Hide and Seek at 23andMe, DNA Relatives Consent, Opt-In, Opt-Out and Close Relatives

Posted on October 25, 2014 by Roberta Estes

To say that the matching policies at 23andMe are confusing is an understatement. Of course, that would imply that we could figure out what those policies are, this week, exactly. What I have been able to discern is that there is widespread confusion about the entire topic. This is my attempt to figure out which end is up, and who can see whom, under what circumstances. I feel like this is a high-tech game of Hide and Seek, a game customers should not have to be playing.

On October 17, 2014, I received this e-mail for one of the 23andMe accounts that I manage. I did not receive it for any of the other accounts that I manage at 23andMe.

When I clicked on the “can’t miss it” red block in the e-mail, it did absolutely nothing. However, by clicking on the “view as a web page” link, clicking on the “Confirm your DNA Relatives participation” took me to the 23andMe signon screen.

I signed in, but was not taken to the account in question. When I switched to that account, this is what I saw – in essence, a second warning.

I was not allowed to proceed further until I clicked on yes or no.

Of course, this begs the question of why my other accounts weren’t asked the same question. With the exception of one, they are sharing in DNA Relatives too.

It also made me wonder about the sharing with Close Relatives option.

I decided to check the DNA Relatives Option information in the Privacy/Consent settings, but there was nothing further. You can visit your consent options by clicking on the down arrow by your name, shown on the upper right hand corner of the screen shot below, and selecting “account settings.”

So, what the heck happened to the close relatives option?

It seems that 23andMe discontinued the “close relatives” opt-in or opt-out, according to their June blog article, below.

At this point, if you had not ‘opted out’ then it was assumed that you had in effect ‘opted in’ and all of your matches including your close relatives would be shown.

But then the VOX article was published in September and the proverbial stuff hit the fan.

The day of the expected default opt-in change, based on the June announcement (above), 23and Me posted a retraction of the June article, on their community forum, below.

Dear Community,

We made a change from what we promised and I want to apologize. We promised that the roughly 350,000 customers that had not consented to see Close Relatives in our DNA Relatives feature would be automatically opted in at the end of a 30 day notification period. I understand that that was extremely exciting for many of you to have so much data potentially come your way. It was unfortunately a mistake that we promised that.

I do not think it was ever the right call to promise that we would automatically opt-in those customers. Core to our philosophy is customer choice and empowerment through data. The Close Relatives features can potentially give a customer life changing information, like the existence of an unknown sibling or the knowledge that a relative is not biologically related to them. Customers need to make their own deliberate and informed decision if they want this information. It is 23andMe’s responsibility to make sure our customers have a choice and that they understand the potential implications.

The timing of the change is unfortunate and I apologize the announcement came late on a Friday night at the end of the 30 day period. The article in Vox made me and others look into the language in the consent form and that is when I learned about the proposed changes coming to the DNA Relatives community. As 23andMe has moved from being a start up to a bigger and more mature company, I am not involved in every decision. This is a decision that should have come to my attention but it did not. We will learn from that. 23andMe is hiring a Chief Privacy Officer and that too will help us avoid these types of mistakes in the future. We are also already planning to evolve the consent process to make it simpler and more clear for customers.

Going forward, we will continue to prompt the customers that have not made a choice about Close Relatives to make a choice. We understand how important that is to you. We will do a mix of emails to these customers and pop-up prompts at login to get customers to make a choice.

I apologize again for the disappointment and for not having clearly communicated the reason for reversing course. 23andMe continues to grow and pioneer the way we think about consumers exploring their DNA. While we continue to innovate we may also err along the way. We can only promise that we will always listen to and do right by you, our customer, and will never fear having to redirect our course when it is the right thing to do.

Sincerely, Anne Wojcicki

So, now it appears that unless someone has specifically ‘opted in’ to DNA Relatives as a whole, they are automatically ‘opted out,’ a 180 degree reversal. Of course, if you were one of those 350,000 customers who received a notification about opting out, and did nothing, so that you could be opted in at the end of the 30 days referenced above, you would be thoroughly confused because you THINK you’re now opted in.

23andMe has a habit of posting information on their Forum which members must actively check, instead of sending e-mails to their customers or posting this kind of information on their blog that is sent by subscription. One of the forum followers was kind enough to point out this recent posting detailing changes that have occurred in October and the 23andMe policy moving forward.

It’s signed, Chistine on behalf of the 23andMe Product Team

I can find nothing on the current customer pages providing any information about these decisions or the match status of DNA Relatives/Close Relatives.

Furthermore, 23andMe is now asking some, but not everyone, who are opted in for DNA Relatives if they are sure. My account that was asked tested in 2010, so was not caught in the 2014 selection option confusion.

I feel that this methodology discourages many people from participation. It infers that there is something frightening that you ‘ought to be’ concerned about – especially if you are asked about the same topic several times.

In summary, here is, I think, what we know, as of October 16, 2014.

Everyone will have to make a specific choice to opt-in to DNA Relatives, one way or another, after testing. If you don’t specifically opt-in, you are opted out. Consent to test apparently doesn’t count as consent for DNA Relatives.
Clients prior to June 5, 2014 who were opted in to DNA Relatives but out of Close Relatives will be prompted to select an opt-in with close relatives included, or an opt-out entirely.
Clients prior to June 5, 2014, who did opt-in to participate in DNA Relatives, but did not have any selection to make about “Close Relatives” will be required to confirm that they want to continue in DNA Relatives before they can proceed to see their matches. This is apparently the e-mail that I received for one of my kits. It’s still a mystery why I never received it for the others who tested even earlier and clearly before the “Close Relatives” option existed.
Clients between June 5, 2014 and October 16, 2014 who were automatically opted in to DNA Relatives with close relatives included will also be prompted to confirm their participation in DNA Relatives and until they do confirm that option, they will not be visible nor able to view close relatives.
New customers will be prompted to opt-in or opt-out of DNA Relatives and opt-in will no longer be the default.
Participation in DNA Relatives will now include close relatives and that will not be a separate option.

I’m very glad to see that everyone who opts in to DNA Relatives includes close relatives. To do it any other way is not only confusing, it’s more than a little disingenuous, especially given that someone may not realize why their close matches aren’t showing. I had more than one client have a panic attack when their family member wasn’t showing as a match, especially when they were expecting to see a parent or sibling. In my opinion, having to enable the “close relatives” option caused huge problems and wholly unwarranted stress. If it’s truly gone, never to return, I’m very glad and applaud 23andMe for that decision.

The bad news is that many of the 350,000 people referred to in the September community forum posting are still anonymous, and they many not even realize it. Many probably presumed, quite logically, that because they were taking a DNA test that included matches, that they would receive matches without having to do anything further. Furthermore, they received the 30 day notification that they would be opted in if they did nothing, so they expected to be opted in. But they aren’t.

Currently, at 23andMe, you have to jump through more hoops to obtain your genealogy results than you did (when they were providing health information) to obtain your health results. I hope that the message provided to people who are making the “Opt In – Opt Out” decision can be worded a little more encouragingly and present both sides of the risk/reward coin. I would hate for their entire response to be fear based due to the tone of the selection message and the fact that they have to answer this question repeatedly – like the dreaded Alzheimer’s health question – back when 23andMe was providing health results.

Here, let me give you an example vignette:

Hi, 23andMe, I’d like to test for genealogy matches.

Great, send me $99 and you’re on the way.

Spit…mail….waiting…waiting…

Good news, your results are back. Do you want to opt into DNA Relatives? You know you could find out information about your family that is upsetting to you? It could change your family relations?

Really? Hmmm…I think I want to see. That’s why I tested.

Another e-mail: Are you sure, really positive that you want to remain in DNA Relatives? You know, you could find out really upsetting information. You can see other close relatives and they can see you.

Geeze, I don’t know….maybe not…I’ll wait till I sign on next time to deal with this.

Signing on next time….

Do you want to opt-in to DNA Relatives? You know, you could find out some really disturbing and upsetting things about your family? It could change your relationship with your family members.

After repeating this warning several times, it begins to appear like 23andMe is discouraging your participation, not informing you of risks and rewards. There is no upside mentioned, only repeated negatively framed warnings. Given that genealogy/ancestry is the only reason for the consumer to purchase this product right now, this approach seems a bit counter-intuitive and overkill. In the least, the warning should be given up front, during the purchase process, and then not constantly repeated.

However, given that 23andMe is still gathering your health information and utilizing it in their medical research, even if you opt-out or don’t opt-in to DNA Relatives, assuming you haven’t opted out of medical research as well, warning you up front would discourage a sale and would prevent them from collecting your genetic data. In essence, 23andMe doesn’t care one bit whether you opt-in or opt-out of DNA Relatives, but they care a whole lot about your money and your participation in medical research.

The constant changes and hoopla are confusing people and frightening some. Others are becoming too discouraged by a lack of positive genealogical results to continue.

23andMe was first in the game with consumer autosomal testing, but their ever-changing policies have become and remain confusing. They have done nothing to clarify publicly, leaving everyone uncertain and a little reluctant.

23andMe entered the genealogy marketspace, but they seem to be focused on protecting people from genealogy matches. This seems almost like a conflict of interest, or may be better stated, a Kobayashi Maru, or no-win situation. It seems that the health testing aspect is causing 23andMe to adopt such restrictive procedures that it’s making the genealogy aspect of their product increasingly restrictive and difficult. I’m sure this is reflective of their primary goal, which is medicine, and the fact that genealogists just happened to be interested in genetics as a tool was, for them, a happy accident that provided a source for test subjects. Genealogy is not something 23andMe is primarily interested in. I’m sure they aren’t making things difficult intentionally, but the net effect is far from encouraging.

I’m finding that their protections are barriers and the required steps are confusing for customers and self-defeating for genealogy, and they are, unfortunately, cumulative hurdles:

Having to specifically opt-in to DNA Relatives, even after consenting to test when purchasing the product which includes matching
Having to request to communicate with other participants
Having to request to “share DNA”
Having to confirm that yes, you really did want to ‘opt in’ to DNA Relatives
About a 10% communication request response rate
Most of the 10% of the people who do respond know little, if anything, about their genealogy, nor are they terribly interested
Having to utilize the 23andMe corporate message system instead of communicate with your matches via e-mail
Match limit at 1000 people unless you are communicating with more than that number. After 1000, matches fall off your list.
Their terrible trees. Yes, I realize they have recently partnered with My Heritage, but as Judy Russell says, we’ll see.
The misleading (health and ancestry) notation in a sharing request which frightens people as to why you want their health information, causing people to decline to share
Constant change about who you are/aren’t seeing as matches and why
Confusing and conflicting opt-in, opt-out information delivered on four different platforms; e-mail, on your personal page, their blog and their community forum. In essence, this means that almost everyone except the most dedicated 23andMe follower misses at least part of the information.

23andMe is approaching the point where the pain level of participation is at the threshold of no longer being worthwhile except for extraordinary cases like adoptions where the participant is desperate for any possible crumb.

I thought more about this situation, and I believe that the underlying problem is a fundamental disconnect in the focus of the two groups. 23andMe’s corporate focus is and always has been health related research, compilation and manipulation of genomic “big data.” Taking a look at their recent American Association of Human Genetics papers is a good yardstick of their corporate focus. Not one paper mentions the genealogical aspect of their business, and even the paper that does indirectly help genealogists by reducing false positive identical-by-descent segments is presented from a medical perspective. In essence, the genealogy community is a source for DNA for 23andMe. They aren’t focused on genealogy or interested in serving this community. That’s neither good nor bad…it’s just the way it is.

The genealogy community, on the other hand, is frustrated by the increasingly long list of confusing hurdles at 23andMe that people who test for genealogy must navigate before they can reap any of the potential benefits of matching for genealogical purposes. Each successive hurdle reduces the number of people who complete the course and those who make it to the end are either the died in the wool genealogists who have tested elsewhere anyway or people with little or no knowledge of their genealogy. Worst case, people who test at 23andMe for genealogy will leave with a bad taste in their mouth and never test again because, frankly, it’s neither easy nor fun.

We don’t know exactly how many people haven’t opted-in for DNA Relatives, but we can surmise some based on their publicly released information. In the September retraction, 23andMe said that there were 350,000 who had not opted in, or out. We don’t know how many have actively opted out. In their ASHG abstract, they mention that 550,000 have consented for research. That tells us that less than half of their clients are opted in for DNA Relatives, or about 200,000 (assuming no one opted out), or perhaps less now with the recent “are you sure” messages like I received. Given that only 10% of the people who DO actively opt-in for DNA Relatives respond to inquiries, that’s a whole lot of people not clearing the hurdles for one reason or another. Of their entire data base of 550,000, only about 20,000 people clear the hurdles and engage, or about 3.5%. That means that there are 530,000, or more if you include the unknown number of opt-outs, who don’t clear the hurdles.

I hope 23andMe gets their cumulative act together relative to genealogy customers. You’d think with genealogy customers being their only source of corporate revenue right now (except for government grants and venture capital), that they would be bending over backwards to make the genealogy related products and processes straightforward, accessible and easy to use. Now would be a great time for some positive changes!

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Family Tree DNA Announces *Free Autosomal Transfer from 23andMe and Ancestry

Posted on October 19, 2014 by Roberta Estes

One of the major announcements this past week at the Family Tree DNA administrator’s conference was that Family Tree DNA will now be accepting, and encouraging, free data transfers from both 23andMe (V3 chip only) and Ancestry.com.

*For free, you will be able to see your top 20 matches, but if you want to contact those matches or unlock the rest of the Family Finder functionality and tools at Family Tree DNA, you’ll need to pay $39 or recruit 4 additional people to upload their files, whether they pay to join or not. Compared to retesting at $99 or the previous transfer price of $69, this is a great value.

Yesterday, I received this notification from Family Tree DNA that was sent to all project administrators.

As Senior Director of Product Michael Gugel shared at the recent conference, for the first time ever, people that have taken an AncestryDNA™ or 23andMe© (V3) test can transfer into the FTDNA databases for free by visiting https://www.familytreedna.com/AutosomalTransfer? and following the instructions to upload their raw data file.

Within an hour or two, we provide a preview of what’s waiting if they transfer by showing the top 20 matches along with an estimate of the total number of matches in the FTDNA database.

Full functionality can be unlocked by either paying $39 or recruiting four other people to upload, thus unlocking the rest of the matches.

Here are some important points to know:

We only accept the 23andMe V3 chip that was used on tests sold between November 2010 and approximately November 2013. There are a couple of ways to find out what chip was used for your test other than simply the timeframe. One is size; v3 chip files are about 7.83 MB where V2 and V4 chips are smaller. If you’re tech savvy, you can unzip the file and check chromosomes: Chromosome 1 for v3 starts at 82154 (rs4477212) where v4 starts at 734462 (rs12564807)and v2 starts with position 742429 (rs3094315).
We do not have any plans to accept V2 or V4 chips. if you try to upload the wrong chip version, the system will tell you that the file doesn’t have sufficient data. Since neither chip contains enough of the SNPs included in Family Finder, we would have to impute too much data. Basically we’d have to make assumptions about the missing SNPs that we’re just not willing to make at this point.

Blaine Bettinger at The Genetic Genealogist wrote detailed instructions about how to do the transfer and what to expect, so take a look.

At the $39 price, or recruit 4 and it’s entirely free, this transfer becomes the best autosomal vendor value available today. I know that people are already taking advantage of this offer, because I’m seeing new people join my projects and their item purchased indicates “free transfer.”

Spending the $39 (or recruiting 4 additional participants) allows you to unlock and access the following Family Finder features:

Full data base matching
Ability to contact matches directly via e-mail
Ability to join projects that accept autosomal participants
Ability to see matches by and within projects
Searching for matches by surname
Searching for matches by ancestral surname
Ability to view your matches family trees
Ability to upload your GEDCOM file or create your family tree to facilitate surname matching
Utilizing the “In Common With” tool to see who you and your matches both match
Utilizing the Matrix to see if your matches also match each other, suggesting a common ancestor
Seeing results on the Chromosome browser
myOrigins ethnicity information

The more kits in the data base, the more matches, so don’t wait. You can’t lose by doing the free transfer and seeing what matches might be waiting for you.

DNA Buys the Truth

Posted on September 17, 2014 by Roberta Estes

Recently, George Doe, clearly a pseudonym, a man with a PhD in Cell and Molecular Biology, a professional stem cell and reproductive biologist, related his story to Julia Belluz. Vox published the resulting article titled, “With Genetic Testing I Gave My Parents the Gift of a Divorce.” The original rather unflattering and somewhat derisory article by Julia is here, titled Genetic Testing Brings Families Together and Sometimes Tears Them Apart.

In these articles, Dr. Doe tells us that last year, in a class he was teaching, he used the 23andMe test to demonstrate how to collect a spit sample.

In fact, he was so excited that he bought kits for his parents as well:

“I had spent many years looking at the genes of other animals — particularly mice — but I never looked at my own. Because I was so excited about it, I got two 23andMe kits for my mom and dad as gifts. It’s a lot more fun when you can incorporate your family because you can trace not just the chromosomes but individual alleles on the chromosome so you don’t just see them, but where they came from. Also, I felt I had a good handle on my family’s medical history so I was very interested in confirming any susceptibility to cancers that I heard had run in my family, like colon cancer. I wanted to know if I had a genetic risk.”

But Dr. Doe found more than he anticipated. He found a half brother, an adoptee, sired by his father.

“When I saw that I share about 22 percent of my genome with a person, I thought, “That’s huge.” It took a bit of time to realize Thomas and I actually share the same genome with my father. This is how it happened: when you share around 25 percent genetic similarity with someone, that means that either it’s your grandfather, uncle, or half-sibling. 23andMe listed Thomas as a grandfather, which was confusing to me. I called my dad. All I had was his name, Thomas, and the fact that he’s male. I just asked my dad, “Does this name sound familiar?” He said no. He logged into his account, and Thomas wasn’t showing up at all. I was so confused. We figured out that at the very bottom of your profile, there’s a little box that says “check this box if you want to see close family members in this search program.”

Dad checked it, and Thomas’ name appeared in his list. 23andMe said dad was 50 percent related with Thomas and that he was a predicted son.”

Given Dr. Doe’s next comments, one can surmise that this child was not conceived before Dr. Does’ parents married, nor was Dr. Doe’s father a sperm donor.

“Years of repressed memories and emotions uncorked and resulted in tumultuous times that have torn my nuclear family apart. My parents divorced. No one is talking to my dad. We’re not anywhere close to being healed yet and I don’t know how long it will take to put the pieces back together.”

Correction Note: CeCe Moore provides information that Doe’s half-brother was conceived prior to the marriage, as reported by Belluz. However, we don’t know that the conception was outside of the time span of the relationship of the parents. CeCe also states that “both Neil Schwartzman and I were misquoted/misrepresented in the article. Neil says that he never told her it was a negative experience for him. (Some of my quotes have been changed – with no correction noted interestingly, but there is still some misrepresentation of our conversation.) So, this does make me wonder if Ms. Belluz got Doe’s story exactly right as well. Ms. Belluz clearly had an agenda and twisted the “truth” to support it.”

At this point, I felt really bad for the Doe family, and I still do. But Dr. Doe’s next paragraph bothered me when I first read it and it bothers me now.

Instead of laying the blame for this problem where it clearly resides, at the feet of his father, he is unhappy instead with the testing company, in this case, 23andMe.

“After this discovery was made, I went back to 23andMe and talked to them. I said, “I’m not sure all your customers realize that when they participate in your family finder program, they’re participating in what are essentially really advanced paternity tests.” People find out that their parents aren’t who they think they are. They have nearly a million people in the database. If there happens to be anyone in there you’re related to, they’ll find your match. This is a solid science.”

Dr. Doe goes onto say;

“I don’t want to say if I knew that I wouldn’t have participated. But I’m really devastated at the outcome. I wrestle with these emotions. I love my family. This is nothing I ever would have wished. My dream would be to introduce Thomas to dad, to incorporate a new family tradition, to merge families. We all get to broaden our horizons and live happily ever after. At least right now, that’s not what happened. I still hold out hope that in time we can resolve things. But I also worry that as these transitions happen there may have been some permanent emotional damage that may not be able to be undone.”

Dr. Doe goes on to say that 23andMe isn’t doing enough to protect the public from themselves, in essence. 23andMe did and does have a special box to click to indicate that you DO want to see close relatives. Most people have no idea that this box even exists, let alone that they need to click it. In fact, the mere fact that you have to click the box, and it’s not front and center, makes your results unreliable because you believe that you’re seeing all of your results, when you aren’t. He even describes how this option confused his father and his father could not see his children. His father isn’t the only one. This option has caused more panic among families that “should” match until someone explains this hidden “Opt In” option and where they have to click.

Now, I’ve been quiet all week, mulling this situation over. While I was mulling, 23andMe, who had previously announced that they were going to make seeing close relatives an “opt out” instead of an “opt in,” announced they had changed their mind. Coincidence? Doubtful. In fact, Vox, who published the original two articles also published 23andMe’s announcement and stated that the announcement was a result of their original articles.

I find this stance personally abhorrent. I believe that the people who test have the right to the truth – all of it – and not just if they happen to discover that all of their results are not being displayed. They are adults. They choose to take, or not take the test. If you take the test, you have every right to expect you’re seeing all of your results.

Dr. Doe, of all people, has absolutely no right to complain. He, of all people, a PhD in this field, knew exactly what he could discover. The problem is that the truth is sometimes inconvenient and ugly, especially if you don’t expect to discover that your father cheated on your mother, or vice versa.

Dr. Doe – the problem is not that 23andMe did not protect you from yourself. You, admittedly, clicked right through the options, believing of course, that it “couldn’t be me.” The problem is your family’s choices, perhaps then, and certainly now.

23andMe’s reversal on their policy will do nothing, absolutely nothing, to protect people like Dr. Doe from himself. The only policy that will do that is the French policy of making DNA testing illegal to “protect the family unit.” God forbid that we ever become that paranoid.

What 23andMe’s policy does it to continue to obscure the truth from unsuspecting testers. Unfortunately, even if they put a big red box dead center in the screen today that says “If you don’t click here, you won’t see close relatives including sons, daughters……,” many people will never see it, because many people never sign on again after receiving their initial results. In other words, many of their clients’ data would remain dark. The only way to solve that problem is to do what 23andMe announced they would do and were preparing to do, to shift the option from “Opt In” to “Opt Out,” until Dr. Doe created a publicity nightmare because he couldn’t handle the results of his own test, AFTER, he intentionally and with full knowledge, clicked the “Opt In” option.

Furthermore, Dr. Doe could have discovered the same thing if he had found his father’s old journals, for example. He could have discovered an old letter from a sweetheart. He could have found the letter telling his father that the child would be put up for adoption. What would he have done then? Who would he complain to that no one protected him from himself? The company that created the paper and the ink??? The post office because they might deliver a letter with disturbing information inside?

I don’t mean to be insensitive here, but it’s vastly unfair to make hundreds of thousands of people pay the price for Dr. Doe’s family issues. The timing of this article with the much anticipated 23andMe change has created the perfect media storm. Dr. Doe whined, loudly, and publicly, and 23andMe doesn’t want to create even more negative publicity.

If you think that I’m speaking from an ivory tower, or a vacuum, so to speak, I’m not. Let me explain about infidelity and betrayal. After my former husband’s massive stroke, when I was in my late 30s and he was in his late 40s, I found pictures of him with another female, with the sailboat that I bought him. Yep, he was on vacation, with another woman, while I was staying home and working. I felt terribly, horribly betrayed…not to mention gullible, stupid and naïve…oh yes, and angry.

I found those pictures a month or two after his stroke, when he was so terribly incapacitated that he couldn’t even speak, sit up, or eat, let alone answer any questions. Really, there was nothing he could have said anyway – the pictures, multiple pictures, over multiple summers….were all the evidence I needed. But I wanted them, I so wanted them to not be true. But they were. Staring back at me in living color.

The truth was ugly and painful and devastating. But it was also freeing. It freed me from the pain of loss of something I never had – a loving and loyal husband. I only thought I did. At the time it was horrifically painful. Today, I’m incredibly grateful that I didn’t spend my entire married life with a cheating, lying scoundrel.

I also know about infidelity within a family when we discovered that my half-brother through my father was not my father’s child. I lived through the pain of that too, and I can tell you that my brother, Dave, who wasn’t my biological brother, and I were far closer than many biological family members.

DNA does not tear families apart, people do. Infidelity does. Poor choices do.

My grandfather, about 1910, recently married to my grandmother, was present in his mother-in-law’s kitchen the day that a young man knocked on the back door. His mother-in-law, Nora Kirsch Lore had recently been widowed after being married to Curtis Benjamin “CB” Lore for more than 20 years. The young man asked for CB, by name. Nora asked him to come inside and figured he was one of the young men who had worked for CB in his construction and racehorse business. That’s not at all why the young man was looking for CB Lore. CB Lore, according to the young man’s mother, was his father. Let’s just say that it was a very awkward day in that kitchen as Nora asked the young man what year he was born.

In 1910, there was no way to prove, or disprove, this allegation. Today, there is – DNA. Nora too was devastated by her husband’s indiscretion, to put is softly, or outright betrayal to call it what it was. But she was not without a hint – he had always been somewhat of a playboy. Had she known specifically about this woman? No, but it didn’t entirely surprise her either. It only confirmed, or at least potentially confirmed, what she suspected happened when he traveled. It certainly was not this young man’s fault for showing up to find his father. Just like it isn’t DNA’s fault today.

Dr. Doe is not responsible for “outing” his father. His father obviously made his own choices. So did his mother.

Dr. Doe did not buy his parents a divorce, his parents did. Pure and simple. Their choice. Sounds like that divorce was, perhaps, years overdue.

What Dr. Doe gave his mother was possibly the gift of truth and freedom. Mrs. Doe obviously had the option of discussing things with her husband. She didn’t. Dr. Doe himself said it brought up repressed memories, and they obviously were not pleasant. This was only a festering scab and he, unfortunately, was the one who bumped up against it and knocked it off.

I’m glad Dr. Doe is getting help. I hope the entire family is getting help.

As I tell people, if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. If you don’t want the truth, don’t DNA test. Period.

The culprit in this story is not Dr. Doe, is not 23andMe, but is very clearly Dr. Doe’s father’s original behavior combined with current family dynamics.

Sadly, the people that are ultimately paying the price for Dr. Does’ family turmoil are the hundreds of thousands of people that now continue to have their results obscured because of 23andMe’s abrupt change of policy.

That’s not right either.

23andMe lives and dies not on genetic genealogy or on the revenue from the tests themselves, but on their customers allowing them to use their results to compile for medical studies and to sell. If you want to make your feelings known, you can personally opt out of allowing 23andMe to utilize your results for those types of endeavors. In other words, 23andMe will no longer be able to make money from your DNA.

Perhaps 23andMe will hear and understand that message. Companies understand dollars.

To remove your consent for 23andMe to utilize your DNA, or to at least review the consent form, sign on and click on the down arrow beside your name.

Then click on “Privacy and Consent.”

Scroll down to the bottom of the page to “Basic Research Consent.” If you have given consent, this is what you will see.

Click in the green box on “view/change consent.” You will then see the consent document.

Scroll down again. You will see that the “give consent” box, in green, has been clicked already.

Underneath that box, click on the blue “click here to change your consent.” You will then see a green and a red box with your consent options.

You can see that I’ve selected “I am this person and I don’t give consent,” in the red box. Then click on the green “Save” button.

The change takes place imediately for any future projects or initiatives, but does not affect any studies or data sales that have previously taken place.

Furthermore, e-mail 23andMe’s Human Projects Administrator at hpa@23andMe.com and tell them why.

You have a voice in this matter. Use it.

______________________________________________________________

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10 Things to Do With Your DNAPrint, renamed AncestrybyDNA, Test

Posted on June 19, 2014 by Roberta Estes

Please note, AncestrybyDNA is NOT the same as the AncestryDNA test sold by Ancestry.com. Both CeCe Moore and David Dowell have written about this in their respective blogs.

Back in 2002 (no, that is not a typo,) a new product called DNAPrint was introduced by a company then called DNAPrint Genomics. It provided you, in percentages, your percentages of 4 ethnic groups: Indo-European, East-Asian, Native American and African. Family Tree DNA remarketed this test for just over a year but ceased when they realized there were issues.

It was the first of its kind of test ever to be offered commercially, and version 2.0 utilized a whopping 71 ancestrally informative markers, according to the user’s guide delivered with the product. The next version of the test, 2.5, titled AncestrybyDNA included 175 markers, and a third version, which I don’t believe was ever released, was to include just over 300 markers.

In 2002, this was a baby step in a brand new world. We, as a community, were thrilled to be able to obtain this type of information. And of course, we believed it was accurate, or relatively so. However, the questions and ensuing debate started almost immediately and became very heated.

The company’s representatives indicated that East-Asian and Native American could be combined for those without a “Chinese grandpa” and that would have given me a whopping 25% Native American. Even then, before pedigree analysis, I thought this was a little high. My East Asian was shown as 15%, Native American at 10% and Indo-European at 75%. For reference, my real Native results are probably in the 1-3% range. Keep in mind that we were all babes in the woods, kind of stumbling around, learning, in 2002 and 2003.

Interestingly enough, I found the answer recently, quite by accident, to one of the burning questions about Native American ancestry that was asked repeatedly of Tony Frudakis during that timeframe, then a corporate officer of DNAPrint, and left unanswered. In Carolyn Abraham’s book, The Juggler’s Children, which is a wonderful read, on page 55, the answer to the forever-hanging question was answered:

“When I finally reached Frudakis, that’s how he explained the confusion over our Native ancestry result – semantics. The Florida company had pegged its markers as being Native American to appeal to the American market, he told me. But it was accurate to consider them Central Asian markers, he said, that had been carried to different regions by those who migrated from that part of the globe long ago – into the Americas, into East Asia, South Asia and even southern Europe – finding their way into today’s Greeks, Italians and Turks. ‘We may do ourselves a favour and change the name of this ancestry [component] in the test,’ he said, since apparently I wasn’t the only one baffled by it.”

So, now we know, straight from the horses mouth, via Carolyn.

Of course, since that time, many advances have occurred in this field. Today, Family Tree DNA, 23andMe, Ancestry.com and the Genographic Project utilize chip based technology and utilize over half a million markers to achieve ethnicity predictions. If DNAPrint, renamed AncestybyDNA was the first baby step, today we are teenagers – trying to refine our identity. Today’s tests, although not totally accurate, are, by far, more accurate than this first baby step. Give us another dozen years in this industry, and they’ll be spot on!

For 2003, when I ordered mine, DNAPrint was an adventure – it was exciting – it was a first step – and we learned a lot. Unfortunately, DNAPrint under the name AncestrybyDNA is still being sold today, currently owned by the DNA Diagnostics Center. If you are even thinking about ordering this product, take a look first at the Yelp reviews and the Better Business Bureau complaints.

I don’t regret spending the money in 2003. Spending money on this outdated test today would be another story entirely – a total waste. The results are entirely irrelevant today in light of the newer and more refined technology. Unfortunately, seldom a week goes by that I don’t receive an e-mail from someone who bought this test and are quite confused and unhappy. The test has been marketed and remarketed by a number of companies over the years.

So, here are some suggestions about what might be appropriate to do with your DNAPrint or AncestybyDNA results if you don’t want to just throw them away:

Line the bottom of the birdcage.
Use to light the BBQ grill or camp fire.
Use under boots in the hallway in the winter.
Shred, then use as confetti.
Cut into strips and use as bookmarks.
Use as scratch paper.
Use in the garden between rows to minimize weeds.
Make into a paper airplane.
Roll, along with other excess paper, into logs for the fireplace.
Frame, and display along with your other antiques.

Yes, it’s really that old and outdated!

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Drunken Sailors and a Porcupine

Posted on May 28, 2014 by Roberta Estes

I should have known when I heard the ship groaning in the night as it shifted from side to side. But I knew unquestionably when I sat up in the morning and began to sway back and forth. I remembered someone telling me once about falling out of the shower on a cruise ship. I doubted it at the time, but as of this minute, I believe that entirely.

One crew member said that it’s always cold in these northern British Isles ports, even in summer, often wet and the water in the fall especially is “choppy.” If this is just choppy, I’d hate to see worse.

So today, I’ve gained an appreciation for drunken sailors. You see, they may not be drunk at all, simply seasick and staggering around trying to find and maintain their footing – or the closest bathroom. Last night, John, the cruise director said he can always tell the drunks when it gets rough. The people who are normally sober are all staggering around, but the drunks, they are all walking in a straight line, referred to, appropriately, as “the line of experience.” Obviously, I simply don’t drink enough!

In any case, it’s been an exceedingly rough day at sea. I spent the morning staring out the window at the horizon trying to keep the Dramamine down. I called the spa to cancel my “happy birthday to me” massage for today since I “wasn’t feeling well.” When I called, they told me that acupuncture cures seasickness, right after they told me that the cancellation charge was the same amount as the original spa charge. I had my doubts, believe me, but I was so sick and miserable I was willing to try just about anything, so off to the spa I staggered – plus I was paying for it whether I went or not – so why not try acupuncture. I couldn’t feel much worse.

Actually, I had my husband deliver me. The wind was blowing so hard they had the outside decks closed. The wind is howling like an unhappy banshee in the deepest Michigan winter blizzard. That’s on the inside, sheltered deck with the open roof that can’t be closed over the pool area. The outside is worse and unsafe, which is why it’s closed. The spa is on the other side so you have to walk through the open roof area. If I was going to blow away, I wanted him to be with me. I figured two of us stood a much better chance of hanging on and well, we were much heavier together and more difficult to get aloft like giant inflatable kites.

These ships were not made for winter, in fact, they have no heaters for the rooms. You can have A/C or “regular air” which is whatever the air temperature is, recycled. It’s in the 50s today. I’ve taken to sleeping in my sweatshirt and wool socks with the bathrobe thrown on top of the blankets for extra warmth and I was finally warm enough last night. If they were selling parkas, they would make a fortune because it wouldn’t matter how much they cost. I swear to you, I saw a crew member today wearing gloves.

Tell me why I’m doing this again??? Oh yes, it’s a DNA trip, to find my ancestor’s lands and share their experiences. And yes, some of them were mariners. Probably, knowing my family, the ones walking in a straight line. Ugh. I could have passed on this particular shared experience, but no, this had to be authentic.

So after arriving at the spa, off with most of the clothes (brrrr) and in with the acupuncture needles. There were needles in my face, in my ears and in my hands and feet including between my eyebrows and between my toes. As I lay there, looking like a distant relative of the porcupine family and afraid to move for fear of impaling myself, the thought crossed my mind that not only did I do this of my own choosing, but worse yet, I’m paying for the opportunity. I tried to fall asleep, which is difficult with a bunch of needles sticking in your skin. Basically, they poke you like a pin cushion, turn the lights off, come back in about an hour and collect money for doing so.

Now the good news is that I did and do feel better. I’m still staggering around like a drunken sailor, or what I previously thought was a drunken sailor, but I’m not sick. By mid-afternoon, after my spa treatment, food even sounded good, so I went up to the lounge deck with floor to ceiling windows and had a snack. Yes indeed, things are improving for the old porcupine. But the sea is quite rough again as we have left the shelter of the Isle of Skye and other islands off Ireland and are in the open North Atlantic now. It may be rough, but it’s still exceedingly beautiful.

This reminded me of another time, years ago, when my kids were young and we had saved enough to take everyone salmon fishing in Lake Michigan. We chartered a boat for the day, and we invited my Mom and (step)Dad to join us. For my Dad, who loved to fish, this was a wonderful opportunity he had never enjoyed before – and maybe he’d catch something more interesting than catfish and bluegill in the farm pond at home.

We spent the night before in a local bed and breakfast and got up early to begin our much-anticipated adventure. I gave everyone in the family Dramamine, everyone that was, except my mother. She refused, saying that she didn’t get sea sick. I encouraged her to take it anyway, but she would have none of that.

You know what happened don’t you? She turned green as pea soup – and not only was she miserable – so were the rest of us. It’s hard to have fun when someone is so ill. So we went back to shore, Mom and Dad departed for home, despite our protests, and the rest of us went fishing. We caught and froze some salmon for Dad, but it just wasn’t the same as catching those fish himself.

However, this made me wonder – is motion sickness hereditary? I have suffered with it all of my life. My first memories of it are riding in a car when I was quite young, pre-school. I still suffer from this same problem. Mine is much worse than Mom’s was.

According to 23andMe, indeed motion sickness is hereditary.

In a paper presented at the 2012 ASHG Meeting, they state that:

Roughly one in three individuals is highly susceptible to motion sickness; the remaining two-thirds of the population may experience motion sickness if the conditions are extreme.

It’s estimated that up to 70% of a person’s risk for motion sickness is due to genetics, but the genetics of motion sickness has been very poorly understood … until now.

23andMe scientist Bethann Hromatka presented results from a genetic study of nearly 37,000 customers who were surveyed about motion sickness. The analysis identified 14 genetic associations with motion sickness that fall into a few different biological categories. Three genetic variants are involved in development, including development of the eye and ear. Other variants are involved neurological processes and glucose/insulin regulation.

Aha, I knew it. I get to blame my mother, and maybe my father for this unfortunate inherited trait – but I’m guessing my Estes mariner ancestors didn’t carry it – or they wouldn’t have been mariners. But, according to Mother, she wasn’t motion sick, she simply had “an inner ear problem.” Uh, yea, Mom, you did. A rose by any other name…

Now, I wonder why acupuncture helps relieve the symptoms? The crew, who also take these treatments because they have to keep working, says that one acupuncture treatment works for days too. Although truthfully, I don’t care why. I’m just glad that it does. Given that the condition is genetic, I’ll probably be blessed with it the rest of my life so it’s nice to have a tool, any tool.

During the rest of the day, we were treated to a rainbow several times. The end of the rainbow always seemed to wind up in the restrooms on the lower decks. Not sure what to make of that pot-o-gold. I guess it was near the casino. The rainbow didn’t photograph well through the glass, but you get the idea. It was pleasant and hopeful to see after not feeling so well.

Our towel guy tonight has, what else…no, not acupuncture needles, although that certainly would have been appropriate. Ginger snaps to help with seasickness, Bonine (which also costs far more on this ship than an outfit at Kohl’s) and chocolate covered strawberries – the last 3 on the ship. Well, after all, it was my belated birthday present. Acupuncture, ginger snaps and chocolate-covered strawberries. Who could ask for more!

Tomorrow, solid ground again. We’re going to Urquhart Castle. Hope you’re coming along!

______________________________________________________________

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Finding Native American Ethnic Results in Germanic People

Posted on May 21, 2014 by Roberta Estes

I’m often asked about the significance of small percentages of autosomal DNA in results. Specifically, the small percentages are often of Native American or results that would suggest Native admixture. One of the first questions I always ask is whether or not the individual has Germanic or eastern European admixture.

Why?

Take a look at this map of the Invasion of the Roman Empire. See the Huns and their path?

It’s no wonder we’re so admixed.

Here’s a map of the Hunnic empire at its peak under Attila between the years 420-469.

But that wasn’t the end of the Asian invasions. The Magyars, who settled in Hungary arrived from Asia as well, in the 800s and 900s, as shown on this map from LaSalle University.

Since both the Hungarians and some Germanic people descend from Asian populations, as do Native Americans, albeit thousands of years apart, it’s not unrealistic to expect that, as populations, they share a genetic connection.

Therefore, when people who carry heritage from this region of the world show small amounts of Native or Asian origin, I’m not surprised. However, for Americans, trying to sort out their Native ethnic heritage, this is most unhelpful.

Let’s take a look at the perfect example candidate. This man is exactly half Hungarian and half German. Let’s see what his DNA results say, relative to any Asian or Native heritage, utilizing the testing companies and the free admixture tools at www.gedmatch.com.

He has not tested at Ancestry, but at Family Tree DNA, his myOrigins report 96% European, 4% Middle Eastern. At 23andMe in speculative view, he shows 99.7 European and .2 sub-saharan African.

Moving to the admixture tools at GedMatch, MDLP is not recommended for Asian or Native ancestry, so I have excluded that tool.

Eurogenes K13 is the most recently updated admixture tool, so let’s take a look at that one first.

Eurogenes K13

Eurogenes K13 showed 7% West Asian, which makes perfect sense considering his heritage, but it might be counted as “Native” in other circumstances, although I would certainly be very skeptical about counting it as such.

However, East Asian, Siberian and Amerindian would all be amalgamated into the Native American category, for a combined percentage of 1.31.

However, selecting the “admixture proportions by chromosome” view shows something a bit different. The cumulative percentages, by chromosome equate to 10.10%. Some researchers mistakenly add this amount and use that as their percentage of Native ancestry. This is not the case, because those are the portions of 100% of each individual chromosome, and the total would need to be divided by 22 to obtain the average value across all chromosomes. The total is irrelevant, and the average may not reflect how the developer determines the amount of admixture because chromosomes are not the same size nor carry the same number of SNPs. Questions relative to the functional underpinnings of each tool should be addressed to the developers.

Dodecad

I understand that there is a newer version of Dodecad, but that it has not been submitted to GedMatch for inclusion, per a discussion with GedMatch. I can’t tell which of the Dodecad versions on GedMatch is the most current, so I ran the results utilizing both v3 and 12b.

I hope v3 is not the most current, because it does not include any Native American category or pseudocategory – although there is a smattering of Northeast Asian at .27% and Southwest Asian at 1%.

Dodecad 12b below

The 12b version does show .52% Siberian and 2.6% Southwest Asian, although I’m not at all sure the Southwest Asian should be included.

HarappaWorld

Harappaworld shows .09 Siberian, .27% American (Native American), .23% Beringian and 1.8% Southwest Asian, although I would not include Southwest Asian in the Native calculation.

In Summary

Neither Family Tree DNA nor 23andMe find Native ancestry in our German/Hungarian tester, but all 3 of the admixture tools at Gedmatch find either small amounts of Native or Asian ancestry that could certainly be interpreted as Native, such as Siberian or Beringian.

Does this mean this German/Hungarian man has Native American ancestry? Of course not, but it does probably mean that the Native population and his ancestral populations did share some genes from the same gene pool thousands of years ago.

While you might think this is improbable, or impossible, consider for a minute that every person outside of Africa today carries some percentage of Neanderthal DNA, and all Europeans also carry Denisovan DNA. Our DNA does indeed have staying power over the millennia, especially once an entire population or group of people is involved. We’ve recently seen this same type of scenarios in the full genome sequencing of a 24,000 year old Siberian male skeleton.

Our German/Hungarian man carries 2.4% Neanderthal DNA according to 23andMe and 2.7% according to the Genographic Project, which also reports that he carries 3.9% Denisovan. The European average is about 2% for Neanderthal.

The net-net of this is that minority admixture is not always what it seems to be, especially when utilizing autosomal DNA to detect small amounts of Native American admixture. The big picture needs to be taken into consideration. Caution is advised.

When searching for Native admixture, when possible, both Y DNA and mitochondrial DNA give specific answers for specific pedigree lines relative to ancestry. Of course, to utilize Y or mtDNA, the tester must descend from the Native ancestor either directly paternally to test the male Y chromosome, or directly matrilineally to test the mitochondrial line. You can read about this type of testing, and how it works, in my article, Proving Native American Ancestry Using DNA. You can also read about other ways to prove Native ancestry using autosomal DNA, including how to unravel which pedigree line the Native ancestry descends from, utilizing admixture tools, in the article, “The Autosomal Me.”

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Ethnicity Percentages – Second Generation Report Card

Posted on May 19, 2014 by Roberta Estes

Recently, Family Tree DNA introduced their new ethnicity tool, myOrigins as part of their autosomal Family Finder product. This means that all of the major players in this arena using chip based technology (except for the Genographic project) have now updated their tools. Both 23andMe and Ancestry introduced updated versions of their tools in the fall of 2013. In essence, this is the second generation of these biogeographical or ethnicity products. So lets take a look and see how the vendors are doing.

In a recent article, I discussed the process for determining ethnicity percentages using biogeographical ancestry, or BGA, tools. The process is pretty much the same, regardless of which vendor’s results you are looking at. The variant is, of course, the underlying population data base, it’s quality and quantity, and the way the vendors choose to construct and name their regions.

I’ve been comparing my own known and proven genealogy pedigree breakdown to the vendors results for some time now. Let’s see how the new versions stack up to a known pedigree.

The paper, Revealing American Indian and Minority Heritage Using Y-line, Mitochondrial, Autosomal and X Chromosomal Testing Data Combined with Pedigree Analysis was published in the Fall 2010 issue of JoGG, Vol. 6 issue 1.

The pedigree analysis portion of this document begins about page 8. My ancestral breakdown is as follows:

Geography	Pedigree Percent
Germany	23.8041
British Isles	22.6104
Holland	14.5511
European by DNA	6.8362
France	6.6113
Switzerland	0.7813
Native American	0.2933
Turkish	0.0031

This leaves about 25% unknown.

Let’s look at each vendor’s results one by one.

23andMe

My results using the speculative comparison mode at 23andMe are shown in a chart, below.

23andMe Category	23andMe Percentage
British and Irish	39.2
French/German	15.6
Scandinavian	7.9
Nonspecific North European	27.9
Italian	0.5
Nonspecific South European	1.6
Eastern European	1.8
Nonspecific European	4.9
Native American	0.3
Nonspecific East Asian/Native American	0.1
Middle East/North Africa	0.1

At 23andMe, if you have questions about what exact population makes up each category, just click on the arrow beside the category when you hover over it.

For example, I wasn’t sure exactly what comprises Eastern European, so I clicked.

The first thing I see is sample size and where the samples come from, public data bases or the 23andMe data base. Their samples, across all categories, are most prevalently from their own data base. A rough add shows about 14,000 samples in total.

Clicking on “show details” provides me with the following information about the specific locations of included populations.

Using this information, and reorganizing my results a bit, the chart below shows the comparison between my pedigree chart and the 23andMe results. In cases where the vendor’s categories spanned several of mine, I have added mine together to match the vendor category. A perfect example is shown in row 1, below, where I added France, Holland, Germany and Switzerland together to equal the 23andMe French and German category. Checking their reference populations shows that all 4 of these countries are included in their French and German group.

Geography	Pedigree Percent	23andMe %
Germany, Holland, Switzerland & France	45.7451	15.6
France	6.6113 (above)	Combined
Germany	23.8014 (above)	Combined
Holland	14.5511 (above)	Combined
Switzerland	0.7813 (above)	Combined
British Isles	22.6104	39.2
Native American	0.2933	0.4 (Native/East Asian)
Turkish	0.0031	0.1 (Middle East/North Africa)
Scandinavian		7.9
Italian		0.5
South European		1.6
East European		1.8
European by DNA	6.8362	4.9 (nonspecific European)
Unknown	25	27.9 (North European)

I can also change to the Chromosome view to see the results mapped onto my chromosomes.

The 23andMe Reference Population

According to the 23andMe customer care pages, “Ancestry Composition uses 31 reference populations, based on public reference datasets as well as a significant number of 23andMe members with known ancestry. The public reference datasets we’ve drawn from include the Human Genome Diversity Project, HapMap, and the 1000 Genomes project. For these datasets as well as the data from 23andMe, we perform filtering to ensure accuracy.

Populations are selected for Ancestry Composition by studying the cluster plots of the reference individuals, choosing candidate populations that appear to cluster together, and then evaluating whether we can distinguish the groups in practice. The population labels refer to genetically similar groups, rather than nationalities.”

Additional detailed information about Ancestry Composition is available here.

Ancestry.com

Ancestry is a bit more difficult to categorize, because their map regions are vastly overlapping. For example, the west Europe category is shown above, and the Scandinavian is shown below.

Both categories cover the Netherlands, Germany and part of the UK.

My Ancestry percentages are:

Ancestry Category	Ancestry Percentage
North Africa	1
America	<1
East Asia	<1
West Europe	79
Scandinavia	10
Great Britain	4
Ireland	2
Italy/Greece	2

Below, my pedigree percentages as compared to Ancestry’s categories, with category adjustments.

Geography	Pedigree Percent	Ancestry %
West European	52.584 (combined from below)	79
Germany	23.8041	Combined
Holland	14.5511	Combined
European by DNA	6.8362	Combined
France	6.6113	Combined
Switzerland	0.7813	Combined
British Isles	22.6104	6
Native American	0.2933	~1 incl East Asian
Turkish	0.0031	1 (North Africa)
Unknown	25
Italy/Greece		2
Scandinavian		10

Ancestry’s European populations and regions are so broadly overlapping that almost any interpretation is possible. For example, the Netherlands could be included in several categories – and based up on the history of the country, that’s probably legitimate.

At Ancestry, clicking on a region, then scrolling down will provide additional information about that region of the world, both their population and history.

The Ancestry Reference Population

Just below your ethnicity map is a section titled “Get the Most Out of Your Ethnicity Estimate.” It’s worth clicking, reading and watching the video. Ancestry states that they utilized about 3000 reference samples, pared from 4245 samples taken from people whose ethnicity seems to be entirely from that specific location in the world.

You can read more in their white paper about ethnicity prediction.

Family Tree DNA’s myOrigins

I wrote about the release of my Origins recently, so I won’t repeat the information about reference populations and such found in that article.

Family Tree DNA shows matches by region. Clicking on the major regions, European and Middle Eastern, shown above, display the clusters within regions. In addition, your Family Finder matches that match your ethnicity are shown in highest match order in the bottom left corner of your match page.

Clicking on a particular cluster, such as Trans-Ural Peneplain, highlights that cluster on the map and then shows a description in the lower left hand corner of the page.

Family Tree DNA shows my ethnicity results as follows.

Family Tree DNA Category	Family Tree DNA Percentage
European Coastal Plain	68
European Northlands	12
Trans-Ural Peneplain	11
European Coastal Islands	7
Anatolia and Caucus	3

Below, my pedigree results reorganized a bit and compared to Family Tree DNA’s categories.

Geography	Pedigree Percent	Family Tree DNA %
European Coastal Plain	45.7478	68
Germany	23.8041	Combined above
Holland	14.5511	Combined above
France	6.6113	Combined above
Switzerland	0.7813	Combined above
British Isles	22.6104	7 (Coastal Islands)
Turkish	0.0031	3 (Anatolia and Caucus)
European by DNA	6.8362
Native American	0.2933
Unknown	25
Trans-Ural Peneplain		11
European Northlands		12

Third Party Admixture Tools

www.GedMatch.com is kind enough to include 4 different admixture utilities, contributed by different developers, in their toolbox. Remember, GedMatch is a free, meaning a contribution site – so if you utilize and enjoy their tools – please contribute.

On their main page, after signing in and transferring your raw data files from either 23andMe, Family Tree DNA or Ancestry, you will see your list of options. Among them is “admixture.” Click there.

Of the 4 tools shown, MDLP is not recommended for populations outside of Europe, such as Asian, African or Native American, so I’ve skipped that one entirely.

I selected Admixture Proportions for the part of this exercise that includes the pie chart.

The next option is Eurogenes K13 Admixture Proportions. My results are shown below.

Eurogenes K13

Of course, there is no guide in terms of label definition, so we’re guessing a bit.

Geography	Pedigree Percent	Eurogenes K13%
North Atlantic	75.19	44.16
Germany	23.8041	Combined above
British Isles	22.6104	Combined above
Holland	14.5511	Combined above
European by DNA	6.8362	Combined above
France	6.6113	Combined above
Switzerland	0.7813	Combined above
Native American	0.2933	2.74 combined East Asian, Siberian, Amerindian and South Asian
Turkish	0.0031	1.78 Red Sea
Unknown	25
Baltic		24.36
West Med		14.78
West Asian		6.85
Oceanian		0.86

Dodecad K12b

Next is Dodecad K12b

According to John at GedMatch, there is a more current version of Dodecad, but the developer has opted not to contribute the current or future versions.

By the way, in case you’re wondering, Gedrosia is an area along the Indian Ocean – I had to look it up!

Geography	Pedigree Percent	Dodecad K12b
North European	75.19	43.50
Germany	23.8041	Combined above
British Isles	22.6104	Combined above
Holland	14.5511	Combined above
European by DNA	6.8362	Combined above
France	6.6113	Combined above
Switzerland	0.7813	Combined above
Native American	0.2933	3.02 Siberian, South Asia, SW Asia, East Asia
Turkish	0.0031	10.93 Caucus
Gedrosia		7.75
Northwest African		1.22
Atlantic Med		33.56
Unknown	25

Third is Harappaworld.

Harappaworld

Baloch is an area in the Iranian plateau.

Geography	Pedigree Percent	Harappaworld %
Northeast Euro	75.19	46.58
Germany	23.8041	Combined above
British Isles	22.6104	Combined above
Holland	14.5511	Combined above
European by DNA	6.8362	Combined above
France	6.6113	Combined above
Switzerland	0.7813	Combined above
Native American	0.2933	2.81 SE Asia, Siberia, NE Asian, American, Beringian
Turkish	0.0031	10.27
Unknown	25
S Indian		0.21
Baloch		9.05
Papuan		0.38
Mediterranean		28.71

The wide variety found in these results makes me curious about how my European results would be categorized using the MDLP tool, understanding that it will not pick up Native, Asian or African.

MDLP K12

The Celto-Germanic category is very close to my mainland European total – but of course, many Germanic people settled in the British Isles.

Second Generation Report Card

Many of these tools picked up my Native American heritage, along with the African. Yes, these are very small amounts, but I do have several proven lines. By proven, I mean both by paper trail (Acadian church and other records) and genetics, meaning Yline and mtDNA. There is no arguing with that combination. I also have other Native lines that are less well proven. So I’m very glad to see the improvements in that area.

Recent developments in historical research and my mitochondrial DNA matches show that my most distant maternal ancestral line in Germany have some type of a Scandinavian connection. How did this happen, and when? I just don’t know yet – but looking at the map below, which are my mtDNA full sequence matches, the pattern is clear.

Could the gene flow have potentially gone the other direction – from Germany to Scandinavia? Yes, it’s possible. But my relatively consistent Scandinavian ethnicity at around 10% seems unlikely if that were the case.

Actually, there is a second possibility for additional Scandinavian heritage and that’s my heavy Frisian heritage. In fact, most of my Dutch ancestors in Frisia were either on or very near the coast on the northernmost part of Holland and many were merchants.

I also have additional autosomal matches with people from Scandinavia – not huge matches – but matches just the same – all unexplained. The most notable of which, and the first I might add, is with my friend, Marja.

It’s extremely difficult to determine how distant the ancestry is that these tests are picking up. It could be anyplace from a generation ago to hundreds of generations ago. It all depends on how the DNA was passed, how isolated the population was, who tested today and which data bases are being utilized for comparison purposes along with their size and accuracy. In most cases, even though the vendors are being quite transparent, we still don’t know exactly who the population is that we match, or how representative it is of the entire population of that region. In some cases, when contributed data is being used, like testers at 23andMe, we don’t know if they understood or answered the questions about their ancestry correctly – and 23andMe is basing ethnicity results on their cumulative answers. In other words, we can’t see beneath the blanket – and even if we could – I don’t know that we’d understand how to interpret the components.

So Where Am I With This?

I knew already, through confirmed paper sources that most of my ancestry is in the European heartland – Germany, Holland, France as well as in the British Isles. Most of the companies and tools confirm this one way or another. That’s not a surprise. My 35 years of genealogical research has given me an extremely strong pedigree baseline that is invaluable for comparing vendor ethnicity results.

The Scandinavian results were somewhat of a surprise – especially at the level in which they are found. If this is accurate, and I tend to believe it is present at some level, then it must be a combined effect of many ancestors, because I have no missing or unknown ancestors in the first 5 generations and only 11 of 64 missing or without a surname in generation 6. Those missing ancestors in generation 6 only contribute about 1.5% of my DNA each, assuming they contribute an average of 50% of their DNA to offspring in each subsequent generation.

Clearly, to reach 10%, nearly all of my missing ancestors, in the US and Germany, England and the Netherlands would have to be 100% Scandinavian – or, alternately, I have quite a bit scattered around in many ancestors, which is a more likely scenario. Still, I’m having a difficult time with that 10% number in any scenario, but I will accept that there is some Scandinavian heritage one way or another. Finding it, however, genealogically is quite another matter.

However, I’m at a total loss as to the genesis of the South European and Mediterranean. This must be quite ancient. There are only two known possible ancestors from these regions and they are many generations back in time – and both are only inferred with clearly enough room to be disproven. One is a possible Jewish family who went to France from Spain in 1492 and the other is possibly a Roman soldier whose descendants are found within a few miles of a Roman fort site today in Lancashire. Neither of these ancestors could have contributed enough DNA to influence the outcome to the levels shown, so the South European/Mediterranean is either incorrect, or very deep ancestry.

The Eastern European makes more sense, given my amount of German heritage. The Germans are well known to be admixed with the Magyars and Huns, so while I can’t track it or prove it, it also doesn’t surprise me one bit given the history of the people and regions where my ancestors are found.

What’s the Net-Net of This?

This is interesting, very interesting. There are tips and clues buried here, especially when all of the various tools, including autosomal matching, Y and mtDNA, are utilized together for a larger picture. Alone, none of these tools are as powerful as they are combined.

I look forward to the day when the reference populations are in the tens of thousands, not hundreds. All of the tools will be far more accurate as the data base is built, refined and utilized.

Until then, I’ll continue to follow each release and watch for more tips and clues – and will compare the various tools. For example, I’m very pleased to see Family Tree DNA’s new ethnicity matching tool incorporated into myOrigins.

I’ve taken the basic approach that my proven pedigree chart is the most accurate, by far, followed by the general consensus of the combined results of all of the vendors. It’s particularly relevant when vendors who don’t use the same reference populations arrive at the same or similar results. For example, 23andMe uses primarily their own clients and Nat Geo of course, although I did not include them above because they haven’t released a new tool recently, uses their own population sample results.

National Geographic’s Geno2

Nat Geo took a bit of a different approach and it’s more difficult to compare to the others. They showed my ethnicity as 43% North European, 36% Mediterranean and 18% Southwest Asian.

While this initially looks very skewed, they then compared me to my two closest populations, genetically, which were the British and the Germans, which is absolutely correct, according to my pedigree chart. Both of these populations are within a few percent of my exact same ethnicity profile, shown below.

The description makes a lot of sense too. “The dominant 49% European component likely reflects the earliest settlers in Europe, hunter-gatherers who arrived there more than 35,000 years ago. The 44% Mediterranean and the 17% Southwest Asian percentages arrived later, with the spread of agriculture from the Fertile Crescent in the middle East, over the past 10,000 years. As these early farmers moved into Europe, they spread their genetic patterns as well.”

So while individually, and compared to my pedigree chart, these results appear questionable, especially the Mediterranean and Southwest Asian portions, in the context of the populations I know I descend from and most resemble, the results make perfect sense when compared to my closest matching populations. Those populations themselves include a significant amount of both Mediterranean and Southwest Asian. Looking at this, I feel a lot better about the accuracy of my results. Sometimes, perspective makes a world of difference.

It’s A Wrap

Just because we can’t exactly map the ethnicity results to our pedigree charts today doesn’t mean the results are entirely incorrect. It doesn’t mean they are entirely correct, either. The results may, in some cases, be showing where population groups descend from, not where our specific ancestors are found more recently. The more ancestors we have from a particular region, the more that region’s profile will show up in our own personal results. This explains why Mediterranean shows up, for example, from long ago but our one Native ancestor from 7 or 8 generations ago doesn’t. In my case, it would be because I have many British/German/Dutch lines that combine to show the ancient Mediterranean ancestry of these groups – where I have many fewer Native ancestors.

Vendors may be picking up deep ancestry that we can’t possible know about today – population migration. It’s not like our ancestors left a guidebook of their travels for us – at least – not outside of our DNA – and we, as a community, are still learning exactly how to read that! We are, after all, participants on the pioneering, leading edge of science.

Having said that, I’ll personally feel a lot better about these kinds of results when the underlying technology, data bases and different vendors’ tools mature to the point where there the differences between their results are minor.

For today, these are extremely interesting tools, just don’t try to overanalyze the results, especially if you’re looking for minority admixture. And if you don’t like your results, try a different vendor or tool, you’ll get an entirely new set to ponder!

______________________________________________________________

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Haplogroup Comparisons Between Family Tree DNA and 23andMe

Posted on March 24, 2014 by Roberta Estes

Recently, I’ve received a number of questions about comparing people and haplogroups between 23andMe and Family Tree DNA. I can tell by the questions that a significant amount of confusion exists about the two, so I’d like to talk about both. In you need a review of “What is a Haplogroup?”, click here.

Haplogroup information and comparisons between Family Tree DNA information and that at 23andMe is not apples and apples. In essence, the haplogroups are not calculated in the same way, and the data at Family Tree DNA is much more extensive. Understanding the differences is key to comparing and understanding results. Unfortunately, I think a lot of misinterpretation is happening due to misunderstanding of the essential elements of what each company offers, and what it means.

There are two basic kinds of tests to establish haplogroups, and a third way to estimate.

Let’s talk about mitochondrial DNA first.

Mitochondrial DNA

You have a very large jar of jellybeans. This jar is your mitochondrial DNA.

In your jar, there are 16,569 mitochondrial DNA locations, or jellybeans, more or less. Sometimes the jelly bean counter slips up and adds an extra jellybean when filling the jar, called an insertion, and sometimes they omit one, called a deletion.

Your jellybeans come in 4 colors/flavors, coincidentally, the same colors as the 4 DNA nucleotides that make up our double helix segments. T for tangerine, A for apricot, C for chocolate and G for grape.

Each of the 16,569 jellybeans has its own location in the jar. So, in the position of address 1, an apricot jellybean is always found there. If the jellybean jar filler makes a mistake, and puts a grape jellybean there instead, that is called a mutation. Mistakes do happen – and so do mutations. In fact, we count on them. Without mutations, genetic genealogy would be impossible because we would all be exactly the same.

When you purchase a mitochondrial DNA test from Family Tree DNA, you have in the past been able to purchase one of three mitochondrial testing levels. Today, on the website, I see only the full sequence test for $199, which is a great value.

However, regardless of whether you purchase the full mitochondrial sequence test today, which tests all of your 16,569 locations, or the earlier HVR1 or HVR1+HVR2 tests, which tested a subset of about 10% of those locations called the HyperVariable Region, Family Tree DNA looks at each individual location and sees what kind of a jellybean is lodged there. In position 1, if they find the normal apricot jellybean, they move on to position 2. If they find any other kind of jellybean in position 1, other than apricot, which is supposed to be there, they record it as a mutation and record whether the mutation is a T,C or G. So, Family Tree DNA reads every one of your mitochondrial DNA addresses individually.

Because they do read them individually, they can also discover insertions, where extra DNA is inserted, deletions, where some DNA dropped out of line, and an unusual conditions called a heteroplasmy which is a mutation in process where you carry some of two kinds of jellybean in that location – kind of a half and half 2 flavor jellybean. We’ll talk about heteroplasmic mutations another time.

So, at Family Tree DNA, the results you see are actually what you carry at each of your individual 16,569 mitochondrial addresses. Your results, an example shown below, are the mutations that were found. “Normal” is not shown. The letter following the location number, 16069T, for example, is the mutation found in that location. In this case, normal is C. In the RSRS model of showing mitochondrial DNA mutations, this location/mutation combination would be written as C16069T so that you can immediately see what is normal and then the mutated state. You can click on the images to enlarge.

Family Tree DNA gives you the option to see your results either in the traditional CRS (Cambridge Reference Sequence) model, above, or the more current Reconstructed Sapiens Reference Sequence (RSRS) model. I am showing the CRS version because that is the version utilized by 23andMe and I want to compare apples and apples. You can read about the difference between the two versions here.

Defining Haplogroups

Haplogroups are defined by specific mutations at certain addresses.

For example, the following mutations, cumulatively, define haplogroup J1c2f. Each branch is defined by its own mutation(s).

Haplogroup	Required Mutations
J	C295T, T489C, A10398G!, A12612G, G13708A, C16069T
J1	C462T, G3010A
J1c	G185A, G228A, T14798C
J1c2	A188G
J1c2f	G9055A

You can see, below, that these results, shown above, do carry these mutations, which is how this individual was assigned to haplogroup J1c2f. You can read about how haplogroups are defined here.

At 23andMe, they use chip based technology that scans only specifically programmed locations for specific values. So, they would look at only the locations that would be haplogroup producing, and only those locations. Better yet if there is one location that is utilized in haplogroup J1c2f that is predictive of ONLY J1c2f, they would select and use that location.

This same individual at 23andMe is classified as haplogroup J1c2, not J1c2f. This could be a function of two things. First, the probes might not cover that final location, 9055, and second, 23andMe may not be utilizing the same version of the mitochondrial haplotree as Family Tree DNA.

By clicking on the 23andMe option for “Ancestry Tools,” then “Haplogroup Tree Mutation Mapper,” you can see which mutations were tested with the probes to determine a haplogroup assignment. 23andMe information for this haplogroup is shown below. This is not personal information, meaning it is not specific to you, except that you know you have mutations at these locations based on the fact that they have assigned you to the specific haplogroup defined by these mutations. What 23andMe is showing in their chart is the ancestral value, which is the value you DON’T have. So your jelly bean is not chocolate at location 295, it’s tangerine, apricot or grape.

Notice that 23andMe does not test for J1c2f. In addition, 23andMe cannot pick up on insertions, deletions or heteroplasmies. Normally, since they aren’t reading each one of your locations and providing you with that report, missing insertions and deletions doesn’t affect anything, BUT, if a deletion or insertion is haplogroup defining, they will miss this call. Haplogroup K comes to mind.

23andMe never looks at any locations in the jelly bean jar other than the ones to assign a haplogroup, in this case,17 locations. Family Tree DNA reads every jelly bean in the jelly bean jar, all 16,569. Different technology, different results. You also receive your haplogroup at 23andMe as part of a $99 package, but of course the individual reading of your mitochondrial DNA at Family Tree DNA is more accurate. Which is best for you depends on your personal testing goals, so long as you accurately understand the differences and therefore how to interpret results. A haplogroup match does not mean you’re a genealogy match. More than one person has told me that they are haplogroup J1c, for example, at Family Tree DNA and they match someone at 23andMe on the same haplogroup, so they KNOW they have a common ancestor in the past few generations. That’s an incorrect interpretation. Let’s take a look at why.

Matches Between the Two

23andMe provides the tester with a list of the people who match them at the haplogroup level. Most people don’t actually find this information, because it is buried on the “My Results,” then “Maternal Line” page, then scrolling down until your haplogroup is displayed on the right hand side with a box around it.

Those who do find this are confused because they interpret this to mean they are a match, as in a genealogical match, like at Family Tree DNA, or like when you match someone at either company autosomally. This is NOT the case.

For example, other than known family members, this individual matches two other people classified as haplogroup J1c2. How close of a match is this really? How long ago do they share a common ancestor?

Taking a look at Doron Behar’s paper, “A “Copernican” Reassessment of the Human Mitochondrial DNA Tree from its Root,” in the supplemental material we find that haplogroup J1c2 was born about 9762 years ago with a variance of plus or minus about 2010 years, so sometime between 7,752 and 11,772 years ago. This means that these people are related sometime in the past, roughly, 10,000 years – maybe as little as 7000 years ago. This is absolutely NOT the same as matching your individual 16,569 markers at Family Tree DNA. Haplogroup matching only means you share a common ancestor many thousands of years ago.

For people who match each other on their individual mitochondrial DNA location markers, their haplotype, Family Tree DNA provides the following information in their FAQ:

- Matching on HVR1 means that you have a 50% chance of sharing a common maternal ancestor within the last fifty-two generations. That is about 1,300 years.
- Matching on HVR1 and HVR2 means that you have a 50% chance of sharing a common maternal ancestor within the last twenty-eight generations. That is about 700 years.
- Matching exactly on the Mitochondrial DNA Full Sequence test brings your matches into more recent times. It means that you have a 50% chance of sharing a common maternal ancestor within the last 5 generations. That is about 125 years.

I actually think these numbers are a bit generous, especially on the full sequence. We all know that obtaining mitochondrial DNA matches that we can trace are more difficult than with the Y chromosome matches. Of course, the surname changing in mitochondrial lines every generation doesn’t help one bit and often causes us to “lose” maternal lines before we “lose” paternal lines.

Autosomal and Haplogroups, Together

As long as we’re mythbusting here – I want to make one other point. I have heard people say, more than once, that an autosomal match isn’t valid “because the haplogroups don’t match.” Of course, this tells me immediately that someone doesn’t understand either autosomal matching, which covers all of your ancestral lines, or haplogroups, which cover ONLY either your matrilineal, meaning mitochondrial, or patrilineal, meaning Y DNA, line. Now, if you match autosomally AND share a common haplogroup as well, at 23andMe, that might be a hint of where to look for a common ancestor. But it’s only a hint.

At Family Tree DNA, it’s more than a hint. You can tell for sure by selecting the “Advanced Matching” option under Y-DNA, mtDNA or Family Finder and selecting the options for both Family Finder (autosomal) and the other type of DNA you are inquiring about. The results of this query tell you if your markers for both of these tests (or whatever tests are selected) match with any individuals on your match list.

Hint – for mitochondrial DNA, I never select “full sequence” or “all mtDNA” because I don’t want to miss someone who has only tested at the HVR1 level and also matches me autosomally. I tend to try several combinations to make sure I cover every possibility, especially given that you may match someone at the full sequence level, which allows for mutations, that you don’t match at the HVR1 level. Same situation for Y DNA as well. Also note that you need to answer “yes” to “Show only people I match on all selected tests.”

Y-DNA at 23andMe

Y-DNA works pretty much the same at 23andMe as mitochondrial meaning they probe certain haplogroup-defining locations. They do utilize a different Y tree than Family Tree DNA, so the haplogroup names may be somewhat different, but will still be in the same base haplogroup. Like mitochondrial DNA, by utilizing the haplogroup mapper, you can see which probes are utilized to determine the haplogroup. The normal SNP name is given directly after the rs number. The rs number is the address of the DNA on the chromosome. Y mutations are a bit different than the display for mitochondrial DNA. While mitochondrial DNA at 23andMe shows you only the normal value, for Y DNA, they show you both the normal, or ancestral, value and the derived, or current, value as well. So at SNP P44, grape is normal and you have apricot if you’ve been assigned to haplogroup C3.

As we are all aware, many new haplogroups have been defined in the past several months, and continue to be discovered via the results of the Big Y and Full Y test results which are being returned on a daily basis. Because 23andMe does not have the ability to change their probes without burning an entirely new chip, updates will not happen often. In fact, their new V4 chip just introduced in December actually reduced the number of probes from 967,000 to 602,000, although CeCe Moore reported that the number of mtDNA and Y probes increased.

By way of comparison, the ISOGG tree is shown below. Very recently C3 was renamed to C2, which isn’t really the point here. You can see just how many haplogroups really exist below C3/C2 defined by SNP M217. And if you think this is a lot, you should see haplogroup R – it goes on for days and days!

How long ago do you share a common ancestor with that other person at 23andMe who is also assigned to haplogroup C3? Well, we don’t have a handy dandy reference chart for Y DNA like we do for mitochondrial – partly because it’s a constantly moving target, but haplogroup C3 is about 12,000 years old, plus or minus about 5,000 years, and is found on both sides of the Bering Strait. It is found in indigenous Native American populations along with Siberians and in some frequency, throughout all of Asia and in low frequencies, into Europe.

How do you find out more about your haplogroup, or if you really do match that other person who is C3? Test at Family Tree DNA. 23andMe is not in the business of testing individual markers. Their business focus is autosomal DNA and it’s various applications, medical and genealogical, and that’s it.

Y-DNA at Family Tree DNA

At Family Tree DNA, you can test STR markers at 12, 25, 37, 67 and 111 marker levels. Most people, today, begin with either 37 or 67 markers.

Of course, you receive your results in several ways at Family Tree DNA, Haplogroup Origins, Ancestral Origins, Matches Maps and Migration Maps, but what most people are most interested in are the individual matches to other people. These STR markers are great for genealogical matching. You can read about the difference between STR and SNP markers here.

When you take the Y test, Family Tree DNA also provides you with an estimated haplogroup. That estimate has proven to be very accurate over the years. They only estimate your haplogroup if you have a proven match to someone who has been SNP tested. Of course it’s not a deep haplogroup – in haplogroup R1b it will be something like R1b1a2. So, while it’s not deep, it’s free and it’s accurate. If they can’t predict your haplogroup using that criteria, they will test you for free. It’s called their SNP assurance program and it has been in place for many years. This is normally only necessary for unusual DNA, but, as a project administrator, I still see backbone tests being performed from time to time.

If you want to purchase SNP tests, in various formats, you can confirm your haplogroup and order deeper testing.

You can order individual SNP markers for about $39 each and do selective testing. On the screen below you can see the SNPs available to purchase for haplogroup C3 a la carte.

You can order the Geno 2.0 test for $199 and obtain a large number of SNPs tested, over 12,000, for the all-inclusive price. New SNPs discovered since the release of their chip in July of 2012 won’t be included either, but you can then order those a la carte if you wish.

Or you can go all out and order the new Big Y for $695 where all of your Y jellybeans, all 13.5 million of them in your Y DNA jar are individually looked at and evaluated. People who choose this new test are compared against a data base of more than 36,000 known SNPs and each person receives a list of “novel variants” which means individual SNPs never before discovered and not documented in the SNP data base of 36,000.

Don’t know which path to take? I would suggest that you talk to the haplogroup project administrator for the haplogroup you fall into. Need to know how to determine which project to join, and how to join? Click here. Haplogroup project administrators are generally very knowledgeable and helpful. Many of them are spearheading research into their haplogroup of interest and their knowledge of that haplogroup exceeds that of anyone else. Of course you can also contact Family Tree DNA and ask for assistance, you can purchase a Quick Consult from me, and you can read this article about comparing your options.

______________________________________________________________

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23 Ways To Be a PITA

Posted on March 16, 2014 by Roberta Estes

No, not PETA, the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, but PITA – Pain In The Arm….yes….arm…what are you thinking???

For most people, being a PITA doesn’t come naturally….so you might need some help knowing how to be one, or perhaps perfecting your PITA skills. Yes, in case you’re wondering….my tongue is firmly implanted in my cheek.

For genetic genealogists, there are special ways to be a PITA. Let me share some of these with you, just so you can fine tune and add to your PITA skills.

First and maybe the best ways to be a PITA, right off the bat.

1. Send e-mails with no subject or punctuation and an indecipherable topic, especially to someone you’ve never communicated with before. Here’s an example. You can just copy and paste this and send it to anyone you want to irritate or confuse.

“i would love to have any information you could give me…..thanks…..”

I so want to send this person something about penile implants. Is this wrong?

2. Send e-mails with no capitals or punctuations. This is always a wonderful way to impress people.

i just wanted to let you know that i have no idea how to type or how to use the period or comma keys or how to use the shift button i’m also using the fact that i’m using my phone as an excuse not to use punctuation however I can manage to type half of my life story for you to try to decipher so get out your special decoder ring

3. BETTER YET, SEND THE ENTIRE MESSAGE, INCLUDING SEVERAL PAGES OF YOUR ANCESTORS NAMES WITH NO DATES OR OTHER IDENTIFYING INFORMATION IN ALL CAPITALS. THEN ASK FOR ANY INFORMATION THAT PERSON MIGHT HAVE ABOUT THOSE ANCESTORS. THIS IS ESPECIALLY USEFUL WHEN FIRST INTRODUCING YOURSELF AND LETS YOUR NEW CONTACT KNOW JUST HOW IMPORTANT THEY ARE AND HOW MUCH FUN IT’S GOING TO BE TO COMMUNICATE WITH YOU.

4. When a match asks you for genealogy information, just send them a link to your Ancestry.com tree. You can then sit back and laugh, knowing that they have no idea where to search in your 35,723 people for a common ancestor without looking for every surname they have. Plus, you have the added benefit that Ancestry will help you be a PITA by attaching your tree to their account like a giant kudzu vine that they can’t disentangle without knowing the secret handshake.

5. When a match asks you for genealogy information, never, ever send them something actually useful, like a pedigree chart with an index. Instead send them rambling e-mails with disconnected tidbits from both sides of your family, or that link to your Ancestry tree. Go to sleep then, knowing they will be up all night trying to figure this out.

6. Ask for, or better yet, demand free consulting. Select someone at random (not me please, I already receive more than my share – 17 yesterday alone) and send them a rambling stream-of-consciousness e-mail several pages long. At the end, tell them that you can’t afford to pay anything, but ask if they would tell you “what they think.” Before sending these to anyone in the genetic genealogy community, send several to other professionals, physicians or lawyers in your community and see how that works out?

Now, if someone is a project volunteer, that’s a bit different. They still don’t “owe” you free consulting, but they have set themselves forth as a volunteer resource. Still, try to be respectful of their time and be brief and concise in your requests.

In other words, the 21 page e-mail I received this week from Person Unknown demanding that I, as a project administrator, figure out how the “requester” was related to three people in the large Cumberland Gap project (also persons unknown) was, well, ahem, a bit over the top, to put it mildly. No, I confess, I did not read all 21 pages and the only reason I know it WAS 21 pages long is because I wanted to use it as a bad example. If that was your e-mail and I’ve just offended you, well, I’m sorry you’re offended, but that is not the way to win friends and influence people, nor to get your questions answers or your problems solved. It is, however, a great way to be a PITA. In fact, you win this week’s PITA award!

Here’s an example of a reasonable, concise question from my blog:

“Thanks for that explanation, I needed that information. Still would like to know what a “back mutation” is.”

And the answer:

“A back mutation is when a mutations happens, like from A to C, and then the reverse happens, a mutation from C to A. It initially looks like no mutation happened, unless you are aware of the intermediate step and that two mutations actually happened.”

There’s a big difference between a simple one or two line general DNA question and a multi-page personal epistle that the receiver has to read three times and make charts to even begin to unravel or understand, so, to be a PITA – always make yourself annoying and then you can wonder why you never receive replies from people. Then complain about not receiving replies.

Oh, and if you do write to a project administrator, never, ever tell them how or why you are writing specifically to them – it’s much more fun to leave them guessing. The sender of the 21 page epistle did not SAY it was the Cumberland Gap project – they left that for me to decipher.

7. Skim articles, don’t click on the links, and then ask questions of the author that would have been answered if you had clicked on the links they provided in the first place. They love receiving several of these e-mails every day!

Now, if you have DNA tested at any of the three major testing companies, there special ways for you to be a PITA with each one. Let me give you some fresh ideas.

At Family Tree DNA

8. Join a DNA project, any project. Then, when the administrator sends you a welcome message, introducing themselves and asking for genealogy information, send them a nasty note. Here’s one I received recently. You can just use it.

“Who the hell are you and why are you contacting me. Don’t ever contact me again.”

9. Family Tree DNA does you the very large favor of providing you with the e-mail addresses of your contacts instead of forcing you to go through a message system like at 23andMe and Ancestry.

When sending an e-mail to someone you match, be sure to never include the name of the person you match, or what kind of a test you took that matches. This will confuse them and make them really want to answer your inquiry. Many people manage test kits for several people and if you don’t put the name of the person you match in your e-mail, they will probably think it’s their kit, and then they will either spend a lot of time looking for matches and/or putting together genealogy info to send to you that is not useful. Then, after you receive the info, tell them you’re sorry, but the match was to a different person. That will truly endear you to them.

10. Don’t ever update your e-mail address…then complain online and loudly about how you never receive contacts from either your project administrator or your contacts/matches.

11. Don’t upload your GEDCOM file either, because someone might accidentally discover a common surname match or a common ancestor, and that would be just awful. It would also provide Family Tree DNA with the information to bold matching surnames on your autosomal match list for you, AND you’d get a $10 coupon…all of which would be just terrible.

12. Volunteer to be a project administrator, then do nothing at all. Leave your project entirely ungrouped, and refuse any assistance. In this case, you really don’t have to DO anything to be a PITA.

Better yet, create an off-site (non-FTDNA) website instead of using the one at Family Tree DNA and remove any information that could be useful to someone searching for their ancestral line. Here’s an example.

Don’t want to create your own website? Well, you can be almost as large a PITA by using the Family Tree DNA page and simply disabling anything useful, like, you know, most distant ancestor. That way people can see that there is a project and their line MIGHT be hidden in there, but they have no way to find out other than contacting you. Then, don’t answer, of course.

At 23andMe

13. Give yourself a really innovative “screen name,” like, say “Your cousin” or “3^rd cousin” or better yet, “My Mother.” That way when you send contact requests or sharing requests to people, it looks like it is coming from their mother…and if their mother has already passed over…well…let’s just say your contact request could be really startling. Worse yet, if that person matches two people who are equally as creative and both named themselves “My Mother,” how will they ever tell you apart??? And can you really have two mothers? OMG, I feel an identity crisis coming on…

14. Tell your contact that you are really interested in genealogy, provide a little bit of genealogy info, just a couple tidbits, maybe a juicy morsel, but then refuse to share your DNA.

15. Don’t provide any surname or location information. That might give someone a clue as to how you connect – so don’t ever do that.

16. I’d tell you to never upload your GEDCOM file, or create one, but you can actually be a larger PITA by uploading your file at 23andMe, because their file reader interface works so poorly that your match will be more frustrated trying to read the file than by not finding one at all. So you can be a PITA whether you upload your file or not. How’s that for good luck!

17. Don’t ever reply to contact or sharing requests. I know this one is already quite popular. About 90% of the people there already do this, so you’ll be in good company. If people at 23andMe aren’t interested in genealogy, there is an opt-out, but don’t opt out because you can be much more of a PITA by leaving yourself in the genealogy pool but never replying to anyone, especially close matches. Drives them crazy!

At Ancestry

18. First and foremost, never, ever reply to messages. I know that this one is very popular, because many of my DNA matches, including my closest match at Ancestry has implemented this scheme. She, I assume, due to the name (unless I’m related to the boy named Sue) and I share a common great-grandfather. In this case, I have photos she might really like to have. Too bad she is being a PITA.

19. Make your tree private, AND never reply to requests. This is the ultimate tease, because your match KNOWS the information is there, right there, hiding just out of reach, and can’t get to it.

20. Copy and paste several trees together because, after all, the names match and, hello, it wouldn’t BE on Ancestry if it wasn’t RIGHT. Right? You can then scare the bejesus out of someone when they discover that their non-Mormon grandfather had 7 wives and 35 kids….all while married to their grandmother. That’s always fun. Then, when they frantically contact you to ask about it, don’t even think about replying to that message.

21. Insist that because you and your Ancestry DNA match have a shakey leaf and a common ancestor in your tree, that you KNOW that’s your DNA match because Ancestry SAYS SO. When your match tries to explain that connection might be incorrect, may not be your DNA match and that there is no way to prove it, at least not without utilizing tools from either GedMatch or Family Tree DNA, don’t reply to them anymore. That will certainly solve the problem!

22. Send random people invitations to your Ancestry tree – and be positive your tree name has absolutely no identifying words in it. Like the one I received recently, for example, named “A Global Tree of Life.” Yep, I can tell you right away who sent that to me and why!!!

23. Oh yes, and in true PITA-esque fashion, never, ever say “Thank you,” to anyone, ever, for anything. Thank you is such an easy thing to say and it makes the person on the receiving end feel good about whatever it was they did for you – even if was “just” answering your question. So don’t slip up and do this! Otherwise, you’ll certainly be thrown out of the PITA Club!

Added PITAs

24. Instead of being grateful for free things, like blogs and webpages, and simply unsubscribing or ignoring them if you don’t like them, make nasty comments. That will certainly confirm your PITA membership and make the person providing the free content feel warm and fuzzy about the time they invest.

“How about I unsubscribe to your boring emails about your family I have been getting the last year. Ms PITA.”

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What If You Die?

Posted on January 28, 2014 by Roberta Estes

Well, it’s not exactly a what-if question, it’s a given. You’re going to. The only real question is when, and will you be prepared?

By prepared, I’m not talking about your will, I’m talking about your DNA.

The unspeakable happened this past weekend. A long time researcher and close friend, Aleda, died, rather unexpectedly. She has been chronically ill for some time, but not critically. On Saturday, she read my blog and worked with her research group on the Autosomal DNA Segment Analyzer. Then, in the afternoon, she said she didn’t feel well and got into her chair to take a nap. Nothing unusual about that. Aleda didn’t feel well a lot, but she persevered anyway, always helping and guiding her research group. But this time was different. Aleda was gone.

Her research group is wandering around like a group of lost souls. It’s like someone shot a hole through the middle of all of us. This isn’t a large well organized group with an official structure, but a small group of closely and not so closely related researchers trying to figure out their DNA and genealogy connections.

If you are a significant contributor, you will be sorely missed. If you are reading this, and have had your DNA tested, you are one of the contributors.

The research group members are already asking, “What next? How do we access the DNA records of the people Aleda had tested?” Good question. Let’s talk about preparing for the inevitable.

Aleda had given the kit passwords to a friend, who is now so upset she can’t find them. As the project administrator of one of the projects that includes one of Aleda’s family member’s kits, I can see some of the information.

E-Mail

I can see that Aleda set up a special DNA e-mail address which I’m presuming she used for all of the kits. Unfortunately, there is no alternate e-mail address.

When Family Tree DNA, and virtually all the companies, do a password reset, they send the password information to the e-mail address on file.

Does anyone, other than Aleda, have the password to that e-mail account?

Project administrators cannot change primary e-mail addresses. Only the kit owner can do that.

If you change your password to your e-mail account, you’ll need to remember to provide the new password to your trusted other as well.

Passwords

If you share your password with someone, that’s fine, but if they can’t find it, or if you change it and don’t tell them, that won’t be helpful. You might want to add their e-mail as an alternate. You might want to provide this information to multiple people, just in case your chosen person predeceases you, or some other unfortunate situation exists, like a fire, system crash or losing the passwords.

At 23andMe, to download a raw data file, a password isn’t enough. You also have to know the answer to the secret question.

Beneficiary Information

Family Tree DNA goes one step further and provides people with a beneficiary form for situations just like this.

Unfortunately, Aleda’s family member’s form is blank, and she protected his information by changing the setting to prevent project administrators from completing this form.

Covering all the Bases

Don’t forget about 3^rd party sites like GedMatch where you may also be registered.

What to do?

1. Family Tree DNA is the only company to provide the option of beneficiary information. Take advantage of this and complete the form. It’s only 3 lines – name, phone and e-mail of your beneficiary. You can find it under the “My Account” tab on the blue/black bar at the top of your personal page.

2. Add an alternate e-mail address.

3. Provide password and e-mail password information to a trusted other, and maybe a few trusted others.

4. Remember to notify password holders when you change passwords to either e-mail or DNA kits.

5. If you are a project administrator, try your best to find a co-administrator and share information, such as genealogy provided by participants.

6. Provide a notification list for your family that includes important genealogy and DNA contacts, including Family Tree DNA if you are a project administrator. Many times I’ve received an e-mail from someone’s account with their name as the subject. I’ve learned to cringe when I see them, because I know what’s coming…but at least the family has taken the trouble to notify those of us who communicate electronically with that person instead of leaving us to wonder forever what happened.

7. Preparing for the inevitable doesn’t just apply to DNA testing, but to all aspects of online life. Think about Facebook, for example. My brother died 2 years ago, today, and no one has his password. We post to his page from time to time, but like a ghost ship, his Facebook account will sail off into the indefinite captainless future.

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Disclosure

Thank you so much.

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