Why Test Y DNA

Posted on December 5, 2016 by Roberta Estes

Y DNA testing carries a great deal of potential – for males. Why just for males? Because the Y chromosome is passed to sons, only, from the father. The Y chromosome is what makes males male. Females receive an X chromosome from their father instead of a Y.

This means that while men can easily test for Y chromosome results, women can’t. Women have to find a male of the surname line they are interested in to test on their behalf. If their father or brothers are living, finding a willing male for their birth name can be fairly easy, but in some cases, one has to go back up the tree a generation or two, and come back down another line to find a living male from your surname line to test.

In this example, if the female in red wants to test her Estes line, and green cells represent living Estes males, she would have to go up the tree to the third generation, Lazarus, and come back down three generations through son Charlie to find a living male.

Let’s say that living male Estes either can’t be found or isn’t interested in testing. To find another male, she would have to go up the tree another generation to John Y. Estes and come down through son Reagan where there are two generations of living Estes males.

That didn’t work either? Go up another generation and come down through son Jechonas to living male, William.

Why would someone be so interested in testing surname lines?

You can learn a lot.

You can confirm that the person who tests actually descends from the expected surname line. Of course, this assumes two things. First, that others from that line have already tested and second, that the tester actually IS descended from that line. Sometimes males who carry the same surname have different ancestral lines. And sometimes, well, surprises are waiting to be found, meaning sometimes people aren’t descended from who they think they are.
You receive a haplogroup designation which reaches back to ancient times. Haplogroups tell you, for example, if your ancestor was European, Native American, Jewish, African, or Asian. With additional testing, you can discover more specific information about haplogroups, but that requires testing that can’t be performed until after your haplogroup is discovered through regular testing.
You receive your matches at each level of testing. If you test at 37 markers for example, you receive a list of matches at 37 markers, at 25 markers and at 12 markers. I recommend testing at 67 or 111 markers if possible, because those tests refine your matches even further.
You receive a “Matches Map” that shows the locations of the oldest known ancestors of your matches.
You receive a migration map, showing the path your ancient ancestors took to arrive where they are found today in the world.

There are more tools and information too. You can see, below, all of the available information for Y DNA testers on your Family Tree DNA personal home page.

As a female, I can’t test for even one Y line, but I can surely sponsor tests for men who do descend from my ancestral lines. I try to discover the genetic information for each of my lines. You never know what surprises may be lurking.

I have created a DNA pedigree chart where I record the haplogroup information for each of my ancestral lines.

When my cousins test for Y or mitochondrial lines, I also sponsor a Family Finder test, hoping that our autosomal DNA still matches, even though we are some generations removed from each other.

I try to find a male who has tested, or who will test, for each of my ancestral Y lines. You don’t know what you don’t know – and DNA testing is part of the reasonably exhaustive search required by the GPS, the Genealogical Proof Standard.

So, give yourself a gift this holiday season and test your Y DNA. If you don’t have the Y DNA for the line you want to test, find someone who does. Click here to order!

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Elizabeth Campbell (c1802-1827/1830) and the Alabama Frontier, 52 Ancestors #138

Posted on December 4, 2016 by Roberta Estes

Elizabeth Campbell’s birth year is known only through the ages of her children. Daughter Ruthy Dodson was born on March 1, 1820. It’s believed that Elizabeth married shortly before that time to Lazarus Dodson who was born in 1795. Therefore Elizabeth was probably born sometime between 1795 and 1802.

Elizabeth was raised on Little Sycamore Road in Claiborne County, Tennessee by her parents, John Campbell and Jane “Jenny” Dobkins.

Elizabeth’s father, John Campbell, purchased this land in 1802 when the family moved from near Dodson Creek in Hawkins County. Elizabeth could have been born in Hawkins County and moved to Claiborne as a toddler, or born right here in this house.

The Campbell house still stands today beside Liberty Baptist Church and beneath Liberty Cemetery where John Campbell and Jenny Dobkins are probably buried.

Looking down from the cemetery, which is on the top of the “hill” behind the house, which is really a mountain, you can see the top of the Campell home.

The current owners told me about the secret room under the foundation. Did Elizabeth play there as a child?

Elizabeth assuredly carried water from the spring.

A natural spring provided clean drinking water for the family and would have been one of the primary reasons John Campbell selected this location. It would have been the children’s job to fetch water in a bucket. These old trees were likely standing when Elizabeth dipped into the fresh cool water emanating from the stones that mark the spring, even yet today.

Viewed from a different direction, you can see that it wasn’t far from the spring to the house. The spring, here, is the ditch at the base of the trees.

The original steps that Elizabeth climbed still remain, as does the original doorway. The cabin underneath is made of logs.

We also know that Elizabeth’s children visited the same spring, trod the same land and probably jumped off of this same step, following in their mother’s absent footsteps.

Elizabeth may have married in this house as well. Elizabeth probably married Lazarus Dodson in about 1818 or 1819, because their child Martha “Ruthy” was born on March 1, 1820, with another child following shortly thereafter. Ruthy consistently shows her birth in Tennessee in every census from 1850 through 1910, as do her children.

We know very little of Elizabeth’s life between her birth and death. What we do know is quite interesting, albeit less than concrete.

The family lore from several lines includes the persistent story that Elizabeth and Lazarus went to Jackson County, Alabama after their marriage. I’ve always been skeptical of this story, because their children are found in Claiborne County, Tennessee, exactly where both Lazarus and Elizabeth are found as children. But, as it turns out, I was wrong.

The land that became Jackson Co., Alabama was originally part of the Mississippi Territory and was occupied by the Cherokee until they gave it up by treaty on Feb. 27, 1819. It’s known that the Dodson family had been involved with trading with the Indians since at least 1797 and that one Jesse Dodson was an Indian trader, licensed in 1811. It is certainly possible that Jesse Dodson, Indian Trader of the Mississippi territory, was a son of Lazarus Dodson, Sr., meaning a brother to Lazarus Dodson Jr., who married Elizabeth Campbell. Lazarus Dodson Sr. was himself camping with the Indians in Sullivan County in the winter of 1781/1782. You can read more about the Indian trader story in the article about Lazarus Dodson, Sr.

The area on the map below labeled 101 is the Jackson County, Alabama land ceded by the Cherokee in 1819, bordering Tennessee, about 200 miles from Claiborne County. The area marked 203 was not ceded until the Indian removal in 1835. Additional maps and cessations can be viewed here.

Given that at least one of Elizabeth’s children was born in Alabama in 1820 or 1821, and possibly more were born there, Elizabeth was actually living on a frontier. Alabama was made a territory in 1817 and became a state in 1819.

The Cherokee ceded land in 1816 and 1819 but retained the land just to the east of Jackson County. The Cherokee were their neighbors, and if the Dodson family was trading with the tribe, they were working among them on a daily basis.

The next hint that we have about Elizabeth is that Lazarus reappears in the Claiborne County Court notes in June of 1827. We know that his father, Lazarus Sr., died in 1826, so this 1827 appearance is most likely Lazarus, husband of Elizabeth. If this is the case, it’s possible that Lazarus and Elizabeth returned to Tennessee together and she died in Tennessee between 1826 and 1830.

It’s also possible that Elizabeth died in Alabama in 1827, prompting Lazarus’s return.

Thankfully, Elizabeth inherited from her father, John Campbell’s estate and because she was already deceased, her heirs are listed and inherit her portion. John Campbell died in 1838 and Elizabeth’s children are listed as minor heirs in 1840, 1841 and 1842.

State of Tennessee, Claiborne County Court, October term 1842. page 280.

GUARDEAN SETTLEMENT MINOR HEIRS, ELIZABETH DODSON, DECEASED.

I, Wiley Huffacker, Guardean to John C., Nancy, Ruthy, and Lazarous Dodson minor orphans of Elizabeth Dodson, deceased, do make and present to your worships the following report, or settlement, to wit.

To amount in my hands as reported to your worships at July term 1841, $120.08 3/4. Interest on same from July 1841 to September 1842, $7.81. Recd. of George Campbell rents for 1839 & 1840, $5.50. Interest recd. on G. Campbells note, date above, $0.27. Rents recd. of Wm. Fugate for the 1841, $3.00. Do – Do of Wm. Campbell for the year 1841, $3.00. Do – Do of Jacob Campbell for the year 1841, $2.12 1/4. Total: $141.79 1/4.

Notes taken for sale of land as per decree of the Circuit Court, to wit. :

One note on Jacob Campbell due 1st. July 1843, $27.54. Due on 1st January 1844, $27.54. do on Wm. Campbell, due 1st January 1843, $78.44. Do on same due 1st January 1844, $78.44. sub total: $211.96, Total: $353.75 1/4.

September 1842 recd. as administrator on auction sales of negroes by order of Circuit Court, $116.04. Total Amount: $469.79 1/4.

Paid attorney Sawyers for advice, $5.00. Guardian bond to clerk Neil, $0.75. For attending to the whole business as Guardian, making and recording this settlement & &. $14.25. total: $20.00., yet due: $449.79 1/4.

Guardian entitled to credits as follows, to wit: Paid Gray Garret my part expenses selling land, $1.00.

John C. Dotsons rect. 26th Sept. 1842, in full his share $112.46.

James S. Brays rect. 31st Dec. 1841 $63.90. Do – do for rents for 1841, $1.50. Due 3rd Oct. 1842 for balance in full, or his wife’s share in my hands as guardian, $47.06.

John Y. Estes rect. dated 5th Sept. 1842, $54.35. Do – do rents for the year 1841, $1.50. Do – do order for what ballence may be in my hands as guardian, amt. $56.61.

Total amount due the heirs, after expenses, $449.79 1/4.

Vouchers filed to the amount of $338.38. balance, $111.41 1/4.

Leaving yet in my hands, one hundred eleven dollars & fourty one cents which is each heirs share & which is due & owing to Lazarous Dotson, the youngest heir. The other three having received their whole share as appears from the vouchers on file. Which settlement was presented to the court at October term 1842 & by the court examined & ordered to be filed and recorded, being received by the court. Wiley Huffacker, Guardean.

Elizabeth apparently died sometime between the birth of her last child in 1827 and 1830 when her 4 children appear to be living with her parents in Claiborne County, TN. Her father, John Campbell is show on the 1830 census, below.

John Campbell’s household has 4 small children living with he and his wife.

I do not find Lazarus Dodson, Elizabeth’s husband, in 1830, although there is a Lazarus Dotson in Pickens Co., Alabama but he is 40-50 years of age, along with his wife, and they have 6 children, 4 males and 2 females, which does not match our Lazarus and his known children.

Lazarus Dodson served on a jury in Claiborne County in March of 1830, so we know he was living there at that time and serves in both 1829 and 1831 as well. Perhaps he was living with another family in 1830.

I suspect that these are the Dodson children living with John Campbell, and that Elizabeth had passed over by then. Lazarus probably brought them back from Alabama and left them with their grandparents because he couldn’t farm and watch 4 small children too – all 4 being under the age of 10. If Elizabeth died in 1827 or 1828, those children would have all been under the age of 7 or 8. The youngest children probably had no memory of their mother. If Elizabeth knew she was dying, it must have broken her heart to leave her young children.

I would wager that wagon ride from Alabama to Tennessee was one long, sorrowful, journey. The children would not have known their grandparents and their mother had died. It’s possible that the first John Campbell and his wife, Jane “Jenny” Dobkins knew of their daughter’s death was when Lazarus showed up in a wagon, without their daughter and with 4 children. For that matter, they may not have known that Elizabeth had borne 4 children.

What a terribly bittersweet homecoming. The excitement of seeing the wagon, and who was driving, and then the agony of discovering that their daughter was not inside.

Snippets of confirming information about Elizabeth and Lazarus living in Alabama come from their children.

Elizabeth’s son, John Campbell Dodson, born in 1820 or 1821 shows himself to have been born in Alabama in the 1850 Claiborne County, TN census and 1860 Pulaksi County, KY census. His Civil War military records confirm that was well.

However, Elizabeth’s daughter, Nancy Ann was born in 1824 in Tennessee according to the 1850 Claiborne County, TN census. She died before the 1860 census, but her son, Thomas Bray, in 1900, shows his mother as born in Tennessee.

Elizabeth’s son Lazarus is shown living beside his sister Nancy Bray in 1850, also born in Tennessee. The 1860 census in Pulaski County, Kentucky and the 1880 census in Madrid Bend, Fulton County, KY also show that he was born in Tennessee.

Nancy Ann and Lazarus, the youngest children, may not remember living in Alabama, if, in fact, they did.

One thing we know for sure, Lazarus Dodson was absent from Claiborne County between 1819 and at least 1826 when either he or his father repurchased the land beneath Cumberland Gap. He was back for sure in mid-1827 when he appears in the court notes. Lazarus’s wife, Elizabeth would have been with him, wherever he was.

I believe that Lazarus Jr. purchased the land on Tiprell Road in 1826, previously sold by his father in 1819, given that the land was not mentioned in nor sold from his father’s estate and Lazarus subsequently swears that he sold that land in 1833. Lazarus may have purchased the land, then gone back to Alabama to retrieve his family, returning by the summer of 1827.

If Elizabeth died in Alabama, the location of her grave is unknown to us.

If Elizabeth died in Claiborne County, she would be buried either in the cemetery on Lazarus’s land, known as the Cottrell Cemetery today, or in Liberty Cemetery above her father’s house (if the cemetery was in use that early), or possibly in the Campbell cemetery on Jacob Dobkins’ original land. Regardless, I’ve visited her grave one time or another, and she was assuredly buried among family, regardless of which cemetery was her final resting place.

Elizabeth’s known children were:

Martha “Ruthy” Dodson (1820-1903) who married John Y. Estes
John Campbell Dodson (1820/1821-after 1860) who married Barthena Dobkins in 1839
Nancy Ann Dodson (c1824-1852/1860) married James S. Bray
Lazarus Dobkins Dodson (1827-1885) married Elizabeth Carpenter

DNA

Elizabeth’s mitochondrial DNA would be passed down from her mother to her, unmixed with any DNA from her father. Women pass their mitochondrial DNA to all of their children, but only females pass it on. That means that anyone who descends from Elizabeth, her mother, or her mother’s sisters, through all females to the current generation, carry her mitochondrial DNA. In the current generation, the testers can be either males or females.

Mitochondrial DNA is particularly important in these old families, because we really don’t know much about the female lines quite often. We may think they are of European origin, but sometimes they are Native, and vice versa. Mitochondrial DNA testing removes all question. Because it’s always passed intact, meaning never mixed with the father’s DNA, it remains clear for many generations, showing us the history of that one single line back into distant times.

Elizabeth had only two daughters, who had the following daughters who would be candidates to provide descendants who could test today for Elizabeth’s mitochondrial DNA.

Ruthy Dodson (1820-1903) married John Y. Estes – daughters:

Elizabeth Ann Estes (1851-1946) married William George Vannoy and lived in Montague Co., Texas. She had daughters

Doshia Phoebe Vannoy (1875-1972) married James Hutson and had daughters:

Audrey Lee Hutson (1917->2006) married Alfred Long

Opal Hutson (1900-197?) married Grady Murphy

Lizzie Lucille Hutson (1907-?) married a Luttrell

Eliza Vannoy (1871-1925) married Joe Robert Miller and had daughter:

Nell Miller (1902-1991) married William Jackson, daughter:

Reba Jackson (1926-2010) married John Webb

Nancy Ann Dodson (1821-1852/1860) married James S. Bray – daughters:

Mary Bray born circa 1848

Rhoda Bray born (1852-1921) married William Hunter Wood, daughters:

Nannie Harger Wood (1883-1975) married Harry Barr Ross

Bertha L. Wood

Carline Bray born circa 1838

If you descend from Elizabeth Campbell through all females (bolded above) to the current generation and are the first person who steps forward willing to DNA test, I have a DNA testing scholarship for you. In the current generation, you can be either male or female, so long as you descend through all females.

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Genetic Genealogy in Practice

Posted on December 2, 2016 by Roberta Estes

The book, Genetic Genealogy in Practice, recently published by the National Genealogical Society and authored by Blaine Bettinger and Debbie Parker Wayne is a practical guide for the genetic genealogist.

This book is not to be confused with Blaine’s second new book, also released in 2016, titled The Family Tree Guide to DNA Testing and Genetic Genealogy. I knew Blaine had a book underway, but I had no idea he was simultaneously working on two! While I have not read the second book, I have read Genetic Genealogy in Practice (finally), which I’m reviewing here.

One of the best features of Genetic Genealogy in Practice is that it includes exercises at the end of each chapter. Oh, and for good measure, the answers are provided in an appendix too, so you don’t have to guess whether your answer was right! Additionally, the appendices provide a glossary and other resources for the genetic genealogist.

The book begins with an introductory chapter about genetics and each chapter includes specific educational information about the topic at hand – for example, how Y, autosomal and mtDNA differ from each other and how they “work” for genetic genealogy..

With the increasing popularity of autosomal DNA testing, I’ve noticed a trend to neglect both Y DNA and mitochondrial DNA testing. In fact, many new testers don’t even know that type of DNA testing exists, let alone who can and should test, and what it can do for their genealogy research.

Therefore, I was VERY glad to see chapters titled “Genealogical Applications for Y-DNA” and a similarly named chapter for mitochondrial DNA.

Of course, the use of autosomal DNA for genetic genealogy has the largest chapter. It’s the most complex type of genetic genealogy testing and is often represented by media advertisements as deceptively simple. It isn’t simple, or maybe better stated, unraveling the meaning of autosomal results can be complex. Regardless, autosomal DNA is always extremely interesting and is often an exceptionally powerful tool.

While the Y and mitochondrial DNA provide very specific targeted information about one individual genealogical line each, direct paternal and matrilineal, respectively, autosomal DNA provides information about all of our ancestral lines. However, unlike Y and mitochondrial DNA – we have no idea which autosomal information is connected to which ancestral line – at least not without additional information – like Y DNA, mitochondrial DNA or additional relatives testing. The key to unraveling the autosomal puzzle is genealogical collaboration with other testers, and convincing as many close relatives to test as possible.

Utilizing combinations of different types of DNA testing, together, leads to the following chapter. “Incorporating DNA Testing in a Family Study.” Genealogy and genetic genealogy are no longer two different things. They have married and morphed into one

You can’t really do justice to the topic of genetic genealogy without discussing privacy, how to write about DNA results and the Genealogical Proof Standard, known as the GPS. To me, this paragraph from page 12 is critically important to genealogists.

The first element of the GPS calls for thorough research; “Reasonably exhaustive research ensures examination of all potentially relevant sources. It minimizes the risk that undiscovered evidence will overturn a too-hasty conclusion.”

Blaine and Debbie go on to discuss this topic, but I will simply say that genealogy without DNA testing is no longer a reasonably exhaustive search. If DNA evidence can be utilized in any way, meaning directly through testing of relatives, or indirectly as a result of someone else testing (or having tested) your line(s), it should be. A reasonably exhaustive search should include identifying individuals to provide Y, mtDNA or autosomal DNA results for each of your ancestral lines.

DNA testing is no longer an option for any serious genealogist, it’s one of the primary tools of the trade to gather additional information about each ancestor. This book helps ensure that the genealogist understands the genetic tools available and how to apply them correctly.

Genetic Genealogy in Practice is available through the NGS Store.

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The Big Y and Genealogy

Posted on November 28, 2016 by Roberta Estes

For the holidays, I want to talk briefly about one particular type of DNA that is tested, and why one might want to order that particular test.

I’ve seen questions this past week about the Big Y test, so let’s talk about this test today.

The Big Y Test

The questions I’ve seen recently about the Big Y mostly revolve around why the test isn’t listed among the sale prices shown on the Family Tree DNA main page.

The Big Y test is not an entry level test. The tests shown on the Family Tree DNA main page are entry level and can be ordered by anyone, at least so long as the Y DNA tests are ordered for males. (Females don’t have a Y chromosome, so Y tests won’t work for them.)

The Big Y test is an upgrade for a male who has already taken the regular 37, 67 or 111 STR (short tandem repeat) marker test. For those who are unfamiliar, STR markers are used in a genealogically relevant timeframe to match other men to search for a common recent ancestor and are the type of markers used for 37, 67 and 111 marker tests.

SNPs (single nucleotide polymorphisms) are used to determine haplogroups, which reflect deep ancestry and reach significantly further back in time.

Haplogroups are predicted for each participant based on the STR test results, and Family Tree DNA’s prediction routines are very accurate, but the haplgroup can only be confirmed by SNP testing. These two tests are testing different types of DNA mutations. I wrote about the difference here.

Different SNPs are tested to confirm different haplogroups, so you must have your STR results back with the prediction before you can order SNP tests.

The Big Y is the granddaddy of SNP testing, because it doesn’t directly test each SNP location, and there are thousands, but scans virtually the entire Y chromosome to cover in essence all known SNPs. Better yet, the Big Y looks for previously unknown or unnamed SNPs. In other words, this test is a test of discovery, not just a test of confirmation.

Many SNPS are either unknown or as yet unnamed and unplaced on the haplotree, meaning the Y DNA tree of mankind for the Y chromosome. The only way we discover new SNPs is to run a test of discovery. Hence, the Big Y.

It’s fun to be on the frontier of this wonderfully personal science.

Applying the Big Y to Genealogy

In addition to defining and confirming the haplogroup, the Big Y test can be immensely informative in terms of ancestral roots. For example, we know that our Lentz line, found in Germany in the 1600s, matches the contemporary results of Burzyan Bashkir men, descendants of the Yamnaya. I wrote about this here, near the end of the article.

Even more amazing, we then discovered that our Lentz line actually shares mutations with ancient DNA recovered from Yamnaya culture burials from 3500 years ago from along the Volga River. You can read about that here, near the end of the article. This discovery, of course, could never have been made if the Big Y test had not been taken, and it was made by working with the haplogroup project administrators. I am eternally grateful to Dr. Sergey Malyshev for this discovery and the following tree documenting our genetic lineage.

Our family heritage now extends back into Russia, 3500 years ago, instead of stopping in Germany, 400 or 500 years ago. This huge historical leap could NEVER have been made without the Big Y test in conjunction with the projects and administrators at Family Tree DNA.

And I must say, I’m incredibly glad we didn’t wait to order this test, because Mr. Lentz, my cousin who tested, died unexpectedly, just a couple months later. His daughter, when informing me of his death, expressed her gratitude for the test, the articles and shared with me that he had taken both articles to Staples, had them printed and bound as gifts for family members this Christmas.

These gifts will be quite bittersweet for those family members, but his DNA legacy lives on, just as the DNA of our ancestors does inside each and every one of us. He gave all Lentz descendants an incredible gift.

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Genos – A Medically Focused DNA Exome Test

Posted on November 27, 2016 by Roberta Estes

Update January 2024: This company no longer exists.

Update: As of July 2019, this test and my results are now at https://genos.co after Genos was sold. Original article follows below.

On June 21, 2016, I placed an order for a DNA test with a new company, Genos at http://www.genosresearch.com. The first week of October I received my results.

Genos is a new type of testing company, focused not on genealogy, but on the human exome and medical conditions. Of course, that doesn’t mean that the genetic genealogy community might not find a way to utilize these tests in the future – but today this test is not useful genealogically.

A typical genetic genealogy autosomal test tests between roughly 500,000 and 900,000 locations to compare to others to determine kinship. These are the most variable locations in our genome, the ones most likely to differ from each other and be genealogically useful.

Exome testing, on the other hand, tests 50 million locations – the ones most often medically relevant and the ones we know the most about. Testing the 99% or so of our genome that is exactly like every other human is pointless, for either genetic genealogy or medicine.

What is an Exome?

What is the exome? Genos explains.

Let’s step through the ordering process, then look at my results. They are very interesting.

What is Genos?

Before ordering, I did a bit of research on what Genos offers, what makes them different, and what kind of potential they might have to help me understand my own genes and conditions that makes me unique.

Let’s take a look.

Founders

Genos was founded by these two men.

The next tab is Values, and I’m really impressed, especially with number 4, below.

And the Genos Vision:

Let’s move to the Product page.

Product

Ordering

Your DNA at Genos is yours, entirely, and you can choose when, where and if you want to participate in studies, unlike Ancestry and 23andMe where the consent you MUST AGREE TO in order to activate your kit includes allowing them to sell and profit from your DNA.

Family Tree DNA does NOT sell your DNA. Family Tree DNA does not want the genetic genealogy community to associate genetic genealogy testing with medical testing, because of concerns that it might discourage some people from testing for genealogy.

Before ordering, as with any DNA sequencing product or service, please read the Genos Terms of Service here. The Privacy Policy is here and the Terms of Use are here. These are all actually different parts of one larger document titled “Genos Legal Policies.”

As far as I’m concerned, this is the overarching important sentence:

We do not sell, lease, or rent your User Information without your explicit consent.

Also keep in mind that as with all companies, policies can and do change over time – and it’s the consumer’s responsibility to stay current with the policies of any company you do business with.

A New Business Model

Genos is trying a new business model both in terms of testing the entire exome and in terms of allowing participants to actively participate in selecting research projects, so I decided to be on the frontier of this brave new world. You pay for the sequencing, but the results are yours, forever, whether you participate in medical research projects or not, and Genos doesn’t sell your DNA or otherwise share your DNA results without your permission. You own it and you control it. Period.

I want to contribute to and facilitate research, but I want to select the research projects in which I choose to participate. I don’t feel that it’s ethically or morally right for a company to in essence capture and co-opt my DNA by holding forth the lure of my ancestors as bait. Both Ancestry and 23andMe participate in this unsavory practice. The Genos model very specifically does NOT do that.

Right now, the Genos Exome sequencing product and services are in BETA.

I was the 98^th person to order this test, although I’m sure many more have ordered since June.

Let’s take a look at my results.

My Personal Logo

The first thing Genos does is to introduce you to your genome by creating a personal logo for you, if you select that option. I did, of course.

The circle twirled and locations on my chromosome lit up, like tiny fireflies. I wish I had taken a video.

Next, my unique logo, derived from my DNA, was displayed beside my name.

OK, that was fun, but now, let’s look at the data and what, as a consumer, I receive.

The Four Options

Your results are broken down into 4 categories. You can explore your genome, click on Health Identity, view the News or look at the educational Genomics 101 section.

I first spent a few minutes looking at Genomics 101 which is professional and well written. It includes chapters covering questions like, “What is a gene?”

The News section includes links to articles you may find of interest. Of course, I was dying to see my results, so I quickly moved on to the “Explore Genome” tab, where I saw the Map Your Genome page. So, let’s map my genome.

Map Your Genome

Genos compares your genome of the standardized Genome Reference Consortium reference model.

On the page, below, Genos shows me the 44,154 locations where I vary from the reference model, of which only 773 of these have known medical affiliations or mentions in medical papers. The key word here, of course, is KNOWN. The rest of the variants could be family differences, recently introduced or perhaps from generations back in time. Those locations may not be medically significant, or they may be, but we just don’t know how yet. Time and research will tell.

Out of the 50 million loci (locations) sequenced, I have 773 variants which are certainly of interest and may or may not be relevant medically.

I wondered what happens when a new variant is discovered to be medically relevant or found in a new paper. Would my 773 become 774, or is this a static page, really only relevant to today? I wrote and asked Genos, and discovered that their customer support is very prompt, courteous and helpful. Here’s what they had to say.

At no additional cost to you, as the information in ClinVar (the NIH sponsored database) is updated with new assessments and new discoveries, your data will be automatically updated through our digital experience. This ensures that you are always aware of the latest literature available.

This is great news, making this product infinitely useful (medically) into the future.

You can view all of your chromosomes with the chromosome number and the number of identified variants present on each chromosome, below. Please note that you can click on any image to see a larger version.

Genos allows you to browse your medically relevant variants and what they may mean. The results are broken down into “Conditions” and “Traits,” as seen at right, above.

The Conditions are health related, but just because you have a mutation that may be associated in literature with a particular condition, that does NOT mean you have or will ever be diagnosed with that condition. In fact, as you can see, the literature itself is often contradictory. We don’t always understand what makes one person get a disease while another person does not.

For this reason, nearly every page that involves conditions also contains a link to genetic counselors along with cautionary messages that succinctly warn people against assuming that variant=disease. It doesn’t.

Individual Chromosomes

You can explore each chromosome individually.

I clicked on variant 1, on chromosome 1, above.

If I click on the NEXN with the right arrow, I see the display below.

If I click on the G>A which means the normal G nucleotide at this location has been replaced with an A in my case, I see the following:

I can then read more about this gene and the mutational variant.

I must tell you that I feel very empowered by having my own genetic information at my fingertips that was previously entirely unavailable to me, or available only through a medical provider, if at all.

Conditions

Moving now to the Conditions link on the right hand side of the main page, I can see the following conditions, grouped by category.

You can explore the Conditions link for conditions associated with your variants, the Traits or the Variants themselves.

By clicking on the icons, you can see how many variants you have in each category. The first category is allergies.

For example, here is one of my Conditions. I’ve chosen to share this one because you can tell by looking at my picture that I am clearly NOT albino.

Still, I carry at least one mutation associated with this condition.

Almost every single page carries this warning verbiage, which is proven by my albinism mutation and my somewhat younger photo when my hair was still its original color!

Variants

Variants are divided into groups.

Most of my findings are benign. Whew!!!

This is an example of one of my benign variants.

You can see that while this mutation is mostly benign, or green, some papers show it to fall into the other risk categories.

Please note the verbiage at the bottom of the screen.

“What is believed to be true today may be disproven tomorrow.” That’s part of why I’m participating in this type of testing.

The screen for each variant goes on to provide the links to the studies themselves, which may or may not agree, so you can read and digest for yourself. Please, unless you’re an MD, do not attempt to be your own doctor!

Traits

The Traits at Genos are the same traits that are tested and reported by other testing firms as well.

Like other genetic values, variants and results, these may or may not be accurate. My hair is very thick, as you can see from my photo, I taste bitter very well, unfortunately, and my skin is not light…at least not for someone primarily Caucasian. Some of these traits are clearly subjective. They make for interesting party conversation.

Health Identity

The next section of the website if for Health Identity. This is where you provide information about yourself and your health history.

If you’re going to participate in this type of endeavor, it’s important to provide Genos with as much information as possible. That’s one avenue for Genos to know who would might be a good candidate for specific kinds of research.

Research

While there aren’t any research projects yet underway today, there will be in the future.

And last but not least…

Genetic Counselors

If you discover something you would like to know more about, or that concerns you, you can make contact with a genetic counselor through the Genos site.

Caveat

I am, personally, very much an advocate of genetic research, when it is preformed ethically, transparently and with full disclosure. As far as I’m concerned, Genos absolutely fits that bill.

However, if someone were prone to anxiety or hypochondria, this type of testing might not be a good fit.

I’m not prone to either, and I have a very high risk tolerance level, but I still am inclined to spend quite a bit of time looking at the variants that aren’t benign. If you are in the “don’t want to know” camp, then don’t test. Bottom line.

Let me say this again.

Don’t test if you really don’t want to know.

You cannot put the genic back into the bottle once it’s out.

Exome testing is different than genetic genealogy testing and has the potential to reveal information which may be frightening or distressing to some people, which is why I shared my results with you in such detail.

Looking to the Horizon

Having said that, I find exome testing absolutely fascinating. I would like to see if my children have the same variants that I do. Did they inherit those from me or did those variants bite the dust in my generation? Are there variants that I carry one of and my children have two, meaning their father contributed one as well? What does this mean, health-wise, potentially, for my grandchildren? What did they inherit?

Of course, today, exome comparisons between individuals are not possible at Genos (or elsewhere), but perhaps in the future?

Could this type of testing be a step forward in identifying conditions and diseases not yet “discovered” as we define them today? Some mutations affect particular individual family lines negatively, and sometimes fatally. Can exome testing help these families, if not today, then tomorrow? Exome testing certainly has that and a lot more potential.

I’m excited about being able to select and participate in research studies with the ability for the researchers to contact me to follow up many years into the future, if need be. The new Genos model allows citizens willing to have their exome sequenced the opportunity to help shape the future of medical understanding and potentially, contribute to treatments and cures – in addition to learning a great deal about their own DNA and literally what makes them tick. Which studies you participate in and what happens to your DNA is entirely within your control.

I hope that a research project (or projects) that I participate in eradicates a disease or diseases so that my descendants will only read about the disease in history books and will hopefully know that their ancestor played a small role in disease extermination.

In the mean time, I’m very actively participating in exome testing to attempt to track and identify a fatal family mutation that has plagued one family for at least 4 generations. Of course, we don’t yet know how successful we will be. However, exome testing, especially at this price, holds promise that was never available before. I hope that what today is literally a life and death experiment will one day be a standard testing routine available to any family with this type of issue. I’ll let you know the outcome in a few months.

______________________________________________________________

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You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know

Posted on November 23, 2016 by Roberta Estes

Your family is your very best genealogy resource, in many ways.

With the holidays approaching, this is the perfect time to talk to your family about family history. Often, we think about family history in the sense of genealogy, meaning names, birth dates and death dates. But there is more to the story – a lot more. Or maybe better said, there are many stories to flesh out your genealogy.

It’s those stories that you want to hear and the holidays when family is gathered provide perfect opportunities. You just have to get the ball rolling!

I discovered over the years that people react better to questions that are open ended and encourage them, and others in the room, to talk and reminisce.

Questions I asked my mother that produced very interesting answers were questions like:

What are the biggest changes you’ve seen in your lifetime?

For mother, it was electricity in her home. It had never occurred to me that she had lived in a home without electricity before that conversation. The discussion then progressed to things like, “how did you preserve food without electricity,” “how did you have light in the evenings,” and “how did your parents heat the house,” especially since I don’t remember a fireplace in my grandmother’s home. The discussions that followed were very interesting and would never have happened without that single topic-opening question.

For example, I learned that the bedrooms weren’t heated, and the “bathroom” didn’t need to be heated since it was the outhouse. That means bathing was with a cloth out of a wash basin or tub with water heated on the wood stove.

Another question that might produce some wonderful stories is to ask about “once in a lifetime events.”

My mother recalled a family trip to the 1933 World’s Fair in an old Model T Ford to see her grandmother, Nora Kirsch Lore McCormick’s quilt displayed in the Sears Pavilion.

In my case, one of those (hopefully) once-in-a-lifetime events forever seared in my memory is the 1965 Palm Sunday Tornado which cut a wide and devastating swath through central Indiana. I didn’t realize what I was seeing, but I saw that tornado move across the southern part of the city where I lived. A tree fell on the house and in an instant my mother grabbed me and we ran for the basement – her half dragging me all the way.

Another time, Mother, my daughter and I were in a van in Illinois one beastly hot June day and after watching a wall cloud overtake us, a tornado picked the van up and moved it some 20-30 feet off the road, sitting it back down right side up, amazingly enough. We were all fine that day, albeit terrified, but others weren’t so lucky.

Another very memorable and somewhat surreal event, as an adult, was unexpectedly seeing the Hale-Bopp Comet from an airplane.

A humorous episode occurred when mother’s uncle died in the middle of a paralyzing blizzard and they put his body in my grandfather’s garage. That was the family joke for years, ribbing my grandfather, but what else were they going to do?

“Remember when” stories like these may never surface if you don’t prompt with questions – and the answers in terms of your family and also in terms of what was happening in society – like radio, TV, electricity and the space race – at that time in history are all part of your family story. Those things would clearly have affected everyone one way or another but the personal stories of how they directly affected people in your family will never emerge unless you ask those leading questions – and record them for posterity.

DNA

Of course, it goes without saying that you might want to take some DNA kits along to family gatherings, just in case. I always have a swab kit in my purse or in the car, or both.

Your family is also your best resource for genetic genealogy as well. Different family members can provide haplogroup information for ancestors whose haplogroups you don’t carry.

Family members often can and will gladly provide this genetic information for the family, but they don’t realize they carry these genealogy gems, gifts directly from the ancestors passed down the direct paternal and direct matrilineal lines. For example, your father and his siblings can provide the mitochondrial haplogroup of your paternal grandmother (red circles on the chart below), something you don’t carry. Of course, the blue squares on the chart below represent the direct patrilineal line for males which is both the path of the Y chromosome and the traditional way surnames are inherited. Your father will carry the family surname and Y DNA, but your mother’s father or brothers will carry the Y of her birth surname. There’s lots to be discovered!

If you’d like to see an example of how to build a DNA pedigree chart, above, by collecting the haplogroup information from all of your ancestral lines, click here.

Let’s face it, both Y and mitochondrial DNA haplogroups are the only direct line periscope we have back in time more than the few generations provided by autosomal testing. Autosomal DNA is divided in half in each generation, but Y and mitochondrial DNA is not, and is passed intact, except for mutations that might occur, generation to generation – making Y and mtDNA extremely valuable resources to the genealogist.

Haplogroups, discovered through Y and mitochondrial DNA testing, are invaluable historical resources revealing your deep ancestry and not utilized nearly enough. We simply don’t know what we don’t know and testing the right people is the only way to find out.

In terms of autosomal DNA testing, anyone that is a third cousin or closer is used in Family Tree DNA’s phased family matching to indicate which side of your family your matches originate from, as shown by the little blue male, pink female and purple “both” icons shown beside matches, below.

The only way to divide your matches into maternal and paternal sides, without both parents, is by testing other relatives. If you’re lucky enough to have both parents, that’s wonderful, but the only way to divide your parents’ results is by testing other relatives as well.

You can purchase the DNA kits on sale and save them until you need them. You can fill in the name of the tester when you determine who is going to take the test, but be sure to let Family Tree DNA know the correct gender at the time the test is submitted if it is different than the gender indicated when you purchased the kit. The actual swab kit is the same for both genders, but gender verification is part of quality assurance for the various tests. Listing the wrong gender will delay your test results – and no one wants that!

When I find a willing candidate, I have them swab right then and there, on the spot, and I mail the kit back to Family Tree DNA myself. That way, I know the swabbing gets done and the kit doesn’t take up residence in their junk drawer or under the front seat of the car forever! In one case, family members found a used swab kit in the glove box three years later, after the person died – and amazingly – it was still good! However, mailing the kit back yourself avoids these situations.

Enjoy your holidays, take DNA kits along, and ask leading questions. You don’t know what you don’t know and you’ll never find out if you don’t ask those questions and DNA test your relatives.

______________________________________________________________

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Building Your Personal Mitochondrial Tree

Posted on November 20, 2016 by Roberta Estes

People who test at Family Tree DNA and receive mitochondrial DNA full sequence results often have questions about how they can use their results to further their understanding of their ancestors.

One of the things you can do is to build a mitochondrial DNA haplotree of your own, showing how various people that you match are or are not descended from common ancestors. To do this, you’ll need to contact your matches and share your mutations.

Your results at Family Tree DNA tell you how many mutations you have, shown below, in the genetic distance column. For more information on genetic distance, how it is calculated and what it means, click here.

Your results at MitoSearch, if you upload, or within projects at Family Tree DNA, show you the HVR1+HVR2 region mutations, but the only way to compare the coding region, or full sequence matches is for the people involved to share them directly with each other.

How can mutations help identify your common ancestors with your matches, or if not the ancestor themselves, at least where they were from?

Let’s look at reconstructing a DNA tree based on both your common mutations and mutations you don’t share with your matches.

When building a DNA tree, remember that once a mutation enters the mitochondrial DNA, unless there is a back-mutation, which is exceedingly rare, that mutation will be found in all descendants.

This discussion excludes heteroplasmic mutations, which can be easily identified as any mutation that ends with any letter other than T, A, C or G – for example 16519Y would be heteroplasmic, indicated by the Y. The simple explanation for heteroplamic mutations is that they are a mutation in progress, and therefore relatively recent. They don’t pertain to deeper ancestry, so we are ignoring them for this discussion. Most people don’t have heteroplasmic mutations.

Building Your Tree

Let’s look at an example of how to build a mitochondrial mutation tree.

A common ancestor, at the top of the tree, has 2 mutations that they pass to all of their descendants.

Ancestor B and C have those 2 mutations, so they match ancestor A and each other.

Both ancestor B and C have both developed mutations that don’t match each other. In real life, it would be very rare for mitochondrial DNA to develop mutations in every generation, so just view this as a rather time-compressed example.

In ancestor B’s line, there are two contemporary individuals, D and E, who have all 3 of the mutations that Ancestor B carried.

So, you have a tree that looks like this. You can click to enlarge.

Ancestor C also has two descendants, F and G, who both carry all of Ancestor C’s mutations, plus both F and G each have a mutation that doesn’t match each other.

So, now let’s say Person I comes along as a match. You can tell which line they belong to, and which lines they don’t, by which mutation(s) person I carries, as compared to your tree. For example, if person I carries mutations 1, 2 and 4, then you know that they are a descendant of Ancestor C, not B. If they carry 1, 2, 4 and 5, then they descend from Person G’s line.

I suggest that you work with your full sequence matches to build this type of mitochondrial descendancy tree. You must work with your matches, because you cannot see your matches’ coding region results, not even in projects, so you’ll have to ask each one to share with you. Be prepared, some people won’t answer, but often, based on who the people match that do respond to you, and are willing to share, you can figure out the missing blanks.

For example, Let’s say John matches you with one mutation, and so does Joe, but Joe doesn’t answer your e-mail. However, John wants to work with you and John matches Joe exactly. Now you know which mutation Joe has as well – the same one as John.

You know that each of your full sequence matches is within a maximum of 3 mutations difference from you, because that’s the maximum that Family Tree DNA allows to be considered a match at the full sequence level.

Of course, not all of your matches will have the same 3 mutations, which is why you’ll need to work with them to see how your tree fleshes out. Who knows what surprises you may find.

The first question I ask each of my matches, after explaining what I’m trying to do, is whether they share any of my extra or missing mutations, with the exception of the insertions at 309, 315 or 522 and/or any mutation at 16519. These mutations are extremely common. Sometimes people are more comfortable sharing specific mutations than sending you their results. Other people will be glad to send results. In rare instances, the coding region may hold mutations that have medical significance, which is why Family Tree DNA doesn’t show specific mutations, only whether you match or not.

In the example above, you can see that C16189T is normally present in this mitochondrial sequence, but it missing from this person’s results.

Your mitochondrial tree that you build may well shed light on your common ancestor and based on the location of the oldest ancestor of the person at the top of your tree, may also shed light on the location where your common ancestor may have lived and the migration path she took to where your most distant ancestor in this line was found.

My own mitochondrial DNA tree begins in Scandinavia and only my line winds up in Germany before 1700. Another branch is found in Poland.

Ironically, my exact matches are in Norway (red), not to the line in Poland (orange). The rest of the lines whom I match and that also descend from my Scandinavian ancestor are still found in Scandinavia with one exception found in southern Russia which could be a result of migration to this region from the Germanic region of Europe in the 1700s and 1800s. This tells me that I’m closer, genetically, to the Scandinavian branches than the Polish branch, which is not at all what I would have expected. The Polish branch apparently migrated separately from mine.

My mitochondrial tree also tells me that the common ancestor of all of the matches likely originated in Scandinavia, possibly Norway, also not something I would have expected, given that my most distant ancestor is very clearly German, based on church records.

Give building your mitochondrial tree a try and see what kinds of surprises it may hold! If you haven’t yet tested your full sequence mitochondrial DNA, order that test today. You have ancestors waiting for you!

______________________________________________________________

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Concepts – Undocumented Adoptions vs Untested Y Lines

Posted on November 16, 2016 by Roberta Estes

So you took the Y-line test and you don’t match the surnames you expected to match and now you’re worried. Is there maybe an “oops” in your lineage?

One of two things has happened. Either your line has simply not tested or you have an undocumented adoption in your line.

An undocumented adoption is any “adoption” at any time in history that is not documented – so if you didn’t know about it, it’s an undocumented adoption. Often, these events in genetic genealogy are referred to as NPEs, Non-Paternal Events, but I prefer undocumented adoptions.

Yes, there are myriad ways for this to happen, and I mean besides the obvious infidelity situation, but right now, you only care about figuring out IF you have an undocumented adoption, not how it happened.

How can you tell if your line is one that simply hasn’t been tested of if there is an undocumented adoption in your line? Sometimes you can’t, you’ll simply have to wait until more people of your surname test. Of course, you can always recruit people through the Rootsweb and Genforum lists and boards and social media.

Most of the time this is a process of elimination. If you can’t find anything to suggest that you have an undocumented adoption, then your line is simply probably untested, especially if it’s not a common surname or your ancestors had few male children.

However, there are often clues lurking relative to undocumented adoptions.

Scenario 1 – Right Family, Non-Matching DNA

If you are part of DNA surname project and there are other people who have tested, that you don’t match, that claim the same ancestor as you do – you might have an undocumented adoption on your hands.

In this case, someone’s genealogy is wrong, yours or theirs. By wrong, that doesn’t mean you made a mistake. You (or they) may have tracked the line back to the right ancestor, but instead of being the child of a son of John Doe, for example, your ancestor was the child of the daughter of John Doe, who wasn’t married at the time and had a child by a Smith, but gave the child her surname, Doe.

So right Doe family, wrong child giving birth. There are also other family situations that are discovered utilizing Y DNA testing, like a child simply using the step-father’s name. In this case, finding more descendants to test, especially through other sons will help resolve the paternity question. Given the scenario above, we really don’t know whether the green or red DNA is the Y DNA of John Doe. We need the DNA of another son to resolve the question.

Scenario 2 – Accurate Genealogy, Undocumented Adoption

If you are part of a DNA surname project and two other people who descend from two separate sons of the same ancestor you claim, both having good solid genealogy back to that ancestor – you do have an undocumented adoption on your hands. This situation pretty much removes any doubt about your ancestral line if you are Steve, below.

Assuming their genealogy is correct (and yes, the genealogy could be wrong), theirs (the green) is the paternal line from that ancestor, so you need to start looking at situations that might lend themselves to your ancestor having that name but not sharing that paternal genetic line.

The break in the ancestral line can have occurred anyplace between John Doe and son Steve and the tester, Steve V. You might want to test males descended from men between Steve Doe and Steve Doe V. Word of warning here – if you don’t want to know the answer, don’t test. The break could be between you and your father or your father and grandfather. Sometimes, these possibilities are just too close for comfort.

At this point, I would turn to autosomal testing to see if any of the people in the surname project match you autosomally. That may tell you if you are actually descended from this line at all – perhaps through a female child as described above. With autosomal testing, especially of distant relatives, you can prove a positive, that you are related, but you can’t really prove a negative, that you aren’t related.

If you’re testing second cousins or closer, you can prove a negative. If you don’t match your full second cousins, there is a problem – and it’s not the genealogy.

Scenario 3 – Matching a Group of Men with a Particular Surname

If you match a significant number of men with other surnames, with one surname in particular being closely matched and quite prevalent, it’s a large hint. For example, let’s say you have 6 matches at your highest marker level, and 5 of them are Miller men descended from the same ancestor. Chances are very good that you are of Miller descent too.

Again, I’d turn to autosomal testing at this point to see how closely you are related to your closest matching Y DNA Millers or others descended from this same ancestral line.

Scenario 4 – Your Line is Untested

If your surname is something quite unusual, like Ferverda for example, and you don’t fit the situations described above, then it’s likely that your line simply hasn’t tested yet. In this case, the grandfather of our tester was the immigrant from the Netherlands, and Ferverda, both there and in the US, is a very unusual name.

Of course, your line having not tested can happen with common surnames too.

Utilizing Y Search

Update: Please note that YSearch was obsoleted due to GDPR. It has been replaced by mitoYDNA.org.

Check www.ysearch.org periodically to see if others of your surname took the Y chromosome test elsewhere and just got around to entering the results into YSearch, even though the other testers (Ancestry, Sorenson) have been defunct for some time now relative to Y DNA.

You can also search at YSearch by surname. You don’t have any way to view results by surname, outside of projects, at Family Tree DNA, so the only way to discover that someone who claims your paternal line and doesn’t match you is to search by surname at YSearch and hope they have included a tree.

In this example, one person with the Estes surname has results at YSearch, but 40 have Estes in their tree, just not as their patrilineal surname.

Keep in mind that depending on how far back in time an undocumented adoption occurred, you may find matches to people with that same surname who descend from your common biological ancestor, but you may still not share the original ancestor. In the example above, the Doe men red all match each other, because their unknown Smith ancestor is the same, but they don’t match the descendant of John Doe through son James.

A non-match to men of your same surname isn’t a cause for panic, but it is time to do some additional digging to see if you can discover why.

Happy ancestor hunting!

______________________________________________________________

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Conferences, Reunions and Flavors of Family

Posted on November 15, 2016 by Roberta Estes

Jim Brewster (FTDNA), Gail Riddell (New Zealand), me with Linda Magellan peeking over Jim’s shoulder at the ISOGG reception at the 2016 FTDNA conference. Photo courtesy Gail Riddell.

What do you call an event where you’ve seen the same folks for a dozen years? An event that brings people from the far corners of the earth, literally? A conference that feels far more like a family reunion.

What do you call those people?

Family.

New family. Old family. Family of heart. Sisters or brothers by another mother maybe. Friends you just haven’t met yet. And sometimes…real, honest to blood cousins.

The 12^th annual international family reunion, er, I mean International Genetic Genealogy Conference sponsored by Family Tree DNA occurred this past weekend in Houston. I’m still on the road, typing on a tiny keyboard, and I really can’t do it justice just yet but I want to take this opportunity to send you a couple teasers and just to say how wonderful it was to see everyone again.

Sadly, some were missing. Hopefully we’ll see them next year. Unfortunately, a few have passed over to where genealogists get to meet all of their ancestors, so we have to cherish their memories and hope they will help out by sending us answers from their current location.

It’s hard to believe it has been a dozen years now. The first conference was in 2004 – a one day event in Houston. Little could we know or dream what the next decade+ would bring.

Another thing I find amazing is just how many people in this group of 230 or so people I am related to in one way or another. All of these, bar none, were discovered via DNA testing. Whoever would guess that in a room of 230 random people you would find several cousins? Certainly makes you wonder looking around the bus, at the people at work or in a restaurant. How many share your ancestors?

I’m still on the road and will be for a few days, so you’ll get an article to do the conference justice when I get home. In the mean time, I encourage you to read Jennifer Zinck’s wonderful summary articles on her blog, Ancestor Central. Jen can type much faster than I ever could and she is able to listen at the same time too. The bad news is that there were several breakout sessions that ran concurrently and Jen can only be in one place at a time. We have not yet defied the laws of physics.

Jen and I discovered that we have Mayflower ancestors in common, in addition to being friends – having met at this same conference years ago. There just might be another ancestor trip in the planning stages….just saying.

Speaking of Jen, she contributed the photo below. Many thanks, Jen.

We had a once-in-a-lifetime special event at the conference this year. Max Blankfeld and Bennett Greenspan were presented with rather unique Lifetime Achievement Awards by the genetic genealogy community. Max and Bennett were both very grateful, not to mention….nearly speechless, a second once-in-a-lifetime event!

Left to right: Linda Magellan, Roberta Estes (talking), Max Blankfeld, Bennett Greenspan, Nora Probasco and Katherine Borges. Photo courtesy Jennifer Zinck.

As many of you may know, I’m a quilter and yes, I made the double helix quilts. I asked Katherine Borges, Linda Magellan and Nora Probasco to help me with the presentation process since I could not hold up 4 corners of two quilts by myself….and these ladies have attended all 12 conferences as well. Not to mention, they are quilters – so they were glad to be co-conspirators.

We were all very honored to present these awards and want to thank Janine Cloud at FTDNA for clandestinely working us into the schedule without raising suspicion! While that sounds easy, believe me, it wasn’t.

I will be writing an article about Max, Bennett and the awards shortly, and a separate article about the quilts themselves.

Until then, I’m still basking in the glow of two days of hugs, meals with friends, collaboration, and newly discovered information and opportunities. I encourage each of you to find a reunion or conference to attend so you can have the same wonderful experience. There is just nothing better than family, regardless of which kind of family you have – of blood or of heart – or maybe yet-to-be-met!

______________________________________________________________

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James Watson TED Talk on How He Discovered DNA

Posted on November 13, 2016 by Roberta Estes

Did you know that James Watson wanted to be an ornithologist? I didn’t know that. There are other surprises as well in Watson’s TED talk including his focus on cancer, autism and schizophrenia research.