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General => Ancestral Family Tree DNA Testing => Topic started by: DudleyWinchurch on Tuesday 15 October 13 04:02 BST (UK)
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Hi all,
I mentioned on another thread that I was planning to take an Autosomal DNA test to try to crack one particular brick wall and promised to let folk know how I get on.
As that was someone else's thread, started for a different purpose, I thought perhaps it would be better to start a new one here, but will link back to the earlier thread to make it easier to find.
Since many people, including me, seem confused by the process and potential outcomes of the various DNA tests available, I thought it might be a good idea to outline what I am trying to find, the steps involved in testing, and the eventual outcomes if any.
My problem is that I have documentary evidence for at least 2 other people who arrived from Ireland to England shortly after the famine, with the same family name as my great-grandparents: they lived for some years as close neighbours and then one of the others moved to the US in their family unit, followed later by some members of the third family.
While in England, they seem to have been godparents to each others children, lived very close to each other (neighbours or in the same yard, or at one time the other two families in the same house even).
For some time I have been in contact with descendants of both these other families and, though we all think we are probably related, we have found no direct documentary evidence that says so. This, despite trips to Dublin for the paperwork and even back to Mayo where we think that they came from.
In trying to see whether it might be possible for DNA to resolve this issue, I went to a talk and was even more confused. However, the speaker answered questions at the end of the talk and suggested that, if myself and one of my contacts are related as we think (that our great-grandparents were siblings and so we are third-cousins), then the Family Finder Autosomal test should be able to confirm this with a reasonable degree of confidence).
My brief understanding of the test (which could be way out of course, so feel free to give a better explanation if possible) is that the 22 pairs of matched chromosomes are mathematically coded to focus on the areas most likely to relate to the DNA variation passed on through the generations and then matched against a database of all those previously tested who have chosen to participate in the matching process. It's not a legal test, as it uses a different method that is more consistent for going back several, rather than just one or two generations. It's aimed mostly at looking for matches over recent generations and it's power drops off noticeably by the 4th or 5th generation, although it does seem to be applied to some other purposes as well.
We have decided to go ahead with this, so I'll add a new message to the thread to detail the process so far.
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Ok, just a little about the process so far.
I booked my test with Family Finder and received the kit (from US to UK) about 8 days later. I was able to collect the samples and return them the following day and it seems to have taken about the same amount of time to get back to them.
Officially my kit is now received but has a batch number of 0. I don't know if that means they haven't started processing it at all, or if the DNA is being extracted and the batch number is for when they start the mathematical analysis.
When I took the samples there were two (different) sets of instructions, one in the package and one on the website. I used the instructions on the website and hope that I got suitably clean samples.
It lead me to wondering to what extent cheek samples are your own DNA. Clearly you want to be as clear of food as possible but toothpaste is probably not good either? Also to what extent do samples get contaminated by the various bugs in your system. Aware that I was booked for a flu-shot the day after the kit arrived, I was careful to carry out the two sample collections before going to my appointment. Would that have made any difference or is the difference too insignificant to matter?
There is also a choice as to how much information you give to the website when you register the kit. You can add more later and even upload a gedcom, if wished. To what extent is that information used in the matching, or to verify the matching?
I chose just to give the family names of my great-grandparents and the country of origin, no more detail. But in addition it asks for furthest direct male and female lines. These are not very long in my case and I just supplied first name, family name and birth and death years, to the best of my ability.
I have not specified that we are looking for a direct comparison and my contact had not received his kit in time to use it before leaving for a trip so will not be on the system yet, I think.
I'll let you know if and when things advance.
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Dudley, I am very interested in following your progress with this. As the tests only cost $99 it is well worth a try.
I only received by autosmal test results yesterday and am still very much stumbling in the dark in attempting to interpret them, but I believe your understanding of the test is correct. I look forward to the input from those more knowledgable on the subject. No matter how much I read and think I understand, I find it all very complicated and confusing.
I am not familiar with any of the surnames of my 2nd to 4th cousin matches, so I doubt that it will be much use to expand my tree - I really only took the test out of curiosity. I do understand the bit that tells me that I am 100% European though. ;D
It's all good fun! (as well as being interesting and educational).
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Hi again Dudley. I had many of the same questions as you.
I think the only thing they specify related to collecting the samples is that you need to leave a certain amount of time after eating. Toothpaste, as I understand it, is not an issue. I was worried about my husband's test as he had just brushed his teeth and included a fair amount of white stuff in his vial ;D and his results came back fine. I did not read anything about innoculations tainting the samples so presume that is not an issue either. I had worries about my own sample as I have a dry mouth, but I scraped fairly vigourously almost drawing blood and I have read that blood is fine to include in the sample. ;D
I also had concerns due to a distinctive surname and wondered whether or not they consider this in the results. Having had myself, my father and husband tested, and seeing other people's "surprise" results, I feel confident now that the names are irrelevant.
I have not added any trees or names to accompany my results as yet, but intend to do so. (Looking at my 'matches' I notice many people have not entered any further information, which I think kindof defeats the purpose). If you have any concerns maybe advise your cousins not to enter any surnames until after they receive their results?
Something to be aware of - my husband and father were emailed about the results of their Y-DNA tests, but I was not notified that my autosmal results were available to view online. I was expecting an email. I'm not sure if this is the norm or I was overlooked. But just to let you know to periodically check the progress of your test.
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Hi Ruskie,
Thanks for all the useful comments.
I did see something about checking for results as they don't always get notified but I interpreted it to mean that if, say, your results were processed first and there was no match, then when the next person (e.g. your father's data) was processed, they would match to you and get a notification but that you wouldn't as you were already there. However, that doesn't make sense if you have 2nd-4th cousin matches as surely some of them were already processed before.
Even 2nd cousin matches could be quite difficult to trace, especially if they are the daughter of a daughter and so involved family name changes. I have only six first cousins and know who they are, even though sadly I am not still in touch with all of them. However, since doing this family history research I am now aware that each of my parents had about thirty first cousins, so even though they didn't all marry and have children, I have many second cousins that I've never met. We also have time-alignment shifts due to long gaps between generations in some lines and much shorter in others, so working out whether two people are second- or third- cousins or have several removes is going to be complicated if and when I do get some matches.
I haven't even begun to understand the interpretation advice yet so will be interested to hear how you get on in matching your DNA results to the paperwork.
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Hi Dudley,
I only have four first cousins - one of them has one child, another has two, so I can see some of my branches may die out.
As yet I can't see any way of trying to work out how any of my autosomal "cousins" may be related to me. I am thinking of simply contacting a few of them to maybe narrow down a timeframe and area where our ancestors lived and possibly see if anything matches up. I haven't gone into this very far yet, but something that I did notice is that a couple of the surnames appear in several "cousin's" trees, but not in mine (not that I have found anyway). I have also found some familiar, though common, surnames, so I don't hold out much hope of finding a match.
I also have a few brick walls in the early 1800s so connections and unfamiliar surnames may appear earlier than that, or as you say, on side shoots to my main tree.
I think what I was mainly hoping for from the results of this autosomal test, was the challenge of finding a paper trail between my tree and a match or matches.
I live in hope. :)
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Today's update shows "received by lab" so I guess I have a while to wait yet before something more interesting starts to happen.
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Just a quick add regarding the batch number.
My husband did a ydna 37 marker on fdna back in June and his results proved interesting putting him in one of the rarer haplogroups for a European. Anyway, to cut to the chase although he is part of a surname group we also joined the specific haplogroup group and was persuaded to go for further analysis. Means nothing to us but might help get a better understanding how this group came to England/Western Europe. My adminstrator told me to apply for the test before Tuesday midnight as that is when fdna do the batches otherwise his sample would have had to wait another week to start processing... My husband didn't have to provide another sample so it was just a matter of admin. Check again in a few days, they should update your profile with batch number and an estimated results date. Our next results date is 12 november, approx 4-6 weeks from ordering.
Hope you get the right results. My husband's first results came back with 4 matches, 2 we were already 99% sure they would match and 2 others (with different surnames)which luckily also had good paper trails so were able to pin down where the link occurred.
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I am aware of the 'upgrades' on Y-DNA tests, but haven't learned enough about the Autosomal tests to understand what the upgrades cost or might reveal.
A link via my account shows that I can order the usual tests available on FTDNA, as well as "Factoids" and "Advanced Tests" which gives me the option to order Autosomal STRs and X-STRs. :-\ (other tests are only for males so I cannot take those tests). I would consider an upgrade but need to learn more about what it might give me.
I have been googling some of my matches - first three I believe I found recent obituaries for. :( I will probably send emails nevertheless as a younger relative may be the driving force behind their tests anyway (as I am with my father's test ;)).
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I've also been thinking about an autosomal one as I can't take the male ones either. At some oint I may suggest one of my brothers has one with one or 2 of the family links.
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Not much news, but been away for a few days and came back to find that the status is now "batched" on 16th October and "in progress" on the 17th. Results expected mid-December.
thanks jc26red, all seems to be going as you predicted.
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Though perhaps not directly relevant to this thread I am currently reading a book "DNA for archaeologists" published by Left Coast Press USA. One point made in the book so far which I think has a relevance to family historical DNA is the statement made "that there is more variance of DNA within a population than between populations". Interesting; as it suggests to me that my DNA which is of a Scandanavian origin may have more in common with that of people from a different ethnicity eg Oriental, than with that of other members of my own ancestral group. A very interesting thought in my opinion.
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One point made in the book so far which I think has a relevance to family historical DNA is the statement made "that there is more variance of DNA within a population than between populations". Interesting; as it suggests to me that my DNA which is of a Scandanavian origin may have more in common with that of people from a different ethnicity eg Oriental, than with that of other members of my own ancestral group. A very interesting thought in my opinion.
Without reading more of the book I think they just mean that most modern day populations are made up mutliple ethnicities. Your (relatively recent) "Scandinavian" DNA will have more in common with other people of "Scandinavian" DNA whether they are still in Scandinavia, America or New Zealand than it has with other British people of relatively recent French, Spanish, German, Asian or African DNA.
There are very few large populations that are not very mixed up genetically. I suspect they did not mean that you are more closely related to an Oriental than to a Dane!
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Thanks, this one needs further thought.
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Just to add my two-pennorth..... I wanted to encourage Dudley about timescales. I was given an 'expected results' date of the end of November, but the mtDNA results arrived yesterday and the autosomal ones today, so nearly a month early!
The not-so-good part of it all is that I can't make head or tail of the (fairly remote) matches :'( I see I'm going to have to read up about this even more than I have!
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The not-so-good part of it all is that I can't make head or tail of the (fairly remote) matches :'( I see I'm going to have to read up about this even more than I have!
Bear in mind that single autosomal matches are not enough to prove which surname the DNA belongs to. For example, say you match someone on a chunk of autosomal DNA and you each have someone of the same surname and from the same area as one another as follows:-
Person 1) descendant of Elias SMITH b.1812 Chelsea
Person 2) descendant of Jonas SMITH b.1792 Fulham
Great! Or is it?
Say in our example the matching result was really:-
Person 1) descendant of Elias SMITH b.1812 Chelsea s. Jn SMITH & Mary RANDALL
Person 2) descendant of Jonas SMITH b.1792 Fulham s. Wm SMITH & Ann RANDALL
How can you tell whether your matching DNA comes form the SMITH or RANDALL family? You can't easily..
If someone was to just assume that the two SMITH families were the same they could end up researching the wrong family if they were really unrelated and the common DNA came from the RANDALL family.
This is even more tricky when you get out into the Pre-Industrial Revolution countryside where the frequent marriage of country cousins means that people shared bits of DNA with most other people in the village!
Autosomal DNA is very very iffy...
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Thanks supermoussi ..... I think :-\ :)
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Thanks AngelaR,
I've been a bit busy recently but trying to check every couple of days and will let you all know when the results, if any, begin to appear.
I'm fortunate not to have any replicated family names back as far as Great-Grandparents, nor any of the known ones in the previous generation, so I'm hoping that any that pop up will either be obvious which line, or will indicate that I have matched to one of my gaps, so will know where the further research is necessary.
Beyond that level, I understand that there will be little confidence in which generation we are looking at anyway, so will just be hints to store for later, I assume.
And yes, supermoussi, there are still unknowns out there, as well as the main test that I was hoping to make, so there could be some serious sleuthing yet to do.
Meantime, it's rather nice to know that while I am too busy with other things to do much family history research at present, the test is grinding its way through all the numbers to try to find me some results. So maybe just another week or two to wait?
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Given my experience so far, Dudley, it could just be a couple of weeks! Hope so, anyway
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This is even more tricky when you get out into the Pre-Industrial Revolution countryside where the frequent marriage of country cousins means that people shared bits of DNA with most other people in the village!
Autosomal DNA is very very iffy...
Not just in the Pre industrial revolution era, well into the 20th century in the village of Lode Cambs
cousin marriage was the norm rather than the exception. I am my own 4th cousin as a result.
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Just to reiterate,
I have a particular problem which is, that documentary evidence suggests, but does not confirm, that my great-grandfather may have had two siblings who moved to England at the same time but later all or part of their families moved on to the USA.
I am in touch with a descendant of one of them who, if we are correct in believing that the great-grandparents were siblings, would be my third cousin.
We are hoping that the autosomal test will either confirm the relationship or show that this is unlikely.
Most scientific tests only operate within a limited range of parameters. If they are used to speculate beyond those ranges, then the results can only be speculation.
From what I have read of Autosomal DNA testing, this question should fall within a reasonable degree of confidence for this particular test.
While I am happy to see and try to interpret any other results that I might get, against documentary evidence, I am not looking for vague hypotheses about where my family lines may have arisen much further back or fishing for hitherto unknown connections.
Some of my lines do go several generations further back, but this test does not offer any confidence in relationships identified beyond even one further generation, so I will not be counting on the test as evidence.
Just trying to see if this DNA test can be of use in finding out more of my family history.
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Dudley
There is a 90% chance that two third cousins will share enough DNA to show up as a match so the odds are very much in your favour. See this FTDNA FAQ:
http://www.familytreedna.com/faq/answers.aspx?id=17#628
However, this does mean that one in 10 documented third cousins will not show up as a match. This is not a deficiency of the test but simply a limitation of the genetics and a consequence of the random way in which we inherit our DNA.
What this means is that if you are a match you will be able to prove the relationship (assuming that there is no possibility that you are related on any of your other ancestral lines). However, the lack of a match will not prove that you are not related. If there isn't a match then you would need to test other relatives instead.
See this blog post from Judy Russell. She didn't match a known third cousin but a number of her other relatives did:
http://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog/2013/04/07/widen-the-net/
You might also like to read some of the articles linked here:
http://www.isogg.org/wiki/Autosomal_DNA_statistics
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Hi Devon,
some very clear and useful explanations there. I am used to working with statistics so aware of the possibility of anomalies like that.
If we don't get a match first time, I have siblings (and/or cousins) who may also take the test. I'd be interested for at least one to do so, to find out how much our matches have in common, anyway. It is also possible that the third family involved may have someone who could do so too, but I have not gone down that route as yet, as I think my contact in that family is at least one, if not two, generations later than us.
Unfortunately, on my line for this family, there are no survivors of an earlier generation, that I am aware of, to make the test more powerful.
thanks
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AngelaR,
You were right. Just logged on and founds results, some five weeks before expected.
Rather a lot of results - 28 pages in all, so nearly 280 "matches". As most of them are 4th or 5th cousin to distant, I am guessing that they are spurious matches. However of the 26 or so that suggest 2nd-4th or similar, I only recognise the one that comes up as closer, 2-3rd cousin. That is someone with whom I am usually in regular contact but did not know he had taken the test, and is definitely a second cousin.
Looking through the rest, I can find no obvious connections although some have Mayo connections and others Pennsylvania and Irish connections so could be connected to the two families that we are trying to match up.
Most seem to have a significant number of German connections, not expected, so it would be interesting to see if they match each other in this respect, and might be a spurious connection to one extended string match.
I am now thinking that getting my brother to do the test too may be a way of at least partially separating those which are coincidental from those actually likely to be related.
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Dudley
I'm pleased the results are through although, like mine, they seem to be rather mixed. My nearest were 2nd-4th cousins and there were only 2 of them, so I think my relatives must be rather shy of DNA tests!
As a matter of interest - did you look at the Population Finder under 'Family Finder'? My results seem to say that I'm 1/16th Middle Eastern, which to me means that one of my Somerset/Wiltshire ag lab great grandparents had an exotic spouse.....
Good luck with the hunt
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Hi Angela,
Yes, the results are interesting but I suspect most are not significant. I've tried using the various tools and all but one, except for my second cousin, only seem to have one extended piece of DNA in common. The odd one out has two bits on the same chromosome, but quite extensive and matching both me and my second cousin so, although there is nothing on the record to suggest that we are indeed related, I have emailed to ask if that shared family name appears in the other person's tree too.
I had the one 2nd-3rd cousin match and another seven 2nd-4th cousin matches but I haven't yet found any obvious connection among them.
Yes, I did look at the origins, but it seems that the database they are matching to is not yet complete so there is a warning that this may change. Currently it says that I am 96% Orcadian and 4% Middle Eastern which suggests perhaps a Jewish ancestor some 4 or 5 generations ago.
I'm a bit confused that they are using Orcadian to match the whole of the British Isles, as although it makes sense in the case of my Celtic origins, I would have expected German, French and other Western European influences to have had a significant impact on the population of England too.
I think that there seems to be some issue with the attempt to select comparison communities which will be relatively unmixed, hence using Orcadians, but I suspect that there are few other areas of Europe even represented in the database, as most populations are quite mixed.
This definitely raises more questions than it answers.
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The results from the Population Finder test should not be taken too literally. FTDNA are only using a very limited range of reference populations:
https://www.familytreedna.com/faq/answers.aspx?id=22#1039
It's rather like trying to paint a picture when you only have a limited palette of colours. There is no "British DNA" so it has to be mixed up from what is available which is often Orcadian and Middle Eastern. I'm finding that large number of the people in my Devon DNA project are coming out with small percentages of "Middle Eastern" ancestry in the Population Finder test, and many of them have solid English pedigrees going back for many generations. The Middle Eastern percentage doesn't usually mean that you have any Jewish ancestry or any other exotic ancestry. It just means you're a bog standard Brit. This guest blog post by Doug McDonald provides an explanation of the process:
http://dna-explained.com/2012/09/09/doug-mcdonald-on-biogeograpical-analysis/
You can submit your raw data files to various third-party sites for alternative readings:
http://www.isogg.org/wiki/Admixture_analyses
FTDNA are supposed to be updating the Population Finder results at some point but it's anyone's guess as to when this might happen. They are holding their group administrators' conference this weekend so I'm hoping there might be news of new developments coming from that.
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That is most helpful, DevonCruwys, thank you :)
I shall stop hogging Dudley's thread and go and explore.....
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A quick update on the practicalities of the test.
An email arrived overnight to let me know that the results were now available.
Having now reviewed my results several times, I am becoming concerned that I have already about six potential third cousins for whom I can find no evidence whatever for any possible relationship. Not only no apparent match in names, but also families that appear to have been continents apart at the times when they would need to have overlapped!
I understand that these may be matches due to anomalies in my chromosomes but, if there are so many of them, how does that affect the level of confidence for the test that I am hoping to make?
I was not expecting so many matches, but am now confused by finding a number of people flagged as relatively close kin that does not appear to be a practical possibility, whereas one or two of the more distant possible relationships do at least share a geographical location at an appropriate time in my family history. If none of the supposed third cousins are likely, is it worth checking through the (hundreds of) others for a possible match?
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The relationships are predictions and there will inevitably be a range because of the random way that DNA is inherited. We might receive 21% of our autosomal DNA from our paternal grandfather but 27% from our maternal grandmother. It's much more difficult to give a precise prediction beyond the second cousin level.
The other problem is that some of your matches might come from endogamous populations (where people married within their own community). As a result, relationships will appear closer than they actually because these people will have got a double dose of DNA from the same ancestral couple. This is a particular problem for members of the Ashkenazi Jewish community. It also affects Americans who have Colonial American heritage and you'll find that there are rather a lot of these in the database.
I find it best to ignore the American matches unless they share a rare surname and focus instead on the people who have ancestry from the UK. If you download the spreadsheet with your matches you can often identify the people living in the UK from their e-mail addresses (Virgin, BTinternet, addresses ending in .co.uk, etc). It's also worth following up with all the Australians, New Zealanders and Canadians as they are much more likely to have more recent documented links with the British Isles where you stand some chance of finding the connection.
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Houston, we have a problem! I seem to be plunged into technical depths trying to make sense of the findings.
Thanks Devon, for you explanations, but something further seem to have gone wrong here!
I think I have a problem with the difference between Identical by Descent (IBD) and Identical by State (IBS). The suggestion seems to be that they somehow already filter for this (by not including strings that don't usually get mixed during the (mitosis/meiosis?? (long time since I studied DNA) process). However, I think that maybe I have a number of unusual preserved blocks.
Of my 7 suggested third cousins, and one suggested 4th cousin, I have six where most of (up to 2/3 of) the match comes from a single very extended block. Is that at all normal??
2 matches who seem to be related, share these very extended blocks in the same place on the same chromosome, the very extended blocks in common with another 4 are each on different chromosomes.
When I look at the comparison with my second cousin, we have several extended blocks in common, but none as long as the ones with these "matches", although in two cases (that are related to each other), I do share about half of the very extended block with my cousin. I also have many other shared areas (looked at on the 1cM view of the chromosomes).
If these very extended shared blocks are not normal, is there some statistical method I could use to weed out false positives? - e.g. all those where more than half the shared data comes from one block?
Sorry, this has got so technical but I really don't know whether it is better to ignore pretty much all these potential matches or to follow up some of the ones that at least seem to be in the right place at the right time, even though not very close connections.
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Dudley
IBD are true matches where there is a genealogical common ancestor. IBS are false positive or coincidental matches where by chance the same segment is shared at the population level. Some older segments get preserved purely by chance.
The segments that you are seeing in the chromosome browser are half-identical segments. The stop and start points that FTDNA give are not exact. You could be matching different people on different strands of the DNA. See:
http://www.familytreedna.com/faq/answers.aspx?id=17#844
These could also be compound segments:
http://www.familytreedna.com/faq/answers.aspx?id=17#612
I've tested myself and both of my parents. 18% of my matches do not appear in my parents' match lists and are therefore false positives, but these are all fifth to distant cousins.
The companies are not yet that good at filtering out IBS segments. It is estimated that 99% of segments that are over 10 centiMorgans in size are IBD, but when you get down to 7 cMs only 30% will be IBD:
http://www.isogg.org/wiki/Autosomal_DNA_statistics#Identical_By_Descent_segments
The techniques to establish whether segments are IBD or IBS involve chromosome mapping and phasing. Ideally you would need to test other family members. See these two ISOGG Wiki articles for more information:
http://www.isogg.org/wiki/Chromosome_mapping
http://www.isogg.org/wiki/Phasing
I would suggest your questions are best asked on the ISOGG DNA Newbie where there are lots of people who are much more experienced at interpreting autosomal DNA test results than me:
http://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/DNA-NEWBIE/info
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Thanks Devon,
I have been trying to read up and understand all these links but it's very confusing and maybe I didn't make myself clear in my last message.
Most of these matches depend on a single longest block and very few other coinciding strings.
We're definitely talking over 15 centiMorgans and in some cases, over 30. I cannot see how anyone could share 35 centiMorgans in one block, yet less than 15 in total elsewhere, unless due to some bizarre co-incidence.
My second cousin shares several extended blocks, the longest of which is just under 35 centiMorgans, and quite a few smaller ones, but this is from a total of 194 centiMorgans shared. As I know this to be a genuine relationship, I assume that this is a fairly normal distribution pattern.
Yet there are two other matches, related to each other, which apparently share slightly more than 35 centiMorgans of that same part of the chromosome with me and yet share much less other matching DNA: in one case considerably less than half as many centiMorgans elsewhere. I have been in touch with one of these and he can confirm no match with any of the names in my previous four generations of ancestors.
A similar pattern, affecting different chromosomes can be seen with at least 4 other of these 3rd cousin matches, and none of them have any name or location information that suggests that we are related in any way. Any information given would strongly suggest that we are not.
It looks to me that the only possible evidence for a DNA match here is a single (very) extended block on one chromosome and very little other evidence.
The fact that so many of these matches seem to follow the same pattern makes me wonder if there is something odd going on. Do I have an exceptional number of archaic preserved DNA strings or something similar?
Whatever the reason, I don't think that they are true matches and was hoping someone might have a suggestion as to how to weed them out, in order to see if there are any true matches amongst this bizarrely long list.
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If the matches have long blocks of over 15 cMs then they are probably all true matches. The size of the segments varies because the inheritance of autosomal DNA is a random process. Have a look at Tim Janzen's spreadsheets where he's tested lots of known relations to get an idea of the variations that are found:
http://mennodna.remotewebaccess.com/23andme/ref.html
If you can't find the documented relationship I wonder if your matches are perhaps Colonial Americans who have some cousins intermarrying in their family trees so that the relationships look closer than they actually are? Do they all have some geography in common?
The people on the DNA Newbie list will be able to give you better answers than me.
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The problem is that not one of these matches is in long blocks. Each has just ONE very long block and very few other bits and pieces (not one likely to be anyway near 10 centiMorgans) and, in more than one case, the long block is almost double the length of the total of the rest of the matches.
I can't see a scenario when nearly all of the shared DNA between relatively close relations would be packed into just one block.
The one that contacted me may well be a colonial American, pleased to have found a third cousin, but suggested that maybe we were related sometime around the Norman Conquest?
I have a lot of distant matches coming up with German or Scandinavian origins - none of which is likely within any of the documented family history that I have. I also have one or two very distant ones that show possible family names or geographical locations that might make sense, but they are so distant compared with all these relatively close matches that don't make any sense at all that I am reluctant to bother following them up until I can work out what is happening with all these potential third and fourth cousins.
My brother is going to take the test as well so I can compare our mutual patterns.
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If it's any help you might like to have a look at these Chromosome Browser example for known relationships up to the third cousin level to see if those patterns match yours:
http://www.isogg.org/wiki/Chromosome_Browser_Examples
Are your third cousin matches actual predicted third cousins? Mine at this level all have a range of anywhere between third and fifth cousins.
There does seem to be a phenomenon known as "sticky segments". Type that into the search engine of the Genealogy DNA list and read the related messages:
http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/search?path=GENEALOGY-DNA
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Thanks Devon,
the chromosome browser examples serve to highlight the problem. At the 5cm+ setting, like in the examples, 5 of my 6 "third cousins", show only one match.
My second cousin match is similar to the example in the way the matches are distributed.
I'm going to need to look further at the idea of "sticky" segments, although the 5 all have extended matches on completely different chromosomes. The 6th is related to one of the five and has a couple of extra short matches that show up.
I'm trying to see how far I can group the other, suggested as more distant, relations with these using the triangulation tool.
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Hi
This is all a bit complicated for me but can I ask - does the DNA company put you in touch with people you are related to? Also what company did you use?
Thanks
Robyn
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Hello Robyn
I'm finding it a wee bit daunting too.....
Dudley and I both used FamilyTreeDNA at about the same time. They show you the 'matches' grouped in order of relationship 'closeness' and you can contact each match by email if you so wish. The problem is sorting out the genuines from the duds!
Good luck
Angela
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I, well my husband, also tested with FamilyTreeDNA. We have belonged to a family name group for years but its only recently that we have managed to obtain a very good administrator for the ftdna part of the group. Since then, my husband took the test, at their request, and we have had wonderful support from the administrator with explanations etc., and the group is now growing well.
The matches that returned include 2 we were expecting (Same surname and accountable) and 2 with different surnames but as the haplogroup doesn't fall into one of the normal English/European mixes, we were able to trace back and work out that lifestyle and locations did cross which means an NPE (non paternal event) occured around 1760 :)
My husband has also joined another ftdna group,haplogroup C, and his dna test is now being used for further advanced tests as he is the only direct European descendant which has a strong paper trail back to early the. 1600's ...it doesn't mean alot to me (and not much use for recent fh research) as this is all about trying to find out how this group came to be in Europe and not in the East as they (Isogg) previously had thought. All quite exciting as they have been looking for someone to confirm and test this new haplogroup C subgroup v20+ out.... the first ftdna advanced results came back confirmed on Friday! His results will eventually be written up in the science books, the website hasn't been updated yet :) hopefully, we will be able to understand what it all means one day lol!
Jenny
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Hi Robyn,
Yes the FTDNA company allow you access to the email address of anyone who matches, if they have permitted this, but like any other website some of the email addresses may not be still current.
Hi Angela,
Can I ask if you were also overwhelmed with large numbers of potential cousins? I was expecting with luck to have maybe up to a dozen to sift through but got 26 "third" or "fourth" cousins and a couple of hundred more distant potential relationships. The disconcerting thing is that except for the one that I recognise, even the nearer relationships don't seem to make sense.
As my method of doing family history is to try to discover all the siblings of each direct ancestor I find, and find out who they married, and I have also been successful in tracing forward quite a few of these and have the names of who their daughters married, it doesn't make sense that six third cousins would pop up and not one would be linked to a name that I know, especially the ones who have supplied a long list of names.
Hi Jenny,
We're talking about autosomal DNA here, so haplogroups are irrelevant and only the past five or, at most six, generations should be at all relevant. I have most of the fourth and nearly three-quarters of the fifth generations already mapped out in my tree, with many of their descendants (over one and a half thousand known connections) so it would extremely odd indeed if all the ones that I know of happen to be the only ones who don't take DNA tests.
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Hi Dudley
My results came in with 2 in the 2nd - 4th cousin range, 16 in the 3rd-5th range and 200+ in the 4th - remote or 5th - remote. I don;t recognise anything at all about the first two sets and haven't looked at the others!
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Thanks Angela,
That sounds very similar to mine, except that I have a genuine second cousin who came up as 2nd-3rd, 7 in the 2nd-4th range, 18 in 3rd-5th and again 200+ in 4th-remote or 5th-remote.
I wonder if that is a common pattern for this test.
Sheila
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Unfortunately none of my family has tested, as far as I know, so I haven't any 'real' finds to test against.
I thought DevonCruwys links were very helpful but am none too sure where to go from here....
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Can I ask if you were also overwhelmed with large numbers of potential cousins? I was expecting with luck to have maybe up to a dozen to sift through but got 26 "third" or "fourth" cousins and a couple of hundred more distant potential relationships. The disconcerting thing is that except for the one that I recognise, even the nearer relationships don't seem to make sense.
Dudley, In case it's of interest here are my stats.
Me: 190 matches
2 second to fourth cousins
23 third to fifth cousins
Remainder fourth to distant cousins or fifth to distant cousins
My dad: 220 matches
2 second to fourth cousins
24 third to fifth cousins
Remainder fourth to distant cousins or fifth to distant cousins
My mum: 170 matches
14 third to fifth cousins
Some of my matches are clearly false positives. When I compared my matches with my parents' matches I found that 18% of matches appeared in my match list but did not match either of my parents. I've not yet found the connection with any of my genetic cousins, but a lot of them are in America and don't know where in the UK their lines are from so there's not much chance of ever finding the connection unless we have a shared surname in common.
I don't think it's worth bothering with the distant cousins unless you do have a surname or geographical location in common.
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Devon,
that's really helpful.
It looks like there is nothing unusual about the overall number of matches that Angela and I have got.
Unfortunately, I have no previous generation to compare with.
What is surprising is that I have rather more 2nd-4th matches and they all seem to be on lines that I haven't got enough data for. I think that I will now go ahead and try contacting the rest with my list of GGgrandparent family names (only 2 missing).
I think that you may be right about the distant relatives being too much of a long shot. I have tried to contact two who actually share a family name, but one bounced back as an unacceptable email address. There is also one distant contact with a tree that indicates that they were definitely in the same place at the same time as my family in the 1840s-1850s, so probably worth a try too. No direct names in common, but their tree does include at least one name that comes up on my godparents list.
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Still struggling to make sense of all these matches.
I have made an attempt to begin partitioning the list of results.
As I have one recognised second cousin, we share only approximately 25% of DNA. I used the triangulation tool to make a list of matches that we have in common. I then used the same tool on each member of that list and added in any new names that popped up. I went through and did this a third time with the new names. This gave me a list of about 25% of the original matches. I am assuming this means that we should be related through the pair of great-grandparents that I share with my second cousin. Is this a reasonable assumption?
However, I have been through all the suggested third and fourth cousin matches on this list and tried to contact them, giving them a list of names known to be on these lines, including some either further back or known family names of some more recent generations. Unfortunately, those who have responded still have not been able to make a connection. Does this mean that none of these people are genuine matches?
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Just another technical point here. I have now had another 5 or 6 "matches" appear in my list since the original set.
There has been no email notification of these. I only noticed that the list had got longer and, on checking through, these have appeared with "match" dates indicating that they were added one or two or three at a time.
Probably still a couple of weeks to wait for the original intended comparison match data to complete processing.
Also waiting as my brother has agreed to take the test and I am eager to see how similar our match lists will be.
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Dudley
I believe you only receive notifications of close matches.
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Dudley
I believe you only receive notifications of close matches.
Thanks, so I don't really need to worry about missing odd ones at this stage.
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Logged on today and my contact from the family who emigrated is now listed as "third cousin".
:) ;D :)
Now just need to work out who all the other third cousins are!
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Now have brother on my Family Finder matches list but more confused than ever.
Does anyone know how the "in common with" test works? Is it people who are on both your lists, or is it people who matches on the same DNA string(s)?
Also, I now have 34 pages of results, so a little less than 340 matches, but although my tree is heavily populated back about five generations and even goes back further on some branches, not one of the names of my direct ancestors has occurred in my list, and very few even in the names lists of any of the people on my list. Is that normal?
I'm beginning to think that many of these so-called matches, especially the closer ones, must be spurious?!
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You might like to watch Maurice Gleeson's presentation from WDYTYA Live on analysing your autosomal DNA results. It's now available on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jtpe6u2J5ps
You need to focus on your closer matches. Some of the matches with more distant cousins are false positives.
You can also read the autosomal DNA pages in Kelly Wheaton's guide to genetic genealogy:
https://sites.google.com/site/wheatonsurname/beginners-guide-to-genetic-genealogy
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Thanks again DevonCruwys,
The Gleeson presentation was very useful as it explains further analysis aids available on FTDNA. I may need to watch it several times to understand how to apply them all.
However, given the high number of matches that I now have, I am still surprised at how few I seem to share with known relatives.
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The problem is that few people are able to document all their ancestors for five generations let alone 10 generations which is the timeframe covered by autosomal testing. It therefore becomes very difficult to find the connection. It does help if you can test other family members (parents if available or cousins on either side of the family) so that you can work out which side a match is on. Many of the more distant matches will be false positives. If people have lots of cousin marriages in their family tree then segments will survive for longer and the predicted relationships will be closer than they actually are.
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But in some ways that might be an advantage in proving a relationship? My mother came from a small village near Cambridge where there had been close cousin marriages over many generations to such an extent that I am my own 4th cousin. This, whilst I appreciate the fact that it would make relationships look closer, might make it possible to go further back than usual.
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The close cousin marriages would indeed work in your favour as you would pick up some of the more distant matches. The difficulty would be in trying to determine which of the multiple ancestral lines you match on.
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Understood, I and other researchers have difficulty in untangling the earlier ancestry, specially as names are often repeated along different lines. I have at least 5 different but intermingled lines. i have wondered whether rather than a one name (or one extended family) study a one village study might be helpful?
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I've found the one-name study approach very helpful for sorting out my trees but the one-name approach works best in conjunction with a Y-chromosome DNA project. If lots of your ancestors are from the same parish then a one-place study would certainly be very interesting, especially if combined with autosomal DNA testing. There's a very nice little project for the parish of Ravonstonedale in Westmorland:
http://www.adamthwaitearchive.org.uk/#/ravenstonedale-dna-project/4564205388
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Thanks, although I have had the Y chromosome DNA test I can't help as my descent is on the female side. Hopefully some of the Ayres/Cornwell etc. researchers who have a direct male line will be able to take the test. When that gets cracking I am willing to have the autosomal test.
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Hi,
I would have thought that Autosomal DNA used on a village study would be very effective, providing you could find enough representatives of the established families willing to take the test. However, I would think that you would have to be prepared for the fact that the relationships that show, might not be very accurate in distance, due to multiple inputs from same DNA sources over the centuries!
Getting back to the original topic, I have been trying to fathom out the usefulness of X-matches in allocating matches to strings.
Using a 6-generation ancestor chart, I went through blocking out all the spaces where no X-DNA can be passed on for each of a male and a female descendant. This leaves only 13 out of 32 possible ancestral lines at GGG grandparent level for the female, and only 8 for the male.
This sounds like an amazingly useful way of pruning the possibilities, until I spotted the one inherent flaw. Because these are inevitably dominated by the female lines going back, there is a change of name on each generation!
However, it did help me to spot one or two areas where it might be possible to target further brick-walls in my tree now.
So, if there are any living direct descendants of Edward Boden (b. about 1745) and Lucy Hodgkiss (b. about 1753) of Madeley Wood, Shropshire, out there, who have taken the FTDNA Autosomal test, I'd love to hear from you!
Sheila
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Well - the number of my "matches" is gradually creeping up without any further major breakthroughs.
Has anyone had any success with the X-matches feature that has now been added?
I have about 40 X-matches, noticeably almost all female, with the exception of my brother, which is to be expected.
However, my brother has only 4 X-matches so far, including myself.
I used ahnentafel charts to block out the impossible lines of descent and, although there is a bias (of about 3:5?) in favour of sharing on the female lines, it doesn't suggest that the comparative numbers would be as different as found here!
has anyone else checked their X-matches and if so, are these numbers typical?
Quite separately from that, and using the chromosome browser, and comparing with my brother and 2 known cousins, some of my closer matches seem to have shared DNA with both the cousins, so I suspect they are coming up as matches due to shared DNA on both maternal and paternal lines? and thus appear much closer than any actual shared relationship (both families have connections back to Mayo 4+ generations ago).
Any new hints or tips on how to understand all these potential matches?
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I've now had my first success with autosomal DNA testing. You can read the story here:
http://cruwys.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/my-first-autosomal-dna-success-story.html
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Congratulations.
I am still living in hope that I might make my first connection. Getting closer as I have now also tested my maternal aunt so I am starting to narrow down some of the possibilities.
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I got to know my first (and so far only) connection before I found the email with my results. Unfortunately that was in 2010; but I live in hope.
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Apologies,
I've been really busy the last week or two. Thanks for the all responses and also the link to details from DevonCruwys.
It seems that I am doing pretty well comparatively then, with a confirmation at the expected level on the paternal cousin relationship that we were trying to establish and the unexpected bonus of my maternal second cousin, giving a relative on either side to test further relationships against.
However, no responses yet as to the second question that I posed.
Has anyone else tried to look into or use the new information on X-matches that was added to the Family Finder results, earlier this year?
I have a very unbalanced set of matches, with about 40 X-matches for me, and only 4 for my brother?
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FTDNA forum has several threads discussing number of X-matches. Expectations are much lower for men than women as the X-chromosome does not pass through two consecutive males.
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But there have been a variety of postings on this subject. Apparently inbreeding strengthens the likliehood of getting a match and if you are like me and come from country stock it is highly likely you will find a high incidence of cousin marriages.
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Thanks Craclyn,
I had forgotten about the forums (fora?) on FTDNA. I have had a look and my experiences seem similar to others but there seems to be uncertainty about how this fits the mathematical expectations! - my feelings exactly.
Redroger - not sure that I understand. Are you suggesting that the unexpected (on top of the predicted) statistical imbalance on the X-matches comes from e.g. cousin marriages? While sisters will always (half-)match to each other 100% due to the DNA from their maternal grandmother being passed on unchanged by their father, their offspring will have recombined X-DNA. Brothers, on the other hand, will only have X-DNA from their mother so their offspring won't share any of their father's X-DNA. Thus the pattern is more complicated.
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Here is another really nice autosomal DNA success story:
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/real-life-stories/dustbin-baby-michelle-rooney-tracks-3691421
"Dustbin Baby" Michelle Rooney was able to track down her birth father after taking the Family Finder test at Family Tree DNA.
I am sure we will see many more success stories like this as the database grows in size.
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Dudley; Replies 55-59 on this thread between myself and Devon Cruwys refer. She explains it far better than I can.
Roger
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Hi Redroger,
but the question related to the X-matches, which have now been added to the autosomal results. Your discussion seems to be about Y-DNA and autosomal, which was why I couldn't see the relevance to my question?
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Yes, I thinkl I see now Dudley. Got confused which no doubt affects many of us on this subject.
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No problem Redroger,
Confusion, plenty of it here, which is why I was worried that I was missing something that was obvious to everyone else!
The good news is, I have another potential cousin (shared family name and very close naming patterns, from same part of Ireland, but don't meet up in last few generations, as far as I can see) who has just taken advantage of latest sale to order Family Finder. It's a fairly long shot to get a match at what may be 5 or more generations ago, but at least she has 3 of us already tested, to look out for.
Sheila
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Wonderful Sheila; My problem is that usually the surnames don't fit, when i need Y chromosomes I have X's and vice versa!I have a good candidate for my paternal 3XGM, problem is I have had her since 1996 and got no further.
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Hello
Sorry to be a bit off piste here. I have just joined and notice you have what appears as the same second name interests. I am researching on behalf of my son's girlfriend the BRUCE/MOTTRAM family (NORA EILEEN MOTTRAM was her great grandmother) this has not been an easy task as the family are in NZ and know nothing of NORA EILEEN MOTTRAM born 20 JULY 1906 to parents ARTHUR LEONARD MOTTRAM AND AGNES CLEE. This morning after struggling for a week researching every AGNES born around 1889 in WOLVERHAMPTON, I discovered AGNES MARKESKY (MARKOWSKY). I have quite a bit of information recorded on my initial post (posted about 1 hour ago). Needless to say, NORA has been really hard to research. The only thing I knew was she was the wife of Patrick Bruce in Belfast married in 1922, father Arthur. I have had no trouble researching the MOTTRAM Line once I discovered her father was ARTHUR LEONARD MOTTRAM. The latter part of her life her second name was MOORE, no family member knows why. She didn't take on her second partner's name of RUSSELL (WILLIAM RAMSEY RUSSELL). They lived in Leicester and she died in 1993 in Leicester. Through Ancestry I saw that her brother HAROLD born 1910 married a girl from Tipperary and eventually settled in IPSWICH. I can find no trace of her sister IVY born 1908. Arthur Leonard MOTTRAM married Sylvia Dillon in 1923 in Lancashire and had two daughters. He was badly injured in WW1 and committed suicide in 1956. A contact on Ancestry said he would often talk of his 'lovely golden haired Doris'. Another child? I would love to chat with you on line if you are able and share the information I have. Best wishes,
Julie