123andme

[DevonCruwys]

My mitochondrial DNA test results received back yesterday.  Not expected until 1st August, so 2 weeks early.  Must say though, its about as clear as mud to me!!

Make you sure you join the relevant haplogroup project and the admin should be able to help you understand the results. You can find a list here:

http://www.isogg.org/wiki/MtDNA_haplogroup_projects

[helvissa]

Thanks, Devon - I've been reading up on Neanderthals!

Well... I got an email saying they've received my kit so we shall see.

[joyreneeblue]

Just wondering if the 23andme test is worth doing?  https://www.23andme.com/

I tested with 23andme - and got valuable medical information as well as ancestral/genealogy information. The medical information includes conditions you may have, ones you might be a carrier for, as well as medications that people with your DNA type have to be careful with.

Although controversial - some feel that this medical information may be misused or misinterpreted - I felt that it was money well spent.

I have tested also with ancestry.com and am awaiting my results from ftdna.com. While all of these services are good, they use different methods and algorithms to interpret the results, and to help you find your matches. Since I match people on one site but not another, using a third DNA testing site - FTDNA - will give me that 2 out of 3 match confidence I am looking for.

[helvissa]

I got my results this morning. Very exciting!

I'm trying to work out how various people are related to me (I've got 3rd and 4th cousins coming up, which is fab). I've contacted a couple of people and I'm hoping people will start getting in touch with me.

I've managed to match one of the 4th cousins to our shared ancestors (thank you for sharing your tree, new cousin!) - 4 x great-grandparents, who married in 1805. I didn't realise how emotional this would feel, because I looked at the chromosome chart and I can actually see the parts of my DNA that I have inherited from our shared roots, from my dear old grandma, from her mother and back! It's astonishing coming face-to-face with your own history in this way.

The ethnicity part of the test has come back as being 92.54% Western Europe (Orcadian), and 7.46% Middle East (Palestinian, Bedouin, Bedouin South, Druze, Jewish, Mozabite). Does that amount sound about right for my 4 x great-grandmother who my grandad thought was Jewish?

What I'm now wondering is if you can go backwards from the chromosome chart - can you look at a bit that matches (for example, with my new-found cousin with whom I share 4 x great-grandparents), click on it or something and see who else matches? Or do I have to manually go through checking all my matches and see who shares the same bits? (we match on chromosomes 8 and 9). Can I see which chromosome my Jewish (possibly) ancestry is on, and see if any of my matches also share it? I've only had a quick look, but I'm doubtful! (wouldn't it be fab if you *could* do that, though?! Imagine all the brick walls that would come tumbling down!).

[helvissa]

I'm just manually going through all my matches checking them against the chromosomes, and there's already about 10 people who were matches who share the same match (if that makes sense). It's two places on chromosome 19. Mysterious....

[DevonCruwys]

Helvissa

There are advanced techniques that you can use such as chromosome mapping and phasing to work out which segments of DNA came from which ancestor:

http://www.isogg.org/wiki/Chromosome_mapping

http://www.isogg.org/wiki/Phasing

It is quite a complicated process. Ideally you also need to test other family members (eg, parents, first cousins, etc) so that you can confirm that a matching segment is on the right side of your tree. If this is something you're interested in doing then you might want to ask questions either on the autosomal DNA mailing list or the ISOGG Newbie list where you'll find all the experts:

http://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/DNA-NEWBIE/info

http://lists.rootsweb.ancestry.com/index/other/DNA/AUTOSOMAL-DNA.html

It is very exciting to see the visual representation of the DNA that you share with your genetic cousins. There are hotspots on some chromosomes where people do tend to get lots of matches. I don't know if chromosome 19 is affected.

FTDNA are supposed to be updating their ethnicity estimates some time soon. You shouldn't read too much into the results at present. Jewish people come out as Middle Eastern on the Family Finder test but so do many British people. You can upload your results to Gedmatch to get alternative interpretations. There are various other free services that you can also use. You'll find the links here:

http://www.isogg.org/wiki/Autosomal_DNA_tools

If your 4x great grandmother was Jewish then this will manifest itself in lots of matches with Jewish names. The Jews married within their own community and consequently matches with Jewish people appear closer than they really are (a predicted fourth cousin might actually be a fifth cousin). However, in practice very few Jewish people are able to trace their trees back very far.

[helvissa]

Thanks for your reply!

Yes, I think I'm going to have to test my parents. I don't know why it didn't occur to me before that it would be worth doing that, so that I could at least see which side of my family certain bits of my DNA come from.

I will definitely look up those tools you linked to - some of those look very interesting.

The match on chromosome 19 (when set to show matches of 5cM and more) is with over 60 people from my 201 matches, and there's a variety of names coming up, so it could be a rather massive false-positive, I suppose.