My cousin Corinne tantalized me by showing me some of the interesting new features at 23andme, so I bought the currently discounted upgrade and soon sent in a new vial of spit. As the email I got pointed out, my test used an older chip and more information is available on the newer one. Father’s Day is the last day for the current special.
Next I opted into the subscription for Premium Plus membership which provides clustering, historical matches, reconstructed ancestors, and many more matches as well as updated haplogroup information. One of the main things I wanted was the ability to get the exact segments where my relatives match me in a chromosome browser; a feature that had been turned off after the break-ins a while back. You cannot download all your segment data but you can view up to 5 relatives compared to yourself or someone else you match. You can get to that comparison by clicking on the blue “Compare with more relatives” at the bottom of the panel which shows your DNA chromosomes with shared DNA. Then at the bottom of the comparison page you can get the exact numbers.
The top of an example comparison page, my dad to multiple relatives. Notice that he indicates that he shares one fully identical segment with his nephew PG (on the X as shown below)
I have written many blog posts about using segment data (click here). I maintain a spreadsheet for all my dad’s segment matches and note where my brother or I have the same match, as well as other known relatives. Often I can tell what ancestral line a new match is on from their matching segment information. I have alot of updating to do now that this feature is back!
At the bottom of the images of chromosomes and segments there is the numerical data, which can be cut and pasted into a spreadsheet
You can also get to the attractive new clustering page from the relatives in common section of the match page as shown below. I have many blog posts about clustering (click here). An advantage of the 23andme implementation is that you can adjust the parameters. Probably I will need to play with it more and give it its own blog post.
Example of relatives in common buttons to cousin Elizabeth
One of the other new features that I was interested in was the comparison to ancient DNA, in other words to ancient bodies whose DNA has been sequenced. I was rewarded by discovering that I share a piece of DNA with Otzi the Iceman! Small but exciting.