Mother's Day Gift

My mtDNA results at FTDNA have me flummoxed. 

I really don't understand them at all so I have ignored them since my first match came through in May 2016.  Of the 118 matches on the site not one of them appears to have a connection to me. 85 of these matches share my K1a10a haplogroup but not one of the names on the list of matches looks vaguely familiar. Of the Earliest Known Ancestors nominated by my matches not one rings a bell. 

A map shows me that my mtDNA HVR2 matches number 41 I've clicked on each of those red pins and am none the wiser.  

My mtDNA HVR2 matches

It seems as though I need to upgrade to the Full Sequence test to get more meaningful results....look what appeared on my FTDNA page. Just what I needed!!

 

Of course I signed up - I am saving $US99 on this Mother's Day offer. When the results come in I'll let you know if this was money down the drain or if I have been enlightened!

The Ancestry Bug

I hear that Ancestry now have over 7 Million samples in their DNA database and after travelling around for several weeks I am not surprised.

So often at dinner on our cruise the conversation would turn to DNA and I would announce that I had taken 5 DNA tests and uploaded my results to some other sites - on hearing this some of my fellow diners' views labelled me as either an expert or a nutcase. Most of the affluent retirees had taken Ancestry DNA tests (and it was always Ancestry - good marketing at work there) but were clueless about the DNA matching side of things, they were all focussed on the ethnicity results and that is all they wanted to know about. They did the tests because it is an in thing to do. I did mention that these could be inaccurate due to the reference groups used to make these predictions but my fellow diners just wanted to know where their ancestors came from and don't question the results.

I learn lots of lessons when I travel. These conversations have reminded me not to expect everyone on my lists of matches to share my enthusiasm for hunting down cousins and to accept that others have valid reasons for taking DNA tests.

Reflecting on this has made me revisit my four Ethnicity results (still waiting on Living DNA to come back). There are no major surprises but I am pleased that all tests seem to confirm my aboriginal ancestry as Melanesian, Oceania, Melanesia and Oceania. I am kicking myself that I didn't take screenshots of the results when I first tested so that I could monitor changes over time.

Following are my results as at 4 May 2018.

23andme Results

FTDNA Results

Ancestry Results

My Heritage Results

We're Related

I'm having a DNA day today. Dribbling in from FTDNA this week have been some DNA results for tests taken by three of my family members. This blog post is to show them and other curious cousins how we match.

This is how the matches show up in my profile on FTDNA (I have deleted the names for privacy). After my Mum they are my three closest matches.

The match with 1,620 Shared Centimorgans is with my grandson, the match with 1,271 is with a double first cousin (our fathers were siblings, our mothers were siblings) and the match with 815 is with a first cousin on the paternal side. Being able to access these results will help me identify shared ancestors. I appreciate the generosity of these three who happily gave up some cheek scrapings for me.

I don't understand a lot about DNA but I know that we have 23 chromosomes and that we share more common segments on each chromosome with close relatives than with more distant relatives. This pretty chromosome map displays graphically which segments I share with each of my four closest matches.

Orange represents my mother
Blue is my grandson
Green is my double first cousin
Pink is my paternal first cousin

I've spent a couple of hours setting up these people's profiles on FTDNA and uploading their raw data to Gedmatch which will allow us to compare results with folk who have tested with other testing companies. Now I'm off to do some cousin hunting..

Diving into the too hard basket

I've invested a few $$$ into DNA tests for family members.

So far I have tested with Ancestry DNA and FTDNA and Mr GeniAus, My Mum and Mr GeniAus' cousins have tested with FTDNA. I uploaded my results to Gedmatch some time ago. I also have three more kits for other family members to use.

DNA research had been in my gunna pile or too hard basket.  I haven't devoted much time to chasing up connections. I wonder if this is because most of the approaches I made to other folk have been ignored. Added to this I am scientifically illiterate so this DNA stuff doesn't come easily to me.

Since my Mum's results came in I thought I should bite the bullet and devote some time to DNA. This has been my week for it. I have uploaded Mum's results and Mr GeniAus' results to Gedmatch plus I have uploaded gedcoms for all three of us. Unfortunately Mr GeniAus doesn't have any significant matches on Gedmatch . I have had fun with Mum's results and have identified and contacted several folk with whom we both match.

I only got an MTDNA test for one of Mr GeniAus' cousins - I will add an autosomal test for her. Another of his cousins is only on FTDNA with an autosomal test. I have been talking to her and she kindly given me access to her results so I am adding a Gedcom for her to FTDNA and uploading her results to Gedmatch  (at least Mr GeniAus is assured of one close match then).

As I have been disappointed with the lack of responses I have had from my closest matches I thought about identifying less close matches who might actually answer me. As a first step I downloaded all of Mum's and my matches and combined them into one spreadsheet. That's 2410 matches. I went through these and identified all of the email addresses that were obviously Australian plus a couple I recognised as belonging to genimates. I also identified those who were matches to both Mum and I. I  have started emailing people from these groups.

I am pleased to report a modicum of success. Both of the genimate's email addresses I recognised sent me replies. I have been envious of my genimate Sharn who has found connections with people we know. The good news is that I have a connection with Mr Cassmob, my genimate Pauleen's husband. I suspect that this is way back in Ireland - time will tell.

I had speedy responses from three other Australians I emailed but nothing from the overseas ones who connect with Mum and I.  A new 4th cousin match on my Irish Ryan/Harrington line responded to me. Once this lady gave me her grandparents' names it was easy to place her in my tree. It's such a good feeling when one can confirm one's paper trail with DNA.

There was another surprise in my mailbox yesterday - I got a message from a chap who matches both Mum and me. I responded straight away with some thoughts about where we may connect. I just hope he replies.

After trying to use Genome Mate Pro to track my matches I have left it in the too hard basket for the time being. I am sticking with my home grown spreadsheet. On comparing my columns with those suggested in a post on Kitty Cooper's blog I found that I had only missed two of the suggested columns: "Date – I use the date the Match was made (a sort on this column lets me see the most recent) and Tree – copy in the URL of any Tree or site for your Match’s Tree. I've added those." I also have the matches names in one column but will split these as suggested "Match Name (two columns for first and last names, which permit a sort either way)". I have an additional column for the geographical location of the match. That spreadsheet is just for managing my connections I am still pondering how I'll track matching segments.

I'm wanting to highlight my DNA matches in my Family Historian software and am hoping that some user who is cleverer than me will come up with a solution.

Should you want to see if you are a cousin of mine on Gedmatch please do a one-to one comparison with me T775101 or my Mum Elsie T929154.

Although my dive has been a challenge my vigorous attack on the too hard basket has given me an increased understanding of DNA and yielded some positive results.

More diving is on my agenda.

A Cheeky Problem???

Before we took off on our last overseas trip in late May I sent Mum's DNA test off to FTDNA hoping that the results would be in by the time we got back on July 22.

The first time I checked at the site I was given a date of early August then the next time I checked it had changed to 18 August. I just logged in to check her results and got this message.

14th September!!! I'm now worried that there's something wrong with the sample I got from Mum. 

Virginia Genes

Excited that Mr Geniaus' maternal first cousin in Virginia, the last of my mother-in-law's female line, has agreed to take a DNA test. We have ordered an MtDNA kit form FTDNA for her.

Having read the information we gave her she is going to get her brother (the last of their male line - not related to us) to take a test as well.