Archives

Getting Cousins to Test, a Rootstech Talk

Feb7

I really love the title Blaine Bettinger, the Genetic Genealogist, used for his talk -“Begging for Spit” …
Blainebettinger-300x300
Having test results from my two second cousins has been extremely useful for narrowing down which family line new matches are related on. So I would really like to get  more cousins to test.

Blaine suggests using these three Es to guide you:

EDUCATE
ENGAGE
EXPEDITE

When discussing each of these, he stressed that you do not want to overwhelm your contact. That means no three page emails filled with technical terms! Make your request specific, short, and to the point. Make it visual and informative.

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Finally a good basic book on genetic genealogy

Feb5

There is finally a really well-done book on understanding and using autosomal DNA testing, so of course I have been wanting to review it. At last on the plane to Rootstech 2014 I had the time to read it:  Genetic Genealogy: The Basics and Beyond by Emily Aulicino. I thought that I would know most of what was in there but was pleasantly surprised by a number of helpful insights.

I will reread chapter 6, “Convincing a Person to Test” several more times. I have found that the DNA match ups of my 2nd cousins who have tested are extremely useful for figuring out which line a new relative is related on. Thus I need advice on how to get few more of them to test!

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Pedigree Collapse or the Family Braid

Feb3

Long ago I heard that genealogy is better described as a family braid rather than a family tree. Clearly the further back you go the more often ancestors will be repeated in your pedigree. An article at http://www.olivetreegenealogy.com/misc/ancestors.shtml explains that well:

If we double the number of ancestors in each generation, 2 parents, 4 grandparents, and so on, we can see that by the time we are back 10 generations, we have the potential for 1024 ancestors. But is this true? If we were to go back to the time of Charlemagne, we would find we had the potential for 281 trillion (YES!) ancestors all living at that one moment in history. This is statistically impossible! So where did our ancestors go?

In my own family I have seen some evidence of repeating ancestors at about my 7th-10th Norwegian grandparents, several of whom are in my tree many times, thus significantly reducing my number of ancestors back in the 1500 and 1600s. For example my 7th and also my 8th grandfather, Nils Anderson Eig Øvrebø is in my tree multiple times.

However recently I got a really amazing example of pedigree collapse in a wonderful email from my newly found 4th cousin Susannah which said:

I have no one else in my family who can appreciate this so I just had to send to you. My mother-in-law’s 23andMe results finally came in today and I was shocked to see a ‘2nd Cousin’ match in DNA Relatives, given that almost all her ancestors come from Bossico, Bergamo, Italy.
BossicoExample

… Now, if I look only at the paternal line, their common ancestor is 10 generations back – her 8th g-grandfather born in 1575. But I can quickly see that every female that married into this line also has a surname that is in my mother-in-law’s ancestry and can see her gg-aunt, 3rd g-aunt, 4th g-aunt etc. in his tree. I always wondered how that would look DNA-wise so now I have my answer. …

I fleshed out the tree and found the closest relationship to my mother-in-law- they are 3rd cousins 1x removed. Out of curiosity, I checked the autosomal stats, and saw that predicted average for that relationship is 0.391% and 26.56cM. Per 23andMe, Giovanfranco & Maria share 3.46% , 257cM on 20 segments. Wow!
Comparison Half IBD # segments
mother-in-law vs. son 126 cM 11
mother-in-law vs. father (3rd cousin 1x remved) 257 cM 20

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A deep DNA triangulation success story

Jan23

So many of these one segment DNA matches that I find with other testers are too far back to find the common ancestors. However those of us with Norwegian ancestry often have very deep trees thanks to the good records and the many farm books for each locality. So when you find a fellow genealogist with Norwegian roots who matches your DNA you get quite hopeful, and sure enough …

I had four matches, the colored lines in the picture below, for my Norwegian descended Dad on chromosome 16. However they span the centromere which is from 35335801 to 38335801, so initially these segments did not seem that promising.

Chromosome 16 from my one segment mapper tool

Four people overlapping on Chromosome 16
from my one segment mapper tool

Luckily the most recent match had an extensive tree of which only a small piece was Norwegian. So perhaps it would be easier to find our common ancestor with less tree to look through. Note that using a tool to compare Norwegian GEDcoms does not usually work so well because of differences in naming conventions (patronymic, farm name, Norwegian characters, etc)

Here are the details of these segment overlaps from my master spreadsheet for Dad:

Edith 16 31000000 52000000 9.20 1301
Nancy 16 31000000 54000000 9.70 1359
Loretta 16 31000000 52000000 9.90 1423
Aaron 16 33000000 53000000 8.2 1241

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Organizing your Autosomal DNA Information with a Spreadsheet

Jan17

By Jim Bartlett

Impressed by Jim Bartlett’s prose on various message boards and mailing lists, I asked him to do a guest blog post on using spreadsheets with autosomal DNA results, here it is – Kitty

jvb-in-coat-and-tie-cropUsing autosomal DNA testing can be a challenge – but it doesn’t have to be. It can be intimidating – but by taking it a step at a time, you can break it down into bite-sized pieces that are much easier. When you decide to use autosomal DNA (atDNA), and to get the most out of it, I recommend three broad areas of focus right from the start:

  1. Learn all you can about DNA testing for genealogy and particularly about autosomal DNA (atDNA). The ISOGG wiki is a good place to find good articles, tools, blogs (to keep you up to date), etc. Join email lists and read and ask questions. This is definitely a “continuing education” hobby. We are on a frontier with genetic genealogy – and we are pushing the boundaries every day!
  2. Create as robust a Tree as you can – stretch as much as you can to 12 generations, or more. This is the net you need to catch cousins and find your Common Ancestors. This is very important – if you don’t have the ancestors in your Tree, you cannot expect to find a Common Ancestor with a Match.
  3. Set up a process for your autosomal DNA project. To determine Common Ancestors you have to share ancestry info with your DNA Matches – you’ll be sending (and receiving) a lot of emails and messages. You’ll want to keep track of what you do; to find info on your Matches; to remember the Common Ancestors you determine; new names, new emails, new links to Trees, etc., etc. You may want to use a spiral notebook as a Diary or Journal of your notes. Some people keep a notecard for each Match, or a folder. I now have over 3,000 matches at FTDNA and 23andMe, so I need something that can handle that many (and more) Matches. Many of us use a spreadsheet – read more to see how to set up one.

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