Archive | July 2016

The new 23andme transition is here!

Jul28

Many months ago we were promised that the transition would come in August. Last week on July 15, several of my accounts got an email that it was coming in a few days. Today, twelve days later, two of the ten or so accounts I manage at 23andme got emails that they have actually transitioned to the new experience, mine and my dad’s.

new23andmeWelcom

This is particularly exciting for me as I can now try out the new automated triangulation tool (click for previous blog post on that) with Dad and my Norwegian 3rd cousin. You need to participate in open sharing to have access to this tool.

When I visited Norway last summer, kits in hand, my third cousin gave me his DNA, so of course he got the new 23andme. I did a blog post on the new experience with his kit and went into the details of how to do the things I was used to doing on the old site on the new site – comparing people, asking for shares, checking new relatives, and so on. In this post, I will try not to repeat myself but rather to report on how the transition worked for me.

If your kit has transitioned, when you log in you see a big green button that says Get started that you have to click, as in the image above.. Continue reading →

How many cousins share my 5th grandparents?

Jul19

Matching DNA has put me in touch with an extremely large number of Norwegian cousins who share my fifth grandparents from Fatland farm on Halsnøy Island in Hordaland, Norway. What’s more, perhaps due to the large number of them, I am seeing some triangulation of segments among their results.

Halsnoy

Halsnøy Island in Hordaland, Norway from the ferry

This started me thinking about the effect of many generations of big family sizes on the number of sixth cousins I might have from a specific set of 5th grandparents. It would seem to me that the larger the number of cousins, the more likely it is that there are some who share good sized segments with me and Dad.

So I did a little simulation in a spreadsheet. It’s very simple, it assumes that the number of children reproducing in every generation is the same so that you can see the differences for different family sizes. I also did a line or two with the real/estimated numbers from the Fatland couple.

If your family consistently had two children who had two children reproducing for six generations you would only have 64 fifth cousins, but if everyone in your family had six children who had six children then you have almost 50,000 fifth cousins. Quite a difference!

HowManyCousins

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Genealogists, time to give back: indexing

Jul15

Most genealogists I know are very grateful to the LDS church for microfilming so many records around the world. Now we can express our thanks by assisting with their world indexing project this weekend. Details are on this page https://familysearch.org/indexing/get-started-indexer

IndexingFS

You have to download their indexing software to participate. I found the video at the bottom left of the start page called Quick Start Video most helpful.

My first effort was indexing some 1880 Chicago mortality records …

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Great New Features at Family Tree DNA

Jul13

Family Tree DNA has some terrific new features for its Family Finder matches as well as for its tree. The most exciting addition is the ability to automatically assign matches to your mother’s and father’s sides via close relatives, even if you do not have a parent tested.

In my case, my Dad is tested as well as two of my maternal aunts, so my aunts provide me with matches on my late mother’s side. This is how my family finder match page looks now. Notice the Paternal and Maternal tabs each showing the number of matches assigned to that side. Also each match gets an icon indicating which side. Of course my brother is related on both sides. Clicking on a tab shows just those matches.

KittyFTDNAsmll

So how do you get a page like this? Well you need to assign your parents or other close relatives on your tree. If you do not have a tree at ftDNA yet, you can upload a GEDcom from your genealogy program.

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The new DNA feature at GENI

Jul2

GENI.com has added DNA to its world collaborative tree not just by displaying haplogroups on profiles but also by using DNA to confirm relationships and to match you to other DNA kits. As always, GENI makes it look pretty. There is a DNA marker line in the top profile section that includes badges showing haplogroups and whether autosomal tests are available. Directly under the relationship path at the top it will also note when a relationship is validated by DNA!

Look at the top of my Dad’s new profile below. Notice the Y haplogroup R-P312 and the AT badges in the DNA marker line and the part under the relationship where he really is my Dad.

DadDNAprofile

To get this I connected the GENI profiles for my Dad, my brother, and myself to our family tree DNA results. Since Family Tree DNA is partnering with GENI the data was available instantly via a login to the other site. One important trick is to log out of Family Tree DNA between doing each profile, else it claims you are still connected. I uploaded a few other DNA tests done at 23andme and Ancestry for relatives who gave permission, but I am still waiting on those to finish processing [update it may be a month or more]. By the way, in order to upload test results for the living, I had to log into their profiles. Dead relatives that I manage or were in my family group were not a problem. I also uploaded my own 23andme results to make sure that I could have two tests on GENI.

You may wonder what you see if you click on the view details link, well it takes you to all the test and matches information you get in the new DNA tab as shown below.

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