Genealogy Tips · IrelandXO
The Good? The Bad? And the Ugly?
1 A bit of fun
The test was given as a present. We are all curious to know something about ourselves and where we come from? Once upon a time, DNA tests were not given without counselling and questionnaires …. Times have changed and most of us understand what was in the past was in the past, but there must be a little trepidation about the results?
2 Health checks
You know that there seems to be a hereditary trait of some kind affecting the health of members of your family. In this case you should have already consulted a recognised health specialist who can work with you on this. Please do not go about this without consultation with others, it is very easy to make the wrong assumptions or get something out of perspective. Some vendors of DNA kits offer genetic traits analysis. It can be fun, but it also is another way to get things out of perspective. Many of these things are gimmicks to generate trade and have little real value.
3 Family History – a little or a lot
You are curious to know more than some ethnicity guestimate. Again, be prepared. History, good and bad, is in every family tree. However, embrace this idea before the test arrives and enjoy the journey of discoveries.
Be prepared to learn, as you will need to understand some easy genetics, history, geography, law, psychology, culture and much more that cannot be known until you arrive at various points in your investigation. Anyone can learn these things.
Another health warning though, Family History research is fun and addictive, tiring and frustrating. Your family might not share the interest, so tread carefully. On the upside, it is tremendously rewarding, fascinating, takes you into all kinds of history and cultures and there are many social sides of communication, contribution, donation and helping others along the way - and more.
• Try to collect what you already know. Stories, tales from the family, superstitions, family rituals, beliefs and cultural references, are all part of the detective work you are undertaking. As you get the science and the records, these bits of knowledge can help evaluate the knowledge in the records and can have a bearing on searching records and places to look or things to discover.
• Try to make a tree (however small) and collect any photos, documents, anything that identifies places, times and people’s names.
• Prepare a personal letter to the matches that you are going to have in your results. Imagine various scenarios… Dear Prof Einstein / Cleopatra / George Clooney?
• Your results are given in centimorgans (cM). A cM is not a size – it is a probability factor. Please understand that 10 cM on any part of the DNA is a different physical length to another section of 10cM.
• One way to think of this; how likely is it that the DNA comparison of part of your DNA is the same as another person’s DNA by chance. If it were 20:1 then it is more likely to be inherited than if it was 5:1.
• Another thing to be aware of is that if the cM number is one piece, the DNA cousin is more likely to be closer to you than if the DNA was in three pieces because, at times, DNA from your mother’s DNA can swap with the father’s DNA for any chromosome pair.
• Each child only gets half of one parent’s DNA and their children’s half that again. The amount of DNA your grandchildren get from each of your grandparents is around ten percent. In addition, your parts of your mother’s DNA and your father’s DNA can swap positions which can cause loss of original DNA as it passes down the line. DNA results will typically be useful 4 to 6 generations back, but more generations back will be hit and miss.
A. Look at the Ethnicity results
Traditionally, these were a guestimate (a cross between a guess and an estimate), a bit of fun but not accurate. Things have vastly improved. Ethnicity results still vary between companies but there is more substance to them these days. The results can be more regional too. Do your results match your expectations? If they are different, then one of your goals will be to see how they relate to paper records. The differences can be discovered in the paper records, but can more easily be discovered as you compare your DNA to others.
B. Some DNA tests provide haplogroup data
This DNA is “long term DNA”, these markers do not change very much over hundreds or thousands of years. This evolving science, that includes you as civilian scientists, has created a genetic tree for these specific markers in your DNA. The male marker is passed through paternal line, father to son for generations. The other marker is maternal and only given to boys and girls by their mother. Inheritance is best understood by using a chart. Both these markers can be used to show ethnicity and migration.
C. Look for Easy Hits?
• So, on the website you will be presented with a list of people that match your DNA. The results will be given with the highest matches first. These are the people who will be nearer relatives to you.
• Don’t be put off if you see something obvious, send out your messages and start the conversation.
D. Look again at your list of matches on the website, highest matches at the top.
If the following does not help then follow the steps in E below
• The people who are at the top of the list are your first interest. These are the closest in family terms and easier to find connections. If they have trees, look at them for clues.
• Is there anything obviously in common, ethnicity, place of birth, common surnames etc? Start making notes of anything that starts to repeat or patterns of information.
• Does the ethnicity result show in the match list surnames?
• Use an inheritance chart to determine how many generations back the cM probability means your common ancestor is.
• You may already have established a tree, could you guess where these larger matches might be on your tree?
• Time to communicate. Not all the people will reply. Some have done their research and retired or died. Some lose interest.
• Briefly state who you are and why you are asking your questions but make it personal and relevant. It is not up to the other person to solve your DNA questions but you want to understand their tree, ethnicity and knowledge to understand your own. If you are lucky, they may have solved your question but equally they may become a collaborator, an ally for researching.
E. Nothing obvious comes out of the above processes
If you are like most testers, there are no big matches and you have started scratching your head.
Fortunately, there is an easy way to start grouping and making sense of these matches. It is called the Leeds Method after Dana Leeds innovated it for family history research.
1. Take the first name from your match list and mark that name with a colour or a letter “A”. Then on the website look for “joint matches” or “relatives in common” between you and that first person.
2. Any name that you find in the joint matches that is on your match list - mark that person too with the same colour or the same letter, in the same way.
(On a spreadsheet this is easy but doing it on paper is also possible. Some websites also allow you to label people too.)
3. Next take the second name on your match list that does not have a mark or letter “A” next to it. Repeat the process above, using a new colour or the letter B...
4. Then keep repeating… It is difficult to say how many matches you need but the groups you are creating get smaller and you may well start to get bored :). Note: some people will be marked twice in your matches, this is OK and will be explained later.
Once you get the hang of it, it will be simple to do and quicker but just use your biggest matches for now.
Although it seems a little tedious there are a number of advantages when it is done.
Each letter or colour relates to a branch / section of your tree whether you have the records or not. The groups produced are likely to have common features for the most part. You need to look at each group for trees, locations and names in common. If someone is in two groups they may be related to two parts of your tree.
• The first point of this is that you have now made your matches into groups and not just random people.
• The second point is that you have made a reference list for researching each group. Even if you have no tree, these people in a group are all descended from similar areas of your tree.
• The third point is whenever you get another match of any sort, check their joint matches for people on your list and which letter or colour you have assigned. You can then quickly assign the new match a colour or letter and to part of your tree.
• The fourth point is that even with the smallest matches – the hardest to find links in traditional family history research – you are pooling all the people in any group adding their information together. Thus, helping to find common indicators, a wider range of information and best ideas about links. This last part focuses your efforts in the right places. This takes you back to the questions in section D.
This reference document will save you a lot of time and headache / confusion later for some spade work at the process now. Even the experts use this everyday method.
You can also make other lists using the results from other companies that have your DNA kit.
If you were lucky and used very large matches you might be able to have four main groups. These would relate to your four grandparents. You are more likely to have a lot more groups but each one comes from a section of your tree.
Using this and any trees that the people in the group have, will start to build a picture of your own tree (even if you have no tree) or start to link your tree with theirs. Of course, now is the time to use this information to ask questions, to collaborate with others and have some fun with the jigsaw of information you are getting.
In some cases, you can bring two researchers together that have not discovered each other but have some common reference data.
F. Next step
Once that seam of information is mined you can add to it, free of charge in some cases. Your DNA is yours and yours alone (If you are using someone else’s DNA, make sure you have written consent). If you want to remove it from a website you can do so and all companies allow this for legal reasons.
What you do is take a copy of the computer file of your results from any provider and upload this file to other companies to get more matches. Ancestry & 23andMe do not allow you to add files. As they are the two biggest sites, you have to buy their kits to get on their sites. The others do allow uploading of your file to their sites.
MyHeritage charges a one-off nominal fee (about 30 US dollars?) for using their website DNA tools but had a free offer recently.
GedMatch is free and a good place to go with many DNA matching tools. Many keen and active researchers go here to widen the net of DNA matches.
G. Other things to do.
Siblings
If you have a sibling from the same parents (compare your DNA), it is possible to do a Leeds chart for them too. Using the same process as above because they will match some of the same people you do but more that you do not match. This “super kit” of two people extends your net wider.
Tree searching (the reverse process of above)
It is possible to get tree information from other websites. If the tree looks relevant, look to see if they include DNA information. Wikitree does this and encourages members to list DNA tests to their tree. If it has and you are on the same site, try to look it up. Some give a GedMatch dna kit number so that you can check for a match.
Further testing
Knowing you have a relative who tested their DNA allows you to find people who match both of you. In that case they come from the same part of the tree as your relative. If they only match one of you they cannot be on the same part of the tree as your relative. Both results are positive ones?
Unexpected consequences
• Siblings have variable amounts of DNA to each other. Each parent has donated one of each pair of chromosomes to a child, but the next child might have been given a different donation. There are 17million plus permutations at least.
• Siblings can also have different ethnicity results for the same reasons.
• DNA doesn’t lie. Ethnicity results are not reliable enough, but DNA matches over 7cm are matches. Accept matches are what they are and have fun trying to explain them.
• Having the same surnames in a tree you compare does not mean they are your common ancestor. It can be a complete coincidence that they have the same names.
• Adoption and many other reasons could mean other people’s trees are wrong. This is not necessarily deliberate and there may be many reasons for it. Do not moralise the situation, forget your own ideas about these things and accept all manner of things historical may have happened. Tread carefully when approaching others about apparent mistakes – it could of course be you, that has the wrong end of the stick?
• All these things are part of the rich tapestry of life? :)
Author: IrelandXO volunteer, Seamus Crowe