Finding More Details From Y-DNA Test Results

12 Marker Matches

Family Tree DNA has a new Map section. It's really very cool and very interesting.

As many of my readers know I tested my brother's Y-DNA a year or two ago. I'm always learning and finding out something new and this morning I found these  Maps in Family Tree DNA reports section.

The map on the left shows location matches at the 12 marker level. There are 71 for my brother's Y-DNA. There are 8 colours of pushpins showing exact matches, 1-step matches, 2-step matches and so on to 7-step matches. You can see that my brother has a lot of red (exact) and orange (1-step) matches at this level.

25 Marker Matches

At the 25 Marker Level the  matches are mostly further removed, being 2-steps and higher. But there is one exact match hiding behind the yellow pushpins. I can click on that red pin to see the match and can email the person whose DNA gave that match.

My brother's most distant ancestor is showing as a white pushpin which represents our Joseph McGinnis born ca 1827 in Co. Down Ireland.

37 Marker Matches

At the 37 Marker level our matches are even more removed. This doesn't always happen, you may be lucky enough to have a good match with someone else at this level. I'm just showing you my brother's results.

67 Marker Matches

I recently upgraded to the 67 Marker test so we also have results for this level. My brother had 18 matches, but a lot of steps removed.

However there was one match that was yellow (2 steps removed) and that piqued my interest so I chose the "View Name List" tab to see all the matches at this level, but in particular that orange one. It looked like it was in Ireland which is where our most distant McGinnis ancestor was from.

2-step Match at 67 Marker Level

Now I saw that the surname matched (McGinnis = Guinessey and other variants) and it was indeed in Ireland and someone born around the same time as my most distant ancestor's father.

I'll write to the person whose DNA this was and see if we can find a shared ancestor. Even if we can't, it was really fun to see the matches and their geographic location.

One thing that threw me were two matches in the area of China and Mongolia! But a click on the pushpins revealed people whose most distant ancestors were born and died in the USA. Apparently they weren't very careful when submitting their most distant ancestor and pinpointing his location on the maps provided. So if you are submitting yours and updating your personal map, be sure that the correct location is displaying before you click to update it!

If you haven't taken a DNA test yet, check out Family Tree DNA You might be surprised at all the new testing available.