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We at Upfront with NGS are very excited to bring you this four part
series on DNA testing and its genealogical uses ...
If you missed part 1, click here.
If you missed part 2, click here.
Article
courtesy of Roberta Estes, www.dnaexplain.com,
e-mail
Roberta at [email protected]
or [email protected].
Graphics
courtesy of Roberta, Family Tree DNA, www.familytreedna.com and the ISOGG wiki at http://www.isogg.org/wiki/Wiki_Welcome_Page.
What Else Can We Tell?
The results
of your tests not only tell you about your genealogy, they can also tell you
about your deep ancestry and identify your deep ancestral clan.
Have you
ever wondered where your ancestors came from before contemporary times? We know that for the most part surnames did
not exist before 1066, and in some places did not exist until much later. The likelihood of us ever knowing where our
ancestors were prior to 1066, unless we are extremely lucky, is very remote
using conventional genealogical research methods.
However,
now with the results of our DNA, we can peer through that keyhole and unlock that door.
Based on the results of our tests, and the relative rarity of the
combined numbers, humans are grouped together in clans
called haplogroups. We know who was
a member of which clan by both the tests shown above and a different kind of
test, called a SNP
(pronounced snip) test.
Population
geneticists use this type of information to determine how groups of people migrated, and when. We may well be able to tell if our clan is
Celtic, or Viking, African, Native American or related to Genghis Khan, for
example. Based on our clan type, we may
be able to tell where our group resided during the last ice age, and then trace
their path from there to England
or America Anatolia , and we know this because that is where other
people who have this very rare combination of marker values are found in
greater numbers than anyplace else on earth.
How Can I Test My Family?
It’s easy
to get started. For Y-line testing, you
only need one male volunteer that carries your surname who is descended from your
oldest progenitor by the same surname.
To order a test kit, be sure to join a surname project for the best
pricing. You can check on various
surname projects by going to www.familytreedna.com and entering the surname in the
search box on the right hand side of the page where it says “Search Your Last
Name.”
I searched
for Estes and the information returned tells me how many people, both male and
female, have tested with that surname, if an Estes project exists, and
the link, and any other projects where the administrator has specifically
entered the Estes surname. So join the
surname project and be sure to check out any others shown.
Anyone,
males or females can test their mitochondrial DNA. To test your own mitochondrial DNA, just order
a test kit, and then follow the branch on your pedigree chart directly up
your maternal line of the tree (your mother, her mother, her mother, etc.) to
see whose mitochondrial DNA you carry.
Autosomal, the Third Kind of DNA
Testing
In the past
two or three years, autosomal DNA testing has really come into its own. This type of testing does not focus on one
line, like the Y-line focuses only on the direct paternal surname line and the
mitochondrial focuses only on the direct maternal line. The Y-line and mtDNA are wonderful tests and
provide you with huge amounts of information, but they can’t tell you anything
about your other lines…not unless you can find a cousin from that other surname
line and beg to have his or her DNA tested.
This process (the testing, not the begging) is called building your DNA pedigree chart.
You can see
an example of my DNA pedigree chart below.
Being a female, I obviously can’t test for any Y-lines, so I had to find
cousins to test for those lines. I can
test for the direct mitochondrial line, but that still leaves most of the 14
great-great-grandparents with no information at all. By mining surname projects and begging
cousins to test, I have filled in a number of these slots, but certainly not
all.
But the
time comes that you can’t complete the chart, or you have other genealogy
questions to answer, and you’ll need to move to the third type of DNA testing, autosomal.
Autosomal
testing provides you with two primary features.
First,
autosomal testing provides you with percentages of ethnicity. This may or may not excite you. Understand that when you’re looking for that elusive Native American great-great-great-grandmother, that
you may or may not carry enough or a large enough piece of her DNA to be
identified. But you’ll never know if you
don’t test.
Second, you
receive a list of cousin matches. These
are people who match you on your autosomal results. This means that they are related to you on
one line or another. It’s up to you to
figure out which line, but there are tools and techniques to utilize. You probably won’t recognize the names of
most of your matches, and you may or may not recognize a common ancestor. In some cases, the genealogy isn’t far enough
back or there are other challenges in identifying a common ancestor. However, some huge brick walls have fallen for people and continue to fall daily by using autosomal tools to identify
common ancestral families.
I wrote a
series on “The
Autosomal Me” which describes in detail how to utilize your Autosomal
results.
Ok, now
you’re convinced. You want to see who
you match and meet those new cousins just waiting.
Check back tomorrow for Part 4 (the
end of the series)!
Roberta
Estes
www.dna-explained.com (blog)
Copyright 2004-2013, DNAeXplain, all
rights reserved.
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