Your DNA test results

Part 1

So you've gotten your DNA test results back, with several ethnicities listed that you can assign to branches of your tree, but some are a complete surprise. Where did that Native American come from?  Not from your grandfathers, they were both born in Europe. How about your grandmothers?  They have both long since passed away, but you have cousins and aunts and uncles still around to test.

       If your paternal cousins show Native American in their ancestry, but your maternal ones do not, then you can safely assume that your Paternal Grandmother Susan had Native American ancestry.

       What else came from her?  The Irish? Italian?

Your list of DNA relatives

2nd cousin:  Lauren C.

3rd - 4th cousin: Levi H.

                           Antti S.

4th - 6th cousin:    John R.

                              Sarah J.

                              Talia B.

                              Karen A.

5th - 8th cousin: there are over 100 of them, but save them for later.

          Your DNA 2nd cousin, Lauren C., you asked your aunts and uncles and no ones ever heard of her.  You contact Lauren, she is overjoyed to hear from you, and find out you have Finnish ancestry.  She has Finnish ancestry too!!  But she doesn't know where its from, as she never knew her father.  But she was born in San Francisco.  Suddenly, your Uncle Mike Jr. remembers this really great party he went to when he was stationed in San Francisco.  He gets a DNA tests, and Lauren is his daughter, and everyone is happy:

Your DNA test results

 part 2

You go down the list of close (less than 6th cousin) matches:

Levi H. is more than 50% Ashenazi Jewish, and his grandmother came from Poland, but he doesn't know her maiden name or anything about her family.  You tentatively put him down as a possible relative from your Grandfather Samuel's side.

Antti S. is Antti Mattson Seppala.  His grandfather is Daniel Ericson Seppala, b. 1885 Finland. Antti has your entire Seppala family tree going back to 1600.   This is pretty much what happened to my father-in-law, there are great records in Finland. Of course they are all in Finnish, but Antti was happy to share everything he has with you, and send you pictures as well.   Why isn't everyone like Finnish people!!!

John R. has a private tree, and never answers your emails.  

Sarah J.  is 40% Eastern European, and 40% Irish.   She has a known great-grandfather from Hungary. You put her down as possibly from your grandmother Lisa's side.

Talia B. is 25% Native American from a tribe in Washington state.  She is also  known Irish and Welsh.   Grandmother Susan is looking like a better possibility as your Native American ancestor, as she was born in Seattle.

Karen A. is 30% Finnish and 30% Italian/Greek.  You leave her as a ? for now.

Sometimes you can tell where someone will belong in your tree, but a lot of time you won't.  That's when it helps to go to GEDmatch.org.

How to upload your DNA data to GEDmatch:

            1.     Go to the Ancestry DNA home page. There is a button marked settings, open it             and click on ”Download your DNA”

2.     Ancestry will send you an email confirming your request. When you get it,       open it and confirm your request.

3.     Go back to your DNA settings page, and click on Download your DNA.  It will be downloaded to your computer (your download files), as a zip flie. Leave it as a zip file.

4.     Go to GEDmatch.com, register, and you will be sent to the GEDmatch home page. One of the options, the light blue box on the right is “File uploads”.

5.     Click on the Ancestry option. This takes you to another page, where you add some info such as name, screenname or alias, and gender.

6.     The last part on this page is “Click on browse..” this takes you back to your computer so you can click on your DNA file in your download files.

7.     Then click the other button,  “Upload”.

8.     Leave GEdmatch running for 10-30 minutes while it does what it has to do. You don’t have to do anything during this time, and its pretty boring, so I suggest get up and get some coffee or water or something,

9.     When they say “Completed”, that’s (almost) it!! They assign you a Kit#, which you need to keep somewhere.

10.    You can use the “one-to-one” kit comparison at this point, but the best stuff comes from the “one-to-many” option, which you  need to wait a day or two to do.

GEDmatch explained 1

GEDmatch is a free website where people can compare their chromosomes to each other and find out if they share enough DNA to be related to each other "during historical time", which is from around 1600 to the present day.

The 1st feature of GEDmatch that you get to use is "one-to-one" compare.  You will need to use that "tool" a lot.
Open "one-to-one".  Put your Kit number, that GEDmatch gave you after your upload was finished, in one box, and put someone else's number in the other. You might get:
Comparing Kit Axxxxxxx(Janice Jxxxxxxx) and Fxxxxxxx (Anatoly Nxxxxx)


Minimum threshold size to be included in total = 700 SNPs
Mismatch-bunching Limit = 350 SNPs
Minimum segment cM to be included in total = 7.0 cM

Chr	Start Location	End Location	Centimorgans (cM)	SNPs
3	41,191,492	55,638,633	9.8	2,812

Largest segment = 9.8 cM
Total of segments > 7 cM = 9.8 cM
Estimated number of generations to MRCA = 5.4

NOTICE that your info is open to anyone who is DNA related to you, or knows your Kit #.  So you may want to use an alias and a new email for GEDmatch.   

Some definitions:
        SNPs: single nucleotide pairs. DNA is like a ladder, the rungs are composed of 4 nucleotides: C, T, A, G.  The order that the nucleotides are in is the actual code that make you.
            Chr: chromosome.  This match is on chromosome 3

REMEMBER THAT YOU HAVE 2  of every autosome!!!
So if someone else comes along that matches you at that spot, you will have to run one-to-one to each other.

Centimorgans:  1/100 of a "Morgan". A Morgan is the length of DNA that would experience a cross-over (See post: 'Basic Human Genetics 2' for info on cross-overs) 1% per generation.  A centiMorgan would experience 0.01% per generation.

GEDmatch sets their limit of relatedness to 7.0 cM and 700 SNP's.  Other DNA sites have different thresholds, Ancestry's is more liberal.

MCRA: most recent common ancestor.  GEDmatch tends to be rather liberal with this.  Add 2 generations, this is the actual range one would expect to find the common ancestor.  In this example: 5.4 to 7.4 generations.

GEDmatch explained 2

One-to-many matches

Once your DNA data has been "sync"ed, you're going to try one-to-many matches, to see who are related to. You have a choice of autosomal or X matches.  Start with either, you'll do both eventually.

Haplogroup

Autosomal

X chr

Kit Nbr

Type

List

Select

Sex

Mt

Y

Details

Total cM

largest cM

Gen

Details

Total cM

largest cM

Name

Email

Axxxxx

F2

L

M

U5A2b

A

2973.7

263.7

1.1

X

108.8

70.5

*DDJ

xxx@xxx

Fxxxxx

F2

L

U

A

27.9

22.5

4.5

X

0

0

AB

xxx@xxx

Mxxxxx

V3

L

M

A

27.9

22.5

4.5

X

0

0

AB

xxx@xxx

Fxxxxxx

F2

L

U

A

27.3

15.9

4.5

X

0

0

CD

xxx@xxx

Mxxxxx

V4

L

M

A

23.3

23.3

4.6

X

0

0

KH

xxx@xxx

Mxxxxx

V3

L

F

A

26.1

18.9

4.6

X

0

0

KT

xxx@xxx

Axxxxxx

F2

L

F

A

24.2

16.8

4.6

X

0

0

MM

xxx@xxx

This is the top of my "one-to-many" matches.  The person I relate to the most, *DDJ, is my full brother.  We are 1 generation from our common ancestors, mom & dad.  GEDmatch assigns "1.1 gens" to us; sharing 45% of our DNA is within natural variation.  

DDJ's mtDNA haplogroup is U5A2b (so is mine).  Haplogroup testing is done at 23andMe, FTDNA, and other places.  We did not have ours tested, but our maternal 1st cousin did.   Our moms were sisters, so we have a direct maternal line.

On to the next match, AB.  4.5 generations back!! I look at his tree, and don't see the match.  Same with the other 4 people here.

So I click on the "select" box for each, then on the next page select an option.  I like "Chr browse", but you should eventually try all the options. "Segment CSV file" is very good for generating lists of where on what chr. the 'hard matching' (7 cM or over) segments are on.

GEDmatch explained 3

Organizing your DNA matches

 If you're like me, and can't find any obvious matches at first, you will need to try other methods. This is what I'm doing:

1. Organizing my matches by chromosome.

  I like using the Chr browse option, and I copy the info it generates into an Excel spreadsheet:

Match ID Type Name Matching segments  on Chromosome 8 4 V4 P K (Mxxxx)                        6,778,120 - 12770918 (9.3525 cM) 2 V4 B J(Mxxxx)                      19,754,748 - 24562586 (8.8901 cM) (734 SNP) J. A (FTDNA)                      21,287,496 - 29081350 (11.65 cM) 1 F2 L T (Axxxx)                      21,422,266 - 27024449 (8.9514 cM)

Sct/Eng

S F  (Axxxxx)

29,802,177

- 38, 701, 633 (6.1 cM) (1491 SNP)

England

Gypsy

*SD (Mxxxxxx)

42,587,505

- 55028701 (5.6998 cM)

Xmatch

I keep the "Match ID" and "Type" columns if I find out information on my matches. 

Yes, I am part Gypsy, and this is how I found that out.  

When I get another match on this chromosome, I can add it at the bottom, and use the "sort" function of Excel to place it in order. You can also do this with the "CSV" function, but it only goes down to 7 cM.  I save segments that are 5-7 cM, if the person also has another piece that is over 7 cM.

I also note if an autosomal match also is a X-match. An X-match rules out a match on my paternal grandfather's side.

GEDmatch explained 4

Chromosome X

Do your chromosome X matches like your other autosomal matches. Pay special attention to those that share autosomal DNA with you as well, even if its under 7 cM!!

Enter the autosomal DNA from an X match on that autosomal's spread sheet, even if its less than 7 cM.

This is a little shortcut for finding out what side of your family the match is on.

David's X matches:

			Haplogroup					Autosomal				XDNA
Kit Nbr				Sex	Mt	Y			Total cM	largest cM	Gen		Details	Total cM	largest cM		Name
Axx					U5A2b				2973.7	263.7	1.1		X	108.8	70.5		Janice
Fxx				F					0	0			X	10.2	10.2		MM
Mxx				F	Hxx				0	0			X	9.1	9.1		GG
Axx				F					6.7	6.7	7.5		X	8.8	8.8		CD
Mxx				M	Hxx	Rx			5.4	5.4	7.7		X	8.6	8.6		JG
Mxx				M	Uxx	Ex			0	0			X	8.4	8.4		WR
Axx				U					0	0			X	8.4	8.4		XX
Fxx				F					0	0			X	8.4	8.4		KL

I took some of the information in the chart off so it would fit the page.

Notice that 3 people share autosomal as well as X DNA with David.   Me (Janice),CD and JG.  I ran the Chr browser tool, and put the autosomal DNA segments on the matching chromosome.

You can't really tell how distant an Xmatch is, because of it's pattern of inheritance.  When it's in a man, it doesn't cross-over. You can have 10 generations of mother to daughter only, and in the same family 10 generations, with 5 fathers  involved in passing down the X.  The line with the fathers have fewer cross-overs, so the matching segments will be larger, all its still the same 10 generations.

The matches "GG" and "JG" happen to be brother and sister. David does not share autosomal DNA with GG, although he does with JG.  They are both the same number of generations back though.

When someone comes along and matches to JG on the autosomal, I'll know he is from the same side of the family as JG.

ALL of David's X matches come from our mom's side of the family. They are a mix of the X chromosomes of our maternal grandparents.

Janice's Xmatches:

Haplogroup

Autosomal

Xdna

Kit Nbr

Sex

Mt

Y

Total cM

largest cM

Gen

Details

Total cM

largest cM

Name

Axxx

M

U5A2b

2973.7

263.7

1.1

X

108.8

70.5

*DDJ

Mxxx

F

Hx

0

0

X

19.2

19.2

HC

Mxxx

M

Hx

Rxx

5.7

5.7

7.6

X

19.2

19.2

SD

Axxx

F

0

0

X

19.2

19.2

LP

Fxxx

F

0

0

X

18.4

18.4

MA

Axx

F

Lx

0

0

X

18.1

18.1

RV

Mxx

F

Hx

0

0

X

18

18

ES

some of them anyway.  I have many more matches than David does, because I have 2 X chromosomes.  About 25% of my Xmatches, I share with David.

I got a mix of my maternal grandparents on one X, and a mix of my paternal grandmother's parents (my great-grandparents) on the other.