DNA Results Leave us Gob-Smacked!

That's a British expression. It means dumbfounded, surprised as heck... you get the idea. I've been digging into hubs' DNA matches and results very closely and found a match that is one heck of a surprise.

To preface my story, this match (let's call him John) is listed as 64% .64% Sharing and with 47 cM. ^[FN1] That's a pretty close match, I estimate within 3 or 4 generations.

The matches that I've been able to confirm as matching me or my brother, are with a shared ancestor going back to 4th or 6th great grandparent - and they only have 20-25 cM matching. So finding this new match to hubs and such a close match was exciting.

The puzzler was that none of the match's surnames or ancestral tree are the same as my husband's. And we can both go back quite far with sources to prove the genealogy. So what gives? After scratching my head for a bit I had an "aha" moment.

I suddenly realized that one of the match's surnames was the same as the name bandied about as a bit of family lore from hubs' grandmother. Grandmother always claimed that her husband was the son of the hired man and not the son of the man he thought was his father, his mother's husband. We dismissed this as petty gossip on her part.

But now, having seen the lineage and done my own investigation, we have a compelling case that supports her claim. I don't want to use names yet so I'm going to make up names for each individual.

The Cast:

Sally, hubs' great grandmother
Sally's son Alex, hub's grandfather
Sally's husband William
Sally's brother Jim
Sally's hired man Mr. Smith
Hub's close match, John
John's grandfather Calvin Smith
John's great-grandfather Ralph Smith

Facts:

Great grandmother Sally came from England in 1913 to live with her brother Jim. Jim lived next door to Calvin Smith. (the grandfather of our match )

Great Sally was said to have had hub's grandpa (Alex) by the hired man (Mr. Smith) who was not her husband.

We also find that Sally's husband William was living next door to Ralph Smith and two sons in 1911. They were all farmers.

Ralph Smith and his sons were all farmers and farm hands. This fits with the story of Great Grandma Sally messing around with the hired man.

Given the presumed close relationship indicated by the DNA samples, we have a theory that either Man B (our match's grandpa) or one of his nephews (we have a good candidate) was the father of hubs' Grandpa.

Next Steps

Now the question is how do we tactfully suggest this to our  match (or do we even bring it up??) and how do we gather more evidence.

We plan on asking hubs' mother to have her DNA tested through 23andMe.com so we can see if she also matches hubs' match John, and if so, by how much.

We will also ask hubs' father to take a DNA test so we can see if he matches the same person as hubs'. One of them should match, the other should not. If it is hubs' mother who matches, that would fit the correct lineage. (maternal not paternal)

Hubs is going to join some surname groups for the lineage he thought was his. If he is not related he won't match anyone in those groups. 

Caveats

The new match's ancestors were all running around in the same very small community as hubs' ancestors. So there is a chance that the common ancestor is a secret that a wife or mother took to the grave. We would have to test more family members to try to narrow down the shared ancestor.

We'd like to get one of hubs' uncles to submit a DNA test if possible.

Meantime I'm doing some sleuthing to try to eliminate any possibility that there is a different shared surname and thus ancestor. But it certainly looks like hubs has a new cousin and many new family surnames to research! Mind you this is only in the theory stage, there is no definite proof of what the relationship is to our new-found match.

Footnotes:

FN1: cM  is  unit of genetic distance on a chromosome. Closer relationships have longer cMs because recombination has not occurred as often.

Understanding Your DNA Results: Comparison Charts

DNA is the latest genealogy tool and I've had my DNA tested with 3 different companies now (with one more pending). I used Family Tree DNA, 23andMe.com and DNA-me for testing. Since I'm a woman I can only test my Mt-DNA or my Autosomal. I have to leave the Y-DNA tests to a male relative. 

DNA results are not easy to understand and I don't pretend to understand them very well at all. So what I have done is make a spreadsheet of the summary of my DNA results - the Haplogroup I am in, my genetic origins and my percentages of various ethnicities. 

Each test is likely to show different results depending on the number of markers that were tested and the algorithms used to interpret the test. So I expected to find some differences but that is what makes testing with more than one company worthwhile. In fact it's important if you want to understand your DNA in more depth.

Definitions

You also have to do a lot of reading (aka research) to increase your knowledge of DNA testing, the various tests and what the results mean. What I have gleaned (admititily just the tip of the DNA iceberg!) Is this: 

MtDNA - Maternal DNA is passed from mother to child (of either sex) and does not change over the generations. A female testing her MtDNA is testing her female lineage from herself to her mother to her mother's mother and so on. This is the X chromosome

Y-DNA - Paternal DNA tests the Y chromosome which is passed, unchanged, from father to son. Thus if you wish to test for your surname and you are a woman, you must find a male relative with that surname to take the test. Women do not have the Y chromosome (We are XX while men are XY)

Autosomal: Autosomal DNA recombines with every generation and that means the number of markers you share with a common ancestor is halved with each generation. 

Haplogroups: The Haplogroup your DNA indicates you belong to will show your deep roots, your heritage going back thousands of years.  

This is very basic but it's a start to understanding. There's no sense paying money for DNA tests and then just letting the results sit there because you don't understand what was tested or what the results mean.




My DNA Test Results

Here is the chart I've finished which shows the comparison of the 3 companies whose results are in. My 4th company is still running my DNA samples so I don't have that yet.

Family Tree DNA is the one marked as FT DNA. They do not narrow down my ethnic origins as much as 23andMe.com but you can see that they both agree the majority of my ethnic origins are European of some sort. 

DNA-me is the surprise with their finding of a smidgeon of African origin. And their Haplogroup assignment of JT also throws me a bit. I have more research to do to try to understand how that happened. I am pretty sure they didn't test very many markers and the more markers tested, the  more accurate the results.

You can also see that 23andMe.com has both Standard (75% accuracy) and Speculative (50% accuracy) results so I included them. The East Asian was interesting especially when I compared my test results to my brother's. Since his tests include the full Y chromosome testing there are bound to be some differences. And I love that 23andMe.com tests for your percentage of Neanderthal ancestry in your DNA! 

My Brother's DNA Results

For example even though we know we have Native American heritage on my father's side, it does not show on my results with any company. But it does show on my brother's results through 23andMe (but not Family Tree DNA) and on tests that Professor McDonald ran on my brother's Family Tree DNA raw data. Again this points out the importance of testing with more than one company. 

You can see that testing my brother's DNA confirmed our Native American heritage and the Asian heritage shown for me in both 23andMe and DNA-me testing. The big surprise was the Ashkenazi in his speculative results. It's important though to note that these results are only considered to have 50% accuracy. They may be correct but they are equally likely to be wrong. 

DNA Matches

I've also been studying and reading about how to compare raw data with matches found for me in each of the DNA company's databases. I'm getting better and can now narrow down the ethnicity we share (based on what chromosomes we match on). This obviously helps with figuring out who our common ancestor might be, but I have much more to learn. When I have that a bit more figured out I will post here. 

Meantime if there are any readers who understand what I've posted today better than I do (or better than my explanation) please do leave a comment so we can all learn from each other's knowledge.  

A Suggestion for Genealogists Using 23andMe for DNA Testing

I am really liking 23andMe.com for DNA testing. I've talked about what the site offers in previous posts for anyone who wants to know more: 

Serendipity Strikes and a Tombstone is Found 

DNA Results Showing Native American and East Asian Heritage

23andMe DNA Results In!

Quite a few people from 23andMe have been contacting me over the past month and that's great. But I administer three different profiles on 23andMe - mine, my husband's and my brother's. And when an invitation to share Genomes comes to me, it does not tell me which Genome profile is being requested. This is an automatic feature on 23andMe and it's wonderful because it's easy. Too easy perhaps. All a person need do is click on a link which sends an automatic request to another individual.  But it would be helpful if the requester also clicked on the link to "send a message".

You would think it would be a simple matter to go to each of the 3 profiles I admin and see if the sender of the invitation matches any of us. But it's not. People often use nicknames on their profiles rather than their real name, so a search under the real name can come up empty.

So after much wasted time and frustration on my part I thought I'd offer a suggestion to anyone using 23andMe. If you are sending an invite  to one of your DNA matches to share Genomes, PLEASE consider also sending a quick message. That message could simply say "Hi xxx I match you and would like to share genomes" If the sender included the name of the match (me, my husband or my brother) I would be so much happier! 

Yesterday was particularly aggravating as I received such an invite. I checked each profile for the name of the sender. I searched his full name. No matches. I searched his first name only. No matches. I searched his surname. No matches. Then I found his username and searched under that but nothing popped up. This took me 30 minutes because it's a bit slow for each profile to load. 

 In frustration I wrote directly to him and gave him the names of the profiles I admin. I asked which one he matched. His response was that he didn't match any of us, he just thought maybe, since he and I shared the FINN surname, we might be related. He may be right but it would have been much more efficient (and friendly) if he'd written a personal message saying he had a FINN ancestor in such and such a location at such and such a time. And did we connect? I could have saved us both a lot of trouble and time as my FINN line is from mid 1700s in Kent England. His is not. 

 So genealogists, be kind and write a brief explanatory message to anyone you are trying to connect with on 23andMe. Actually, let me take this one step further - be kind and write a brief explanatory message every time you contact another genealogist, no matter what service you are using.

  

DNA Results Showing Native American and East Asian Heritage

My  23andMe.com Ancestry results came in last week. I was fascinated by the sub-regional breakdown of my lineage. The chart above shows that I have 18% British and Irish, 1.4% French and German, 71.7% non-specific Northern European, 8.7% non-specific European, .1% East Asian and the rest unspecified.

What surprised me was no Native American showing for me (it is confirmed that I have Native American heritage through a Mohawk ancestor, Ots-Toch born ca 1622 in what is now New York state), and that I have a small bit of East Asian.  However it's important to note that one test isn't the final answer, especially when searching for confirmation of heritage from several generations back.

So it doesn't concern me at all that my Native American heritage doesn't show in the  23andMe.com results. The raw data from my brother's DNA test on Family Tree DNA also did not show our Native American heritage until I had it analyzed by Professor MacDonald, who is conducting his own study on DNA and has a different set of algorithms for providing results.  Then it showed my brother as having .7% Native American heritage.

And the icing on the cake is that my brother's DNA test from  23andMe.com also showed our Native American heritage at .7% (with East Asian at .1% just as mine is)

 

My brother's test from 23andMe also showed .7% Iberian which is the region of Spain and surrounding areas. We know from his raw data that he has a rare mutation which is known to have occurred when a group of Basque men went up to help build Hadrian's Wall between Scotland and England.  So that fits with the finding of Iberian heritage.

I still have a lot of reading to do to fully understand my DNA results (and my brother's) but it is an exciting and interesting adventure!

23andMe DNA Results In!

It was an exciting day last Thursday. My  23andMe DNA results were in. I had previously sent for 3 DNA kits - one of each for hubs, my brother and me. So when the email arrived from 23andMe I had the fun of going through all 3 sets of results. Phew! I won't pretend I understood it all but it is fascinating.

We are all going to have to do some more reading on DNA to understand it all, so I concentrated instead on the health results. It's pretty impressive. 23andMe DNA shows if you have any at-risk or higher than average risk factors, which of course does not mean you are going to get that specific disorder but might just make you more aware of watching for symptoms.

Our reports showed if we were carriers of certain disorders and if we might have sensitivities to certain drugs or treatments. I learned that both my brother and I have bitter taste receptors that hubs does not have.  All in all the health and medical reports were quite detailed and provided our individual risk % compared to the average. I'm still going over them!

One item I noticed this morning is a printable genetic health summary report which 23andMe suggests might be shared with a health-care provider. Great idea! The site explains it as

This overview includes brief summaries of your 23andMe DNA results for:

• diseases for which you are at greater than average genetic risk,
• heritable diseases for which you carry one or more genetic variants (carrier status),
• and drugs to which you are likely to have an atypical response based on genetics.

There is also detailed information on each disease that is labelled as greater than average genetic risk and suggestions of life-style changes that might reduce the risk.

Of course there were the standard paternal and maternal Haplogroup determinations and so on but I'll talk about those in a future blog post. Not all of our details are in for this part of the testing. Let me end with the amusing finding that my brother's has 2.6% Neanderthal DNA, hubs has 2.8% and I have 3% which puts me in the 86th percentile! Wow I can't believe I'm more Neanderthal than my brother but genetics doesn't lie.

And now I'm off to do more reading on DNA

Women's History Month: Have You Tested Your mtDNA?

My friend and fellow Blogger Lisa Alzo has a Meme for March - Fearless Females: 31 Blogging Prompts to Celebrate Women's History Month

I encourage readers to join in. Lisa has some terrific blogging prompts for each day of Women's History Month.  

I will write my own stories each Friday from the 5 prompts I came up with at Celebrate Women's History Month! Time for Stories

I also plan to participate in as many of Lisa's 31 Prompts as I can! I hope you'll join in with your own:

This is my third prompt for Women's History Month:

3. Make a list of your direct female line ancestors starting with your mother.  Write about your mtDNA findings. If you haven't been tested yet, order an mtDNA kit!  There are several companies offering DNA tests - Family Tree DNA, Ancestry DNA, 23andMe.com

You can read about my mtDNA results at mtDNA Test Results Arrived!

I am still struggling to understand my mtDNA results and hope that when my 23andMe test results arrive I will have a better grasp on what it all means.

23andMe DNA Test Kits Arrive

My 23andMe DNA kits arrived yesterday. I ordered three - one for my brother (for Y-DNA), one for me (for mtDNA) and one for my husband (for Y-DNA)

We've already had our DNA tested at Family Tree DNA but we wanted to try another company and see what kind of results we get. 23andMe focuses on genetic health issues and that's intriguing. But I'm also interested in their

Previously I have written about my brother's Y-DNA results from Family Tree DNA
at Family Finder Test Results in for my Brother's DNA! His Predicted Haplogroup is I-M223.  Quoting from the website, this Haplogroup
"...has its roots in northern France. Today it is found most frequently within Viking / Scandinavian populations in Northwest Europe and extends at low frequencies into Central and Eastern Europe."
 
It's been really interesting reading up on this and finding out more about our McGinnis paternal line ethnic origins, especially since my brother's Y-DNA showed a mutation that scientists know exactly where and when it occurred! Turns out it was around the time Hadrian's Wall was built between England and Scotland and his gene mutation is known to have come from a group of Basque at this time.

I also had an exciting update on our results for Native American heritage, which you can read about at Update on DNA Testing for Native American Heritage

My mtDNA results from FT arrived and I wrote about those at mtDNA Test Results Arrived!
My Haplogroup is J2a1a1a2  but I still don't completely understand my full results.

I'm hoping 23andMe will provide more interesting details. 

Follow along with me as I get ready to provide the test sample and mail it back to 23andMe

Update on DNA Testing for Native American Heritage

Recently I talked about DNA and Native American Heritage. I'm a recognized Metis in Canada. I have my official Metis card. But I hoped for confirmation of my Native American heritage through DNA testing.


Through the kindness of a stranger on an online forum I learned that a Professor with the University of Chicago does in-depth DNA analysis of individuals' raw data to determine your ethnic origins.


Well I'm very pleased to say that the Professor's computerized analysis of my brother's Family Tree DNA raw data gave the answer I'd hoped for - he has .7% Native American heritage.

Along with his analysis, Professor MacDonald sent a computer generated map, a bar graph, a scatter graph and a 5 page explanation of how to read and understand the generated pages. 

I also ordered an upgrade to my brother's Y-DNA test on Family Tree DNA  for D9S919 which was suggested by Roberta Estes in her blog post Proving Native American Ancestry Using DNA .

Since I was advised to consult the FamilyTree DNA Help desk for answers, I wrote to them on January 14th.  My question was simple:

I've had  my brother's Y-DNA tested (also Family Finder for him) at Family Tree DNA.  What test or upgrade do I order to test for Native American heritage?

Yesterday I received a detailed response which began

"Any of our tests can potentially reveal Native American ancestry. The test results will show, depending on the type of test you choose, whether or not the line you are testing is Native American in origin or if you have a detectable percentage of Native American ancestry (>3%)."

The Help Desk went to provide a detailed explanation of the test for Y-DNA, MtDNA and Family Finder

Interesting enough, Family Tree DNA help desk did not suggest I order the test for Marker D9S919 which is available on their site.  I'm not sure why this wasn't suggested, but I'm not an expert and can only go by what Roberta and other online websites indicate. 

For instance, the International Society of Genetic Genealogy states:

"D9S919 is a STR marker located on chromosome 9. It was previously known as D9S1120 and under this name it was reported that an allele value of 9 was only found in the Americas and far eastern Asia. The presence of an allele value of 9 is therefore a strong indication of native american ancestry somewhere within a person's pedigree. This marker is available from Family Tree DNA."

Indeed it is. For a small fee of $15.00 I was able to order the test of this specific marker on the  Family Tree DNA website.

The Family Tree DNA help desk  explained that only the Family Finder test will give a breakdown of ethnic percentages found within the individual's overall genetic makeup, including Native American. Using the Family Finder test, it does not matter which line the Native American ancestry came from or whether or not that ancestor was male or female.

I had previously ordered Family Finder but it did not show our Native heritage - which was no surprise because Family Tree DNA pointed out that you must have 3% or more for the test to show your Native American heritage.

Help Desk provided a welcome explanation of the three tests that could determine Native American heritage but I am curious why they didn't advise me to order the $15.00 test for the D9S919 marker. My conclusion is that the onus is on the individual to explore and read everything he or she can find that might give the answers being sought. Or in other words, don't give up even if you hit a dead end! Keep looking for alternate answers. It's just like doing genealogy research.

DNA and Native American Heritage

I'm a recognized Metis in Canada. I have my official Metis card. But I have always wanted confirmation of my Native American heritage through DNA testing.

Now perhaps it is just me but for the life of me I cannot figure out on Family Tree DNA how to do this! I have my brother's Y-DNA testing done and have the Family Finder upgrade. I have my mtDNA done. I've been willing to pay for whatever upgrade or test I need. But what one?

I wrote to one of the partners in Family Tree DNA a week ago to ask for assistance. No response. I should add that I'm linked to him on Facebook and I've seen him online several times since I sent my message. I'm sure he's a busy guy but c'mon - a week goes by and he doesn't answer a customer and someone he's linked to on Facebook as a friend?

So on the weekend I posted on the Family Tree DNA Facebook page, and asked for advice.  Again my post was met with silence. No official response at all.  Thankfully one person responded and gave me advice and a contact name of someone not involved with FamilyTreeDNA who might be able to help. I plan to follow that up as soon as I figure out how to download my raw data from FTDNA site!

In the meantime Roberta Estes was recommended as the person to consult. She responded to me with a link to her blog post called Proving Native American Ancestry Using DNA According to Roberta I need to order an upgrade to test at D9S919. Her article went on to explain exactly how to order this upgrade on FTDNA. I am so impressed! That's the kind of help I like - a clear explanation and set of instructions that are easily followed.

So I've ordered the upgrade on my brother's DNA and on mine. We'll see what happens!

But I must add that I'm very disappointed in Family Tree DNA's lack of response to a customer. It's not only bad customer relations, it's bad marketing! I want to spend money with them and they are not bothering to help me do so.

Thank goodness for the willingness and kindness of strangers who jump in and try to help! 

mtDNA Test Results Arrived!

Written by Lorine McGinnis Schulze of http://olivetreegenealogy.blogspot.com (see FN1)

Readers may recall that on May 10 this year I mailed in my mtDNA Test Kit which I ordered from Family Tree DNA . Well, last week an email arrived saying my test results were posted!

I was pretty excited and immediately went to the Family Tree DNA website to read the results. I have to confess that I'm confused. I'm not sure what I've learned that will help me in discovering my maternal origins.

It seems my Haplogroup is J and I have 5 mutations from Cambridge Reference Sequence (CRS). But what does it all mean? I've got a lot of reading to do! One thing I spotted during a quick browse of various articles was reference to Haplogroup J being found more frequently in centenarians than in younger individuals. (Source: http://www.fasebj.org/content/13/12/1532.full) The women on my mom's side all live to be in their 90s so that's kind of interesting.

An intriguing but still puzzling result is my Recent Ancestral Origins section. Here FamilyTreeDNA displays a chart showing the countries of origin reported by the people I match. This intrigued me because my maternal lineage as far back as I know it (Mary Ansell born Kent 1771), is based solidly in England.

But my chart results show I match 80 people from England, 54 from Germany, 22 from Ireland, 13 from France, 11 from Sweden and several other countries where my matches are under 10. I'm going to have to do some reading to understand what these numbers mean because there are also percentages given showing what % of the total population tested within each country of origin match my test results.

England is low - yes it says I match 80 people who gave England as the country of origin of their most distant female ancestor. But it then shows that I only match 1.2% of the population tested. That seems low to me, especially since I also match at 1.2% the total who gave Austria, 1.2 % who said Denmark and 1% who gave Switzerland as their most distant country of origin. More research on my part is definitely required for me to understand these numbers.

I also gave in to temptation and upgraded from mtHVR1 to Mega. The sale price at Family Tree DNA was too good for me to resist!

An extra step you can take with your DNA test results is to submit them to mitosearch then you check for matches in their database. I did that and sent off emails to the people who most closely matched my 5 mutations. We'll see what develops from that!

It also seems to me that I need to join some DNA projects so I'm off to hunt for any that I think apply.


FN1: I've added my name and blog URL to the header of this post because two other blogs are copying  my DNA articles without permission and posting them on their blogs. No link back to my blog is given and my name is omitted as the author. Since I hope to make connections with other genealogists through my blog, I have added my name and blog URL. This may help ensure that some notation is kept that indicates to readers of these unscrupulous blogs that the articles are not written by the blog owners in question. These same blog owners have disabled their comment feature and removed email addresses so I cannot contact them.

The Massey DNA Connection

The Massey Cousins Meet

A few years ago my husband took a Y-DNA test for his Massey surname. There were no matches as the database of others who submitted was very small.

Hubs had previously connected with a woman who was also a Massey descendant. Annie knew her Massey ancestors back to the mid 1700s and my husband was convinced that his Massey line linked to hers.

But hubs only knew his Massey line back to William Massey born ca 1818 in Wicklow Ireland. He could not narrow his search to a more specific location nor could he find William's parents.

Hubs' suggested that his Massey connection have her father's Y-DNA tested.  She agreed and her father took the test.

Click to order your DNA test

Ancestry.com has a good DNA testing database and so does Family Tree DNA Hubs used Family Tree DNA this time.

Annie's father who lives in England,  ordered the Y-DNA test.

The results arrived. Annie's father matched hubs on 25 markers - an exact match. The comparison chart showed that hubs and Jim (Annie's father) had a 94% chance of sharing a common ancestor within the last 12 generations.

This led to many excited email exchanges between hubs and Annie. Circumstantial evidence and clues had led hubs to believe his Massey origins were near Delgany and Templecarrig area of northern Wicklow in Ireland. Annie knew that her grandfather and his ancestors were born in Delgany and environs.

Hubs knew that the Delgany Parish records existed but could only be viewed at an archives in Ireland. He was already in contact with another woman who has ancestors in Delgany and she agreed to travel from her home in England to the archives to copy the parish records for him. Lo and behold there was a baptism of an unnamed son born in Delgany in 1818 to an Edward and Catherine Massey from Templecarrig. 

William Massey named his first born son Edward and his second born daughter Catherine so if he followed naming conventions this could be the right family (first born son after paternal grandfather, second born daughter after paternal grandmother) There were other clues in the Delgany Parish records and those combined with Annie's father's Y-DNA match further cemented the conclusions that hubs' Massey line originated near Delgany, Wicklow Ireland.

This month, we had the pleasure of meeting Annie and her parents! Her mom and dad were in Canada for a visit and arranged to meet in a city near us. We spent a delightful afternoon with hubs' new-found cousins and exchanged many genealogy stories. What a wonderful time we had.

Hubs upgraded to the 67 Marker Y-DNA test recently so fingers crossed that more exciting adventures and finds arise from this test.

Update on 67 Marker Y-DNA Test

Yesterday I received an email from Family Tree DNA stating that a Y-DNA67 match was found between my brother's DNA test and another person in the Family Tree DNA database.

I was pretty excited and went to see who we matched and whether or not the surname was the same as ours (McGinnis). Readers might recall that I recently upgraded my brother's Y-DNA test to 67 markers. 

There were several matches ranging from genetic distances of 1 to 7. But the two that jumped off the page were two McGinnis males. One was a genetic distance of 2, the other was 3. You might be wondering what that means.


A click on the icon for the Tip Report for the man with genetic distance of 2 (and the same surname) showed the comparison chart:

Generations	Percentage
4	43.60%
8	83.46%
12	96.35%
16	99.30%

Wow that means there is a 96% chance that within 12 generations we share a common ancestor. I'm even happy with that 8 generation showing of 83% because I can trace my McGinnis ancestry back 6 generations counting me. So there's a chance if my match knows his ancestry back further, we can link up or at least narrow locations for residency and origins. 


I checked the McGinnis male who was a genetic distance of 3 from my brother. The comparison chart showed

Generations	Percentage
4	24.70%
8	70.14%
12	91.91%
16	98.24%

Those are pretty good numbers too.

My next step was to write to both these men. I was pretty excited but the first one bounced back with a rejected email address. That's really aggravating and disappointing when people take the DNA tests, sign up to share their information and then don't keep their emails updated. So I have no way of contacting the man who was a genetic distance of 3 from my brother with the 67 marker DNA test

I'm waiting eagerly to hear from the other connection. Fingers crossed that he knows something we don't!

The DNA Journey - Update on my MtDNA Test

On May 10th I mailed my completed Family Tree DNA kit. Yesterday I received an email saying the kit has been received. Now I wait. If I recall it took a month or more for my brother's Y-DNA test results.

I took the MtDNA test for my maternal lineage. I know my maternal ancestors back to England in the late 1700s so it will be quite interesting for me to learn more about the very early origins of my maternal DNA.

The MtDNA test traces from either a man or a woman back up the mother's lineage, following the mothers (maternal) one generation at a time. So for me it goes like this:

Me
My mom
My mom's mom (my maternal grandmother)
My maternal grandmother's mother
and so on

Let me demonstrate with names

Me
My mom
Ruth (my mother's mother Ruth Simpson)
Sarah #1 (Ruth's mother Sarah Stead)
Sarah #2 (Sarah #1's mother Sarah Elvery)
Hannah (Sarah #2's mother Hannah Elvery)
Mary (Hannah's mother, Mary Ansell born 1771)

That's as far as I know. Will my MtDNA results give me my ancestors' names? No. But it should give me a glimpse into the earliest geographical origins of this female line. It may link me to others who descend from the same lineage.

My MtDNA test will tell me what haplogroup I am in. A haplogroup is the major branch on either the maternal or paternal tree of humankind. Haplogroups are associated with early human migrations and are associated with a geographic region or regions.

I am honestly not sure what other information I will find from this test, but I'll take you on my journey as I discover more.

DNA Genealogy - First Test Results on 12 Markers!

One month after my Y-DNA test kit was received by Family Tree DNA, they sent an email titled "New DNA Test Results Posted" It explained that "New Y-DNA1-12 results have been posted for your Family Tree DNA Kit" That was pretty exciting! The email explained that if I had ordered a Y-DNA 25 or 37 marker test, those results would be posted within a few weeks, as testing was done in sections.

The email went on to encourage me to join a Surname Project "Since genealogy is all about matching to people with your surname..."

Mention was made of joining a subsequent Geographic Project, and I was advised to add my DNA test results at Ysearch.org, the FTDNA sponsored public database.

Off I went. Adding my test results to YSearch was easy. Understanding my test results and matches was not. A second email had arrived the same day. Here is what it said

An exact 12 marker match has been found between you and another person in the Family Tree DNA database.

You and the other person match in all 12 loci. If you share the same surname or variant, this means that there is a 99% likelihood that you share a common ancestor in a genealogical time frame. If you match another person without the same surname or variant, you still probably share a common ancestor, but this ancestor most likely lived in the time before surnames were adopted.

I was so excited that I made what I assume is a beginner's mistake. I began writing to every single "match" shown on my test results page. This was a bit foolish on my part, and the answers I received from others demonstrated that they were as confused as I was!

I didn't wait for all my markers to be tested and I didn't stop to think that I needed to match with others carrying the same surname! (McGINNIS). I also manually entered all my markers from Family Tree DNA to Ancestry.com DNA pages
. That was mind-boggling and took quite awhile although I am glad I did it, as I found additional connections that way.

In my excitement I also rushed to pay an extra $15.00 to join the Genographic Project on the National Geographic website. In hindsight I wish I had waited until all my markers were tested and my complete DNA results in.

Because I did not understand what my matches on the 12-Marker results meant, I started reading every article and website I could find which explained DNA testing. By the end of the day I was more confused than ever. My husband was also reading up on DNA testing and seemed to grasp the concepts much quicker.

I did enjoy the National Geographic explanations and their charts and maps for my brother's Y DNA results. The website provided me with a Ancestral Journay map, a Genetic history of my lineage from Africa to the present and a Genetic Certificate. These were all printable and customizable with your own name. My brother's Y chromosomes were identified as haplogroup I1c (that sent me off to google that term to find out more!). My genetic history went on to say that members of haplogroup I1c carry these Y chromosome markers M168 > M89 > M170 > M223, and that this haplogroup is most common in Germany. There was also a nice little explanation of markers and haplogroup.

But what really confused me was that many websites noted that "I1c is now considered I2b-M223" What the heck did that mean?? I am still not sure I understand, so if anyone reading this story can explain it to me, please do.

The Geneographic Project had a very nice, easy-to-read Genetics Glossary. My husband and I read a great many articles and explanations. If you decided to test your DNA you must be prepared to read, and in many cases, struggle through an overwhelming amount of technical and scientific information.

Ancestry.com DNA pages, where I manually entered my brother's DNA test results, were very interesting. They referred to haplogroup I as "The Stonemasons" further adding that "The I1c haplogroup is found at its highest frequency in the German and Dutch populations as well as in Great Britain" Ancestry also provided an easy-to-use interface for me to see my test results compared with others.

I liked that they showed the matches as a chart with coloured squares. At the bottom of the chart was a legend explaining that the orange squares meant a match for a common ancestor within 1-6 generations, lighter orange meant 7-15 generations and so on. My top matches were with people who did not share my surname of McGinnis so that confused the heck out of me! But I was intrigued to see that one of my "matches within 7-15 generations" was for the Ontario McGinn family, who have long believed that their surname was originally McGinnis. Further explanations predicted that our common ancestor was within the last 200 years. Okay I'd have liked something closer but I'd start with anything at this point!

....to be continued

DNA Genealogy - Choosing DNA Groups to Join

When my husband and I sent for our Y-DNA Kits from Ancestry.com and Family Tree DNA, we knew we had to choose DNA groups to join.

My Y-DNA kit was to be taken by my brother so that we could find out about our McGinnis male ancestors, while my husband's was for himself for his Massey male lineage.

So what groups should we join? The obvious choice seemed to be a surname group - McGinnis for me, Massey for my husband. But the Surname Project for McGinnis on FamilyTreeDNA only had 22 members and the description stated it was for "McGinnis from No. Ireland (Ulster)who settled in America. This project was started by testing two men whose ancestors came from Ulster to Eastern Pennsylvania before the Revolutionary War .."

That didn't fit what I wanted. My McGinnis ancestors were Catholics from Northern Ireland but they settled in Canada during the Famine Years (1840s). So after some thought and further research into what was available, I opted to join Ireland Heritage My McGinnis surname was listed, and the group numbers were high. I felt there was more chance of a match with others who were related in this group.

My husband wanted to join the Massey Surname Group on Ancestry.com but it only had one member. His decision was to join the Ireland Scotland Wales England British Isles Group which had 121 members.

We honestly had no idea how to make our choices, DNA testing was new to us both so we just decided that a criteria would be the numbers in the group, the geographic location the group was focused on had to match our known ancestral origins, and if possible, our surnames would be included in the group list.

So - our Groups were chosen, we had sent in our DNA sample kits and now we had time to do more reading in our struggle to understand what we would see when our results arrived.

DNA Genealogy - The Kit Arrives

The big day had finally come. The Family Tree DNA kit arrived first (probably because I ordered it a few weeks before my husband ordered his Ancestry.com DNA kit). I was ready to have my brother come up and take the test so we could have our McGinnis Y DNA tested.

The kit was very user-friendly, instructions for use were easy to understand but we hadn't realized that my brother would need to collect 3 samples. As well, the instruction sheet (DNA COLLECTION METHOD) stated that scraping of the cheek for sample cells had to be done before eating or an hour AFTER eating and drinking. Each sample had to be collected 3 to 4 hours apart.

That was tricky logistically as my brother had only come up for the day and somehow we had to get those 3 samples taken before he had to head back home (an hour and a half drive). For anyone who has the collection kit in their own home it is not a big deal.

Family Tree DNA kindly provided 4 simple drawings showing opening the kit, scraping one's cheek, inserting the sample into the collection tube and sealing it. The instruction leaflet was 8 easy to understand steps.

My brother vigourously began scraping the inside of his cheeks for the required 60 seconds. Since the leaflet stated "A great scape gives us a great sample" he scraped quite forcefully to the point where his cheeks bled! That was overkill.

The next scrape was 3 hours later and unfortunately I forgot to start a timer for 60 seconds. So my poor brother scraped for almost 3 minutes (it's amazing how one's sense of the passage of time can be so wrong!) before we realized it was well past the 60 seconds required.

After all our little goofs, we were set. We had all the tubes inside the provided plastic bag with our kit number. We sealed it, my brother signed the release form and we put everything in the self-addressed envelope to be mailed.

Then we sat back and waited. And waited. And waited. It seemed to take forever but of course DNA testing, like good cooking, requires time and patience! It can't be rushed. Approximately 5 to 6 weeks later we got our first email from FamilyTreeDNA saying our first set of markers was complete. That was pretty exciting!

I had, after a lot of reading, decided on what DNA project(s) to sign up for on FamilyTreeDNA so I'll talk about that process in my next post.

DNA Genealogy - Friend or Foe?

Last year I decided to jump on the DNA Genealogy bandwagon. I wanted to find my McGinnis Family origins in Ireland and my years of slogging through microfilm and contacting others had not turned up any new clues. Even the county they originated from eluded me!

So I started reading about DNA, DNA testing for genealogy purposes, which companies were selling DNA kits, which DNA studies were considered the best and so on. It was extremely confusing! I didn't understand enough to know if I was comparing apples to oranges.

What was the difference between the number of markers being compared? Did it matter which test I purchased or what company I bought it from? The only thing I was sure of was that I wanted a Y-Chromosone test and that one of my male relatives (with the McGinnis surname) would have to take it on my behalf.

CHOOSING A MATERNAL versus PATERNAL DNA TEST

Paternal DNA tests give you information from your father's side of the family. It can provide close family connections and likely ancestors. Only males can have a Paternal DNA test done, and if you are searching a specific surname, the male being tested must carry that surname. Basically this is the DNA passed down from father to son through the generations

Maternal DNA tests follow your mother's line, back on through female ancestors only. So a Maternal DNA test will follow the path from your mother to her mother, to her mother's mother, and so on.

WHICH COMPANY TO CHOOSE?

After a great deal of research, I narrowed my choices to Ancestry.com DNA testing and Family Tree DNA.

HOW MANY MARKERS?

Ancestry.com DNA testing offers a 33 marker Paternal Lineage Test (Y-Chromosome 33) or a 46 marker Advanced Paternal Lineage Test (Y-Chromosome 46).

FamilyTreeDNA has a 12 marker, 37 marker and 67 marker test kit.

FamilyTreeDNA was much more money than Ancestry.com DNA testing

Both companies DNA tests included analysis of the markers of a man's Y-DNA as well as predictions of the haplogroup of the paternal lineage. Your haplogroup identifies the general area where your ancestors migrated tens of thousands of years ago.

MY CHOICE

Eventually I decided to go with the FamilyTreeDNA 37 marker Paternal Y-Chromosome - DNA Test which is $250.00. My husband ordered the Ancestry.com DNA testing 33 Marker Paternal Lineage Test (Y-Chromosome 33) which is $79.00. We wanted to try them both to see what the differences were between them.

Then came the wait for the kits to arrive. In my case I also had to work out the logistics of either getting the kit to my brother or getting my brother to drive to my house after the kit arrived.

At least the wait gave me more time to do more reading on the subject! I'll talk about taking the test samples and also the results of the DNA tests in a later post.

Jumping on the DNA Genealogy Research Bandwagon!

After following the growing enthusiasm for DNA Genealogy Research for a year now, I decided to take the plunge. Because I wanted to follow my father's McGinnis lineage, I needed a male McGinnis relative for a Y-DNA test.


Males inherit a Y-chromosome from a father, who in turn received his Y chromosome from his father and so on. Males also inherit an X chromosone, but females only inherit the X chromosone and thus can only test their maternal DNA, called mtDNA. This follows their mother, her mother, her mother and so on back through her maternal ancestors.

My brother was pursuaded to swab his cheeks for a DNA sample, and I ordered my 33 marker Paternal Lineage DNA test kit.

More about the test results to come!