

Begun in 2000 as a retirement business, today Family Tree DNA has tested over 600,000 people directly and another half a million people through National Geographic through the Genographic and Geno 2.0 projects.

Their business model: Buy what you can afford. Don’t hire anyone you might have to lay off. Invest in automation and technology.

This seems to be working, as they are profitable and have provided a total of over 5 million discrete tests, between Family Tree DNA and the other Gene by Gene testing companies which provide medical and paternity testing.

The story of how the company began is legendary in DNA circles.  Bennett Greenspan, a frustrated genealogist who had hit a dead end approached Dr. Michael Hammer at the University of Arizona.  One might suggest that approached isn’t really the correct word.  Hounded might be better.  Bennett understood that his Y chromosome would match that of someone else who shared a paternal ancestor, and he wanted to find a lab to do that test.  Michael Hammer finally simply acquiesced to get rid of Bennett, with the now infamous throw away line, “You know, someone should start a business doing this.”  Never, never say that to an entrepreneur.

As reported in the Chronicle, reflectively, Dr. Hammer, an adviser to Gene by Gene and a regular speaker at the Family Tree DNA annual genetics conference, says today, “It was just the right time, right place. No one thought this was going to turn into anything.”  Michael had obviously never met a man like Bennett.

I’ve known Bennett for 13 or 14 years now.  It’s easy to see him as a successful businessman.  But to know Bennett is to remember that he is truly a genealogist at heart, and everything he does with Family Tree DNA has genealogy as its heart and soul.  If you walk into his office, you will be immediately reminded of this fact, and it’s hard to see Bennett as anything else other than one of us – just a kind-hearted genealogist seeking answers.  In the photo below from the Chronicle, Bennett stands in front of his ancestor timeline which resides on his office wall.  I wonder how many of these ancestors he has represented by DNA haplogroups today.

Thank you so much Bennett, for pushing that envelope, hounding Dr. Hammer and birthing genetic genealogy.  Today, Max and Bennett are truly shepherding consumer genetics to the next step.

“We took science that was performed in a stuffy lab and brought it into the general public,” Greenspan said.

Thank Heavens they did.  We are all the beneficiaries.

To read the rest of the article and for more photos, click here.

Recently, I’ve received a number of questions about comparing people and haplogroups between 23andMe and Family Tree DNA.  I can tell by the questions that a significant amount of confusion exists about the two, so I’d like to talk about both.  In you need a review of “What is a Haplogroup?”, click here.

Haplogroup information and comparisons between Family Tree DNA information and that at 23andMe is not apples and apples.  In essence, the haplogroups are not calculated in the same way, and the data at Family Tree DNA is much more extensive.  Understanding the differences is key to comparing and understanding results. Unfortunately, I think a lot of misinterpretation is happening due to misunderstanding of the essential elements of what each company offers, and what it means.

There are two basic kinds of tests to establish haplogroups, and a third way to estimate.

Let’s talk about mitochondrial DNA first.

Mitochondrial DNA

You have a very large jar of jellybeans.  This jar is your mitochondrial DNA.

In your jar, there are 16,569 mitochondrial DNA locations, or jellybeans, more or less.  Sometimes the jelly bean counter slips up and adds an extra jellybean when filling the jar, called an insertion, and sometimes they omit one, called a deletion.

Your jellybeans come in 4 colors/flavors, coincidentally, the same colors as the 4 DNA nucleotides that make up our double helix segments.  T for tangerine, A for apricot, C for chocolate and G for grape.

Each of the 16,569 jellybeans has its own location in the jar.  So, in the position of address 1, an apricot jellybean is always found there.  If the jellybean jar filler makes a mistake, and puts a grape jellybean there instead, that is called a mutation.  Mistakes do happen – and so do mutations.  In fact, we count on them.  Without mutations, genetic genealogy would be impossible because we would all be exactly the same.

When you purchase a mitochondrial DNA test from Family Tree DNA, you have in the past been able to purchase one of three mitochondrial testing levels.  Today, on the website, I see only the full sequence test for $199, which is a great value.

However, regardless of whether you purchase the full mitochondrial sequence test today, which tests all of your 16,569 locations, or the earlier HVR1 or HVR1+HVR2 tests, which tested a subset of about 10% of those locations called the HyperVariable Region, Family Tree DNA looks at each individual location and sees what kind of a jellybean is lodged there.  In position 1, if they find the normal apricot jellybean, they move on to position 2.  If they find any other kind of jellybean in position 1, other than apricot, which is supposed to be there, they record it as a mutation and record whether the mutation is a T,C or G.  So, Family Tree DNA reads every one of your mitochondrial DNA addresses individually.

Because they do read them individually, they can also discover insertions, where extra DNA is inserted, deletions, where some DNA dropped out of line, and an unusual conditions called a heteroplasmy which is a mutation in process where you carry some of two kinds of jellybean in that location – kind of a half and half 2 flavor jellybean.  We’ll talk about heteroplasmic mutations another time.

So, at Family Tree DNA, the results you see are actually what you carry at each of your individual 16,569 mitochondrial addresses.  Your results, an example shown below, are the mutations that were found.  “Normal” is not shown.  The letter following the location number, 16069T, for example, is the mutation found in that location.  In this case, normal is C.  In the RSRS model of showing mitochondrial DNA mutations, this location/mutation combination would be written as C16069T so that you can immediately see what is normal and then the mutated state.  You can click on the images to enlarge.

Family Tree DNA gives you the option to see your results either in the traditional CRS (Cambridge Reference Sequence) model, above, or the more current Reconstructed Sapiens Reference Sequence (RSRS) model.  I am showing the CRS version because that is the version utilized by 23andMe and I want to compare apples and apples.  You can read about the difference between the two versions here.

Defining Haplogroups

Haplogroups are defined by specific mutations at certain addresses.

For example, the following mutations, cumulatively, define haplogroup J1c2f.  Each branch is defined by its own mutation(s).

You can see, below, that these results, shown above, do carry these mutations, which is how this individual was assigned to haplogroup J1c2f. You can read about how haplogroups are defined here.

At 23andMe, they use chip based technology that scans only specifically programmed locations for specific values.  So, they would look at only the locations that would be haplogroup producing, and only those locations.  Better yet if there is one location that is utilized in haplogroup J1c2f that is predictive of ONLY J1c2f, they would select and use that location.

This same individual at 23andMe is classified as haplogroup J1c2, not J1c2f.  This could be a function of two things.  First, the probes might not cover that final location, 9055, and second, 23andMe may not be utilizing the same version of the mitochondrial haplotree as Family Tree DNA.

By clicking on the 23andMe option for “Ancestry Tools,” then “Haplogroup Tree Mutation Mapper,” you can see which mutations were tested with the probes to determine a haplogroup assignment.  23andMe information for this haplogroup is shown below.  This is not personal information, meaning it is not specific to you, except that you know you have mutations at these locations based on the fact that they have assigned you to the specific haplogroup defined by these mutations.  What 23andMe is showing in their chart is the ancestral value, which is the value you DON’T have.  So your jelly bean is not chocolate at location 188, it’s tangerine, apricot or grape.

Notice that 23andMe does not test for J1c2f.  In addition, 23andMe cannot pick up on insertions, deletions or heteroplasmies.  Normally, since they aren’t reading each one of your locations and providing you with that report, missing insertions and deletions doesn’t affect anything, BUT, if a deletion or insertion is haplogroup defining, they will miss this call.  Haplogroup K comes to mind.

23andMe never looks at any locations in the jelly bean jar other than the ones to assign a haplogroup, in this case,17 locations.  Family Tree DNA reads every jelly bean in the jelly bean jar, all 16,569.  Different technology, different results.  You also receive your haplogroup at 23andMe as part of a $99 package, but of course the individual reading of your mitochondrial DNA at Family Tree DNA is more accurate.  Which is best for you depends on your personal testing goals, so long as you accurately understand the differences and therefore how to interpret results.  A haplogroup match does not mean you’re a genealogy match.  More than one person has told me that they are haplogroup J1c, for example, at Family Tree DNA and they match someone at 23andMe on the same haplogroup, so they KNOW they have a common ancestor in the past few generations.  That’s an incorrect interpretation.  Let’s take a look at why.

Matches Between the Two

23andMe provides the tester with a list of the people who match them at the haplogroup level.  Most people don’t actually find this information, because it is buried on the “My Results,” then “Maternal Line” page, then scrolling down until your haplogroup is displayed on the right hand side with a box around it.

Those who do find this are confused because they interpret this to mean they are a match, as in a genealogical match, like at Family Tree DNA, or like when you match someone at either company autosomally.  This is NOT the case.

For example, other than known family members, this individual matches two other people classified as haplogroup J1c2.  How close of a match is this really?  How long ago do they share a common ancestor?

Taking a look at Doron Behar’s paper, “A “Copernican” Reassessment of the Human Mitochondrial DNA Tree from its Root,” in the supplemental material we find that haplogroup J1c2 was born about 9762 years ago with a variance of plus or minus about 2010 years, so sometime between 7,752 and 11,772 years ago.  This means that these people are related sometime in the past, roughly, 10,000 years – maybe as little as 7000 years ago.  This is absolutely NOT the same as matching your individual 16,569 markers at Family Tree DNA.  Haplogroup matching only means you share a common ancestor many thousands of years ago.

For people who match each other on their individual mitochondrial DNA location markers, their haplotype, Family Tree DNA provides the following information in their FAQ:

• Matching on HVR1 means that you have a 50% chance of sharing a common maternal ancestor within the last fifty-two generations. That is about 1,300 years.
• Matching on HVR1 and HVR2 means that you have a 50% chance of sharing a common maternal ancestor within the last twenty-eight generations. That is about 700 years.
• Matching exactly on the Mitochondrial DNA Full Sequence test brings your matches into more recent times. It means that you have a 50% chance of sharing a common maternal ancestor within the last 5 generations. That is about 125 years.

I actually think these numbers are a big generous, especially on the full sequence.  We all know that obtaining mitochondrial DNA matches that we can trace are more difficult than with the Y chromosome matches.  Of course, the surname changing in mitochondrial lines every generation doesn’t help one bit and often causes us to “lose” maternal lines before we “lose” paternal lines.

Autosomal and Haplogroups, Together

As long as we’re mythbusting here – I want to make one other point.  I have heard people say, more than once, that an autosomal match isn’t valid “because the haplogroups don’t match.”  Of course, this tells me immediately that someone doesn’t understand either autosomal matching, which covers all of your ancestral lines, or haplogroups, which cover ONLY either your matrilineal, meaning mitochondrial, or patrilineal, meaning Y DNA, line.  Now, if you match autosomally AND share a common haplogroup as well, at 23andMe, that might be a hint of where to look for a common ancestor.  But it’s only a hint.

At Family Tree DNA, it’s more than a hint.  You can tell for sure by selecting the “Advanced Matching” option under Y-DNA, mtDNA or Family Finder and selecting the options for both Family Finder (autosomal) and the other type of DNA you are inquiring about.  The results of this query tell you if your markers for both of these tests (or whatever tests are selected) match with any individuals on your match list.

Hint – for mitochondrial DNA, I never select “full sequence” or “all mtDNA” because I don’t want to miss someone who has only tested at the HVR1 level and also matches me autosomally.  I tend to try several combinations to make sure I cover every possibility, especially given that you may match someone at the full sequence level, which allows for mutations, that you don’t match at the HVR1 level.  Same situation for Y DNA as well.  Also note that you need to answer “yes” to ”Show only people I match on all selected tests.”

Y-DNA at 23andMe

Y-DNA works pretty much the same at 23andMe as mitochondrial meaning they probe certain haplogroup-defining locations.  They do utilize a different Y tree than Family Tree DNA, so the haplogroup names may be somewhat different, but will still be in the same base haplogroup.  Like mitochondrial DNA, by utilizing the haplogroup mapper, you can see which probes are utilized to determine the haplogroup.  The normal SNP name is given directly after the rs number.  The rs number is the address of the DNA on the chromosome.  Y mutations are a bit different than the display for mitochondrial DNA.  While mitochondrial DNA at 23andMe shows you only the normal value, for Y DNA, they show you both the normal, or ancestral, value and the derived, or current, value as well.  So at SNP P44, grape is normal and you have apricot if you’ve been assigned to haplogroup C3.

As we are all aware, many new haplogroups have been defined in the past several months, and continue to be discovered via the results of the Big Y and Full Y test results which are being returned on a daily basis.  Because 23andMe does not have the ability to change their probes without burning an entirely new chip, updates will not happen often.  In fact, their new V4 chip just introduced in December actually reduced the number of probes from 967,000 to 602,000, although CeCe Moore reported that the number of mtDNA and Y probes increased.

By way of comparison, the ISOGG tree is shown below.  Very recently C3 was renamed to C2, which isn’t really the point here.  You can see just how many haplogroups really exist below C3/C2 defined by SNP M217.  And if you think this is a lot, you should see haplogroup R – it goes on for days and days!

How long ago do you share a common ancestor with that other person at 23andMe who is also assigned to haplogroup C3?  Well, we don’t have a handy dandy reference chart for Y DNA like we do for mitochondrial – partly because it’s a constantly moving target, but haplogroup C3 is about 12,000 years old, plus or minus about 5,000 years, and is found on both sides of the Bering Strait.  It is found in indigenous Native American populations along with Siberians and in some frequency, throughout all of Asia and in low frequencies, into Europe.

How do you find out more about your haplogroup, or if you really do match that other person who is C3?  Test at Family Tree DNA.  23andMe is not in the business of testing individual markers.  Their business focus is autosomal DNA and it’s various applications, medical and genealogical, and that’s it.

Y-DNA at Family Tree DNA

At Family Tree DNA, you can test STR markers at 12, 25, 37, 67 and 111 marker levels.  Most people, today, begin with either 37 or 67 markers.

Of course, you receive your results in several ways at Family Tree DNA, Haplogroup Origins, Ancestral Origins, Matches Maps and Migration Maps, but what most people are most interested in are the individual matches to other people.  These STR markers are great for genealogical matching.  You can read about the difference between STR and SNP markers here.

When you take the Y test, Family Tree DNA also provides you with an estimated haplogroup.  That estimate has proven to be very accurate over the years.  They only estimate your haplogroup if you have a proven match to someone who has been SNP tested. Of course it’s not a deep haplogroup – in haplogroup R1b it will be something like R1b1a2.  So, while it’s not deep, it’s free and it’s accurate.  If they can’t predict your haplogroup using that criteria, they will test you for free.  It’s called their SNP assurance program and it has been in place for many years.  This is normally only necessary for unusual DNA, but, as a project administrator, I still see backbone tests being performed from time to time.

If you want to purchase SNP tests, in various formats, you can confirm your haplogroup and order deeper testing.

You can order individual SNP markers for about $39 each and do selective testing.  On the screen below you can see the SNPs available to purchase for haplogroup C3 a la carte.

You can order the Geno 2.0 test for $199 and obtain a large number of SNPs tested, over 12,000, for the all-inclusive price.  New SNPs discovered since the release of their chip in July of 2012 won’t be included either, but you can then order those a la carte if you wish.

Or you can go all out and order the new Big Y for $695 where all of your Y jellybeans, all 13.5 million of them in your Y DNA jar are individually looked at and evaluated.  People who choose this new test are compared against a data base of more than 36,000 known SNPs and each person receives a list of “novel variants” which means individual SNPs never before discovered and not documented in the SNP data base of 36,000.

Don’t know which path to take?  I would suggest that you talk to the haplogroup project administrator for the haplogroup you fall into.  Need to know how to determine which project to join, and how to join? Click here.  Haplogroup project administrators are generally very knowledgeable and helpful.  Many of them are spearheading research into their haplogroup of interest and their knowledge of that haplogroup exceeds that of anyone else.  Of course you can also contact Family Tree DNA and ask for assistance, you can purchase a Quick Consult from me, and you can read this article about comparing your options.

Family Tree DNA has blown the doors off the pricing of mitochondrial DNA full sequence testing this time – but just for a limited time. This is only a weekend sale and it ends April 1.

To put this in perspective, when I purchased the full sequence test, a few years ago, the price of the test was just south of a grand. Today, if you order the full sequence test, it’s only $139, reduced from $199. There’s no need anymore to consider testing at the lower levels. The only reason to have ever tested at lower levels was price – and now that’s not a consideration anymore.

If you have already tested at the HVR1 or HVR2 levels, there are sales on upgrades to the MEGA, or full sequence test.

• mtHVR1toMEGA Upgrade – Was $149 US Now $99 US
• mtHVR2toMEGA Upgrade – Was $159 US Now $89 US

Your mitochondrial DNA will track your direct matrilineal line – meaning that of your mother, her mother, her mother right on up your family tree – like a laser light beam – back beyond surnames into the mists of history. Your mitochondrial line is shown by the red circles, below. Everyone, males and females, carry mitochondrial DNA – so everyone can take this test.

Who were your people? Where were they from? What can we tell about them and their migration and settlement patterns and history? Those secrets are all held in your mitochondrial DNA, passed from an entire series of female ancestors directly to you.

To not test your mitochondrial DNA is to not open the door of discovery readily available to you!  And who among genealogists doesn’t want to know about their ancestors?  Most of us want to know every scrap available, and mitochondrial DNA is a very big piece of your own personal family history, compliments of your maternal ancestors!

I’ve written several articles on my blog about mitochondrial DNA in different contexts.

http://dna-explained.com/?s=mitochondrial

One of my favorite, though, is about my own journey of mitochondrial discovery.

CeCe Moore also wrote an article today about mitochondrial DNA testing.

But you’ll have to hurry to get this price. The sale ends on April 1, at 11:59 PM, Central Time – and that’s no April Fool joke! Click here to order a new test or sign on to your personal page and click on “upgrade” if you have already tested at the HVR1 or HVR2 levels.