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General => Ancestral Family Tree DNA Testing => Topic started by: Wulfsige on Monday 27 June 22 15:53 BST (UK)
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As you know by now, my Ancestry DNA results have been uploaded to gedmatch. Test results are also on MyHeritage and FindMyPast. I hope that one day - I assume it can't be done with present technology - they will help break through the brick walls I and everyone else tracing the lines come up against in the 1700s. Take the Young line. It seems that it can be traced from the 1550s till ca 1725; then there is a generation missing in the person of an elusive John Young, till the birth of his son (my ancestor) in 1756. But no one has knowingly discovered a record of John Young's birth in the 1720s, in the sense that either he was never christened, or he was christened many miles away before his son's wedding in Pitcombe in 1779. We think his father was also John, christened in 1696 nearby in Brewham. So what I hope is that one day it will be possible via DNA positively to link John (born 1696)'s descendants with my definite ancestor, William born 1756, assuming John 1696's other children's descendants are being traced.
Or am I wrong: can this already be done?
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It can and has been done.
Of course there is a big but, in that by the time you trawl through your DNA matches to match with someone who shares a common ancestor(s) in the time period you are interested in then the cM value of their match with you will be very low. In my case I have a couple of 6cM DNA matches that I have traced back to ancestors born in the mid 1700’s.
Have you worked through all the Common Ancestors that Ancestry presents to you and used these to expand your tree?
You can use the DNA matches Search feature to look at all the matches that have the Young name in their trees? Maybe they will give clues.
You can also learn about using the tools within Gedmatch and My Heritage to gain an insight of the shared matches.
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No, to most of this. I am very much a newbie to all this DNA stuff, and need to learn. At present, I'm only at the toe in the water stage.
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Have you worked through all the Common Ancestors that Ancestry presents to you and used these to expand your tree?
You can use the DNA matches Search feature to look at all the matches that have the Young name in their trees? Maybe they will give clues.
You can also learn about using the tools within Gedmatch and My Heritage to gain an insight of the shared matches.
Which should I focus on to start the learning process? Ancestry, MyHeritage, FindMyPast, or gedmatch?
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Probably best if I paste a section of my Building a Family Tree file that I produced for my first Cousins who are interested in our family history and they have supplied valuable information.
I would concentrate just on Ancestry to work through the Common Matches, then look at linking to the high cM matches who do not as yet have a known Common Ancestor(s).
I would also upload Raw DNA to Gedmatch, once it has complete its search then I suggest learning how to use each of the free tools after watching the linked video tutorials that there are in each of the tool section.
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DNA TESTING AND MATCHING.
Buy an Ancestry DNA test(s) when they are on offer at a reduced price. If you can get your older family members to take a test as they will have much more DNA to potentially more distant matches than you will.
Once the test results are known the next step is to link them in your Ancestry Family Tree to the person whose DNA test it is. You can have multiple people within your Tree tested and each will need to be linked to the family member concerned within the tree, but you can only link each test to a person within one specific tree.
It can take a few days for the worldwide database to be scanned and DNA matches reported to your online Ancestry Account.
The DNA section of the Ancestry website is split into three, Ethnicity, DNA matches and Thrulines.
Ethnicity, gives an approximate estimate of the Countries/Regions where percentiles of your DNA breakdown are likely to originate from. The estimate is based on the locations and locations or trees if available of all the people who have taken a test. The result is the Ethnicity changes, ours bears little similarity to what it did originally.
DNA Matches, is the prime section where all the matches are displayed. Select the person whose sample it is and the matches are displayed in order of the size of the cM match to them. cM is the centimorgan measure of the DNA tested. You have about 7400 cM of DNA of which half is from each parent. You share about 1500 cM with each Grandparent, 900 cM with a Cousin, 450 with a second or 1/2 Cousin etc
Thrulines, are links from specific ancestors to the DNA matches who share that person with you. Click on your Ancestors to view the suggested links.
A new section is Ethnicity Inheritance and is a guesstimate as to which parent has supplied the various aspects of your ethnicity.
DNA MATCHES, WHAT NEXT.
Select the DNA MATCHES and view the listings, the first ones to look at are those where Common Ancestors is displayed since Ancestry has created a route from the DNA Match to the Person in your Tree whose matches you are reviewing. Note that these are not necessarily from a single tree, they are compiled from multiple Trees. Hence care is needed to verify each individual, generation by generation as you add them to your tree.
Additional actions once a link is created to a DNA match is to use the Filters and give them a Star, this in future makes it easy to apply the Filter to only display the Star matches who are proven and linked family members. You will find that a note can be added, I add the names of the common grandparents a “ - “ and then the full birth name of the DNA match.
Once all the DNA matches with the Common Ancestor displayed have been added to your tree the remaining matches with the highest cM value but no Common Ancestor is the one to investigate next. Then continue working down the list.
There can be a good deal of frustration, ie very odd user names and no tree, trees with few people included within them, extensive trees that contain no identifiable surname that you have in your tree and unlinked trees so you have no exact idea which is your actual DNA match.
The lower the cM the further back in time it will be before a common ancestor and hence a temporary cutoff for your research of 50 cM is practicable.
Now go back to your highest cM that you have linked to and look at their shared matches, this will indicate that the unlinked ones displaced share the same family line but not necessarily the same common ancestor as your linked match. You can use this information to investigate each shared match.
My own process for the unlinked high cM matches is to create my own tree specifically from them (standalone and hence not a floating unlinked part of my own tree), this tree can be imported into your own Family Tree software when you find the common ancestor.
So now you have a very extensive Family Tree with as many DNA matches linked within your tree as is practicable and you can return to extending your tree back by further generations searching for that elusive Gateway Ancestor if that is a desire.
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DNA BRICK WALLS.
The next step is to deal with the DNA matches that are the Brick Walls, use a search engine and type in The Leeds Method, the results will point you to Donna Leeds’s website where you can read up on her system.
I built a system using an Excel Spreadsheet and used my top twenty high cM matches. Starting with the highest I looked at the shared matches and added them to the list and in the adjacent column for the high match and each of the shared matches I colour coded the adjacent Cell, I then repeated the action for each of the top twenty DNA matches. Once you look up the Leeds Method this will become more obvious than my text can explain. A picture paints a 1000 words etc.
Once completed look line by line where there are the most coloured cells and these people are the ones to concentrate upon in building trees around them and hopefully a link can be found. Another aspect is that using the matches that you have already linked to you can use the chart to help narrow down the branch where the common ancestor is likely to be found.
Specifically the idea is that from the information you have you categorise each of the DNA matches against a specific Grandparent whose line they are descended from. I.E. you would put the DNA Match in the Paternal Grandfather’s line if his Great Grand Father was likely to be theirs.
DNA UPLOAD TO COMPARISON WEBSITES.
Once you have exhausted all the options it is time to upload your Raw DNA Data to online comparison websites like Gedmatch, MyHeritage, Family Tree, Living DNA etc. Register on the chosen upload website and Upload your Raw DNA Data and then wait a few days. Once the website has completed its comparison in the case of Gedmatch you can view your top 3000 matches for free and you can use the basic Tools for free.
I suggest you upload it to at least Gedmatch, which is free to upload, to learn about the Tools via the free video tutorials and to use the basic Tools. The advanced Tools requires a subscription and I just subscribed for a month, used the Tools against my high matches and took Screenshots of the results.
DOWNLADING RAW DNA DATA FROM ANCESTRY.
Within your Ancestry account, tap on the DNA tab and select Settings, scroll down to Actions then select Download DNA Data, which will be a Zip file, download the file a move it to a known location on your computer.
Within your upload website select upload from within the Menu system and when it asks for the location of the file point it to the download, if it loads that is OK but it may not recognise the file if this happens go back to the file and Unzip it then try the upload again with the Unzipped file.
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A GATEWAY ANCESTOR
To recap a Gateway Ancestor is the one person you find in your Family Tree who will lead you to the ruling classes if the past and even into nobility.
To help you in the Gateway Ancestor quest you will probably find it useful to read up on the notable families in the UK County of Interest, that way if a surname you recognise is found that could be the one that unlocks history.
Lancashire families of note include:- Haughton, Radcliffe, Stanley, Astley, Farrington, Strickland, Singleton, Townley, Osbaldeston, Southworth, Beaumont etc and these are easy to find.
Their ancestral homes are well known, eg in Lancashire/South Cumbria, Samlesbury Hall, Sizergh Castle, Townley Hall, Haughton Tower, Knowleys Hall, Ordsall Hall, Astley Hall etc. Knowing the surnames of note can lead to finding the route to the nobility.
If you do develop an extensive tree you will probably also develop multiple routes to a specific person(s).
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Had to split up the above due to message length limitations
Hope this helps
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That’s an excellent tutorial Biggles! I’m going to suggest that it is “stickied”. :)
I like the fact that you’re realistic about what can and may not be able to be achieved. Some people make it sound all so/too easy which can make it very frustrating when you are not able to achieve the same success.
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I would add that the Thrulines / Common Ancestors function is based on the trees that your DNA matches have posted on Ancestry and a myriad of other Ancestry users who may or may not be related to you but have your ancestors in their trees. If they are wrong, then the Thrulines will be wrong.
Examples.
A number of trees think they have the father of one of my 3 x great grandmothers. The man is in fact her older brother, this means thrulines picks the wrong relationship between me and others who are descended from him or their common parents.
Many trees have my 2 x great grandfather married to the wrong Sarah (my 2 x great grandmother, his second wife), result being that all those descended from my 2 x g-gfather and his first wife, who should be my half third cousins or half 3C1R, don't show up a relationship at all.
I had a new match yesterday whose grandmother (according to her tree) was born in 1924 and gave birth to her father born in 1914. When I did a search on Ancestry for the actual birth year of the son, I found several more trees with the same error. Incidentally, the 1924 date is correct and the lady married in 1945 in Islington. The tree owner is my 3rd cousin twice removed, but Ancestry's algorithm obviously couldn't match a person born in 1914 with one of the same name in my tree born in 1947, so no Thruline match.
Remember, lots of people who have trees on Ancestry are only interested in making their tree as big as possible. Obviously they don't have the time to research properly thousands of people, particularly if these people are not directly related, just a distant connection to someone who married into their family generations back. But Ancestry has the perfect solution, it allows anyone to copy wholesale, great chunks of anyone else's public tree, whether it be correct or total garbage.
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Probably best if I paste a section of my Building a Family Tree file that I produced for my first Cousins
Thank you. This is massive and will keep me quiet for months! I have printed it out to keep in my "Young Family" box file, and I look forward to working through it and pursuing the links you suggest in it.
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Had to split up the above due to message length limitations
Hope this helps
Yes. Great. Many thanks - Ic þancie þe, as our ancestors might have put it.
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Thank you very much for stickying this topic Sarah.
(Some good additional points by Lizzie too) :)
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Thanks.
Bookmarking this so I can find it to re-read several times, and maybe begin to understand a bit better!
;)
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DNA floodgates can open.
What I and no doubt many others have found is that as you work though the Common Ancestor DNA matches within Ancestry and build them diligently into your tree then the Shared Matches feature becomes very useful.
Once you have a proven link to a DNA match, when viewing the match in the DNA results the Shared tab then gives other DNA matches who you also share with each other. From this you can presume that these shared matches are on the same branch and this can narrow down the work involved in linking to them and frequently you can add additional matches to your tree quite easily.
Using the colour coding feature can help in grouping the shared matches, btw there is a thread on colour coding which imo should also be a Sticky. As you work through the DNA matches and use the colour coding then eventually you will find certain DNA matches will have multiple colour coded dots assigned to them, these are the ones where research is likely to yield the greatest break through as they are potentially the key to unlocking the door in the brick wall.
Of the filtering coding options available with one being different I reserve that for assigning to all linked DNA matches and that is the Star. Not all DNA matches will be linked via Common Ancestor functional hints and so using the Star is a “catch all” where I can select it and view all my linked DNA matches which currently stands at 69 for me and 75 for my Wife’s tree (we are not competitive in the numbers game honest).
Do be patient, DNA matches are not necessarily a quick fix and it does take time to build knowledge and information but it is a very useful tool.
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Many thanks again. This forum is proving very helpful to me, a novice - though I started on the tree maybe 50 years ago by asking elderly and even old relatives for initial information and for old (incl 19th century) photos. Now I'm retired I can bend my mind to it in a more leisurely and sustained way. However, when I was working, I had an itinerant job for 25 years with mainly late afternoons and evenings working, so had day-times free for visits to CROs such as Durham, Cwmbrân (now Ebbw Vale), Taunton, and that place in Wiltshire (Chippenham, I seem to recall), plus time to visit towns and villages where the family had lived (Coupar Angus, Blaenavon, Pitcombe, Milton Clevedon) and sometimes photograph their old homes or churches or both.
I have printed out all this DNA advice and guidance. I have a subscription to MyHeritage and FindMyFamily, and what I think I'll do is abide with those till the year's subs run out, then transfer to Ancestry, where currently I am already a 'guest'.
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Since my previous post there has been a development.
Quick run through.
I have a 364cM match plus a lot of others who link into a certain family who have been based in Bradford since the mid 1800’s.
I uploaded my info only websites and found three more Cousins who are directly related to the said family.
A My Heritage DNA test that I have taken gives me 112cM to a person who is a first Cousin of my 364cM match and the other is there 1/2 first Cousin at 87cM the third is a more distant Cousin.
Linking these into my tree has been problematic and still a WIP.
So I have a DNA match with two first Cousins to each other and yet wide cM results between them and myself.
Many reasons why, the non linear distribution of DNA and including that given the location, endogomy may have taken place along a branch of the tree that I made of the family into my own tree.
Solving riddles is not always easy.
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UPDATE.
A lack of support by my Paternal Cousins who have failed to follow up on their promises to take a DNA test resulted in my taking a yDNA test.
The result came back and including DNA matches who have the Surname of the Irish Family who are the centre of my ongoing research into my Ancestry test’s 364cM match.
Hence my family name is not our Biological name.
Be prepared for shocks in any DNA test that you or relatives, or friends may take.
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I too will be keeping my eye on this, I have had my DNA done but must admit I am a complete novice even though I have been chasing my family for nearly 30 years , I would really like to know more about my mother's side of the family, I am showing 94% British which I am very pleased with, as far as I can see not many on my maternal side show up on Heritage. I watch with eagerness any DNA programmes and really wonder how they come up with names and family way back, is there one test for maternal and one for paternal?
LM.
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I too will be keeping my eye on this, I have had my DNA done but must admit I am a complete novice even though I have been chasing my family for nearly 30 years , I would really like to know more about my mother's side of the family, I am showing 94% British which I am very pleased with, as far as I can see not many on my maternal side show up on Heritage. I watch with eagerness any DNA programmes and really wonder how they come up with names and family way back, is there one test for maternal and one for paternal?
LM.
YES.
Ancestry and My Heritage are Autosomal and these cover both parental lines.
mtDNA is female, it is passed on by a Mother to her Children but only her Female Children pass it on in turn to their children.
Y-DNA is Father to Son hence along the Male line and this test can only yield results if taken by a Male.
The Ethnicity should be regarded with scepticism as the results are based on limited gene pools which supply the data. They will vary in time as numbers increase and processes change. My Ancestry DNA test Ethnicity results six years ago bears no similarity to what shows today. The My Heritage DNA test that I also took again shows a very different Ethnicity Mix than what I see in Ancestry.
Do read up on how DNA is inherited and how the process of DNA Recombination works.
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Should I, shoudn’t I?
To take a DNA test or not?
Taking one can be life changing, especially if you find results that question your lineage and all your years of research.
Take the BBC Sounds series that looked at DNA and genealogy, one person interviewed spent 30 years researching his family only to find after taking a DNA test that they were not his biological family, no part of his tree was relative to him.
That is a pretty extreme example but one that did happen, and in my own case a high DNA match to me questioned the accuracy of my tree or rather a branch of it. My DNA research allied to my family tree showed gaping holes where NO DNA matches lead to a MRCA. Both of my Paternal Great Grandfathers had no DNA matches to them or beyond. To help resolve I took and posted the results of a yDNA test a couple of months ago and I have been through an emotional roller coaster since the results came back.
My family name should not be what it is, and I have been struggling what to say to my Cousins.
So yes a DNA test can help your research tremendously but it can lead to revelations so do be prepared if you do take a test for all the possible outcomes.
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Regarding whether to believe one's ethnicity breakdown : myself and my two siblings are on various DNA sites and in every case our ethnicity breakdown varies wildly from each other. We have exactly the same parents so this is a very simple proof that these ethnicity estimates absolutely must not be trusted.
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The DNA we inherit from our Parents/Grandparents will be very different between siblings unless they are identical offspring.
The result is that the various Ethnicity gene pools used in the analysis can give very different results for siblings.
DNA is inherited by a random process called Recombination.
Below is a simple diagram, it shows how DNA is inherited differently between siblings
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Below is a simple diagram, it shows how DNA is inherited differently between siblings
That's really clever
Now for a Christmas puzzle, pair up the three children with suitably named partners and work out the next generation ;D
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Consider what DNA strategy you would like to try to follow when you want to validate your biological lineage.
In the light of recent developments in my own family if I was now early in the family genealogical research then I would adopt a sooner rather than later philosophy to DNA testing.
ie
Self and at least one sibling if possible.
Two Paternal and two Maternal First Cousins from different siblings of parents.
Which will help validate Grandparents and Cousin relationships
At least one Second Cousin from each Great Grandparent line.
These then via cross referencing with Shared Matches will help to validate at each Great Great Grandparent level and DNA matches snd shared matches should help.
Now were are at Great Great Grandparent level and this is where the black holes can statistically start to appear in that the randomness of DNA inheritance can mean that no DNA is inherited as per the chart below.
So each generation is validated not only by documentation but by DNA hence the tree foundation will be robust and surprises found by a later DNA test are not then going to rename a section of the family tree from Biological to Genealogical.
Let us just clarify, a Genealogical Family Tree has all the citations and records to show that each person in the tree has a valid reason to be there.
A Biological tree uses DNA to substantiate that the persons in the tree are actually related by the same chemistry of life and the documentation merely shows the interrelationship.