Author Topic: DNA hope  (Read 2901 times)

Offline Wulfsige

  • RootsChat Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 180
  • Census information Crown Copyright, from www.nationalarchives.gov.uk
    • View Profile
DNA hope
« on: Monday 27 June 22 15:53 BST (UK) »
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?
Young, Gameson, Miles, Williamson, Cramond

Offline Biggles50

  • RootsChat Veteran
  • *****
  • Posts: 896
    • View Profile
Re: DNA hope
« Reply #1 on: Monday 27 June 22 17:27 BST (UK) »
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.

Offline Wulfsige

  • RootsChat Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 180
  • Census information Crown Copyright, from www.nationalarchives.gov.uk
    • View Profile
Re: DNA hope
« Reply #2 on: Monday 27 June 22 20:37 BST (UK) »
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.
Young, Gameson, Miles, Williamson, Cramond

Offline Wulfsige

  • RootsChat Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 180
  • Census information Crown Copyright, from www.nationalarchives.gov.uk
    • View Profile
Re: DNA hope
« Reply #3 on: Monday 27 June 22 20:38 BST (UK) »

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?
Young, Gameson, Miles, Williamson, Cramond


Offline Biggles50

  • RootsChat Veteran
  • *****
  • Posts: 896
    • View Profile
Re: DNA hope
« Reply #4 on: Monday 27 June 22 21:53 BST (UK) »
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.
.
.
.
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.




Offline Biggles50

  • RootsChat Veteran
  • *****
  • Posts: 896
    • View Profile
Re: DNA hope
« Reply #5 on: Monday 27 June 22 21:54 BST (UK) »
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.

Offline Biggles50

  • RootsChat Veteran
  • *****
  • Posts: 896
    • View Profile
Re: DNA hope
« Reply #6 on: Monday 27 June 22 21:54 BST (UK) »
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).

Offline Biggles50

  • RootsChat Veteran
  • *****
  • Posts: 896
    • View Profile
Re: DNA hope
« Reply #7 on: Monday 27 June 22 21:55 BST (UK) »
Had to split up the above due to message length limitations

Hope this helps

Offline Ruskie

  • RootsChat Marquessate
  • *******
  • Posts: 26,196
  • Census information Crown Copyright, from www.nationalarchives.gov.uk
    • View Profile
Re: DNA hope
« Reply #8 on: Monday 27 June 22 23:35 BST (UK) »
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.