Wherefore Art Thou, Oh Ancestor? – New Generation Tree Chart Suggests Where to Look in Your Matches’ Trees

Posted on August 2, 2025 by Roberta Estes

When you see a DNA match, do you wonder how far back in your trees your common ancestors live? How do you know where to search?

I’ve been working through my DNA match list person by person, reviewing the information and trees for each match, searching for common ancestors.

Whether you’re looking at individual matches, shared matches, clusters or triangulation groups, trees are essential for finding common ancestors.

My favorite vendor-provided tree is my MyHeritage tree. They’ve done a great job, so I’m using their tree for my examples today.

Here’s the question I’m trying to answer – based on how much DNA I share with someone, how far up that person’s tree, roughly, do I need to look for our most recent common ancestor? And, is there something else I can tell?

Tree Size Matters aka How Far Up the Tree Do I Need to Look?

So, if you click on your matches’ trees, how far up their tree do you need to look for a common ancestor? How many times will you need to click to expand their tree beyond the 4 (Ancestry) or 5 (MyHeritage) generations initially displayed, assuming your match has a tree that size? How far out, meaning how many generations do you need to hope and pray they have extended their tree?

Conversely, how many generations do YOU need to include for your tree to be useful for:

Other testers to find common ancestors with you
Theories of Family Relativity provided by MyHeritage, suggesting common ancestors with other testers
ThruLines at Ancestry
Family Matching (bucketing) at FamilyTreeDNA which assigns your matches either maternally or paternally. (Note – FamilyTreeDNA is transitioning their trees to the MyHeritage platform.)

If you’re thinking that the size of YOUR tree doesn’t matter, think again.

Not only can the vendors not help you effectively without a tree – genealogy is a collaborative sport. Other people NEED the generations in your tree to locate your common ancestors, just like you NEED to see as many generations in their tree as possible. The vendors NEED as complete a tree as you can provide to help you further.

DNA+Trees Bulldoze Brick Walls

But maybe the most important aspect is that you NEED trees to break through brick walls – especially in conjunction with DNA and tools like clustering that show you visual images of genetic commonality.

We all need to be team players when we have that option – meaning we know who are ancestors are. Our brick walls can be solved, and you can be a puzzle piece of solving brick walls for others too.

Some of my closest friends and cousins are a direct result of DNA matches and genealogy collaboration over the years. (You know who you are!) I’ve even discovered that several friends are cousins too – which I would never have happened without DNA and trees.

Guidelines for What’s Reasonable

What is a reasonable number of generations to peruse for common ancestors?

The answer is – it depends! (I’m sorry…)

Let’s sort through this.

Given that, on AVERAGE, inherited autosomal DNA from a particular ancestor is halved in each successive generation during recombination between the parents, we can calculate the expected average. However, in reality – DNA isn’t always halved. Sometimes segments are passed intact, divided but not in half, or not inherited at all. That’s why you may not match some third cousins, but match some 7^th cousins. Random recombination is, in fact, random.

Every segment has its own individual history.

That’s part of the reason we use triangulation, to confirm that a specific segment originated with a particular couple or ancestral line.

Here are a few rules of thumb, with links to articles that explain the various terms and concepts:

There are no known instances of second cousins or closer NOT matching.
Some (but not all) people find their common ancestor in the first 5 or 6 generations.
Many people have proven, triangulated matches to the 10^th generation, but those are more difficult to prove, often due to incomplete trees (brick walls) at that distance on either your side, your match’s side, or both. I have no brick walls at 5 generations, counting my parents as generation 1, but I have 6 female brick walls in the 6th generation.
If you’re lucky, you can spot your common ancestral surname on the first page of your match’s tree – and follow that line back. Note that there may be additional common ancestors, so view each of their lines to the end. The MyHeritage tree makes this super easy!
Pedigree collapse, where you, and/or the other person share multiple lines, known or unknown, is a complicating factor. Pedigree collapse often means you share more DNA than would be expected for a specific relationship.
Endogamy, which is pedigree collapse on steroids, is real and will cause many smaller matches.
Based on the number of distant versus close cousins you have, you will have MANY more smaller matches than larger ones.
And last, but not least, some matches, especially smaller ones, are identical by chance (IBC), not identical by descent (IBD).

All of that said, we can estimate the number of generations back in our matches’ trees where we might need to look for that common ancestor.

As I’ve been reviewing all of my matches, I realized that I can look at the match cM size and mentally size up just about where in their tree I will find our common ancestor. In essence, I’ve “bottled that” for you, here.

Using Trees Effectively

One of the reasons I love the MyHeritage tree is that as you need to click further back in trees beyond the generations initially displayed, which occurs often – the next generations open to the right, the earlier generations just shift left and they all remain visible.

I know that might not sound important, but it is – incredibly – especially when you’re evaluating several matches. Otherwise, it’s easy to lose track of where you are in someone’s tree. I have 9 generations open, above, and I can just keep going – with the more recent generations just shifting left.

But there’s more!

When viewing matches’ trees, I can also click on anyone in their tree, and a profile box opens to the left with additional information about that person, leaving the tree open so I don’t lose my place and have to click around to find it again. I can’t even begin to tell you how wonderful this is, and it’s unique to MyHeritage. You can tell the MyHeritage tree was designed by actual genealogists.

This feature is incredibly useful because many, if not most, of the common ancestors with your matches will be beyond the first page displayed.

Thank you, thank you, MyHeritage!!!

Estimating the Number of Generations by the Amount of Shared DNA

How far up the tree you’ll need to look can be estimated by the amount of DNA that you share with a particular match.

Vendors estimate the relationship of DNA matches by either the percentage of shared DNA or the number of shared centimorgans (cMs), but there’s no quick reference to show you, generationally, where to focus in you and your matches’ trees for your common ancestor.

That’s the handy reference Generation Tree Chart that I’ve created here.

In the article, Shared cM Project 2020 Analysis, Comparison and Handy Reference Charts, I compiled information from multiple sources into one chart detailing HOW MUCH DNA can be expected to be shared at various relationship levels. Shared cM Project information is also visualized at DNAPainter

What I need to know now, though, isn’t an estimate of how closely we are related, but how many generations back to look for our common ancestor in my and their trees.

As I’m clicking through my matches, the majority, by far, are smaller than larger. That makes sense, of course, because we have many more distant relatives than close relatives.

At FamilyTreeDNA, I have 8758 matches who are not immediate or close family.

Number of Matches	Relationship Range	cM Range
10	Half-1C and 1C1R	318-637 cM
4	2C and equivalent	159-318 cM
7	Between 2C-3C, such as half-2C	80-159 cM
79	3C and equivalent	40-80 cM
814	3C-4C and equivalent	20-40 cM
7548	4C and equivalent	9-20 cM
293	Below 4C and equivalent	7-9 cM

I know the people in the first two categories and some of the people in the third category, but the genetic/ancestral scavenger hunt begins there.

All Cousins Are Not Equivalent

You’re probably wondering about the word “equivalent.” Genetically, people of different relationships carry the same amount of expected DNA. We not only have 5^th cousins (5C), for example, we have:

Half-fifth-cousins
Fifth-cousins-once-removed (5C1R)
Fifth-cousins-twice-removed (5C2R)
And so forth

I wrote about determining cousin relationships, meaning halves and removed,here.

Genetically speaking, a 5C2R carries the same expected amount of shared DNA as a 6C, so they are functional equivalents. How do we resolve this and where do we look in our trees for our common ancestors?

I’m so glad you asked!

Where Do Various Cousin Levels Fall in My Tree?

We know that first cousins share grandparents, but as we get further back in our tree, it’s difficult to remember or calculate how many generations back a 6^th cousin is in our tree.

I’ve used my MyHeritage tree to display 1st through 10th cousins, labeled in red, and the generation number they represent, in black. So, my common ancestors with my second cousins are found 3 generations out in my tree.

Making things more challenging, however, is that unless we know the match already, we’re trying to figure out how closely the match is actually related to us based on their DNA. Not all cousins of any level share the same amount of DNA, so the best vendors can do is provide an estimate or relationship range.

To determine our actual relationship, we need to find our most recent common ancestor.

Where, approximately, in my tree would I look for each category of match, especially that huge group of 7548 people?

Good question!

The Generation Tree Chart is Born

I needed a quick reference for approximately how many generations back in time our common ancestors existed by how much DNA we share, so I know how far back in someone’s tree I need to look.

I’ve reorganized the data from my earlier articles and created a new resource.

The Generation Tree Chart

The Generation Tree Chart:

Is not meant to identify parents or close relatives.
Does not include parents or grandparents.
Counts your parents as generation 1. Some people count themselves as generation 1. If you’re discussing this table, keep in mind that you may be one generation “off” in your discussions with someone who counts differently.
This chart clusters the relationships according to color, based on how much DNA people of that relationship are expected to share. For example, a first-cousin-twice-removed (1C2R) shares the same expected amount of DNA with you as a second-cousin (2C).
All cousin relationships that are expected to share the same amount of DNA are in the same color band.
If you’re using this chart with Ancestry’s numbers, use the unweighted (pre-Timber) amount of DNA.

The colored bands correlate to shared DNA, but the shared ancestor isn’t necessarily the same generation back in time.

This is my “show your work” chart. You’ll notice a few things.

The “Avg % Shared” column is the amount of shared DNA expected based on a 50% division (recombination) in each generation, which almost never happens exactly.
The “Expected cM” column is the expected cM amount based a 50% division in each generation.
I’ve incorporated the DNAPainter mean, low and high range for each relationship.
The expected number of shared cMs, in the “Expected cM” column is almost always smaller than the “cM Mean” from DNAPainter. The mean is the midpoint reported in the Shared cM Project for all respondents of that relationship who reported their shared DNA – minus the outliers.

This fact that reported is often significantly higher than expected is particularly interesting. In the closer generations, it doesn’t really matter, but beginning about the 6^th blue band and the 7^th red band in the chart, the mean is often twice the expected amount.

Remember that DNAPainter numbers are based on the Shared cM Project which relies on user-reported relationships and their associated cM match amounts. You can view Blaine Bettinger’s paper about the most recent Shared cM Project version (2020) and his methodologies here.

My theory is that the more distantly people match, the less likely they are to report the relationship accurately. They may be reporting the relationship they believe to be accurate, life a full versus a half cousin, but that’s not actually the case. It’s also possible that there are multiple unknown relationships or pedigree collapse, or both.

Furthermore, from the red band to the end of the chart, the reported amounts are significantly higher than expected, which is probably a function, in part, of “all or nothing” segment transmission. In other words, if someone’s parent carries a 10 cM segment, you’re probably going to inherit all of it or none of it. If it’s actually divided to 5 and 5 cM, you’re not going to see it on any match list.

In my case, I have several 8 cM triangulated matches who descend from common Dodson ancestors whose descendants intermarried a couple of generations later. Therefore, these matches are, respectively, both my 6C2R and 7C3R from the same line (20 cM total match), two matches at 6C1R (66 cM and 19 cM), and one 6C (51 cM). These people also triangulate on multiple segments. Given the high amount of shared DNA for this relationship level, I suspect additional pedigree collapse someplace. At least one person also matches on an unrelated line that I never realized before doing this match-by-match analysis, which opens up new possibilities.

Next, the meat of this chart.

The “Generations Back in Tree” column shows where your common ancestor with someone in that cousin generation would be expected. For example, in the first three bands, all of the first cousin variants are found two generations back, and your grandparents are your common ancestors.

All of the 2C variants descend through great-grandparents, which are 3 generations back in your tree.

Plase note that you can easily find the amount of DNA that you share with a match in the “Expected cM” and “Mean” Columns, and look to the right to see the Generations Back in Tree.

For example, if I have a match where I share 20 cM of DNA, I’m going to be looking between the red band and the second white band. The generations back in tree range from 4-6, or the common ancestor could potentially be further back. In other words, if I’m lucky, I’ll spot common ancestors on the first tree page displayed, but I may well need to display additional generations.

The “Common Ancestors” column displays the common ancestor with anyone in that cousin generation. So, anyone in any variation of 3C shares great-great-grandparents with you.
“How Many” shows how many great-great-grandparents you have – 8.

Color Bands and Generations

Color bands represent the same amount of expected DNA, but the various relationships that are included in those bands represent at least two different “Generations Back in Tree.”

For example, looking at the green band, the half 1C3R will be found in the grandparents generation, or generation 2, the 2C2R and half 2C1R are in the great-grandparents, or generation 3, and the 3C is found in the great-great-grandparents, or generation 4.

Where I really needed this chart, though, was in the more distant generations. While we are clearly dealing with a range, if I see a match with 11 or 12 cM, our common ancestor is nearly always at least 6 generations out, and often more.

The Net-Net of This Exercise

The majority of my matches, 7548, fall into the red band of 9-20 cM, which should be the 4^th or 5^th generation, either great-great or GGG-grandparents, but in reality, common ancestors will often be found more distantly in matches’ trees.

Most of your matches will be 20 cM or below, meaning they are at least 4/5 generations distant, or further – which translates to NOT the first tree page displayed. This why using the MyHeritage tree is so convenient, because when you click to the next generations, they just open and it’s VERY easy to quickly click and expand every generation with no back-clicking needed. Tip – when viewing profile cards for their ancestors, be sure to note locations which are important hints too. You can also click to “research this person.”

If your match doesn’t have a tree developed to at least 5 generations, it’s unlikely that you will be able to find a common ancestor for someone with less than a 20 cM match. However, all is not lost because you may recognize a surname, and if you build out the tree for your match, you may find your common ancestor. I build out my matches’ trees often! (Yes, it’s painful and irritating, but just do it! After all, we’re genealogists. We got this.)

For people with smaller cM matches, you may be looking even further out. I have some solid triangulated matches with multiple people at 6 and 7 generations..

The further out in time, the more triangulated people you need to be confident that your common ancestor who contributed that segment is identified correctly. At that distance, most people will have dead end lines and brick walls, probably yourself included.

However, my research methodology has the potential to break through brick walls.

Brick Walls Breakers

When I’m working on match and triangulation clusters, not only am I looking for MY known ancestors, I’m also looking for common surnames, or more specifically, common ancestors between my matches trees.

In some cases, common ancestors only mean that I’m viewing first cousins to each other, but in other cases, those common ancestors between my matches, but not me, MAY POINT DIRECTLY TO A MISSING BRICK WALL ancestor of mine.

Another hint that this might be the case is when the shared cMs seem high relative to how far back your common identified ancestor is in your tree – which is the case with my Dodson cluster. There may be a second relationship obscured there, especially if they match each other more “normally” and it’s only my matches that are higher than expected with multiple people in this cluster.

Research Methodology

If you’re wondering how I approach this process, I use a spreadsheet organized by triangulation cluster because everyone in a triangulation cluster matches each other on a particular segment. This means that the triangulated segment comes from a common ancestor (or is idencal by chance.) Each match has it’s own row in the cluster on my spreadsheet.

This spreadsheet could also be organized by shared match or matrix cluster, but I prefer smaller triangulation clusters where everyone matches each other and me on the same segment – because it points to ONE shared souce of the DNA – meaning one ancestor or ancestral couple.

I downloaded my match list at FamilyTreeDNA where I can see which matches are assigned either maternally or paternally based on identified, linked relationships, and who matches on the same segments. I used that spreadsheet as the foundation of this spreadsheet, but I could also add people who match on that segment and triangulate from other vendors who provide matching segment information, such as MyHeritage.

Using my Dodson example group, this group of people above, on my father’s side, hence the blue color, also triangulates on other segments. Other clusters are significantly larger, with around 50 cluster members.

One person, JA, descends from Dodson cousins who intermarried, which is pedigree collapse, so they may carry more Dodson/Durham DNA than they would otherwise.

If someone has a small tree, I often use traditional genealogy resources to expand their tree if I recognize a surname.

I track my other ancestors’ surnames that I notice in their trees, which provides a clue for additional ancestors. Of course, common surnames sometimes aren’t useful. However, one match, JC, found in this group is a proven Crumley line cousin who has colonial Virginia ancestors, but no prior knowledge of a Dodson/Durham line – so this could be a HUGE hint for one of JC’s brick walls.

This example cluster from my mother’s side includes my mother, who I haven’t listed, and also RM, a known second cousin who I tested. Based on his known common ancestors with me, I know immediately that these segment matches all track to John David Miller and Margaret Elizabeth Lentz, or beyond. Sure enough DW has a tree where our common ancestor is David Miller, father of John David Miller, and TK is related to DW based on an obituary. So far, we know this segment originated with David Miller and his wife, Catherine Schaeffer, but we don’t know if the segment originated with the Miller or Schaeffer parent.

One additional cluster member shows a Cyrus Miller out of Pennsylvania and my initial attempt at extending their tree using WikiTree, MyHeritage and Ancestry to find a common ancestor was not fruitful, but a deep dive might well produce more, or the common ancestor could reach back into Europe.

As new people test and match, I can add them to the spreadsheet in the clusters where they fit.

Summary Generation Tree Chart

Here’s a summary version of the Generation Tree Chart for you to use, without the cM high and low ranges, and without the red boxes. This is the one I use the most.

Here’s the full chart, including the ranges, but with no red boxes.

The Bottom Line

To derive the most benefit, we all need to develop our trees as far as possible, and share with others. A rising tide lifts all ships!

It’s impossible to identify common ancestors without trees, which means it’s also impossible to use genetic genealogy to break through brick walls.

Please check your trees at the various vendors, if you have multiple trees, and at WikiTree, to be sure you’ve added your most distant known ancestor in each line.

Link your known relatives to their position in your tree at FamilyTreeDNA, which allows them to triangulate behind the scenes and assign (bucket) your matches either maternally or paternally on your match list.

What new information is waiting for you in your matches? Do you have brick walls that need to fall?

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RootsTech 2025 – The Year of Discover and the New Mitotree

Posted on March 15, 2025 by Roberta Estes

Last week, RootsTech was a whirlwind and full of discoveries – which, ironically, was the 2025 theme.

I always take you along with me and share the RootsTech experience, start to finish, so here’s my 2025 “feet on the ground” report.

I might, just might, have overcommitted myself. I taught the half-day DNA Academy, three more sessions, plus several other commitments such as book signings, get-togethers, and interviews.

One class, “DNA for Native American Genealogy,” was a live webinar from the floor of the expo hall. You can watch that here for free, if you’re interested.

Unfortunately, none of my other sessions were recorded, but I’ll see what other alternative options may be available to bring those to you.

Additionally, I did two book signings at the GenealogyBank booth, along with two other authors, Drew Smith and Sunny Morton. I’m sorry, I don’t have any pictures. I should have asked someone to take some.

There were long lines and books sold out. Still, you can order either of my books, The Complete Guide to FamilyTreeDNA – Y-DNA, Mitochondrial, Autosomal and X-DNA or DNA for Native American Genealogy, at Genealogical.com. Thank you to GenealogyBank for being so welcoming.

The book signing was particularly fun because people shared their success stories or their hopes of what they want to achieve. I met a couple of new cousins too! Even people waiting in line were helping each other with information about research resources.

I had created my “RootsTech plan” for sessions I wanted to attend, but I was only able to actually attend one of those. Several were happening at the same time as mine, or directly before or after. As a presenter, you arrive early to get set up and make sure everything is working correctly.

Then, after your session, attendees have questions and are interested in your topic, which is a good thing. So essentially, you can’t attend sessions either before or after your session either.

Before I share photos, I’d like to share something else.

It’s About the People

I have never attended RootsTech for the classes, although there are wonderful offerings – and I have enjoyed them immensely.

Having said that, for me, the best part of RootsTech is the people. People I know and love but never get to see – many of whom I met in-person at RootsTech initially. I get to meet my blog followers. I meet with or reconnect with friends and cousins from around the world. I am privileged to talk with people about their challenges and their victories – when they’ve broken through a brick wall using DNA that they could never have otherwise achieved. People collaborating and helping each other. It’s all beautiful.

The reason I started blogging in the first place, and the reason all 1750 articles are free, is because I wanted to help people do just that – confirm ancestors, find ancestors, and connect with their fsmily.

My cousins that I’ve met through genealogy are some of my closest friends and closest family members. Outliving everyone is a mixed blessing but it makes me extremely grateful for my various cousins since all of my siblings and close family, with the exception of the next generation, have transitioned to the land of the ancestors.

So, yea, for me, RootsTech is about connecting and reconnecting with the people.

That’s also why I never get anything done because I’m always talking with someone.

Additionally, this particular RootsTech was a celebration.

Mitotree Release

Just a few days before RootsTech, the Million Mito Team at FamilyTreeDNA released the brand new Mitotree, 5 years in the making, reconstructing the tree of humankind to reflect our combined heritage more accurately.

At RootsTech 2020, I was honored to announce the Million Mito Project, and the new Mitotree initiative was born.

At some point, I will write about the deep, personal significance of the Mitotree for me, but for now, suffice it to say that there is something profoundly moving about rewriting the tree of humankind and in doing so, giving a voice to our ancestors from long ago. Yes, I know many of them are thousands or even tens of thousands of years old, but had they not survived, we would not be here today. Now we can identify who they are and that they lived.

Million Mito Team, left to right, Goran Runfeldt, Dr. Paul Maier, me, Dr. Miguel Vilar, Bennett Greenspan, John Detsikas

Our amazing Dream Team has given life to our ancestors and said their names once again, even if their name is a mitochondrial DNA haplogroup. Four team members, Goran, Paul, me and Bennett were at RootsTech. Where else can you actually approach and speak with the actual scientists?

When I say RootsTech is about the people, I know that I am related to every single individual at RootsTech, it’s just a matter of how far back in time. So are you.

Just think about the significance of that for a minute.

Every. Single. Person.

The other end of the mitochondrial DNA spectrum is genealogy, of course, and the new Mitotree with it’s haplotype clusters brings mitochondrial DNA results into the genealogical timeframe. In future articles, I’ll be writing about each one of the new tools, what they mean, and how to use them.

Dr. Paul Maier, lead scientist doing most of the hard science behind Mitotree, had the much-deserved honor of introducing the Mitotree to genealogists at RootsTech.

I’m not sure the audience understood they were witnessing history unfold, but they clearly were. We needed a drum roll and some balloons!

This wasn’t like most vendor announcements of a new product or feature – this was a major scientific achievement that led to genealogical benefits.

In celebration, I asked my friend to make double helix zipper pulls so that I could give them to colleagues, friends and cousins that I ran into at RootsTech. It’s my way of celebrating and sharing the joy!

Five years is a very long time to work on a project. The Mitotree is a massive accomplishment. Every customer at FamilyTreeDNA who has taken the full sequence test received their new haplogroup either the week before or during RootsTech, AND, the second updated version of the tree was released too.

While this is truly wonderful, the true highlight is the testimonials – seeing how Mitotree is actually helping people break through their brick walls.

Here’s just one.

Breathless Testimonial

I’m going to try to convey this exactly as it happened.

A lady that I don’t know literally runs up to me in the hallway. This isn’t unusual. She was so excited that what she said was one long breathless sentence, which I’m going to try to reconstruct here, although I’m adding a bit of punctuation. I also can’t remember how many “greats” were attached to the “grandmother,” but you’ll get the idea.

Roberta, Roberta, I’m so excited – I just wanted to let you know – I found my ancestor using mitochondrial DNA. I got my new haplogroup and I had like 47 matches before but now they are clustered together so I could focus…and there were three matches in my cluster…and one of them had an EKA but the other didn’t…so I built out the EKA matches’ tree and guess what??? They were from the same place and then I found that her great-great-grandmother’s sister is my great-great-grandmother but she had her surname so now I have more generations too. OMG I ‘m so excited I could never have broken through this wall without mtDNA because I had no surname. This is THE MOST CONSEQUENTIAL DNA TEST I’VE EVER TAKEN, and I’ve taken them all. Thank you, thank you!

And with that she quickly hugged me and ran off to something she was obviously late for.

I never got to say one word, which was fine, but I stood there with tears in my eyes, thinking to myself, “This – this is what it’s all about.”

It doesn’t get better than this!

I want to hear your stories too. I just scaled my fourth brick wall last night using the new Mitotree and mtDNA Discover features.

RootsTech Week

RootsTech week started early for me – as in leaving the house at 3 AM Sunday. I fly on Sunday because the flights are cheaper and because the pre-conference meetings and events begin on Monday.

We took off into the dawn, jetting our way westward through the azure blue sky.

I have never gotten over the majesty and beauty of the Rocky Mountains.

And then, of course, the Great Salt Lake, for which Salt Lake City is named.

Looking at the Salt Palace across the street from the Marriott hotel. The silver building is the new Hyatt which is attached to the conference center behind the windmills which extends another very long block to the right, out of view. The mountain range is visible in the distance, and the beautiful sunset.

Speaking of the Marriott hotel, several people have asked if it was any better this year, and if I got trapped in the fire exit again, like last year.

No, I didn’t get stuck because I didn’t tempt fate again. It looked just the same though, so I’m presuming nothing has changed. Furthermore, there was no heat in my room, so they gave me a space heater and a pass to the concierge level – which they did not do last year.

That was kind of them, but food ran out, and there was only one poor server in the restaurant. I’m not even going to mention the nauseating thing that happened with my food. Let’s just say I’m not picky, but I will NEVER eat there again, and that makes it particularly difficult because there’s very little close by, especially when you’re exhausted.

I’m hoping that RootsTech will negotiate someplace different for speakers in the future. I’ve stayed in a lot of Marriotts and most of them are just fine. I have never had issues like this with any of them, let alone repeat issues year after year.

The good news is that we’re not there for the hotel, and the fun began on Monday.

Monday

My interviews began on Monday morning with “Mondays with Myrt” at the FamilySearch Library, which you can view here beginning about 16 minutes.

Mondays with Myrt is a RootsTech tradition and Myrt incorporates people present in person and tuning in virtually as well. Left to right, Kirsty Gray from England, John Tracy Cunningham, me and Myrt. Kirsty had a huge breakthrough that she shared with us just a few minutes after it happened.

I met John at the ECGGS Conference last October. He’s one of the few people I know whose 8 great-grandparents were born in the same county. I’m so jealous. Mine were either born in or first generation immigrants from four countries.

Sometimes the broadcast waiting area is just as much fun as the actual broadcast – in part because it’s the first day of RootsTech week and everyone is so excited to see their friends that they haven’t seen in forever. Call is a reunion!

Do Kirsty Gray and I look like we’re about to get into mischief?

Behind me is the first group of folks to be interviewed.

Pat Richley-Erickson, aka Myrt, Cheryl Hudson Passey, Laura Wilkinson Hedgecock, and Jenny Horner Hawran.

This is the livestream room at the FamilySearch Library. The waiting area for the next group is to the right, and the three presently being interviewed are sitting on the left beside Myrt.

For those who know Gordon, aka Mr. Myrt, he’s coordinating interviewees outside the livestream room. His job is herding cats and he’s the nicest cat-herder you’ll ever meet!

Pre-RootsTech Library Research

I love the FamilySearch Library. It feels like coming home to me.

So many passionate genealogists at every level – learning and searching. Lots of volunteer helpers available, too.

Normally, I create a research plan for the library, but I had been so utterly slammed between preparing my several RootsTech sessions and the Mitotree release that I hadn’t really been able to prepare anything.

I did, however, have a group of ancestors in mind that settled in the Oley Valley in Pennsylvania, so I decided to focus on the Berks County books.

I won’t bore you with the details, but among other things, I found confirmation that the Hoch surname is also the same as High and Hoy, which explains some very confusing Y-DNA results. So even though I didn’t get much productive time there, I did find something very useful in the land records.

I also ran into cousins and friends, of course, which is why I didn’t get more actual research done.

I knew Judy Nimer Muhn, at left, was going to be at RootsTech as a speaker, and I knew we connected through Acadian lines, but we never took the time to really piece together that puzzle.

My cousins, Mark and Manny were also coming for RootsTech, and to visit the library, for the first time. Mark, Manny and I visited Nova Scotia together in the summer of 2024, chasing our ancestors.

You know, fate is a funny thing.

We all descend from Acadian, Francois Savoie who was born about 1621 in France, but settled in Acadia, today’s Nova Scotia. Mark, Manny and I knew that we are cousins through Francois, but Judy and I did not. Mark, Manny and I ran into a local historian, Charlie Thibodeau, the Acadian Peasant, last year, outside of Port Royal. It just so happened that he was taking another couple to see the remains of the Savoie homestead deep in the salt marshes at BelleIsle.

We asked if we could join them, and Charlie was kind enough to include us. It was a long, brutally hot, tick-infested hike through the swamp, but oh so worth it!

We also found the well, located between three homesteads.

The year before, Judy had been in the same place in Nova Scotia, found the same man, Charlie, at the BelleIsle Hall Acadian Cultural Centre, and he had taken her to the remains of the same homestead.

And here we all four are in Utah.

What are the chances?

Needless to say, we had a LOT to talk about, and still do. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get to Judy’s talk, but Mark and Manny attended.

I ran into Katy Rowe-Schurwanz, the FamilyTreeDNA Product Manager at the library too, and look what she’s wearing – a mitochondrial DNA scarf. How cool is that!

The rest of Tuesday and most of Wednesday morning were spent trying to update my several presentations to reflect newly released information by various vendors and practicing the timing of the presentations. I had another interview, and more people were arriving.

I found time to visit Eva’s Bakery about 3 blocks from the Salt Palace. If you’re ever in Salt Lake City, Eva’s is a must! Lunch is wonderful, and so are their French pastries.

Wednesday is “tech prep” day at RootsTech, along with speaker instructions and then the Speaker Dinner.

Steve Rockwood, President and CEO of FamilySearch always delivers an inspirational message and this year did not disappoint.

If you’ve wondered about RootsTech conference stats, they provided this information. I can’t even imagine trying to coordinate all of this – and that’s not including the vendors, expo hall, technology in the presentation rooms, food, security and so much more.

Last year, in 2024, the final attendance numbers were more than 16,000 people in person and 4 million virtual attendees. I noticed a few days ago that there were more than half a million people participating in Relatives at RootsTech, which is still live until April 12^th.

On Wednesday evening, after the Speaker’s Dinner, vendors in the Expo Hall were putting the final touches on their booths and preparing for the thousands of excited genealogists who would descend Thursday morning.

Discover

This year’s RootsTech theme was “discover” and attendees were greeted with this display just inside the door.

Attendees listed their discoveries on Post-its and could either post them on the board or plastic boxes, or on the green tree.

I placed my discovery from the day before at the library on the Rootstech tree.

Some people place their wishes here, kind of like a technology wishing well.

I couldn’t help but think of the new Mitotree, now forever green and growing, so I posted a second discovery, “Mitotree.”

Thursday – Opening Day

For those who don’t know, the Salt Palace Convention Center is two lengthy blocks long, a block wide, and two or three stories high, depending on whether you are in the front or rear portion. In other words, it’s massive and you need a map!

The huge Expo Hall with vendors is located in the center on the first floor and vendors have aisle addresses. The show floor is always very busy, and this year was no exception. One of the things I love is that spontaneous conversations just spring up between people who often find commonalities – common ancestors, common locations, and more. People compliment each other and join others at tables. It’s like a big family gathering of sorts.

I always try to walk the entire Expo Hall, because I really enjoy seeing the vendors and their wares, but this year, I never actually had enough time to traverse all the aisles. I took several pictures as I was passing through and running into people, but not nearly enough. I know I missed a lot, but there just wasn’t enough time and I arrived at RootsTech already tired.

However, the energy of RootsTech is like no place else and just infects you.

It’s like you can’t drink from the genealogy firehose fast enough!

Let’s Take a Walk

Ok, come along on a walk with me.

Left to right, Lianne Kruger, a speaker, and Courtney, in the FamilyTreeDNA booth. I believe they said they are cousins.

Daniel Horowitz, genealogist extraordinaire, in the MyHeritage booth. More about MyHeritage’s announcements shortly.

Geoff Rasmussen in the Legacy Family Tree Webinars booth. For those who don’t know, there’s lots of good material at Legacy, and the freshly recorded webinars are always free for a week.

Several vendors offer booth talks, including MyHeritage. I love their photo tools and use their site in some capacity almost daily.

One of the RootsTech traditions is ribbons. Collect one, collect ‘em all. Liv’s ribbons almost reach the floor. I think she wins!

Selfies are also a RootsTech tradition. Me, here with Jonny Perl of DNAPainter fame. I owe Jonny an apology as he asked me if I had a minute, and I had to say no because I was on the way to one of my own classes. I never got back to his booth to view his new features. Sorry Jonny – don’t take it personally!

Jonny released a new Ancestral tree version titled Places, so take a look here at his blog. I need to go look at my ancestors Places.

You’ll find this new feature under Ancestral Trees, Places. These are my most recent 8 generations. Just think of all those brave souls who climbed on a ship and sailed for the unknown. Check this feature out and have fun.

In a booth talk, Dave Vance, Executive Vice-President and General Manager at FamilyTreeDNA is speaking about the three types of DNA, which are, of course, Y-DNA, mitochondrial and autosomal DNA – all useful for genealogy in different ways.

Dave is explaining how in-common-with matches, also known as shared matches, operate with the chromosome browser. You can use the chromosome browser, shared matches, the new Matrix Tool, and download your match segment information at FamilyTreeDNA, a combination of features not available at any other vendor.

WikiTree, a free a moderated one-world-tree is one of my favorite genealogy tools. One of their best features is that you find your ancestor, and in addition to lots of sources, their Y-DNA, mitochondrial DNA, and those who are related autosomally are listed. Here’s my grandfather, for example.

Several DNA connections are listed. The further back in my tree, the more DNA connections are found, becuase those ancestors have more descendants.

WikiTree volunteers were wandering around taking pictures of “WikiTreers” holding fun signs.

Paul Woodbury, a long time researcher with Legacy Tree Genealogists, who specializes in DNA. I don’t take private clients anymore, and regularly refer people to Legacy Tree.

Me with Janine Cloud taking our annual RootsTech selfie. Janine, the Group Projects Manager at FamilyTreeDNA and I co-administer one of those projects and accidentally discovered a few years ago that we are cousins too. How fun is this!!!

I wanted this shirt, but by the time I got back to the booth, it was too late. I’m going to order it online from Carlisle Creations, in case you want one too. This is so me.

Land records are critically important to genealogists. Rebecca Whitman’s class was about plotting land plats. What she’s holding is a surveyor’s chain. You’ve read about chain carriers? This is what they carried to measure land boundaries – literally metes and bounds. Some of my best discoveries have been thanks to land records.

The only session I actually got to attend was Gilad Japhet’s “What’s New and Exciting at MyHeritage.” For those who don’t know, Gilad is the founder and CEO of MyHeritage and it’s always great to hear about the new features straight from the top executive who is, himself, a seasoned genealogist. That’s why he started MyHeritage in the first place – 22 years ago in his living room.

Gilad had several wonderful announcements, but the one I’m most excited about is their new Cousin Finder. Cousin Finder finds and reveals cousins who are DNA candidates if they have not yet taken a DNA test.

I’ll be writing more about the MyHeritage announcements soon, but you can read their blog about Cousin Finder now, here, and their Roundup here about the rest of their announcements!

My Last Class – Reveal Your Maternal Ancestors & Their Stories

My last class at the end of the final day of RootsTech was “Reveal Your Maternal Ancestors & Their Stories – Solving Mitochondrial DNA Puzzles.”

Had I tried to coordinate this presentation with International Women’s Day, I could never have done it, but fate winked and here I was.

I’m often asked what it’s like from the presenters’ perspective. This is one of the smaller ballrooms. My earlier sessions were in larger rooms, maybe 3 times this size. I took this picture about 15 minutes before the session started as people were beginning to drift in.

The amazing RootsTech techs had me wired up to microphones and had verified that the audio and video equipment was working correctly, so now it was just waiting.

My cousin, John Payne, who co-administers the Speaks surname project with me, came by and took this great picture of the two of us. We’ve made huge inroads connecting the various Speake(s) lines in America, plus finally proving our home village in England, thanks to the Big Y-700 test, followed by church records. All is takes, sometimes, is that one critical match.

As I sat there, waiting to begin the mitochondrial DNA session, I couldn’t help but reflect upon all of the women who came before me and how fortunate I was to have been in the right place at the right time to be a member of the Million Mito team.

These are my direct matrilineal ancestors who give me, and my daughter, pictured at left, their mitochondrial DNA. I felt them with me as I sat there, waiting.

The woman at furthest right, Barbara Drechsel (1848-1930), immigrated to Indiana from Germany as a child with her parents in the 1850s. Before her came thousands of generations of women with no photos, of course, and no names before Barbara Freiberger, another eight generations earlier, born about 1621 in Germany.

Before that, which was before church and other records, prior to the 30 Years War, this lineage came from Scandinavia where some of my exact matches are still found today.

Before beginning, I said a positive affirmation and thanked my ancestors – so very honored to introduce them. I know they were proud of me, a member of the team that opened the door to the distant past. I wouldn’t be here if not for every one of their lives.

In this session, I would discuss, for the first time ever, the new Mitotree and my/our connection to all of humanity some 7000 generations ago, more or less.

The mutations we carry over those generations form an unbroken chain of breadcrumbs, connecting us to mitochondrial Eve who lived about 145,000 years ago. We revealed that breakthrough finding in the Haplogroup L7 paper, published in 2022.

I’m still in absolute awe that we have been able to both reach that far back in time AND, at the same time, make the newest haplogroups and haplotype clusters genealogically relevant. I will write more about that soon, but for now, I wrote about the Mitotree release here and you can find articles by Katy Rowe-Schurwanz here and here.

I’m very excited about my new mitochondrial DNA results for my ancestral lines that I track and have already made headway on several.

I’m not the only one.

Not only was I excited about my results, many other people have had breakthroughs too, including Mark Thompson, one of our genealogy AI experts who also spoke at RootsTech. I particularly love his AI generated image.

If you haven’t yet, check your mitochondrial DNA results.

It’s a Wrap

Another year done, another RootsTech under our belts. Hopefully everyone is over the “conference crud” by now and are busily applying their newfound knowledge.

You can view either live-cast sessions or RootsTech webinars, here.

I saw a meme posted sometime during the conference that coined the term “exhausterwhelmulated,” a combination of exhausted, overwhelmed and overstimulated at the same time.

I added exhilarated and elated to the mix and asked ChatGPT to draw me a picture of someone at a genealogy conference feeling those simultaneous emotions.

ChatGPT titled this request “Genealogy Conference Overload,” which made me laugh.

The first two attempts looked like the person had a headache, which I fully understood, so I asked ChatGPT to make the person look happy to be there.

This person, carrying a coffee like I often do, looks like they have just discovered the great irony that they have chased the wrong ancestor for some 20 years – with “laugh or I’ll cry” mania being their overwhelm “go to” in that minute.

This one made me laugh too!

Yes, indeed, I think every single one of us, especially at RootsTech, has experienced this exact adrenaline-fueled emotion.

We leave with a VERY long to-do list, exhausted but full of anticipation and buoyed by excitement. Filled with so much gratitude for our cousins and fellow genealogists, the speakers, vendors, DNA to solve thorny problems, new tools and records, FamilySearch who sponsors RootsTech itself and their amazing employees, plus the legions of the volunteers who make it all work.

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

_____________________________________________________________

Share the Love!

You’re always welcome to forward articles or links to friends and share on social media.

If you haven’t already subscribed (it’s free,) you can receive an e-mail whenever I publish by clicking the “follow” button on the main blog page, here.

You Can Help Keep This Blog Free

I receive a small contribution when you click on some of the links to vendors in my articles. This does NOT increase your price but helps me keep the lights on and this informational blog free for everyone. Please click on the links in the articles or to the vendors below if you are purchasing products or DNA testing.

Thank you so much.

DNA Purchases and Free Uploads

FamilyTreeDNA – Y, mitochondrial and autosomal DNA testing
MyHeritage DNA – Autosomal DNA test
MyHeritage FREE DNA file upload – Upload your DNA file from other vendors free
AncestryDNA – Autosomal DNA test
AncestryDNA Plus Traits
23andMe Ancestry – Autosomal DNA only, no Health
23andMe Ancestry Plus Health

Genealogy Products and Services

MyHeritage Subscription with Free Trial
Legacy Family Tree Webinars – Genealogy and DNA classes, subscription-based, some free
Legacy Family Tree Software – Genealogy software for your computer
OldNews – Old Newspapers with links to save to MyHeritage trees
MyHeritage Omni comprehensive “everything included” subscription plan
Newspapers.com – Search newspapers for your ancestors
NewspaperArchive – Search different newspapers for your ancestors

My Books

DNA for Native American Genealogy – by Roberta Estes, for those ordering the e-book from anyplace, or paperback within the United States
DNA for Native American Genealogy – for those ordering the paperback outside the US
The Complete Guide to FamilyTreeDNA – Y-DNA, Mitochondrial, Autosomal and X-DNA – for those ordering the e-book from anyplace, or paperback within the United States
The Complete Guide to FamilyTreeDNA – Y-DNA, Mitochondrial, Autosomal and X-DNA for those ordering the paperback from outside the US

Genealogy Books

Genealogical.com – Lots of wonderful genealogy research books
American Ancestors – Wonderful selection of genealogy books

Genealogy Research

Legacy Tree Genealogists – Professional genealogy research

Six Ways to Figure Out How We’re Related

Posted on September 9, 2024 by Roberta Estes

In my latest Webinar, Six Ways to Figure Out How We’re Related, I discuss the various tools from Ancestry, FamilyTreeDNA, MyHeritage, and 23andMe – plus clusters from Genetic Affairs and the amazing DNAPainter.

This webinar lives in the Legacy Family Tree Webinar library, but as part of the “webtember” lineup, you can view it for free through the end of September.

It’s always exciting to discover a new match at one of the DNA testing companies, which, of course, begs the question of how you’re related.

So, what are the six ways to figure out how you’re related, and how do you use them?

Come along for a step-by-step guide!

Shared Matches

We begin with how each vendor handles shared matches, what that feature is called, where to find the information, and how to interpret what they are telling you.

23andMe goes a step further and creates a genetic tree, of sorts, although that functionality has changed since their breach last October.

Bucketing and Sides

Two vendors go a step further and provide unique tools to divide your matches maternally and paternally.

FamilyTreeDNA buckets your matches maternally and paternally (or both) based on matches you link to their profile cards in your tree. FamilyTreeDNA then uses your linked matches to triangulate with other matches and assign your matches accordingly, providing a maternal and paternal match list. Bucketing, also known as Family Matching, is one of my favorite tools.

Note that linking matches at FamilyTreeDNA requires that you have transferred your tree to MyHeritage. I wrote about that and provided instructions here and here, and produced a complimentary webinar, too.

Ancestry also divides your matches by parent, but they use a different technique based on their Sideview technology and either ethnicity or shared matches.

Surnames and Locations

Surnames and locations, either separately or together, provide HUGE hints!

MyHeritage provides a nice summary for each of your matches that includes ancestral surnames, a map of locations in common, and “Smart Matches” which shows you people in common in both of your trees. There are several ways to use these tools.

FamilyTreeDNA also provides a list of surnames. You can view either the surnames in common with a match, or all of their ancestral surnames, with locations if provided. The tester enters these surnames, and we review how to complete that step.

Ancestry also provides shared surnames, with clickable links to the number of people in your matches tree with that surname, plus common locations.

X-DNA

X-DNA is probably the most underutilized DNA matching tool. While each of the vendors actually test the X chromosome, only one, FamilyTreeDNA, provides X-matching. You can obtain X-matching results by uploading your DNA file to FamilyTreeDNA. I’ve provided upload/download instructions for all companies, here.

X-DNA has a very unique inheritance pattern because males only inherit an X chromosome from their mother which limits the number of potential common ancestors for any two testers. In other words, X-DNA matching does half your work for you!

Clustering Technology – AutoClusters, the Matrix and DNAPainter

In the past few years, match clustering has become a very useful tool. Clustering shows which of your matches match you and each other.

Genetic Affairs offers several flavors of these clusters, and both MyHeritage and GEDmatch have incorporated Genetic Affairs clusters into their product offerings.

If you haven’t used AutoClusters yet, by all means, try them out.

FamilyTreeDNA offers the Matrix, a slightly different version of clustering. You can select 10 people from your match list to see if they also match each other. Shared matches don’t automatically mean triangulation between you and those two people, or even that all three people descend from the same line. However, if the people are bucketed to your same side (parent) and they share common segments with you in the chromosome browser, they triangulate.

You’ll want to paint those matches to DNAPainter to determine which ancestor you share, especially if they haven’t provided a tree.

DNAPainter provides your chromosomes as the “canvas” upon which to paint your matches in order to correlate segments with ancestors and identify common ancestral lines with mystery matches.

Three vendors, FamilyTreeDNA, MyHeritage, and GEDmatch provide segment information with matches for you to paint. I illustrate how I walk segments back in time, identifying our most distant common ancestor possible.

Theories of Family Relativity and ThruLines

Both MyHeritage and Ancestry provide a combination of DNA matching and tree triangulation, where they search the trees of your DNA matches to find common ancestors with you – although their implementation is different.

MyHeritage’s Theories of Family Relativity provides varying theories about common ancestors for you and a specific match using both trees and historical documents. You can review the various pathways and confirm or reject theories. I love this tool.

Ancestry’s Thrulines functions a bit differently, showing you all of your matches that descend from a common ancestor in all your matches’ trees. Sometimes, the trees are incorrect, but Theories of Family Relativity and ThruLines should still be used as hints.

I showed how ThruLines helped me discover what happened to one of my ancestor’s grandchildren who was lost to the family at his mother’s death – and to all of us since. Not anymore.

Bonus – Y-DNA and Mitochondrial DNA at FamilyTreeDNA

Only FamilyTreeDNA offers both Y-DNA and Mitochondrial DNA testing and matching. All of the tools above pertain to autosomal DNA testing, which is named Family Finder at FamilyTreeDNA. Illustrated by the green arrow below, autosomal DNA testing measures and compares the DNA you inherited from each ancestral line, but that’s not the only game in town.

Y-DNA, in blue, for males, tracks the direct paternal line, which is the surname line in Western cultures. Mitochondrial DNA, in red, is passed from mothers to all of their children. Therefore, everyone can test, revealing matches and information about their mother’s direct matrilineal lineage.

Y-DNA testing includes the amazing Discover tool with a baker’s dozen different reports, including ancient DNA. Mitochondrial DNA will soon have its own MitoDiscover after the rollout of the new Mitotree.

Both tests include “Matches Maps” to help you determine how you are related to your matches, as well as where your ancestors came from before the advent of surnames.

The Advanced Matching feature allows you to select multiple tests to see if your matches match you on combined types of tests.

Tune In

Now that you know what we cover in the webinar, please tune in to see how to use these awesome tools. Be sure to fish in all four “ponds” plus GEDmatch, where you may find people who didn’t test at a company that provides a chromosome browser or matching segment information.

Tools provided by the DNA testing vendors facilitate multiple ways to determine how we match and which ancestor(s) we have in common.

You can watch the webinar, here.

Additionally, subscribers to Legacy Family Tree Webinars have access to the 25-page syllabus with even more information!

A Legacy Family Tree Webinar subscription normally costs $49.95 per year, but through the end of September, there’s a coupon code good for 20% off. Just click here, then enter webtember24 at the checkout.

Enjoy!

_____________________________________________________________

Follow DNAexplain on Facebook, here.

Share the Love!

You’re always welcome to forward articles or links to friends and share on social media.

If you haven’t already subscribed (it’s free,) you can receive an e-mail whenever I publish by clicking the “follow” button on the main blog page, here.

You Can Help Keep This Blog Free

I receive a small contribution when you click on some of the links to vendors in my articles. This does NOT increase your price but helps me keep the lights on and this informational blog free for everyone. Please click on the links in the articles or to the vendors below if you are purchasing products or DNA testing.

Thank you so much.

DNA Purchases and Free Uploads

FamilyTreeDNA – Y, mitochondrial and autosomal DNA testing
MyHeritage DNA – Autosomal DNA test
MyHeritage FREE DNA file upload – Upload your DNA file from other vendors free
AncestryDNA – Autosomal DNA test
AncestryDNA Plus Traits
23andMe Ancestry – Autosomal DNA only, no Health
23andMe Ancestry Plus Health

Genealogy Products and Services

MyHeritage Subscription with Free Trial
Legacy Family Tree Webinars – Genealogy and DNA classes, subscription-based, some free
Legacy Family Tree Software – Genealogy software for your computer
OldNews – Old Newspapers with links to save to MyHeritage trees
Newspapers.com – Search newspapers for your ancestors
NewspaperArchive – Search different newspapers for your ancestors

My Books

DNA for Native American Genealogy – by Roberta Estes, for those ordering the e-book from anyplace, or paperback within the United States
DNA for Native American Genealogy – for those ordering the paperback outside the US
The Complete Guide to FamilyTreeDNA – Y-DNA, Mitochondrial, Autosomal and X-DNA

Genealogy Books

Genealogical.com – Lots of wonderful genealogy research books
American Ancestors – Wonderful selection of genealogy books

Genealogy Research

Legacy Tree Genealogists – Professional genealogy research

DNA Academy Webinar Series Released

Posted on August 17, 2024 by Roberta Estes

Great news! Legacy Family Tree Webinars has just released DNA Academy.

DNA Academy is a three-part series designed to introduce the basics of DNA for genetic genealogy and how Y-DNA, X-DNA, mitochondrial and autosomal DNA can be utilized. Each of these different types of DNA serves a different function for genealogists – and reveals different matches and hints for genealogy.

DNA Academy Part 1 introduces genetic genealogy basics, then, Ancestry’s DNA tools – including their new pricing structure for DNA features. Click here to view.
DNA Academy Part 2 covers FamilyTreeDNA’s products. Click here to view the webinar, which includes:
1. Y-DNA for males which tracks the direct paternal line
2. Mitochondrial DNA for everyone which tracks your direct maternal line – your mother’s mother’s mother’s lineage
3. Autosomal DNA which includes matches from all of your ancestral lines and along with X-DNA matching, which has a very distinctive inheritance path.
DNA Academy Part 3 includes MyHeritage, 23andMe, and third-party tools such as DNAPainter and Genetic Affairs. Click here to view.

Legacy Family Tree Webinars has graciously made Part 2, the FamilyTreeDNA class, free through August 22nd for everyone – so be sure to watch now.

After August 22nd, Part 2 will join Part 1 and Part 3 in the webinar library for subscribers with more than 2240 webinars for $49.95 per year.

_____________________________________________________________

Follow DNAexplain on Facebook, here.

Share the Love!

You’re always welcome to forward articles or links to friends and share on social media.

If you haven’t already subscribed (it’s free,) you can receive an e-mail whenever I publish by clicking the “follow” button on the main blog page, here.

You Can Help Keep This Blog Free

I receive a small contribution when you click on some of the links to vendors in my articles. This does NOT increase your price but helps me keep the lights on and this informational blog free for everyone. Please click on the links in the articles or to the vendors below if you are purchasing products or DNA testing.

Thank you so much.

DNA Purchases and Free Uploads

FamilyTreeDNA – Y, mitochondrial and autosomal DNA testing
MyHeritage DNA – Autosomal DNA test
MyHeritage FREE DNA file upload – Upload your DNA file from other vendors free
AncestryDNA – Autosomal DNA test
AncestryDNA Plus Traits
23andMe Ancestry – Autosomal DNA only, no Health
23andMe Ancestry Plus Health

Genealogy Products and Services

MyHeritage Subscription with Free Trial
Legacy Family Tree Webinars – Genealogy and DNA classes, subscription-based, some free
Legacy Family Tree Software – Genealogy software for your computer
OldNews – Old Newspapers with links to save to MyHeritage trees
Newspapers.com – Search newspapers for your ancestors
NewspaperArchive – Search different newspapers for your ancestors

My Books

DNA for Native American Genealogy – by Roberta Estes, for those ordering the e-book from anyplace, or paperback within the United States
DNA for Native American Genealogy – for those ordering the paperback outside the US
The Complete Guide to FamilyTreeDNA – Y-DNA, Mitochondrial, Autosomal and X-DNA

Genealogy Books

Genealogical.com – Lots of wonderful genealogy research books
American Ancestors – Wonderful selection of genealogy books

Genealogy Research

Legacy Tree Genealogists – Professional genealogy research

Great News – Both e-Pub and Print Version of “The Complete Guide to FamilyTreeDNA” Now Available Worldwide

Posted on June 11, 2024 by Roberta Estes

Anyone, anyplace, can order the full-color, searchable, e-pub version of The Complete Guide to FamilyTreeDNA – Y-DNA, Mitochondrial, Autosomal and X-DNA from the publisher, Genealogical.com, here.
Customers within the US can order the black and white print book from the publisher, here.
Customers outside the US can order the print book from their country’s Amazon website. The publisher does not ship print books outside the US due to customs, shipping costs, and associated delays. They arranged to have the book printed by an international printer so that it can be shipped directly to Amazon for order fulfillment without international customers incurring additional expenses and delays. If you ordered the book previously from Amazon and a long delivery time was projected, that should be resolved now and your book should be arriving soon.

Comprehensive

This book is truly comprehensive and includes:

247 pages
More than 267 images
288 footnotes
12 charts
68 tips
Plus, an 18-page glossary

To view the table of contents, click here. To order, click here.

Thank you, everyone, for your patience and your support.

_____________________________________________________________

Follow DNAexplain on Facebook, here.

Share the Love!

You’re always welcome to forward articles or links to friends and share on social media.

If you haven’t already subscribed (it’s free,) you can receive an e-mail whenever I publish by clicking the “follow” button on the main blog page, here.

You Can Help Keep This Blog Free

I receive a small contribution when you click on some of the links to vendors in my articles. This does NOT increase your price but helps me keep the lights on and this informational blog free for everyone. Please click on the links in the articles or to the vendors below if you are purchasing products or DNA testing.

Thank you so much.

DNA Purchases and Free Uploads

FamilyTreeDNA – Y, mitochondrial and autosomal DNA testing
MyHeritage DNA – Autosomal DNA test
MyHeritage FREE DNA file upload – Upload your DNA file from other vendors free
AncestryDNA – Autosomal DNA test
AncestryDNA Plus Traits
23andMe Ancestry – Autosomal DNA only, no Health
23andMe Ancestry Plus Health

Genealogy Products and Services

MyHeritage Subscription with Free Trial
Legacy Family Tree Webinars – Genealogy and DNA classes, subscription-based, some free
Legacy Family Tree Software – Genealogy software for your computer
OldNews – Old Newspapers with links to save to MyHeritage trees
Newspapers.com – Search newspapers for your ancestors
NewspaperArchive – Search different newspapers for your ancestors

My Books

DNA for Native American Genealogy – by Roberta Estes, for those ordering the e-book from anyplace, or paperback within the United States
DNA for Native American Genealogy – for those ordering the paperback outside the US
The Complete Guide to FamilyTreeDNA – Y-DNA, Mitochondrial, Autosomal and X-DNA

Genealogy Books

Genealogical.com – Lots of wonderful genealogy research books
American Ancestors – Wonderful selection of genealogy books

Genealogy Research

Legacy Tree Genealogists – Professional genealogy research

Complete Guide to FamilyTreeDNA Released in Hardcopy

Posted on May 26, 2024 by Roberta Estes

Just what many of you have been waiting for! The hardcopy print version of the Complete Guide to FamilyTreeDNA has just been released.

The e-pub version was previously released and is available to worldwide customers only from the publisher. Now, the paperback print version is available too.
Click here to order the print version from the publisher in the US.
International customers must order the printed book from their country’s Amazon website to avoid delays, customs, and increased shipping costs.

As shown in the table of contents below, The Complete Guide to FamilyTreeDNA contains lots of logically organized information! It includes basic education about genetic genealogy and how it works, instructions on using the FamilyTreeDNA tests and tools, plus an extensive glossary.

Enjoy!

_____________________________________________________________

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Share the Love!

You’re always welcome to forward articles or links to friends and share on social media.

If you haven’t already subscribed (it’s free,) you can receive an e-mail whenever I publish by clicking the “follow” button on the main blog page, here.

You Can Help Keep This Blog Free

I receive a small contribution when you click on some of the links to vendors in my articles. This does NOT increase your price but helps me keep the lights on and this informational blog free for everyone. Please click on the links in the articles or to the vendors below if you are purchasing products or DNA testing.

Thank you so much.

DNA Purchases and Free Uploads

FamilyTreeDNA – Y, mitochondrial and autosomal DNA testing
MyHeritage DNA – Autosomal DNA test
MyHeritage FREE DNA file upload – Upload your DNA file from other vendors free
AncestryDNA – Autosomal DNA test
AncestryDNA Plus Traits
23andMe Ancestry – Autosomal DNA only, no Health
23andMe Ancestry Plus Health

Genealogy Products and Services

MyHeritage Subscription with Free Trial
Legacy Family Tree Webinars – Genealogy and DNA classes, subscription-based, some free
Legacy Family Tree Software – Genealogy software for your computer
OldNews – Old Newspapers with links to save to MyHeritage trees
Newspapers.com – Search newspapers for your ancestors
NewspaperArchive – Search different newspapers for your ancestors

My Books

DNA for Native American Genealogy – by Roberta Estes, for those ordering the e-book from anyplace, or paperback within the United States
DNA for Native American Genealogy – for those ordering the paperback outside the US
The Complete Guide to FamilyTreeDNA – Y-DNA, Mitochondrial, Autosomal and X-DNA

Genealogy Books

Genealogical.com – Lots of wonderful genealogy research books
American Ancestors – Wonderful selection of genealogy books

Genealogy Research

Legacy Tree Genealogists – Professional genealogy research

RootsTech 2024: DNA Academy and Ancestry Announcements

Posted on March 14, 2024 by Roberta Estes

March the 1^st. Remember that old saying about March? If it enters like a lamb, it will leave like a lion, and vice versa.

Look what greeted us on the morning of the second day of RootsTech.

Whoo boy.

The good news, if there was any, was that this was Friday’s forecast for Saturday, and of course, it might, just might, be wrong. Fingers crossed!

The second day of RootsTech was jam-packed, as you can see in the MyHeritage booth below. I wondered if one reason for the extra-large Friday crowd was the weather forecast for Saturday.

I had just finished my booth talk for MyHeritage titled “Leveraging Triangulation – From 3 to Many” and stepped aside to take a picture.

This half-hour presentation defined triangulation as a three-legged stool and discussed when and how to use triangulation at MyHeritage.

I covered:

How to use close relatives, including parents, to determine which side your matches are on.
Why you can’t use immediate family members for triangulation.
How to use triangulation with Shared Matches and the Chromosome Browser
How to use and verify Theories of Family Relativity with triangulation
AutoClusters as a triangulation roadmap
Using AutoClusters and triangulation to determine which DNA descends from whom
Bonus hints

Maybe I should turn this presentation into a blog article. What do you think?

DNA Academy aka An Afternoon in the Life of a Presenter

I only had about 45 minutes between the end of the MyHeritage session and the beginning of my class, “DNA Academy: Pulling it All Together – Tests, Vendors, Tools & You.”

I’m very grateful that RootsTech provided the opportunity for this experimental full-afternoon session, which provided the underpinnings for other DNA classes and sessions.

I had practiced and practiced to ensure the slide and topic pacing was fast enough to get through all the slides but not so fast that I would lose people.

Losing someone in a class of this duration means that they miss everything thereafter – and that could be a lot more than your normal 45 to 50-minute class.

Therefore, I needed to be prepared to take questions during the class. That’s always a bit risky because some questions are more like a short story, and you don’t want to run out of time at the end for your slides.

So, yes, I was a bit nervous. I was also concerned about technology gremlins named Murphy that seem to be ever-present. I absolutely did NOT need gremlins attending too.

There was no time between sessions for any kind of a proper lunch. No time to stand in line for food. However, I had to eat since I would have no break until after the class ended at 4, and then only after all of the attendees had left. On Sunday, I had purchased Lunchables at the local grocery store, so I bought a container of fruit and a bag of Doritos at one of those quick grab-it places on the way to my classroom and had a picnic in the back of the room as attendees began filtering in.

I headed for the front of the room with my laptop bag just as the tech person arrived to assist with setup. RootsTech encourages speakers to use RootsTech-provided equipment since they know it’s set up correctly to work with the AV equipment. That makes sense, but I always bring mine, just in case.

RootsTech also generously provided a stool so I wouldn’t have to stand for the entire afternoon.

Our first challenge was that the audio wasn’t working correctly, and never really did. We worked on it until the session started, and I even sent for the tech after the session began.

Eventually, after much fiddling around, I gave up and took the lavalier off. I held it near my mouth for the entire afternoon after finding that “sweet spot” with the assistance of everyone in attendance. We needed to find the mic position where people in the back of the room could hear me, it wasn’t so close it sounded like I was spitting, and we weren’t getting feedback. That seemed to be about a quarter-inch window. It was not ideal, but it worked, and I was very grateful for the audience’s help and patience. Teamwork!

The second challenge was that the RootsTech laptop defaulted to “Presenter View,” which means that your Powerpoint slide is in the upper left quadrant of the laptop screen, the next slide is shown at right, and “speaker notes,” if you’ve created any, appear at the bottom.

I don’t use speaker notes because I don’t want to sound like I’m reading aloud. Therefore, I never use Presenter View. I use the slides to remind me of what to say, and I know what’s coming next.

I initially thought, “Fine, so long as the slide advance works.” It wasn’t until after I began, and after the AV tech was long gone that I realized how small the RootsTech laptop screen was, meaning how SMALL my current slide was. To my horror, I realized that I couldn’t clearly see some portions of my slides.

OH NO!!!

I couldn’t exactly take my glasses off, lean over the podium, and squint. No, that would never do. I also couldn’t move the laptop closer without disrupting the setup and cables.

I also couldn’t see the movie screen to my left that attendees were viewing because I was positioned directly beside the screen and only slightly forward. I could see that the image was showing on the screen, but I couldn’t read anything on the image from that angle.

Crumb!

Therefore, I really had no good or detailed view of my own presentation – for 2.5 hours.

All I can say is that it’s a VERY good thing that I obsessively practice ahead of time, because that’s the ONLY thing that got me through.

I asked for the tech again to assist with the audio issues after trying multiple ways to adjust things myself, and he sent a message back to just move the lavalier up on my clothing. It was already as high as it could be placed, so not helpful.

Why am I telling you this? Often, people often don’t realize how much is beyond the speakers’ control and how much we just roll with the punches as best we can. Attendees are acutely aware of their experience, especially when it’s sub-optimum, and often blame the speaker.

One attendee asked if I could raise the image projection on the screen towards the top. I couldn’t control the image location at all. I knew that if one person couldn’t see because the image was too low on the screen, other people probably couldn’t either, and I felt awful.

Speakers are used to overcoming challenges, but no one wants to attempt to simultaneously overcome and compensate for several issues in the same presentation.

I wound up apologizing more than once to the class. These people had been kind enough to choose this long class and I wanted their experience to be the best possible.

I was very grateful for the people who said something positive afterward and for this person who left feedback on my blog.

A number of people were unhappy because the session wasn’t either live-streamed or recorded. Speakers have no way of knowing or influencing which sessions RootsTech selects for broader consumption. I’m sure they want to livestream a mixture of topics that would interest a variety of people.

I’ve reached out to Legacy Family Tree Webinars to see if they are interested in this class, although I would need to divide it into thirds. I want to leverage this effort and make it available to others who can benefit.

Legacy Family Tree Webinars are free to everyone for the first week, then available in the subscription library.

Does this sound like a good idea?

Ancestry Announcements

After DNA Academy ended, I headed back to the show floor. The second day of RootsTech is always the “late night” with activities until about 7:30. They close earlier, around 5, on the first day, and at 3 on the final day.

I was interested in Ancestry’s announcements and if I had missed anything from the earlier recorded session.

Of course, Ancestry was selling DNA tests. At RootsTech, Ancestry announced that it now has 25 million testers in its database.

Sitting inside the booth, I saw Crista Cowan, the Barefoot Genealogist who is also Ancestry’s corporate genealogist. I noticed the cast on her wrist and felt terrible for her, trying to navigate RootsTech and minor other activities, like, say, eating and presenting and the basic activities of daily living. Been there, done that, and it’s no fun. Crista said that she had discovered that one cannot create PowerPoint slides in a cast, especially when it’s your dominant hand. And I thought I had challenges.

Like I was saying about speakers compensating and making it happen, one way or another…

I’m not going to steal Crista’s thunder about how she became “The Barefoot Genealogist,” but if you don’t know, you can watch her RootsTech presentation here.

So, what else is in Crista’s presentation? What has Ancestry announced?

Family Groups. Ancestry announced the ability to create a group of people in a family who are working on a common goal, facilitating collaboration.
The Family Groups feature will be available to all accounts, LDS, paid, free, library, whatever.
You will be able to assign tasks to people in the group. For example, Mom could be assigned to scan the family photos, upload them, note who they are and other relevant information
A “Memories” feature will support either recording or uploading audio which can tell the story of a picture.
A new Family Plan, currently only available in the US, allows you to pay for one subscription and add four people. I have seen pricing, but Ancestry has many different plans, and I’m unclear what is and is not included in the Family Plan. So if you’re interested, I’d suggest reaching out to Ancestry.
Ancestry continues to add historical records at a rapid pace.

Ancestry was indexing 2-3 million records per day. With the launch of the 1950 census, which utilized handwriting recognition and AI, they are now indexing millions more each month, according to Crista’s slide.
Ancestry is re-imaging Newspapers.com pages using the same technology, which provides much more than OCR, which is plagued by issues such as image quality and lack of intelligence.
One example of new features is that previously, some people were mentioned only by association, such as Mrs. John Doe. Now, Mrs. John Doe can potentially be recognized as Susan Doe or even Susan Jones Doe, based on other articles and information.
Ancestry has created a new Stories and Events Index, which indexes the records by category, such as marriages or law and order.
However, and this is important, these new re-imaged records are NOT found when you do a global search through Ancestry because, in layman’s terms, there are so many that they crash the system.
Ancestry added 16 billion records from newspaper collections last year. You can find a hint or go directly to the newspaper database. Check the specific collection because you may not find the information searching generally.

You can find the Historical Newspapers Collection under the Search tab.

Crista was also being plagued by technical gremlins to this point. It’s obvious that she was well-practiced too, as she barely missed a beat.

Crista encourages people to use the Card Catalog to view the new newspaper record collections.

Here’s what’s showing in my Card Catalog Records Collection view.

Moving to DNA announcements, Crista stated that with 25 million people in the database, Ancestry has 88 ethnicity regions and now more than 2500 DNA Communities.

The 88 ethnicity regions represent ancestors 500-1000 years ago, while the 2500 communities are formed by a genetic network of people related within approximately 200 years.
Ancestry now has 120 million family trees that are mined for location information.
Ancestry introduced 203 Communities in Ireland this past year. Crista mentioned that this means that those communities are as granular as counties and that now she knows where to search for her Irish ancestor. I hope she has only one Irish ancestor, and he’s close enough in time. I’m also hoping that the granularity of Communities provides very specific hints.
Ancestry added 413 African American Communities in the southern US and Caribbean – some to within a 10-mile radius.
Ancestry added 352 Mexico Communities.
More Communities are planned to be released every 3-4 months or so during this next year. In other words, you’ll need to check from time to time, as there won’t be a specific large update for everyone.
Traits and Communities, by parent, will be added within SideView

If you recall, SideView features now require either a full subscription, or a Plus subscription for DNA features. You can read about that here and here.

Pro Tools

Crista shifted gears here to discuss Pro Tools, which she described as tools that aren’t necessarily for pros, but are new ways to view family history.

Pro Tools is NOT the same as the DNA SideView features that are behind the regular Ancestry subscription or the Plus paywall.

Pro Tools was recently introduced. Crista didn’t mention this in the video, but Pro Tools costs an ADDITIONAL $10 per month, regardless of whether or not you have a full, World, or Plus subscription. In other words, you’ll pay another $120 per year to access Pro Tools

There are two schools of thought about this.

Some people are furious that Ancestry added an entirely new subscription instead of adding these functions to the full or Plus subscription level.
Some people are glad that Ancestry didn’t raise the cost of the full subscription by $120 per year, allowing people NOT to subscribe to these new Pro-Tools features if they don’t want them.

New features will be added under Pro Tools soon.

New shared matches view:

The predicted relationship and how many cMs your shared matches share with any other shared match will be available in the first half of 2024.
If shared matches triangulate.

Future Enhancements

Ability to group shared matches into custom groups with one click using “select all”
Ability to sort by your matches’ closest matches
Highlight matches that have triangulated shared segments

Nope – No Chromosome Browser

People have been speculating for some time that Ancestry might have been going to add a Chromosome Browser. Nope, they didn’t.

Crista didn’t mention this, but discussion elsewhere revealed that the triangulated segment information will NOT include:

The number of triangulated segments
The size of triangulated segments
Segment location information
A chromosome browser

At this point, I have no plan to subscribe to Pro Tools. I feel like Ancestry is essentially teasing us. “Yes, you have a triangulated segment with two other people, but, sorry, we’re not going to tell you where it is.” It’s like they get us right up to the edge of something useful, within sight and sniffing distance, then, boom, dropped like a hot potato. To add insult to injury, we have to pay separately for the teaser, even with a full subscription. The best we could do, I think, is hope that one or some of the triangulated people have a tree so we can determine who the common ancestor or ancestral line might be. If we’re really lucky, there might be a ThruLine formed.

I’ll leave it at that, but I am not one bit happy about the features that are still excluded, and that the included features require yet another subscription.

I realize that after years of saying that segment information violates Ancestry’s perception of privacy, it would be difficult for Ancestry to reverse its position at this point.

Standing in the booth later, someone commented that they were surprised that Ancestry is going to provide estimated relationships between shared matches and shared cM amounts to each other. Crista said that Ancestry had needed to “work out some privacy stuff” first.

Perhaps this is the furthest Ancestry feels that they can move without entirely reversing their long-standing chromosome browser privacy position.

For those who want to work with segment information and a chromosome browser, you can upload your Ancestry DNA file to FamilyTreeDNA, MyHeritage, and GEDmatch. You’ll find step-by-step instructions here.

After visiting the Ancestry booth, I moved on to other vendors on the show floor.

Goldie May

I hadn’t heard of Goldie May until Drew Smith introduced me recently. Thanks Drew!

You can take a look at their genealogy organizational tools, but their best feature for genealogists who give presentations is the ability to blur names in screenshots.

This feature, available under Goldie May Pro for $24 per month, senses names and blurs them along with associated profile photos for you. The lack of blurring is one reason I never do anything live or make “how-to” videos.

Right now, this feature only works for Ancestry pages, but hopefully, it will soon work for pages of other DNA vendors and DNAPainter.

DNAPainter

Speaking of DNAPainter, they are one of my favorite third-party vendors. And just in case you’re wondering, I’m not related to Jonny, and I pay full price for my subscription, just like all of you.

I mention this only because DNAPainter appears in just about every presentation I create about autosomal DNA and matches, regardless of the vendor – except Ancestry, of course.

I saw Jonny sitting at a table, showing someone how to paint their matching segments.

One person who attended the conference agreed to a 10-minute DNAPainter lesson after dinner with a friend – only 10 minutes, though, because he was tired! Although his friend was long asleep, he was still painting at 4 AM and had surpassed the 50% mark of his painted chromosomes assigned to known ancestors. I think we have a new convert!

You can find DNAPainter instructions here.

On the corner of the table was a shared cM relationship map, one of the free tools that Jonny offers in collaboration with others in the community.

I couldn’t resist taking this picture of Jonny in his very cool striped tennis shoes that look amazingly like painted chromosomes.

I remember the first time I saw Jonny in 2018, looking very nervous at RootsTech, standing by himself in a small booth the first year he introduced DNApainter. I had never heard of DNAPainter.

In 2018, Jonny was a candidate in the new tech innovation contest, which he won. This motivated me to try DNAPainter myself, leading to another award at the beginning of 2019.

How things have changed in six years. Now, EVERYONE knows Jonny Perl. He was included in the 25-year genetic genealogy celebration as someone who has shaped the industry, and he’s no longer standing nervously alone in his booth. Also, he has way cool shoes now!!

In fact, it’s hard to find Jonny alone at any time to take a picture.

I just love success stories!

More Friends on the Show Floor

I knew Judy Russell, The Legal Genealogist, was at RootsTech and presenting, but I hadn’t actually seen her yet. By now, I’m sure almost everyone has had the opportunity to hear Judy speak, but I’ve often said that if Judy were talking about dirt, I’d attend because it would be funny, witty, and educational.

I found Judy, in her second-generation signature pink jacket, hanging out with Janine Cloud in the FamilyTreeDNA booth.

Friday was the late evening at RootsTech. People were getting tired and hungry, and most attendees had already left by 7:30 when the Expo Hall officially closed.

In the center of the hall, near the front, FamilySearch had a “garden” or “park” area with park benches and fun games like chess.

As I was walking out, I noticed Bennett Greenspan, at left, playing park chess with Katherine Borges, Director of ISOGG, the International Society of Genetic Genealogy, at right.

I had a good chuckle as I realized that assembling the DNA of our ancestors and applying it meaningfully to our genealogy is like playing chess.

Warning

We had been hoping all day that the weather forecast would change for the better.

Maybe it wouldn’t snow at all.

Maybe it wouldn’t snow much.

Uh-oh!!

It was cold, and the wind was blowing hard as we exited the Salt Palace, whipping our hair into our faces and eyes.

Everything felt ominous. Even the locals were worried.

Attendees were heading home early, and even those who had to stay and work on Saturday were trying to change their flights to Saturday afternoon in the hope that they could escape before the brunt of the storm hit.

Airlines were contacting passengers with weather advisories, saying they could change their flights without charge. They were hoping to get people out ahead of the storm.

The various weather services showed different scenarios. One reported that it would be 33 degrees and rain until just after lunch, when it would turn to snow.

Another predicted that it would be 31 and blizzard conditions with 4-6 inches of snow and whiteout conditions by noon.

What? “Hurricane-force gusts”? You’re kidding, right? But they weren’t. This was no joke.

No one knew what to expect, and local people were bidding us adieu, saying they weren’t planning to be back on Saturday.

What would we wake up to on Saturday morning? What about flights? And hotel rooms? What would we be facing?

_____________________________________________________________

Follow DNAexplain on Facebook, here.

Share the Love!

You’re always welcome to forward articles or links to friends and share on social media.

If you haven’t already subscribed (it’s free,) you can receive an e-mail whenever I publish by clicking the “follow” button on the main blog page, here.

You Can Help Keep This Blog Free

I receive a small contribution when you click on some of the links to vendors in my articles. This does NOT increase your price but helps me keep the lights on and this informational blog free for everyone. Please click on the links in the articles or to the vendors below if you are purchasing products or DNA testing.

Thank you so much.

DNA Purchases and Free Uploads

FamilyTreeDNA – Y, mitochondrial and autosomal DNA testing
MyHeritage DNA – Autosomal DNA test
MyHeritage FREE DNA file upload – Upload your DNA file from other vendors free
AncestryDNA – Autosomal DNA test
AncestryDNA Plus Traits
23andMe Ancestry – Autosomal DNA only, no Health
23andMe Ancestry Plus Health

Genealogy Products and Services

MyHeritage Subscription with Free Trial
Legacy Family Tree Webinars – Genealogy and DNA classes, subscription-based, some free
Legacy Family Tree Software – Genealogy software for your computer
OldNews – Old Newspapers with links to save to MyHeritage trees
Newspapers.com – Search newspapers for your ancestors
NewspaperArchive – Search different newspapers for your ancestors

My Book

DNA for Native American Genealogy – by Roberta Estes, for those ordering the e-book from anyplace, or paperback within the United States
DNA for Native American Genealogy – for those ordering the paperback outside the US

Genealogy Books

Genealogical.com – Lots of wonderful genealogy research books
American Ancestors – Wonderful selection of genealogy books

Genealogy Research

Legacy Tree Genealogists – Professional genealogy research

RootsTech 2024 – Celebrating 25 Years of Genetic Genealogy

Posted on March 13, 2024 by Roberta Estes

On the first day of RootsTech, we celebrated the milestone anniversary of 25 years of genetic genealogy. Right now, we are at the intersection of two incredibly powerful tools: genetics and AI. Both technologies are revolutionary and have changed and are changing the genealogical world overnight. What an amazing time to be alive!

Day 1 is Just Beginning

Day 1 is just the beginning, although pre-show activities have been occurring for a day or two. Everyone is excited. The energy on the show floor and as attendees talk is palpable – a form of human electricity.

I’m going to share some of RootsTech’s flavor with you, so come along with me as I attend a few sessions, give my dozen sessions, and meet people.

First, I need to provide some caveats.

I wasn’t able to attend very many sessions
I didn’t get to half the expo floor booths
I was only at one keynote, but fortunately, most were recorded

I managed to overcommit myself “just a bit,” and I just couldn’t be in two places at once. Thankfully, recorded sessions are available here.

One of the reasons that I didn’t get as much done as I had hoped is because I kept running into people. There was more hugging at RootsTech than at a bear-hug festival. The fun of taking selfies is a thing – a modern-day bonding experience and lots of group selfies are floating around on social media.

I truly love my fellow genealogists, many of whom I’ve discovered are cousins, and some of whom have become lifelong friends. They are brothers and sisters of heart -people who I can’t imagine NOT having in my family. This group of troublemakers is the perfect example of that, with Lianne Krüger, Mags Gaulden, and me in the back and Janine Cloud in front. I think we look like a girl band. Perhaps we’ll call ourselves The Chromosomes. 😊

The first thing on my agenda for Thursday was a book signing for my book, DNA for Native American Genealogy.

Penny Walters wandered by while I was signing and said hello.

Penny, the queen of selfies, constantly has to instruct me on how to do this successfully. It seems I either shut my eyes or I’m smiling so hard I’m laughing. One day, Penny, one day!

Thanks, Penny, for taking this picture of me with my book.

Following the book signing, Janine Could, Groups and Events Manager at FamilyTreeDNA, and I had an AMA, Ask Me Anything session in the FamilyTreeDNA booth about determining if you have Native American ancestors. Our stories are so complementary.

I was raised with and participated in Native cultural traditions. Janine wasn’t, but she is an enrolled Cherokee tribal member. After we had known each other for several years, we discovered that we’re related, but not through that line – at least not that we know of.

The great thing about AMA sessions is that the speakers are literally there to answer your questions. During the conference, lots of people took advantage of the expertise of speakers and their fellow attendees.

Remember

Last year, I met Charis, in the middle between me and Janine. Charis made my day when she told me that she was driving by the Salt Palace a week or so before RootsTech, saw that I was giving a Native American session, and knew she had to attend.

We talked for a long time, and I wondered if I would see her again this year.

Sure enough!

I saw her walking down an aisle, so I knew she was attending. I wanted to give her a hug but I couldn’t at that moment.

She stopped by the FamilyTreeDNA booth and asked Janine if she thought I’d remember her.

You remember people that make you feel good, and she really did.

Someone once told me that people often remember you for how you make them feel.

This year, Charis attended my sessions, and it felt good to see a friendly, smiling face in the audience.

After one class, she waited for me until everyone’s questions were answered. I asked if we could sit down in the quiet at a vacant table in the back of that hall for a few minutes to visit.

Charis pulled out a bag with a card and gave it to me, saying she hoped I didn’t think it was weird or anything. I was stunned and quite moved.

Her name is Remember, the theme of Rootstech this year.

I cried. Charis’s gift was so thoughtful in so many ways, as was the card – and she had no idea how personally this touched me.

We talked for a long time, and while I’m not going to share details, I remembered how it felt to be young and have your life’s trajectory shifted in ways you can’t control.

I remembered what it was like to have hopes dashed.

I remembered when I was “just doing what I was doing” every day, not realizing that I was making memories – not just for me but for others as well.

I remember when Douglas explained the concept of GodMothers to me – and I wasn’t young.

Douglas told me that I had GodMothered people through our combined educational ministry (and I’m not talking about church here) and through my own individual work. Of course, the first thing I thought when Douglas said that was, “No, no, not me,” but then I remembered my mother’s “simple” ministry to others. I remembered how my step-father changed my life both with his actions and a few simple, well-placed words. I remembered the kindness of others when I desperately needed it – and still do.

I remembered.

I remembered that we all have a mission, a ministry, even if we don’t realize it. Even if we don’t understand it. Even if “all we do” is a simple kindness every day.

I remembered that some people’s lives are meant to intersect.

Charis is doing GodMother work, or maybe God’s Mother’s work, every day of her life.

Charis gives me hope for the future.

Thank you Charis, for Remember, and for helping me remember. And for being the next generation of GodMothers and shining your light for others to follow in generations of GodMother footsteps.

Remember.

Genetic Genealogy Turns 25

A few weeks before RootsTech, Diahan Southard emailed and asked me if I’d be interested in and willing to write a short, roughly 3-page “chapter” for a book she was preparing for RootsTech, celebrating the 25^th anniversary of genetic genealogy.

Additionally, Diahan would be hosting a panel where some of the contributors would share our remembrances, beginning with the earliest days and ending with more recent innovations.

You can watch the session here.

It’s not hyperbole to say that genetic genealogy changed my life. It also changed the trajectory of my career.

I was very proud to be included on this panel with Diahan and Bennett Greenspan, both of whom I have known since the beginning. Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined an event like this – let alone being on this stage on this incredibly memorable day.

Diahan shared her story about beginning her career at Sorenson Molecular Institute with Scott Woodward, who joined us and told his story via video.

Bennett Greenspan spoke about his inspiration as a genealogist, and how and why he founded FamilyTreeDNA in 1999.

Bennett introduced Y-DNA and mitochondrial DNA to the consuming public, planting the seeds of an industry that would flourish and ultimately become a household word in the genealogy community.

Tim Janzen spoke about the role of Y-DNA from the first 12-marker panels to the Big Y-700 today. The landmark discovery that Thomas Jefferson had fathered children with Sally Hemmings occurred as a result of Y-DNA testing and drew attention to the possibilities for solving long-standing mysteries – known or unknown.

Leah Larkin discussed the tipping point of autosomal DNA in the genetic genealogy industry.

Aimee Haynes with DNA Angels, an adoption search organization, explained how autosomal DNA, in particular, answers questions for adoptees, giving identities and histories to millions of people who “don’t know who they are.”

Diahan asked me to speak about ethnicity and genetic genealogy, and I actually managed to find my original ethnicity test from 2003. That image in the middle with the red dot and “parenthesis” bands was the extent of the information returned, in addition to the percentages. By the way, those percentages weren’t accurate either, but it was a beginning.

However, ethnicity, with associated segment information at FamilyTreeDNA and 23andMe, has paved the way for painting both ethnicity and match segments with Jonny Perl’s DNAPainter.

Jonny spoke about his inspiration for DNAPainter and how he initially developed it for his own use. Now, just a few years later, everyone loves it!

Lori Napolitano spoke about the evolution of Forensic Investigative Genetic Genealogy (FIGG), also known as IGG, including a collage of people whose remains have been identified and a separate collage of perpetrators of violent crime who are now off the streets. She addressed the successes along with the challenges.

Lori’s 3 or 4 minutes were extremely balanced, presenting both sides of the coin, and I strongly encourage you to listen beginning at about minute 36.

Diahan has compiled these people’s contributions along others for a total of 34 vignettes in the book So Far: Genetic Genealogy – The First 25 Years 1999-2024.

Megan Smolenyak-Smolenyak
Scott Woodward
Bennett Greenspan
Ann Turner
Ugo Perego
Diahan Southard
Scott Fisher
Roberta Estes
Tim Janzen
Jim Bartlett
Blaine Bettinger
Daniel Horowitz
Debbie Kennett
Kitty Cooper
Angie Bush
Michelle Leonard
Paul Woodbury
Kelli Bergheimer
Judy Russell
Dana Leeds
Drew Smith
Diana Elder
Nicole Dyer
Leah Larkin
Nathan Dylan Goodwin
Mary Eberle
Mags Gaulden
Aimee-Rose-Haynes
Jonny Perl
Brianne Kirkpatrick
Laura Olmsted
Cheryi Hudson-Passey
Margaret Press
Penny Walters

The stories and visions of these pioneers and industry influencers are fascinating.

The eBook is free by scanning the QR code below or click here.

The following day, I found Diahan’s booth and was able to thank her for this labor of love.

Printed copies of Diahan’s book were available for sale in her booth, Your DNA Guide, and I was surprised how many people sought out attendees who wrote mini-chapters and asked us to sign our pages. What fun!

Diahan and I go back a long way. In the greatest of ironies, in the very early days, the Skidmore Family Association retained Diahan to “tell them what she could” about early Y-DNA tests of 51 Skidmore men. Initially, I was very concerned that the family association might have gotten themselves aligned with someone who was less than competent – but then thrilled when I discovered that consultant was Diahan. Better yet, my own line was one of 8 individual Skidmore lines that Diahan identified and was represented by several testers. Back then, Diahan was working with only a few STR markers and of course, today, we have Big Y-700 tests.

Sunny Morton, another author, joined us for a lovely photo in Diahan’s booth.

I’ve always been incredibly grateful to Sunny for taking me under her wing during my first year speaking at RootsTech, where I had 4 or 5 days to prepare a presentation to cover for another speaker who was unexpectedly unable to attend. Baptism by fire, for sure.

Another reminder that people remember you for how you make them feel.

Expo Hall Show Floor

In between sessions and events, I wandered around the show floor to see the booths, their offerings, and my friends. Many of these people are probably your friends, too, or you have seen their names in the community.

Near Diahan’s booth, I found Diana Elder and Nicole Dyer, pictured above, a lovely mother-daughter professional genealogist pair who founded Family Locket. Should I say this? I especially love the baby genealogist peeking at us from behind. I’m thinking in another year or so, it will be a three-generation endeavor.😊

I was excited to run into Marian Pierre-Louis, who facilitates the smooth running of Legacy Family Tree Webinars and slays technology gremlins left and right! Another person I’m grateful to!

Geoff Rasmussen, founder of Legacy Family Tree, both the Legacy Family Tree Software and the webinars, was staffing the booth. If you haven’t tried these amazing genealogy webinars, all webinars are free initially and for 7 days and are then available by subscription in the webinar library.

Here, Geoff and Marian appear together. What a wonderful team. I’ll have a new webinar in the library before year-end.

Further down the row, I found Geneanet. If you’re not familiar with Geneanet, they are the last totally free resource that I’m aware of that allows the free uploading of your tree, regardless of size.

I use Geneanet often, especially when searching for Europeans. One of my favorite trees at Geneanet belongs to professional genealogist Karen Theriot Reader, and it documents more than 166,000 Acadians and their descendants—along with sources.

Yes, there was food, although not as much as in earlier years. However, these lovely mini-bundt cakes were TO DIE FOR. Unfortunately, I never did manage to purchase a chocolate one.

Maybe I’ll just have to cross my fingers for next year.

_____________________________________________________________

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Genealogy Research

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Pedigree Collapse and DNA – Plus an Easy-Peasy Shortcut

Posted on January 31, 2024 by Roberta Estes

Pedigree collapse can be responsible for you sharing more DNA than expected with another person.

What is pedigree collapse?

Pedigree collapse occurs when you descend from the same ancestor(s) through more than one path. In other words, you descend from those ancestors through two different children. Therefore, when matching with someone else who descends through those ancestors, you may share more DNA than would be expected from that level of relationship on the surface, meaning without pedigree collapse.

Endogamy is different and means that you descend from a community of ancestors who descend from the same group of ancestors. Often out-marriage is discouraged or otherwise impossible, so all of the group of people share common ancestors, which means they often match on segments without sharing close ancestors. Examples of descent from endogamous populations are Jewish, Amish, Brethren, Acadian, Native Hawaiian, Māori, and Native American people, among others.

I wrote about the difference between pedigree collapse and endogamy in the article, What’s the Difference Between Pedigree Collapse and Endogamy?

I’ve also written about endogamy in the following articles:

Degrees of Consanguinity

If you’re a genealogist, and especially if you’ve worked with Catholic church records, you’ve probably heard of “degrees of sanguinity,” which are prohibited blood relationships in marriage. For example, siblings are prohibited from marrying because they are too closely related, according to church doctrine.

By SVG remake by WClarke based on original by User:Sg647112c – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=54804980

Today, we think of the genetic results of inbreeding, but originally, relationships (and consanguinity) also had to do with inheritance.

Essentially, marriages are prohibited by degree of sanguinity, and that degree is calculated based on this relationship chart. Prohibited degrees of consanguinity changed over time. Sometimes, a priest granted dispensation for a couple to wed who was of a prohibited degree of sanguinity. That’s a genealogy goldmine because it tells you where to look for common ancestors. It also tells you something else – that you may share more DNA with other descendants of that couple than one would otherwise expect.

More Than You Ever Expected

Recently, I’ve been working with an academic research team on a very interesting ancient DNA case that involves pedigree collapse. Doing the genealogy and genetic work on how much DNA was expected in a match without pedigree collapse, and how much was expected with pedigree collapse, was very interesting.

The team was working to confirm relationships between people in a cemetery. The burials shared more DNA than anticipated for who the people were believed to be. Enter pedigree collapse.

I can’t disclose the circumstances just yet – but I will as soon as possible. It’s an extremely interesting story.

We needed to ensure that readers, both academic and more generally understood pedigree collapse and our calculations. Why did burials share higher than expected DNA than indicated by the expected relationships? This puzzle becomes much more interesting when you add in pedigree collapse.

Academic researchers and scientists have access to models and mathematical algorithms that normal air-breathing humans don’t have easy access to.
So, what do you do if you and a match have a known pedigree collapse in your tree? How much DNA can you expect to share, and how do you calculate that?

These are all great questions, so let’s take a look.

I’m sharing the PowerPoint slides I prepared for our team on this topic. I’ve removed anything that would identify or even hint at the project and modified the slides slightly for easier consumption.

This presentation has never been given publicly, so you’re first! It seemed a waste to do this work and not share it!

Pedigree Collapse and DNA

Pedigree collapse occurs when you share an ancestor or ancestors through different pathways. In this case, the person at the bottom is the child of parents who were third cousins, but the father’s grandparents were also first cousins.

First cousin marriages were common in the not-too-distant past. Today, you could easily marry your third or fourth cousin and not even realize it unless someone in your family just happened to be a genealogist.

Genealogists use various tools to calculate the expected amount of shared DNA in relationships – first cousins, siblings, or half-siblings, for example. Both the Shared cM Project at DNAPainter and SegcM at DNA-Sci Tools provide tools.

Take a look at the article, DNA: In Search of…Full and Half-Siblings, for some great examples.

First cousins share common grandparents. Their child inherits DNA from two paths that lead back to the same ancestors. Some of that DNA will be the same, meaning the child will or can inherit the same ancestral segment from both parents, and some will be different segments from those ancestors that the parents do not share with each other.

Inheritance – How It Works

Let’s look at inheritance to see how this happens.

Let’s start with full and half-siblings.

Each child inherits half of their DNA from each parent, but not entirely the same half (unless they are identical twins.)

Therefore, full siblings will match on about 50% of their DNA, which is illustrated by the segments on the chromosome browser. However, and this will be important in a minute, about 25% of their DNA is exactly the same, when compared to each other, on the chromosome inherited from their father and mother at the same location.

On the chromosome browser, you can see that three siblings do match. One sibling (the grey background chromosomes) is the person both other full siblings are being compared to, in the example above.

What you can’t determine is whether they share the exact same DNA on both their mother and father’s Chromosome 1, where the matches overlap, for example. We know they both match their sibling, but the top person could match the sibling due to a match from their paternal chromosome in that location, and the bottom person could match due to their maternal chromosome. There’s no way to know, at least not from that view.

The areas where the siblings share exactly the same DNA on both their maternal and paternal chromosome, both, with each other are called Fully Identical REgions (FIR), as compared to Half Identical Regions (HIR) where the siblings match on either their maternal or paternal copy of the chromosome, but not both.

23andMe used to provide a tool that displayed both types of matches.

Since the data exposure incident at 23andMe, they no longer provide this lovely tool, and since that help page is now gone as well, I doubt this view will ever be returned. Fortunately, I grabbed a screenshot previously.

The dark purple segments are fully identical, meaning that these two full siblings match on both their maternal and paternal chromosomes in that location. The magenta are half identical, which means they match on EITHER the maternal or paternal chromosome in that location but not on both chromosomes. Of course, no color (light grey) means there is no match at that location.

Please note that because 23andMe counts fully identical regions (FIR) twice, their total matching cMs are elevated. The other companies do NOT count those regions twice.
GEDmatch also shows both full and half-identical regions as described more fully, here.

In this full-sibling example from GEDmatch, the green segments are fully identical regions across both the maternal and paternal chromosomes.

The definition of FIR is that two people match on both their mother’s and father’s DNA on the same chromosome. Therefore, in following generations, there technically should not be FIR matches, but in some instances we do find FIR matches outside of full siblings.

Moving down another generation, first cousins may share SOME fully identical DNA, especially if they are from an endogamous population or their mothers are related, but less, and it’s generally scattered.

Here’s my Mom’s GEDmatch comparison to her first cousin. The purple-legend segment shows a match, and the green within that match shows fully identical locations.

You can easily see that these are very scattered, probably representing “chance” or population-based fully identical matching locations within a segment. Comparatively, the green FIR segments for full siblings are dense and compact, indicating a segment that is fully identical.

Evaluating matches for dense FIR segments (known as runs of homozygosity – ROH) is a good indicator of parental relatedness.

Double Cousins

Of course, if these people were double first cousins, where the wives of the siblings were sisters to each other – the first cousins would have large patches of dense green FIR segments.

First cousins share grandparents.

Double first cousins occur when two people share both sets of grandparents, meaning that brothers marry sisters. Normal first cousins share about 12.5% of their DNA, but double first cousins share about 25% of their DNA.

In this case, Sharon and Donna descend from two brothers, James and Henry, who were sons of Joseph and Jane. In this scenario, James and Henry married unrelated women, so Sharon and Donna are first cousins to each other.

Double first cousins share both sets of grandparents so they would inherit FIR from both sets of siblings.

You need to be aware of this, but for now, let’s stick with non-double relationships. You’re welcome!

DNA Inheritance

Here’s a different example of DNA inheritance between two siblings.

You can see that in the first 50 cM segment, both siblings inherited the same DNA from both parents, so they match on both their mother’s and father’s chromosomes. They match on both the 50 cM green and 50 cM pink segments. 23andMe would count that as 100 cMs, but other vendors only count a segment IF it matches, NOT if it matches twice. So, other vendors count this as a 50 cM match.
In column two, these two people don’t match at all because they inherited different DNA from each parent. In this example, Person 1 inherited their maternal grandmother’s segment, and Person 2 inherited their maternal grandfather’s segment.
In column three, our siblings match on their paternal grandmother’s segment.
In column four, no match again.

How much can we expect to inherit at different levels – on average?

Different tools differ slightly, and all tools provide ranges. In our example, I’ve labeled the generations and how much shared DNA we would expect – WITHOUT pedigree collapse.

Ancestral couple	Inherited cM	Inherited %
Gen 1 – Their children	3500 cM	50
Gen 2 – Grandchildren	1750 cM	25
Gen 3 – Great-Grandchildren	875 cM	12.5
Gen 4 – GG-Grandchildren	437.5	6.25
Gen 5 – GGG-Grandchildren	218.75	3.125
Gen 6 – GGGG-Grandchildren	109.375	1.5625
Gen 7 – GGGG-Grandchildren	54.6875	.078125

Please note that this is inherited DNA, not shared (matching) DNA with another person.

Adding in pedigree collapse, you can see that we have three Gen 1 people involved, three Gen 2 descendants, and two Gen 3 and Gen 4 people.

Each of those people inherit and pass on segments from our original couple at the top.
We have three distinct inheritance paths leading from our original couple to Gen 5.
We have a first cousin marriage at Gen 2, at left, which means that their child, Gen 3, will have an elevated amount of the DNA of their common ancestors.

In Gen 4, two people marry who both descend from a common couple, meaning their child, Gen 5, descends from that couple in three different ways.

Did your eyes just glaze over? Well, mine did, too, which is why I had to draw all of this out on paper before putting it into PowerPoint.

The Gen 5 child inherits DNA from the ancestral couple via three pathways.
The next thing to keep in mind is that just because you inherit the DNA from an ancestor does not mean you match another descendant. Inheritance is not matching.

You must inherit before you can match, but just because you and someone else have inherited a DNA segment from a common ancestor does not guarantee a match. Those segments could be in different locations.

Categories of DNA

When dealing with inheritance and descent, we discuss four categories of DNA.

In the first generation, full siblings will, in about 25% of their locations, share the same DNA that has been inherited from both parents on the same chromosome. In other words, they match each other both maternally and paternally at that location. Those are FIR.
The DNA you inherit from an ancestor.
The DNA that both you and your cousin(s) inherit from a common ancestor and match on the same location. This is shared DNA.
The DNA that both you and your cousin(s) inherit from a common ancestor, but it’s not in the same location, so you do not match each other on that segment. Just because you inherit DNA from that ancestor does not necessarily mean that your cousin has the same DNA from that ancestor. This is inherited but not shared.

Inheritance is Not The Same as Matching

Inheritance is not the same thing as matching.

Inheriting our ancestor’s DNA isn’t enough. We need to match someone else who inherited that same segment in order to attribute the segment to that specific ancestor.

Depending on how close or distant the relationship, two people may share a lot of DNA (like full siblings), or one segment in more distant matches, or sometimes none at all. As we reach further back in time, we inherit less and less of our increasingly distant ancestors’ DNA, which means we match increasingly fewer of their descendants. I wrote about determining ancestral percentages in the article, Ancestral Percentages – How Much of Them is in You?

Based on how much DNA we share with other known relatives, we can estimate relationships.

Pedigree collapse, where one descends from common ancestors more than once, increases the expected amount of inherited DNA, which in turn increases the probability of a shared match with other descendants.

Ancestral Couple	Matching Between	Shared DNA ~cM	Shared DNA ~%	Range (Shared cM Project)	FIR – Identical DNA
Generation 1	Full Siblings	2600	50	1613-3488	25%
Generation 2	First Cousins	866	12.5	396-1397	0
Generation 3	Second Cousins	229	3.125	41-592	0
Generation 4	Third Cousins	73	0.78125	0-234	0

Here’s an example through third cousins, including expected FIR, fully identical regions where full siblings match each other on both their maternal and paternal chromosomes in the same location.

I provided a larger summary chart incorporating the information from public sources, here, minus FIR.

Of course, double cousins, where two pairs of siblings marry each other, represent another separate level of complexity. DNA-Sci’s Double Cousin Orogen explains this here and also provides a tool.

Double cousins, meaning when two pairs of siblings marry each other, are different from doubly related.

Doubly related means that two people descend from common ancestors through multiple paths, meaning multiple lines of descent. Doubly related is pedigree collapse. Double cousins is pedigree collapse on steroids.

Pedigree Collapse, aka Doubly Related

Calculating expected inherited DNA from multiple lines of descent is a bit more challenging.

A handy-dandy chart isn’t going to help with multiple relationships because the amount of expected shared DNA is based on the number of and distance of relationships.

Please note that this discussion excludes X-DNA matching which has its own inheritance path.

It’s time for math – but I promise I’ll make this relatively easy – pardon the pun.

What’s Behind the Math?

So, here’s the deal. I want you to understand why and how this works. You may not need this information today, but eventually, you probably will. This is one of those “refer back to it” articles for your personal library. Read this once as a conceptual overview, then read it again if you need to work through the relationships.

This is easy if you take it one step at a time.

First, we calculate each path separately.

In the first generation, full siblings inherit identical (FIR) DNA on both their mother’s and father’s chromosomes.

In the second generation, the male inherits the maternal segment, and the female inherits the paternal segment.

In the third generation, their child inherits those segments intact from both of their parents. The child inherits from the ancestral couple twice – once through each parent.

In generation 1, those two segments were FIR, fully identical regions. Both of those men married unrelated wives. When their children, Gen 2, were born, they had either the maternal or paternal segment from their father because they had an entirely different segment in that location from their mother.

However, the child in Gen 3 inherited the original green segment from their father and the original pink segment from their mother – reuniting those FIR segments in later generations.

First Cousin’s Child

Let’s calculate the inheritance for the child of those two first cousins who married.

Ancestral couple	Inherited cM	Inherited %
Gen 3 – Great-Grandchildren	875 cM	12.5
Gen 3 – Great-Grandchildren	875 cM	12.5
Total	1750 cM	25

Normally, a Gen 3 person inherits roughly 875 cM, or 12.5% of their great-grandparent’s DNA. However, since their grandparents were first cousins, they inherit about twice that amount, or 1750 cM.

While a Gen 3 person inherits as much as a grandchild (25%) normally would from the original couple, they won’t match on all of that DNA. When matching, we need to subtract some of that DNA out of the equation for two reasons:

In the first generation, between siblings, some of their DNA was fully identical and cannot be identified as such.
In the second generation, they will each have some parts of the ancestral couple’s DNA that will not match the other person. So, they inherit the same amounts from their common ancestors, but they can only be expected to match on about 25% of that amount two generations later.

However, the child of first cousins who marry inherits more DNA of the common ancestors than they would if their parents weren’t related. It’s just that some of that DNA is the same, potentially on the maternal and paternal chromosomes again, and some won’t match at all.

While matching DNA is the whole point of autosomal DNA testing, fully identical DNA matching regions (FIR) cannot be identified that way. For the most part, other than identifying full and half-siblings, sometimes pedigree collapse, and parent-relatedness, fully identical DNA isn’t terribly useful for genealogy. However, we still need to understand how this works.

It’s OK if you just want to say, “I know we’ll share more DNA due to pedigree collapse,” but if you want to know how much more to expect, keep reading. I’d really like for you to understand use cases and be able to track those segments.

Remember, we will learn a super-easy shortcut at the end, so for now, just read. It’s important to understand why the shortcut works.

Sibling Inheritance Versus Matching

In order to compare apples to apples, sometimes we need to remove some portion of DNA in our calculations.

Remember story problems where you had to “show your work”?

Calculating Expected DNA

Here’s the step-by-step logic.

Ancestral couple	Inherited Non-Identical cM	Inherited %
Gen 1 first son	3500	50
Gen 1 second son	3500	50
Less identical segments (FIR)	-1750 (subtracted from one child for illustration)	25

Gen 2 son	1750	25
Gen 2 daughter married Gen 2 son	875	12.5

Gen 3 – Their child path through Gen 2 son	875 cM	12.5
Gen 3 – Their child path through Gen 2 mother	437.5 cM	6.25

Their child total without removing identical segments	1750 cM	25
Their child total after removing identical segments	1312.5	18.75

Category	cMs	Most Probable	Degree Relationship
No Pedigree Collapse	875	98% Great grandparent or great-grandchild, great or half aunt/uncle, great or half niece/nephew, 1C	3
Pedigree Collapse without identical segment removal	1750	100% Grandparent, grandchild, aunt/uncle, half-sibling, niece/nephew	2
Pedigree Collapse after identical segment removal	1312.5	56% grandparent, grandchild, aunt/uncle, niece/nephew, half-sibling	2

Just because you HAVE this much shared (and/or identical) DNA doesn’t mean you’ll match on that DNA.

Next, let’s look at Gen 5 child who inherited three ways from the ancestors.

If you think, “This will never happen,” remember that it did, which is why I was working through this story problem. It’s not uncommon for families to live in the same area for generations. You married who you saw – generally, your family and neighbors, who were likely also family.

Let’s take a look at that 5^th generation child.

The more distantly related, the less pedigree collapse affects matching DNA. That’s not to say we can ignore it.

Here’s our work product. See, this isn’t difficult when you take it step by step, one at a time.

Ancestral couple	Inherited Non-Identical cM	Inherited %
Gen 3 Child total after removing identical segments	1312.5	18.75

Gen 4 father – half of Gen 3 father	656.25	9.375

Gen 5 child – half of Gen 4 father	328.125	4.6875
Gen 5 child – mother’s side calculated from ancestral couple normally	218.75	3.125
Total for Gen 5 Child	546.875	7.8125

Inheritance Ranges

Lots of factors can affect how much DNA a person in any given generation inherits from an ancestor. The same is true with multiple paths from that same ancestor. How do we calculate multiple path inheritance ranges?

As with any relationship, we find a range, or combined set of ranges for Gen 5 Child based on the multiple pathways back to the common ancestors.

Gen 5 Child	Inherited Non-Identical cM	Inherited %
Without removing either paternal or maternal identical cMs	656.25	9.375
After removing paternal identical cMs only	546.875	7.8125
After removing maternal cMs only	546.875	7.8125
After removing both paternal and maternal identical cMs	362.50	6.25
Normal Gen 5 no pedigree collapse	218	3.125

What About Matching?

Inheritance and matching are different. Most of the time, two people are unlikely to share all of the DNA they inherited from a particular ancestor. Of course, inheriting through multiple paths increases the likelihood that at least some DNA from that ancestor is preserved and that it’s shared with other descendants.

Two people aren’t expected to match on all of the segments of DNA that they inherit from a particular ancestor. The closer in time the relationship, the more segments they will inherit from that ancestor, which increases the chances of matching on at least one or some segments.

Clearly, pedigree collapse affects matching. It’s most pronounced in closer relationships, but it may also be the only thing that has preserved that ONE matching segment in a more distant relationship.

So, how does pedigree collapse actually affect the likelihood of matching? What can we actually expect to see? Is there a name for this and a mathematical model to assist with calculations?

I’m so glad you asked! It’s called Coefficient of Relationship.

Coefficent of Relationship

My colleague, Diahan Southard, a scientist who writes at YourDNAGuide has authored two wonderful articles about calculating the statistical effects of pedigree collapse.

You can also read another article about the methodology of calculating coefficient of relationship, here, on WaybackMachine.

Diahan is a math whiz. I’m not, so I needed to devise something “quick and dirty” for my own personal use. I promised you a “cheat sheet,” so here’s the methodology.

Two Inheritance Paths – First and Third Cousins

Let’s look at an example where two people are both first cousins and third cousins because their grandparents were also first cousins.

Let’s calculate how these two people are related. They are first cousins and also third cousins.

When calculating the effects of pedigree collapse, we calculate the first relationship normally, then calculate the second relationship and add a portion of the result.

Here’s the math.

Using the Shared cM Project for the expected amount of shared DNA for both relationships, we’ve calculated the expected range for this pedigree collapse relationship.

Tying this back to degrees of relatedness.

Let’s look at ways to do Quick Calculations using the publicly available Shared cM charts and my composite tables, here.

Using Average Shared DNA

This first methodology uses average expected amount of shared, meaning matching, DNA. Please note, I’m not necessarily expecting you to DO this now, just read to follow.

Using Average Inherited DNA

Here’s a second method using average inherited DNA, meaning people wouldn’t be expected to match on all of the inherited DNA – just a portion.

You can’t always use the shared cM charts because all relationships aren’t represented, so you may need to use the amount of expected inherited DNA instead of shared DNA amounts.

Methodology Differences

Remember, none of these methodologies are foolproof because DNA inheritance is random. You may also have additional relationships that you’re aware of.

So, what’s the easiest method? Neither, actually. I’ve found an even easier method based on these proven methodologies.

Easy-Peasy Pedigree Collapse Shortcut Range Calculation in 4 Steps

Now that you understand the science and reasoning behind all of this, you can choose from multiple calculation methodologies after drawing a picture of the relevant tree.

You’re probably wondering, “What’s the easiest way to do this?”

These quick calculation methods are the easiest to work with for non-scientists and non-math whizzes. These are the calculations I use because, taking into account random recombination, you can’t do any better than get close.
Also, remember, if you’re dealing with double relationships, meaning double first cousins, you’ll need to take that into consideration, too.
If endogamy is involved, your matches will be higher yet, and you should use the highest calculations below because you need to be on the highest end of the range – and that may still not be high enough.

In these Easy-Peasy calculations, you calculate for the lowest, then the highest, and that’s your range. Please note that these are options, and truly, one size does not fit all.

For the lowest end of the range, simply use the average of the highest relationship. In this case, that would be 1C, which is 866 cM. Remember that you may not share DNA with third cousins. 10% of third cousins don’t share any DNA, and 50% of fourth cousins don’t.
For the highest end of the range, find the second relationship in the Shared cM chart, divide the average by half, and add to the value from the closest relationship. In this case, half of the 3C value of 76 is 38.
Add 38 to 866 for the highest end of the range of 904.
If there’s yet another path to ANY shared ancestor, add half that amount too to calculate the high end of the range – unless it’s 4C or more distant, then don’t add anything.

You can see that this easy-peasy range calculation for pedigree collapse compares very well to the more complex but still easy calculations.

Easy-peasy calculation: 866-904
Other calculation methods: 850-903
For this same relationship combination, Diahan’s statistical calculation was 850 cM.

Back to Genealogy

What’s the short story about how pedigree collapse affects genealogy?

Essentially, in close generations, meaning within a few generations of two first cousins marrying, descendants can expect to inherit and share significantly more DNA of the common ancestors, but not double the amount. As we move further away from those marriages in time, the effect becomes less pronounced and more difficult to detect. You can see that effect when calculating multiple paths where at the fourth cousin level, or more distant, those cousins have a 50% or greater possibility of not sharing DNA segments.

Of course, with multiple paths to the same ancestor, your chances of inheriting at least some segments from the common ancestor are increased because their DNA descends through multiple paths.

Today, close marriages are much less common and have been for several generations in many cultures, so we see fewer instances where pedigree collapse makes a significant difference.

Within a population or group of people, if pedigree collapse becomes common, meaning that there are multiple paths leading back to common ancestors, like our three-path example, DNA segments from the common ancestors are found among many people. Significant pedigree collapse becomes endogamy, especially if marriage outside of the group is difficult, impossible, or discouraged.

Normally, pedigree collapse is not recorded in actual records. It’s left to genealogists to discover those connections.

The exception, of course, is those wonderful Catholic parish records where the priest granted dispensations. Sometimes, that’s our only hint to earlier genealogy. In the case of the marriage of Marie-Josesphe LePrince to Jacques Forest, the priest wrote “dispense 3-3 consanguinity,” which tells us that they shared great-grandparents. It also tells us that their grandparents were siblings, that the bride and groom were second cousins, and that their children and descendants inherited an extra dose of DNA from their common great-grandparents.

How does that affect me today? Given that I’m their seventh-generation descendant – probably not at all. Of course, they are Acadian, and the Acadians are highly endogamous, which means I match many Acadians because all Acadians share the DNA of just a few founders, making it almost impossible to track segments to any particular ancestor. If it weren’t for endogamy, I would probably match few, if any, of their descendants.

Now, when you see those Catholic church dispensations or otherwise discover pedigree collapse, you can be really excited, because you understand the effects of pedigree collapse and how to calculate resulting matches! You might, just might, have retained a DNA segment from those ancestors because you inherited segments through multiple paths – increasing the probability that one survived.

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I receive a small contribution when you click on some of the links to vendors in my articles. This does NOT increase your price but helps me keep the lights on and this informational blog free for everyone. Please click on the links in the articles or to the vendors below if you are purchasing products or DNA testing.

Thank you so much.

DNA Purchases and Free Uploads

FamilyTreeDNA – Y, mitochondrial and autosomal DNA testing
MyHeritage DNA – Autosomal DNA test
MyHeritage FREE DNA file upload – Upload your DNA file from other vendors free
AncestryDNA – Autosomal DNA test
AncestryDNA Plus Traits
23andMe Ancestry – Autosomal DNA only, no Health
23andMe Ancestry Plus Health

Genealogy Products and Services

MyHeritage FREE Tree Builder – Genealogy software for your computer
MyHeritage Subscription with Free Trial
Legacy Family Tree Webinars – Genealogy and DNA classes, subscription-based, some free
Legacy Family Tree Software – Genealogy software for your computer
Newspapers.com – Search newspapers for your ancestors
NewspaperArchive – Search different newspapers for your ancestors

My Book

DNA for Native American Genealogy – by Roberta Estes, for those ordering the e-book from anyplace, or paperback within the United States
DNA for Native American Genealogy – for those ordering the paperback outside the US

Genealogy Books

Genealogical.com – Lots of wonderful genealogy research books
American Ancestors – Wonderful selection of genealogy books

Genealogy Research

Legacy Tree Genealogists – Professional genealogy research

Ancestry’s ThruLines Are a Hot Mess Right Now – But Here Are Some Great Alternatives

Posted on September 3, 2023 by Roberta Estes

Right now, ThruLines at Ancestry is one hot mess.

Aside from the inherent frustration, especially over a holiday weekend when many people had planned to work on their genealogy, I’d like to say, “don’t panic.”

I don’t have any inside information about what’s going on at Ancestry, and I’ve attempted to make contact through their support page with no luck. They make talking to a person exceedingly difficult; plus, it’s a holiday weekend, and they are probably inundated.

Regardless, I have an idea of what is happening. Ancestry has been in the midst of recalculating “things,” perhaps in relation to their other changes, which I’ll write about separately in a few days.

In any event, Ancestry SURELY MUST KNOW there’s a significant problem because I imagine thousands of their customers are screaming right about now. Adding another voice won’t be helpful.

Symptoms

You may not have ThruLines at all.
If you do have ThruLines, don’t trust the information, or more to the point, don’t trust that it’s in any way complete.

I have two tests at Ancestry, both connected to different trees so that my matches and Thrulines are calculated separately for each test.

Test One

My first Ancestry test is connected to my primary tree. I’ve been amassing Thrulines cousins ever since the feature was released. I have hundreds of cousin matches descended from some of my more prolific ancestors.

Additionally, my sister’s grandchildren have tested, as have other close relatives who have connected their tests to their trees.

Today, those people are still showing on my match list, but are NOT showing as matches in ThruLines. None of them. Most of my ThruLines ancestors are showing zero matches, and the rest are only showing very few. Ancestors who had hundreds before now have 2, for example.

Here’s an example with my cousin, Erik.

My grandfather, William George Estes, shown in Erik’s tree, above, is his great-grandfather. Erik is my half first cousin, once removed, and we share 417 cM over 16 segments.

Yet, looking at my ThruLine for William George Estes, neither he nor my other cousins are shown as matches. Same for William George’s parents, and so forth.

ThruLines is VERY ill right now.

Test Two

My second DNA test at Ancestry is even worse. There are no ThruLines calculated, even though my DNA is tree-attached, and I had ThruLines previously.

I see this message now, and I can’t even begin to tell you how irritating this is – in part because it suggests the problem is my fault. It’s clearly not. My tree hasn’t changed one bit. I’m not alone, either. I’ve seen other people posting this same message.

And yes, if you’re thinking that there is absolutely no excuse for this – you’re right.

However, outrage isn’t good for us and won’t help – so let’s all do something else fun and productive instead.

Productive Genealogy Plans

Here are some productive suggestions.

Be sure your autosomal DNA file is uploaded to both MyHeritage and FamilyTreeDNA. You’ll receive new matches at each vendor that aren’t elsewhere. Here are step-by-step instructions if you need them. Here’s the link to upload to MyHeritage.

At MyHeritage:

Check for new DNA matches and triangulation.
Work on your Theories of Family Relativity.
Check for new record matches.

Select an ancestor in your tree at MyHeritage, then click on “research this person.” If you don’t have a tree at MyHeritage, you can download a copy of your tree from Ancestry or elsewhere and upload it to MyHeritage.
If you don’t have a records subscription at MyHeritage, now might be a good time to sign up for their subscription with a free trial, here,

At FamilyTreeDNA:

Check for new Family Finder autosomal matches and see if they are assigned either maternally or paternally using Family Matching.
If you have not tested your mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), which descends from your mother’s mother’s mother’s matrilineal line, order that test for yourself.
If you’re a male, order or upgrade your test to the Big Y-700 to learn about your direct patrilineal (surname) line, including the Discover tool and Globetrekker.

Build your haplogroup pedigree chart by locating people through different companies descended from each ancestor in your tree through the appropriate line of descent, and see if they have or will take a Y-DNA or mtDNA test.
Tests are on sale right now, and there’s no subscription required at FamilyTreeDNA for anything.
Check Y-DNA and mtDNA tests to see if there are new matches and if you share a common ancestor.

At 23andMe:

Check for new matches and triangulation.
Check to see if 23andMe has added any of your new matches to your genetic tree.

Remember, the parental sides are typically accurate, but the exact placement may not be, and 23andMe deals poorly with half-relationships. It’s certainly still worth checking though, because 23andMe does a lot of heavy lifting for you.

DNAPainter

For me, the most productive thing to do this weekend would be to copy the segment information from new matches with whom I can identify common ancestors at FamilyTreeDNA, MyHeritage and 23andMe – the vendors who provide segment data – and paint those segments to DNAPainter.

Not only does DNAPainter allow me to consolidate my match data in one place, DNAPainter provides the ability for me to confirm ancestors through triangulation, and to assign unknown matches to ancestors as well.

As you can see, I’ve successfully assigned about 90% of my segments to an ancestor, meaning I’ve confirmed descent from that ancestor based on my autosomal matches’ descent from that same ancestor – preferably through another child. Will new matches propel me to 91%? I hope so.

What percentage can you or have you been able to assign?

If you need help getting started, or ideas, I’ve written about DNAPainter several times and provided a compiled resource library of those articles, here.

Have fun!!!

_____________________________________________________________

Follow DNAexplain on Facebook, here.

Share the Love!

You’re always welcome to forward articles or links to friends and share on social media.

If you haven’t already subscribed (it’s free,) you can receive an email whenever I publish by clicking the “follow” button on the main blog page, here.

You Can Help Keep This Blog Free

I receive a small contribution when you click on some of the links to vendors in my articles. This does NOT increase the price you pay but helps me to keep the lights on and this informational blog free for everyone. Please click on the links in the articles or to the vendors below if you are purchasing products or DNA testing.

Thank you so much.

DNA Purchases and Free Uploads

FamilyTreeDNA – Y, mitochondrial and autosomal DNA testing
MyHeritage DNA – Autosomal DNA test
MyHeritage FREE DNA file upload – Upload your DNA file from other vendors free
AncestryDNA – Autosomal DNA test
AncestryDNA Plus Traits
23andMe Ancestry – Autosomal DNA only, no Health
23andMe Ancestry Plus Health

Genealogy Products and Services

MyHeritage FREE Tree Builder – Genealogy software for your computer
MyHeritage Subscription with Free Trial
Legacy Family Tree Webinars – Genealogy and DNA classes, subscription-based, some free
Legacy Family Tree Software – Genealogy software for your computer
Newspapers.com – Search newspapers for your ancestors
NewspaperArchive – Search different newspapers for your ancestors

My Book

DNA for Native American Genealogy – by Roberta Estes, for those ordering the e-book from anyplace, or paperback within the United States
DNA for Native American Genealogy – for those ordering the paperback outside the US

Genealogy Books