The Autosomal Me – The Holy Grail – Identifying Native Genealogy Lines

Posted on May 31, 2013 by Roberta Estes

Sangreal – the Holy Grail. We are finally here, Part 9 and the final article in our series. The entire purpose of The Autosomal Me series has been to use our DNA and the clues it holds to identify minority admixture, in this case, Native American, and by identifying those Native segments, and building chromosomal clusters, to identify the family lines that contributed that Native admixture. Articles 1-8 in the series set the stage, explained the process and walked us through the preparatory steps. In this last article, we apply all of the ingredients, fasten the lid, shake and see what we come up with. Let’s take a minute and look at the steps that got us to this point.

Part 1 was “The Autosomal Me – Unraveling Minority Admixture” and Part 2 was “The Autosomal Me – The Ancestors Speak.” Part 1 discussed the technique we are going to use to unravel minority ancestry, and why it works. Part two gave an example of the power of fragmented chromosomal mapping and the beauty of the results.

Part 3, “The Autosomal Me – Who Am I?,” reviewed using our pedigree charts to gauge expected results and how autosomal results are put into population buckets.

Part 4, “The Autosomal Me – Testing Company Results,” shows what to expect from all of the major testing companies, past and present, along with Dr. Doug McDonald’s analysis.

In Part 5, “The Autosomal Me – Rooting Around in the Weeds Using Third Party Tools,” we looked at 5 different third party tools and what they can tell us about our minority admixture that is not reported by the major testing companies because the segments are too small and fragmented.

In Part 6, “The Autosomal Me – DNA Analysis – Splitting Up” we began the analysis part of the data we’ve been gathering. We looked at how to determine whether minority admixture on specific chromosomes came from which parent.

Part 7, “The Autosomal Me – Start, Stop, Go – Identifying Native Chromosomal Segments” took a deeper dive and focused on the two chromosomes with proven Native heritage and began by comparing those chromosome segments using the 4 GedMatch admixture tools.

Part 8, “The Autosomal Me – Extracting Data Segments and Clustering,” we extract all of the Native and Blended Asian segments in all 22 chromosomes, but only used chromosomes 1 and 2 for illustration purposes. We then clustered the resulting data to look for trends, grouping clusters by either the Strong Native criteria or the Blended Asian criteria.

In this final segment, Part 9, we will be applying the chromosomal information we’ve gathered to our matches and determine which of our lines are the most likely to have Native Ancestry. This, of course, has been the goal all along. So, drum roll…..here we go.

In Part 8, we ended by entering the start and stop locations of both Strong Native and Blended Asian clusters into a table to facilitate easy data entry into the chromosome match spreadsheet downloaded from either 23andMe or Family Tree DNA. If you downloaded it previously, you might want to download it again if you haven’t modified it, or download new matches since you last downloaded the spreadsheet and add them to the master copy.

My goal is to determine which matches and clusters indicate Native ancestry, and how to correlate those matches to lineage. In other words, which family lines in my family were Native or carry Native heritage someplace.

The good news is that my mother’s line has proven Native heritage, so we can use her line as proof of concept. My father’s family has so many unidentified wives, marginalized families and family secrets that the Native line could be almost any of them, or all of them! Let’s see how that tree shakes out.

Finding Matches

So let’s look at a quick example of how this would work. Let’s say I have a match, John, on chromosome 4 in an area where my mother has no Native admixture, but I do. Therefore, since John does not match my mother, then the match came from my father and if we can identify other people who also match both John and I in that same region on that chromosome, they too have Native ancestry. Let’s say that we all also share a common ancestor. It stands to reason at that point, that the common ancestor between us indicates the Native line, because we all match on the Native segment and have the same ancestor. Obviously, this would help immensely in identifying Native families and at least giving pointers in which direction to look. This is a “best case’ example. Some situations, especially where both parents contribute Native heritage to the same chromosome, won’t be this straightforward.

Based on our findings, the maximum range and minimum (least common denominator or “In Common” range is as follows for the strongest Native segments on chromosomes 1 and 2.

	Chromosome 1	Chromosome 2
Largest Range	162,500,000 – 180,000,000	79,000,000 – 105,000,000
Smallest Range	165,658,091 – 171,000,000	90,000,000 – 103,145,425

At GedMatch

At GedMatch, I used a comparison tool to see who matched me on chromosome 1. Only 2 people outside of immediate family members matched, and both from Family Tree DNA. Both matched me on the critical Native segments between about 165-180mg. I was excited. I went to Family Tree DNA and checked to see if these two people also matched my mother, which would confirm the Native connection, but neither did, indicating of course that these two people matched me on my father’s side. That too is valuable information, but it didn’t help identify any common Native heritage with my mother on chromosome 1. It did, however, eliminate them as possibilities which is valuable information as well.

DNAGedcom

I used a new tool, DNAGedcom, compliments of Rob Warthen who has created a website, DNA Tools, at www.dnagedcom.com. This wonderful tool allows you to download all of your autosomal matches at Family Tree DNA and 23andMe along with their chromosomal segment matches. Since my mother’s DNA has only been tested at Family Tree DNA, I’m limiting the download to those results for now, because what I need is to find the people who match both she and I on the critical segments of chromosome 1 or 2.

Working with the Download Spreadsheet

It was disappointing to discover that my mother and I had no common matches that fell into this range on chromosome 1, but chromosome 2 was another matter. Please note that I have redacted match surnames for privacy.

The spreadsheet above shows the comparison of my matches (pink) and Mother’s (white). The Native segment of chromosome 2 where I match Mother is shaded mustard. I shaded the chromosome segments that fell into the “common match” range in green. Of those matches, there is only one person who matches both Mother and I, Emma. The next step, of course, is to contact Emma and see if we can discover our common ancestor, because whoever it is, that is the Native line. As you might imagine, I am chomping at the bit.

There are no segments of chromosome 2 that are unquestionably isolated to my father’s line.

Kicking it up a Notch

Are you wondering about now how something that started out looking so simple got so complex? Well, I am too, you’re not alone. But we’ve come this far, so let’s go that final leg in this journey. My mom always used to say there was no point in doing something at all if you weren’t going to do it right. Sigh….OK Mom.

The easiest way to facilitate a chromosome by chromosome comparison with all of your matches and your Strong Native and Blended Asian segments is to enter all of these segment groups into the match spreadsheet. If you’re groaning and your eyes glaze over right after you do one big ole eye roll, I understand.

But let’s take a look at how this helps us.

On the excerpt from my spreadsheet below, for a segment of chromosome 5, I have labeled the people and how they match to me. The ones labeled “Mom” in the last column are labeled that way because these people match both Mom and I. The ones labeled “Dad” are labeled that way because I know that person is related on my father’s side.

Using the information from the tables created in Step 8, I entered the beginning and end of all matching segment clusters into my spreadsheet. You can see these entries on lines 7, 8, 22, 23 and 24. You then proceed to colorize your matches based on the entry for either Mom or Dad – in other words the blue row or the purple row, line 7, 22 or 24. In this example, actually, line 5 Rex, based on the coloration, should have been half blue and half purple, but we’ll discuss his case in a minute.

The you can then sort either by match name or by chromosome to view data in both ways. Let’s look at an example of how this works.

Legend:

White Rows: Mother’s matches. When Mother and I both match an individual, you’ll see the same matches for me in pink. This double match indicates that the match is to Mother’s side and not Father’s side.
Pink Rows: My matches.
Purple “Mom” labels in last column: The individual matches both me and Mom. This is a genetic match.
Teal “Dad” labels in last column: Genealogically proven to be from my father’s side. This is a genealogical, not a genetic label, since I don’t have Dad’s DNA and can only infer these genetically when they don’t also match Mother.
Dark Pink Rows labeled “Me Amerind Only” are Strong Native or Blended Asian segments from Chromosome Table that I have entered. My segments must come from one of my parents, so I’ve either colored them purple, if the match is someone who matches Mother and I both, or teal, if they don’t match both Mom and I, so by inference they come from my father’s line.
Dark Purple Rows labeled “Mom Amerind Only” are Mom’s segments from the Chromosome Table.
Dark Teal Rows labeled “Dad Amerind Only” are inferred segments belonging to my father based on the fact that Mother and I don’t share them.

Inferred Relationships

This is a good place to talk for just a minute about inferred relationships in this context. Inference gets somewhat tenuous or weak. The inferred matches on my father’s side began with the Native segments in the admix tools. Some inferences are very strong, where Mother has no Native at all in that region. For example, Mom has European and I have Native American. No question, this had to come from my father. But other cases are much less straightforward.

In many cases, categorization may be the issue. Mom has West Asian for example and I have Siberian or Beringian. Is this a categorization issue or is this a real genetic difference, meaning that my Siberian/Beringian is actually Native and came from my father’s side?

Other cases of confusion arise from segment misreads, etc. I’ve actually intentionally included a situation like this below, so we can discuss it. Like all things, some amount of common sense has to enter the picture, and known relationships will also weigh heavily in the equation. How known family members match on other chromosome segments is important too. Do you see a pattern or is this match a one-time occurrence? Patterns are important.

Keep in mind that these entries only reflect STRONG Asian or Native signals, not all signals. So even if Mother doesn’t have a strong signal, it doesn’t mean that she doesn’t have ANY signal in that region. In some cases, start and stop segments for Mom and Dad overlapped due to very long segments on some matches. In this case, we have to rely on the fact that we do have Mother’s actual DNA and assume that if they aren’t also a match to Mother, that what we are seeing is actually Dad’s lines, although this may not in actuality always be true. Why? Because we are dealing with segments below the matching threshold limit at both Family Tree DNA and 23andMe, and both of my parents carry Native heritage. We can also have crossed a transitional boundary where the DNA that is being matched switches from Mom’s side to Dad’s side.

Ugh, you say, now that’s getting messy. Yes, it is, and it has complicated this process immensely.

The Nitty-Gritty Data Itself

Taking a look at this portion of chromosome 5, we have lots going on in this cluster. Most segments will just be boring pink and white (meaning no Native), but this segment is very busy. Mom and I match on a small segment from 52,000,000 to 53,000,000. Indeed, this is a very short segment when compared to the entire chromosome, but it is strongly Native. We both also match Rex, our known cousin. I’ve noted him with yellow in the table. Please note that Mom’s white matches are never shaded. I am focused on determining where my own segments originate, so coloring Mother’s too was only confusing. Yes, I did try it.

You can see that Mother actually shares all or any part of her segment with only me and Rex. This simplifies matters, actually. However, also note that I carry a larger segment in this region than does Mother, so either we have a categorization issue, a misread, or my father also contributed. So, a conundrum. This very probably implies that my father also carried Native DNA in this region.

Let’s see what Rex’s DNA looks like on this same segment of chromosome 5, from 52-53 using Eurogenes. In the graph below, my chromosome is the top bar, Rex’s the middle and the bottom bar shows common DNA with the black nonmatching. Yellow is Native American, red is South Asian, putty is Siberian, lime green is Mediterranean, teal is North Europe, orange is Caucus.

This same comparison is shown to Mother’s DNA (top row) below.

It’s interesting that while Mother doesn’t have a lot of yellow (Native), she does have it throughout the same segment where Rex’s occurs, from about 52 through 53.5.

Does this actually point to a Native ancestor in the common line between Rex, Mom and I, which is the Swiss/German Johann Michael Miller line which does include an unidentified wife stateside, or does this simply indicate a common ancient population long ago in Asia? It’s hard to say and is deserving of more research. I feel that it is most likely Native because of the actual yellow, Native segment. If this was an Asian/European artifact, it would be much less likely to carry the actual yellow segment.

Is Rex also genealogically related to my father? As I’ve worked through this process with all of my chromosomes and matches, I’ve really come to question if one of my father’s dead ends is also an ancestral line of my mother’s.

The key to making sense of these results is clusters.

Clusters vs Singleton Outliers

The work we’ve already done, especially in Step 8, clusters the actual DNA matching segments. We’ve now entered that information into the spreadsheet and colored the segments of those who match. What’s next?

The key is to look for people with clusters. Many matches will have one segment, of say, 10 that match, colored. Unless this is part of a large chromosome cluster, it’s probably simply an outlier. Part of a large chromosome cluster would be like the large Strong Native segments on chromosome 1 or 2, for example. How do we tell if this is a valid match or just an outlier?

Sort the spreadsheet by match name. Take a look at all of the segments.

The example we’ll use is that of my cousin, Rex. If you recall, he matches both me and Mother, is a known first cousin twice removed to me, (genetically equal to a second cousin), and is descended from the Miller line.

In this example, I also colored Mother’s segments because I wanted to see which segments that I did not receive from her were also Native. You can see that there are many segments where we all match and several of those are Native. These also match to other Miller descendants as well, so are strongly indicative of a Native connection someplace in our common line.

If we were only to see one Native segment, we would simply disregard this as an outlier situation. But that’s not the case. We see a cluster of matches on various segments, we match other cousins from the same line on these segments, and reverting back to the original comparison admixture tools verifies these matches are Native for Rex, Mom and me.

Hmmmm…..what is Dad’s blue segment color doing in there? Remember I said that we are only dealing with strong match segments? Well, Mom didn’t have a strong segment at that location and so we inferred that Dad did. But we know positively that this match does come from Mother’s side. I also mentioned that I’ve come to wonder if my Mom and Dad share a common line. It’s the Miller line that’s in question. One of Johann Michael Miller’s children, Lodowick, moved from Pennsylvania to Augusta County, Virginia in the 1700s and his line became Appalachian, winding up in many of the same counties as my father’s family. I’m going to treat this as simply an anomaly for now, but it actually could be, in this case, an small indication that these lines might be related. It also might be a weak “Mom” match, or irrelevant. I see other “double entries” like this in other Miller cousins as well.

What is the pink row on chromosome 12? When I grouped the Strong Native and Asian Clusters, sometimes I had a strong grouping, and Mom had some. The way I determined Dad’s inferred share was to subtract what Mom had in those segments from mine. In a few cases, Mom didn’t have enough segments to be considered a cluster but she had enough to prevent Dad from being considered a cluster either, so those are simply pink, me with no segment coloring for Mom or Dad.

Let’s say I carry Strong Native/Mixed Asian at the following 8 locations:

10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20, 22, 24

This meets the criteria for 8 of 15 ethno-geographic locations (in the admix tools) within a 2.5 cM distance of each other, so this cluster would be included in the Mixed Asian for me. It could also be a Strong Native cluster if it was found in 3 of 4 individual tools. Regardless of how, it has been included.

Let’s now say that Mom carries Native/Mixed Asian at 10, 12 and 14, but not elsewhere in this cluster.

Mom’s 3 does not qualify her for the 8/15 and it only leaves Dad with 5 inferred segments, which disqualifies him too. So in this case, my cluster would be listed, but not attributable directly to either parent.

What this really says is that both of my parents carry some Native/Blended Asian on this segment and we have to use other tools to extrapolate anything further. The logic steps are the same as for Dad’s blue segment. We’re going to treat that as an outlier. If I really need to know, I can go back to the actual admixture tools and see whether Mom or Dad really match me strongly on which segments and how we compare to Rex as well. In this case, it’s obvious that this is a match to my Mother’s side, so I’m leaving well enough alone.

Let’s see what the matches reveal.

Matches

Referring back to the Nitty Gritty Data spreadsheet, Mom’s match to Phyllis on row 15 confirms an Acadian line. This is the known line of Mother’s Native ancestry. This makes sense and they match on Native segments on several other chromosomes as well. In fact, many of my and Mother’s matches have Acadian ancestry.

My match to row 19, Joy, is a known cousin on my father’s side with common Campbell ancestry. This line is short however, because our common ancestor, believed to be Charles Campbell died before 1825 in Hawkins County, TN. He was probably born before 1750, given that his sons were born about 1770 and 1772. Joy and I descend from those 2 sons. Charles wife and parents are unknown, as is his wife.

My match to row 20, inferred through my father’s side, is to a Sizemore, a line with genetically proven Native ancestry. Of course, this needs more research, but it may be a large hint. I also match with several other people who carry Sizemore ancestors. This line appears to have originated near the NC/VA border.

I wanted to mention rows 4 and 17. Using our rules for the spreadsheet, if I match someone and they don’t also match Mother on this segment, I have inferred them to be through my father. These are two instances that this is probably incorrect. I do match these people through Mother, but Mother didn’t carry a strong signal on this segment, so it automatically became inferred to Dad. Remember, I’m only recording the Strong Native or the Blended Asian segments, not all segments. However, I left the inferred teal so that you can see what kinds of judgment calls you’ll have to make. This also illustrates that while Mom’s genetic matches are solid, Dad’s inferred matches are less so and sometimes require interpretation. The proper thing to do in this instance would be to refer back to the original admixture tools themselves for clarification.

Let’s see what that shows.

Using HarrappaWorld, the most pronounced segment is at about 52. Teal is American. You can see that Mother has only a very small trace between 53 and 54, almost negligible. Mother’s admixture at location 52 is two segments of purple, brown and cinnamon which translate to Southwest Asian (lt purple), Mediterranean (dk purple), Caucasian (brown) and Balock (cinnamon), from Pakistan.

Checking Dodecad shows pretty much the same thing, except Mother’s background there is South Asian, which could be the same thing as Caucus and Pakistan, just different categorizations.

In this case, it looks like the admixture is not a categorization issue, but likely did come from my father. Each segment will really be a case by case call, with only the strongest segments across all tools being the most reliable.

It’s times like this that we have to remember that we have two halves of each chromosome and they carry vastly different information from each of our parents. Determining which is which is not always easy. If in doubt, disregard that segment.

Raw Numbers

So, what, really did I figure out after all of this?

First, let’s look at some numbers.

I was working with a total of 292 people who had at least one chromosomal segment that matched me with a Strong Native or Blended Asian segment. Of those, 59 also matched Mom’s DNA. Of those, 18 had segments that matched only Mom. This means that some of them had segments that also matched my father. Keep in mind, again, that we are only using “strong matches” which involves inferring Dad’s segments and that referring back to the original tools can always clarify the situation. There seems to be some specific areas that are hotspots for Native ancestry where it appears that both of my parents passed Native ancestry to me.

Many of my and my mother’s 59 matches have Acadian ancestry which is not surprising as the Acadians intermarried heavily with the Native population as well as within their own ethnic group.

Several also have Miller Ancestry. My Miller ancestor is Johann Michael Miller (1692-1771) who immigrated in the colonial period and settled on the Pennsylvania frontier. His son, Philip Jacob Miller’s (1726-1799) wife was a woman named Magdalena whose last name has been rumored for years to be Rochette, but no trace of a Rochette family has ever been found in the county where they lived, region or Brethren church history…and it’s not for lack of looking. Several matches point to Native Ancestry in this line. This also begs the question of whether this is really Native or whether it is really the Asian heritage of the German people. Further analysis, referring back to the admixture tools, suggests that this is actually Native. It’s also interesting that absolutely none of Mother’s other German or Dutch lines show this type of ancestry.

There is no suggestion of Native ancestry in any of her other lines. Mother’s results are relatively clean. Dad’s are anything but.

Dad’s Messy Matches

My father’s side of the family, however, is another story.

I have 233 matches that don’t also match my mother. There can be some technical issues related to no-calls and such, but by and large, those would not represent many. So we need to accept that most of my matches are from my Father’s side originating in colonial America. This line is much “messier” than my mother’s, genealogically speaking.

Of those 233 matches, only 25 can be definitely assigned to my father. By definitely assigned, I mean the people are my cousins or there is an absolutely solid genealogical match, not a distant match. Why am I not counting distant matches in this total? We all know by virtue of the AncestryDNA saga that just because we match family lines and DNA does NOT mean that the DNA match is the genealogical line we think it is. If you would like to read all about this, please refer to the details in CeCe Moore’s blog where she discussed this phenomenon. The relevant discussion begins just after the third photo in this article where she shows that 3 of 10 matches at Ancestry where they “identify” the common DNA ancestor are incorrect. Of course, they never SAY that the common ancestor is the DNA match, but it’s surely inferred by the DNA match and the “leaf” connecting these 2 people to a common ancestor. It’s only evident to someone who has tested at least one parent and is savvy enough to realize that the individual whose ancestor on Mom’s side that they have highlighted, isn’t a match to Mom too. Oops. Mega-oops!!!

However, because we are dealing in our project, on Dad’s side, with inferences, we’re treading on some of the same ground. Also, because we are dealing with only “strong clustered” segments, not all Native or Asian segments and because it appears that my parents both have Native ancestry. To make matters worse, they may both have Algonquian, Iroquoian or both.

I have also discovered during this process that several of my matches are actually related to both of my parents. I told you this got complex.

Of the people who don’t match Mother, 32 of them have chromosomal matches only to my father, so those would be considered reliable matches, as would the closest ones of the 25 that can be identified genealogically as matching Dad. Many of these 25 are cousins I specifically asked to test, and those people’s results have been indispensable in this process.

In fact, it’s through my close circle of cousins that we have been able to eliminate several lines as having Native ancestry, because it doesn’t’ show as strong and they don’t have it either.

Many of these lines group together when looking at a specific chromosome. There is line after line and cousin after cousin with highlighted data.

Dad’s Native Ancestors

So what has this told me? This information strongly suggests that the following lines on my father’s side carry Native heritage. Note the word “carry.” All we can say at this point is that it’s in the soup – and we can utilize current matches at our testing company and at GedMatch, genealogy research and future matches to further narrow the branches of the tree. Many of these families are intermarried and I have tried to group them by marriage group. Obviously, eventually, their descendants all intermarried because they are all my ancestors on my father’s side. But multiple matches to other people who carry the Native markers but aren’t related to my other lines are what define these as lines carrying Native heritage someplace.

Campbell – Hawkins County, Tn around 1800, missing wife and parents, married into the Dodson family
Dodson – Hawkins County, Tn, Virginia – written record of Lazarus Dodson camping with the Cherokee – missing wife, married into the Campbell and Estes family

Claxton/Clarkson – Russell Co., Va, Claiborne and Hancock Co., Tn – In NC associated with the known Native Hatcher family. Possibly a son-in-law. Missing family entirely.
Cook – Russell Co., Va. – daughter married Claxton/Clarkson – missing wives
Harrold, Harrell, Herrell – Hancock Co., Tn., Wilkes Co., NC – missing wives
McDowell – Hancock Co. Tn, Wilkes Co., NC, Augusta Co., Va – married into the Harrell family, missing wife

McNeil, McNiel – Wilkes Co., NC – missing wives, married into the Vannoy family
Vannoy – Wilkes County – some wives unaccounted for pre-1800
Crumley – Greene County, Tn., Lee Co., Va. – oral history of Native wife, married into the Vannoy family
Brown – Greene County, Tn, Montgomery Co., Va – married into the Crumley family, missing wives

While this looks like a long list, the list of families that don’t have any Native ancestry represented is much longer and effectively serves to eliminate all of those lines. While I don’t have “THE” answer, I certainly know where to focus my research. Maybe there isn’t the one answer. Maybe there are multiple answers, in multiple lines.

The Take Away

Is this complex? Yes! Is it a lot of work? You bet it is! Is everything cast in concrete? Never! You can see that by the differences we’ve found in data interpretation, not to mention issues like no-calls (areas that for some reason in the test don’t read) and cross overs where your inheritance switches from your mom’s side to your dad’s side. Is there any other way to do this? No, not if your minority admixture is down in that weedy area around 1%.

Is it worth it? You’ll have to decide. It guess it depends on how desperately you want to know.

Part of the reason this is difficult is because we are missing tools in critical locations. It’s an intensively laborious manual process. In essence, using various tools, one has to figure out the locations of the Native and Asian chromosome segments and then use that information to infer Native matches by a double match (genetic match at DNA company plus match with Strong Native/Blended Asian segment) with the right parent. It becomes even more complex if neither parent is available for testing, but it is doable although I would think the reliability could drop dramatically.

Tidbits and Trivia

I’ve picked up a number of little interesting tidbits during this process. These may or may not be helpful to you. Just kind of file them away until needed:)

Matches at testing companies come and go….and sometimes just go. At Family Tree DNA, I have some matches that must be trembling on the threshold that come and go periodically. Now you see them, now you don’t. I lost matches moving from the Affy chip to the Illumina chip and lost additional matches between Build 36 and 37. Some reappeared, some haven’t.

The start and stop boundaries changed for some matches between build 36 and build 37. I did not go back and readjust, as most of these, in the larger scheme of things, were minor. Just understand that you are looking for patterns here that indicate Native heritage, not exact measurements. This process is a tool, and unfortunately, not a magic wand:)

The centromere locations change between builds. If you have matches near or crossing the middle of the chromosome, called the centromere, there may be breaks in that region. I enter the centromere start and stop locations in my spreadsheet so that if I notice something odd going on in that region, the centromere addresses are right there to alert me that I’m dealing with that “odd” region. You can find the centromere addresses in the FAQ at Family Tree DNA for their current build.

At 23andMe, when you reach the magic 1000 matches threshold, you start losing matches and the matching criteria is elevated so that you can stay under 1000 matches. For people with colonial American or Jewish heritage, in other words those with high numbers of matches, this is a problem.

Watch for matches that are related to both sides of your family. If your family lived in colonial America, you’re going to have a lot of matches and many are probably related to each other in ways you aren’t aware of.

If your parents are related to each other, this process might simply be too complex and intertwined to provide enough granular data to be useful.

Endogamous groups are impossible to sort through as to where, meaning which ancestor, the DNA came from. This is because the original group founders’ DNA is just getting passed around and around, with little or no new DNA being introduced. The effect of this on downstream generations relative to genetic genealogy is that matches appear to be more closely related than they are because of the amount of matching DNA they carry. For my Brethren and my Acadian groups of people, I just list them by the group name, since, as the saying goes, “if you’re related to one Acadian, you’re related to all Acadians.”

If you’re going to follow this procedure, save one spreadsheet copy with the Strong Native only and then a second one with both the Strong Native and Blended Asian. I’m undecided truthfully whether the Mixed Asian adds enough resolution for the extra work it generates.

When in question, refer back to the original tools. The answer will always be found there.

Unfortunately, tools change. You may want to take screen shots. During this process, FTDNA went from build 36 to 37, match thresholds changed, 23andMe introduced a new user interface (which I find much less intuitive) and GedMatch has made significant changes. The net-net of this is when you decide to undertake this project, commit to it and do it, start to finish. Doing this little by little makes you vulnerable to changes that may make your data incompatible midstream – and you may not even realize it.

This entire process is intensively manual. My spreadsheet is over 5500 rows long. I won’t be doing it again…although I will update my spreadsheet with new matches from time to time. The hard work is already done.

This same technique applies to any minority ancestry, not just Native, although that’s what I’ve been hunting for and one of the most common inquiries I receive.

I am hopeful that in the not too distant future many of these steps and processes will be automated by the group of bright developers that contribute to GedMatch or via other tools like DNAGedcom. HINT – HINT!!!

I would like to follow this same process to identify the source of my African heritage, but I’m thinking I’ll wait for the tools to become automated. The great irony is that it’s very likely in the same lines as my Native ancestors.

If You Want to Test

What does it take to do this for yourself using the tools we have today, as discussed?

If your parents are living, the best gift you can give yourself is to test them, now, while you still can. My mother has been gone for several years, but her DNA archived at Family Tree DNA was still viable. This is not always the case. I was fortunate. Her DNA is one of the best gifts she gave me. Not just by inheritance, but by having hers tested. I thank her every single day, for both! I could not have written this article without her DNA results. The gift that keeps on giving.

If you don’t have a parent to test, you can test several other family members who will provide some information, but clearly won’t carry the same amounts of common DNA with you as your parents. These would include your aunts and uncles, your parents’ siblings and what I’ve referred to as your close cousin circle. Attempt to test at least someone from each line. Yes, it gets expensive, but as one of my cousins said, as she took her third or 4th DNA test. “It’s only money. This is about family.”

You can also test your own siblings as well to obtain more information that you can use to match up to your family lines. Remember, you only receive half of your parents DNA, and your siblings will received some DNA from your parents that you didn’t.

I don’t have any other siblings to test, but I have tested cousins from several lines which have proven invaluable when trying to discern the sources of certain segments. For example, one of these Native segments fell on a common segment with my cousin Joy. Therefore, I know it’s from the Campbell line, and because I have the Campbell paternal Y-DNA which is European, I know immediately the Native admixture would have had to be from a wife.

Much of this puzzle is deductive, but we now have the tools, albeit manual, to do this type of work that was previously impossible. I am somewhat disappointed that I can’t pinpoint the exact family lines, yet, but hopefully as more people test and more matches provide genealogical information, this will improve.

If you want to play in this arena, you need to test at either Family Tree DNA, 23andMe, or both. Right now, the most cost effective way to achieve this is to purchase a $99 kit from 23andMe, test there, then download your results from 23andMe and upload them to Family Tree DNA for $99. That way, you are fishing in both pools. Be aware that less than half of the people who test at either company download results to GedMatch, so your primary match locations are with the testing companies. GedMatch is auxiliary, but critical for this analysis. And the newest tool, DNAGedcom is a Godsend.

Also note that transferring your result to Family Tree DNA is NOT the same thing as actually testing there. Why does this matter? If you want a future test at Family Tree DNA, who is the premiere genetic genealogy testing company, offering the most variety and “deepest” commercial tests, they archive your DNA for 25 years, but if you transfer results, they don’t have your DNA to archive, so no future products can be ordered. All I can say is thank Heavens Mom’s DNA was there.

Ancestry.com doesn’t provide any tools such as the chromosome browser or even the basic information of matching segments. All you get is a little leaf that says you’re related, but the questions of which segment or how are not answerable today at Ancestry and as CeCe’s experience proved, its unreliable. It’s possible that you share the same surnames and ancestor, but your genetic connection is not through that family line. Without tools, there is no way to tell. Ancestry released raw data files a few weeks ago and very recently, GedMatch has implemented the ability to upload them so that Ancestry participants can now utilize the additional tools at GedMatch.

Although this has been an extraordinarily long and detailed process, I can’t tell you how happy I am to have developed this new technique to add to my toolbox. My Native and African ancestors have been most elusive. There are no records, they didn’t write and probably didn’t even speak English, certainly not initially. The only clues to their existence, prior to DNA, were scant references and family lore. The only prayer of actually identifying them is though these small segments of our DNA – yep – down in the weeds. Are there false starts perhaps, and challenges and maybe a few snakes down there? Yes, for sure, but so is the DNA of your ancestors.

Happy gardening and rooting around in the weeds. Just think of it as searching for the very best buried treasure! It’s down there, just waiting to be found. Keep digging!

I hope you’ve enjoyed this series and that it leads you to your own personal genealogical treasure trove!

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The Genomics Revolution 13 Years Later – Bennett Greenspan

Posted on March 9, 2013 by Roberta Estes

On April 29, 2013, from 11 AM-12 noon, Bennett Greenspan will be the featured speaker in the CSE Distinguished Lecture Series in the Georgia Tech Auditorium located in the Technology Square Research Building, 85 Fifth Street, Atlanta, Georgia, 30332.

Bennett will be speaking about bridging the gap between traditional genealogy and genetics, and will be discussing the various kinds of testing and when each is important. He will also be talking about new technology, exome and full genome sequencing and how that will be important to individuals.

Always a man with his eye on the horizon, thankfully for genetic genealogists, Bennett says the genomic revolution has just begun.

Bennett is speaking at the Bremen Museum on Sunday, April 28^th at 2PM about using DNA to settle family disputes, connect to long-lost relatives and to garner an appreciation for where your ancestors came from and where they journeyed since our departure from Africa.

For those who have never heard Bennett speak, he is an exceptional speaker and makes genetic genealogy not only understandable, but very attractive to the novice. Being a genealogist before genetic genealogy, a field established by Family Tree DNA, he brings a very powerful personal story to the table. He has a way of speaking and simplifying the complex that resonates with people.

This is also a rare opportunity to hear someone personally who has directly caused a technology revolution. Bennett founded Family Tree DNA in 2000, actually, almost by accident, as a result of the process he went through trying to answer one of his own long-standing genealogy questions.

I hope you’ll have the opportunity to attend one or both of these presentations. Even though I’ve heard Bennett many times, if I were anyplace to close to Atlanta, you can bet I’d be in the audience. Hearing Bennett speak makes me fall in love with genetic genealogy all over again!

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Smith and Jones

Posted on November 19, 2012 by Roberta Estes

I just love a good mystery – don’t you? To be good, it has to have some romance of course, a villain, an interesting plot with a twist, a couple red herrings and an unexpected outcome. Personally, I like happy endings too – I just don’t want them to be too predictable.

Well, welcome to the Smith and Jones mystery. And no, those names have not been changed to protect anybody. They are quite real.

When I receive an order for a Personalized DNA Report, I send the client a short questionnaire to complete. They have the opportunity to tell me why they tested their DNA, their goals, ask any specific questions, and to provide their genealogy so I have something to work with. In addition, I customize the cover of their report with their family photos if they so desire.

When Mr. Jones returned his questionnaire, in answer to the questions about why he tested, he gave this response:

“My paternal grandfather was the son of an unwed mother. So my paternal line doesn’t go back very far. I really hope the DNA can help me find out who my paternal ancestors were. So far, the indicators are they are Smiths from Bladen County, North Carolina.”

I cringed when I saw this. Here’s a Jones who thinks he’s a Smith. How am I ever going to straighten this out with these extremely common surnames?

In the genealogy section, he gave me a little more information.

His paternal grandfather, William Hobson Jones, below, was born in 1902 in Bladenboro, NC to unwed mother Emma Elizabeth Jones.

Those are all the facts I had to work with, other than his DNA results themselves, of course.

To begin, I checked the haplogroup hoping for something exotic that will serve as a differentiator. R1b1a2-U106 – so no luck there. However, when I prepared his marker frequency chart, he did have 3 very rare marker values. Great. Now we are getting someplace.

I divide marker values into three categories. Very rare marker values occur in 6% or less of the haplogroup population, rare markers in less than 25%, and the balance are just unremarkable. It’s the rare and very rare markers that give me something to work with, because they form a very specific genetic family surname “fingerprint.” In this case, Mr. Jones’ marker 458 carried a value of 15 which occurs in 2% of the haplogroup R1b population, 576 with a value of 16 which occurs 6% of the time and 444 with 14 that occurs only 1% of the time. These are the litmus paper tests of a real match. In addition to these very rare marker values, he had 9 additional rare markers that can be used to refine the match criteria. We’re in good shape for matching.

Mr. Jones had tested at 67 markers, but he had no matches at that level. However, at 37 markers, he had 3 matches, and they were all to Smith men, none of whom had tested at 67 markers. Now there’s a good indicator that he was right, that his genetic line is indeed Smith. His exact match listed his oldest ancestor as being from Germany, but gave no name. His one mutation match showed his oldest ancestor as Jeremiah Smith born 1795 NC and his 2 mutation match showed no information at all. None of these matches had uploaded GEDCOM files. Disappointing. With more information, this would have been much easier, but it wouldn’t be a good mystery without some glitches!

At 25 markers, he only had 7 matches, but at 12 markers, he had a whopping 536. Obviously his first panel was too vanilla to be very useful, but of course, I did check for additional Smith men. None to be found. Just the 3, but those 3 are all very solid.

Sometimes, at this point, projects are a saving grace. Project administrators are amazing people and put forth a lot of work, sort families, collect genealogies, etc. The Smith DNA project does not have a public website at Family Tree DNA, but they do have a private site.

http://www.smithsworldwide.org/wwtestcomparisongrp.asp?kitno=’231289‘

At their site, I found a group of Smiths who match Mr. Jones, descended from one Moses Jones of Bladen County. Huh? This stopped me in my tracks for a minute, until I realized that this is my client’s kit number, and the Jones family, meaning Emma’s father’s line, indeed, does go back to a Moses Jones. This would be irrelevant were it not incorrect, because Moses Jones’ male Y-line does not match the Smiths. The only Jones line that matches a Smith is the one descended from his daughter Emma who had a child outside of wedlock, apparently by a Smith.

By this time, I was chomping at the bit to work with the genealogy records. William Hobson Jones was born in 1902, so I was hopeful I could find his mother, Emma Jones, in the 1900 census. The first rule in begetting is that the begetters must have physical proximity to each other – and the traveling salesman is the exception, not the rule.

Sure enough, in the 1900 census, there was Emma, right with her parents Nathan and Elizabeth Jones. Emma was much older than I had expected, age 36. She would have been considered a spinster in that time and place, and was probably considered a burden to her family. Having a child would not have improved that situation any.

However, we have hit the proverbial jackpot here. Take a closer look…..at the next door neighbor.

Claudius Smith is the neighbor….but wait….with his wife Glenora Smith. Ok, let’s see if any of their sons are old enough to be the father of Emma’s child. Nope, the oldest son is only 13, but Claudius himself is 38, just 2 years older than Emma. Hmmm…..looks like maybe Claudius is the father, or at least he’s our best candidate right now. Now Claudius might not be the father, but I’d wager that it is someone in his family, like a brother or uncle perhaps, if it is not him. This Smith family is the best candidate due to the old begetters proximity rule.

This also might explain why Emma didn’t marry the father. I wonder if she ever told anyone the identity of the father. The family today certainly didn’t know.

Simple morbid curiosity got the best of me at this point. I just had to look in the 1910 census to see if Claudius Smith and the Jones family were still neighbors. Was there a feud? Did someone move? Imagine my surprise to see Claudius married to Emma who had borne 4 children by this point. What happened to Glenora? And why did my client not tell me about this? Surely he must have known. Looking closer, this Emma is all of age 28 and her oldest child is 4….and flipping the census page, Emma Jones, along with her son Willie, age 6, indeed are still living next door, now in her brother’s household. It seems that perhaps Claudius liked woman named Emma. Maybe he was a widower when Emma Jones became pregnant.

I wondered if I could connect Claudius Smith with the Jeremiah Smith born in 1795 in NC shown as the oldest ancestor of one of Mr. Jones’ Smith matches. I checked various sources, and Ancestry had a tree that pushed this particular Smith family back another generation, but not to Jeremiah. This could probably be done, but not with the time alloted for genealogy in a DNA report. I needed to look for other tools. http://trees.ancestry.com/owt/person.aspx?pid=19139247

Chess Smith is shown as Claudius’s father and Elizabeth Ann Blackburn as his mother. And yes, I’m fully aware that online trees should not be taken at face value, but they are good starting points and cannot be presumed to be incorrect either, especially if they confirm a suspected fact. In this case, that didn’t happen – no Jeremiah.

Fortunately, Mr. Jones had also taken a Family Finder test. He of course had Smith matches. Who doesn’t? But he also had three Blackburn matches. The addition of this single female line surname gave me something concrete to look for. I suggested that Mr. Jones contact his Blackburn autosomal matches to see if they can connect to the Chess Smith line.

So, at the end of the day that began with some level of apprehension that I might not be able to help Mr. Jones identify his genetic paternal line, we had a great research plan in hand.

We had discovered that the neighbor’s name was Smith, and he was married with 11 children in 1900, which might just explain why Emma never married the father of her child. Of course, there might be other reasons too, like the father wasn’t Claudius, but another Smith relative. It looks very promising, using autosomal tools to find Chess Smith’s wife’s surname, Blackburn, that this is indeed the correct Smith family.

Mr. Jones has some genealogy homework to do on the Chess Smith line, and some contact homework to do with his Blackburn matches, but now he does indeed have the information along with the tools he needs to solve the Jones-Smith mystery and break down that brick wall!

And thank you, Mr. Jones for permission to share your exciting family story!

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The Speak Family – 3 Continents and a Dash of Luck

Posted on October 18, 2012 by Roberta Estes

Recently someone on one of the DNA lists asked about success stories outside of the US. In the Speak(e)(s) family, we hit the proverbial gold mine – and it took people on three continents and a bit of luck. The surname is spelled a variety of ways, so I’m going to use Speak for consistency.

Most of the Speak descendants in the US today descend from Thomas Speak, the original immigrant, who was in St. Mary’s County, Maryland by 1661 when he was summoned to court. We know that he was born in England, but beyond that, we have little other information. One important hint was that Maryland was at that time a Catholic enclave and England was very anti-Catholic. Thomas’s son, Bowling, was definitely Catholic, so we suspected we were looking for a Catholic family in Protestant England.

We have identified through DNA testing that most of the original Speak(e)(s) family lines came from Thomas Speak’s two sons, John, known as John the Innkeeper, and Bowling. Thomas Speak had married Elizabeth Bowling.

However, we still didn’t know where in England our Speak line was from. Our “cousin” John David Speake who lives in Cambridge, England had DNA tested and proven that his line was not our line. That was a disappointing day.

John has been an avid researcher for the Speak family, accessing records in England that we simply don’t have access to in the US. John made contact with a man with the Speak surname from New Zealand and encouraged him to DNA test. The New Zealand gentleman’s ancestor hailed from Gisburn(e), Lancashire, England – one John Speak who was born in Gisburn, Lancashire, about 1700. The New Zealand descendant of that John Speak matched our Speak family DNA, that of Thomas, the immigrant.

Bingo – with this DNA match, we now had identified the family location and could focus our research efforts. And yes, Gisburn was heavily Catholic.

We now know that our Speak family indeed is from the Gisburn area, a region long suspected by John David Speake. In fact, John long ago had found a Thomas Speak there, born in 1734, but unfortunately, he also later found his burial record.

The Gisburn Catholic Church, St. Mary’s, was established in the 1100s and has miraculously survived intact.

Their burial records begin in the early 1600s, and it’s obvious from translating those records (from Latin) that they served a number of other locations, villages and farms, in the area. We find the earliest Speak burials beginning with Anna, daughter of William, in 1602. Not all burial records give the location of the deceased, but those that do are all Gisburne through 1653 when a series of other locations are given. Of course, these locations may not be new, they may simply have been among those without a location given earlier.

Locations include: Gisburne, Howgill, Rimington, Paythorn, Twiston, Miley, Horton, Varleyfield, Pasture House, Waitley, Todber, Watthouse, Yarside, Bracewell, Martintop and Newby. This list takes us through 1828, when the Speak burials cease until in the mid 1900s. The records may not be complete.

On the map below, you can see that all of these locations that have corresponding locations today are within 2 or 3 miles of Gisburn(e). Those locations that do not exist on the map today may well have been farm or manor names that disappeared instead of becoming hamlets. The location just below Gisburn with no name is Todber. A caravan park is located there today, but otherwise, it has disappeared.

Many, many unmarked burials exist in this ancient churchyard that entirely surrounds the church.

The dashes on the cemetery map above are unmarked graves. Fifty-one Speak burials exist in the records, and most of them are quite early. I spent some time “reassembling” families and many family units are evident, although there is a pronounced repetition of names.

A bit of English history may be somewhat enlightening. John feels that this group of Speaks families was not landowning. In other words, they were not royalty, were not wealthy, did not have coats of arms, etc. In medieval England, if you were not a land owner, then you were a tenant farmer, either free or bond. Bond did not mean slavery, but it did mean you had little freedom to leave. However, the freedmen had little opportunity to leave either, required the manor owner’s permission, and there was no place within the British Isles to go anyway.

Given that we are now back to the end of written records, and that is within 300 years or so of when all families took surnames, and that is within 200 years of when the first families took surnames – we may be to a time period when we will not be able to find any specific records of our Thomas or his family. John now tells us that he has found a Speak family record in Downham, about 5 miles away, dating to 1305. The Speak family is indeed ancient in that region and it would be a wonderful experience to walk where they trod, where our DNA still exists today, and from whence we sprang.

Thanks to DNA testing, if we never find any more information at all, we know the area and the family line that our Speak family is from. That indeed, is a wonderful gift, and one that our ancestors gave us through their DNA.

So what comes next? A trip to Gisburn of course! Indeed, in 2013, several members of the Speak(e)(s) Family Association will hold our annual convention in Gisburn. Indeed, we are going to walk in the cemetery and stand inside the church that our ancestors assuredly visited. What would Thomas think? His descendants, nearly 400 years after his birth, come home to find his family and the land he left.

This would not have been possible without the combined research efforts of several people in the US documenting the life of Thomas Speak, without John David Speake in England and his blood-hound research, without the Speak family members in the US who have DNA tested, or without our New Zealand cousin. He was the lynchpin, the missing puzzle piece, the keystone. We hope that he can join us in England in 2013 for a homecoming in the beautiful village of Gisburn.

If you’re a Speak family member, of any spelling or any line, click here to order a DNA test and join the Speak project.

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Lenny Trujillo: The Journey of You

Posted on September 11, 2012 by Roberta Estes

In the fall of 2010, Lenny Trujillo embarked on a journey unaware that he was going anyplace. That was the journey to discover himself, his ancestry….and what a journey it has been. Lenny was unique, very unique.

After Lenny’s results came back, he purchased a DNA Report. In the process of analyzing his DNA, I realized what an opportunity was at hand. Lenny was Native American and his Y DNA likely harbored new SNPs that would identify a new sub-haplogroup, and we needed to take a look. When I wrote Lenny and asked if he would consider a Walk the Y (WTY) test, he told me that he had retired that very day. My heart sunk, because I presumed that meant “no”, that he’d be making financial adjustments like so many retirees. But then Lenny went on to say that he wanted to proceed in order to leave a legacy for his grandchildren.

And what a legacy Lenny has to leave them. Lenny made history and advanced science. Indeed, by comparing Lenny’s DNA to another European man in haplogroup Q1a3, 7 new SNPs were discovered. I wrote a paper about this process and Lenny’s contribution. This was a red letter day for Native American ancestry, as well as for Lenny, delivered as fate would have it, Christmas week.

However, Lenny’s remarkable story doesn’t end there. That’s only the beginning. But, I’ll let Lenny tell his own story, in his own words. He wrote an article for the Los Angeles Beat which was published today. His story is so heartwarming and inspirational and the records that document his Native ancestry that Lenny has been able to find have been absolutely amazing.

Lenny also tells his story on the Family Tree DNA YouTube Channel in various segments for those who haven’t yet seen Family Tree DNA’s infomercial.

So whether you read it or watch it, or both, come along, share Lenny’s journey, and enjoy!

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The DNA Pedigree Chart – Mining for Ancestors

Posted on August 22, 2012 by Roberta Estes

Judy Russell blogged a few days ago about counting up the number of ancestors you have found, of the total number available in the past 10 generations in her blog, “More Lost than Found.” Judy had a tidy total of 12% after the 10^th generation, counting your parents as generation 1. She has only been researching for 12 years. A veritable youngster. I’ve been researching for 34 years, so I was hopeful that my percentage would be somewhat better. At 1% per year, I should rack up about 34%. We’ll see.

In my presentations, I always talk to people about building their DNA pedigree chart. I use my own as an example. It took a lot of work, not to mention money and in some cases, some significant arm-twisting to accomplish this.

It pains me that there are blanks at the top, and some of them can never be filled. The one person who could test for the Ruthy Dodson Estes (Claiborne Co., Tn.) mitochondrial line, won’t. The Kirsch family has few male descendants here in the US, and so far, the only one I can find isn’t interested in testing.

With some heavy duty elbow-grease, I should be able to find someone to test for the Margaret Herrell Cook Bolton (Claiborne County, TN) and the Margaret Lentz Miller (Montgomery Co., OH and Elkhart Co., IN) lines.

Some lines are simply dead. The deJong line had no daughters and we don’t know who her parents were in the Netherlands, so we can’t go upstream. I can’t find Rachel Hill Lore’s daughter’s descendants from Warren County, Pa.

Instead, I focus on the 10 lines whose DNA I do have. I thought this was pretty good, actually. Of these 16 ancestors, I have the DNA of 10 of them.

Last week, when I read Judy’s article, I wondered exactly how my DNA pedigree chart would compare to the number of ancestors in total and the number found. I wouldn’t say this comparison has been fun, but it has been enlightening in a number of ways.

On the chart below, the generation is noted, the total number of end-of-line ancestors in that generation, the number of ancestors I’ve identified, the percentage that represents, followed by the number whose DNA I have and the percentage compared to the total number of ancestors possible. The percent would look a lot better if compared it with the number of ancestors identified….but that wouldn’t be playing quite fair.

Generation	Ancestors Total	Ancestors Identified	Percent IDed	DNA Anc	% DNA
1 – parents	2	2	100	2	100
2 – grandparents	4	4	100	4	100
3 – great-grandparents	8	8	100	7	88
4 – gg-grandparents	16	16	100	10	63
5 – ggg – grandparents	32	32	100	22	69
6 – gggg – grandparents	64	52 (6 women no surname)	87	20	31
7 – ggggg – grandparents	128	72 (5 women no surname)	56	19	15
8 – gggggg-grandparents	256	90 (7 women no surname)	35	21	8
9 – ggggggg-grandparents	512	106 (12 women no surname)	21	23	4
10 – gggggggg-grandparents	1024	101 (4 women no surname, 8 duplicate ancestors on Mom’s side)	10	25	2
Total	2046	483	24	153	7

I wound up doing an extra generation that Judy didn’t do.

So comparing my 9^th generation with Judy’s number, I had a total of 382 ancestors found out of 1022 possible, for 37%. At 1% per year, I’m three years ahead of schedule!

Expanding this number to the 10^th generation reduced my percentage to 24%, but still not bad for 300 years ago, or so.

So Judy, take heart, in another 22 years you’ll be up to 37%, about one third of the way there. It looks like one gains about 1% per year, so at this rate you’ll only need to live for another 88 years to be done. I can die when I’m only 119. I sure hope my retirement money holds out that long!

Finding Ancestors DNA

On the chart, the “DNA Anc” column heading means DNA ancestor’s located and the next column, “% DNA,” is the associated percentage. While significantly smaller than the number found, this information is still quite interesting for a number of reasons.

First, my pedigree collapse didn’t begin until the 10^th generation. On my Mom’s side, I have a lot of ethnic groups, for lack of a better term for them. I have the Brethren, the Acadians, the Dutch and other non-Brethren German immigrants, all of which lived in clusters and intermarried after arriving in the states. The pedigree collapse, where the same ancestor is found in your tree more than once, occurred in both the Acadian line and the immigrant non-Brethren German lines back in Germany.

In order to make sure I actually had gathered up all of my ancestral DNA lines that are available, I checked the projects at Family Tree DNA. Most of the projects are quite useful, but there were some exceptions. I’d like to make a plea for all surname administrators to please, PLEASE, enable the oldest ancestor field on your Family Tree DNA public webpages. Without that information, you can’t even begin to figure out if your line is represented and the page is virtually useless.

And folks who have tested, please, PLEASE, enter your oldest ancestor information with identifying data; birth, death, location and spouse would be good for starters. This means for the Y-line, your oldest paternal ancestor and for mtDNA, your oldest female maternal ancestor. You would be amazed how many men’s names I see in the oldest maternal ancestor field. This is your mitochondrial DNA lineage – your mother, her mother, her mother, etc on up the tree until you run out of mothers.

Aside from the surname projects, I found the French Heritage project, the Mother’s of Acadia project and the Acadian American Indian projects quite useful. For one thing, they had taken the time to enter relevant surnames into their project profiles, so when one of my surnames popped up, I knew to check their projects.

I had checked existing projects previously for all of my surnames, but quite a few more ancestral lines that I could readily identify as mine had been added since I last checked. In some cases, I couldn’t tell for sure, so I omitted those. Unfortunately, some surnames don’t have projects.

I decided to check Ysearch, although I really didn’t think it would be very productive. I was very pleasantly surprised. First, it’s a lot easier to search there, even with the captchas, because you can see the location. Then you can click on the User ID to see more genealogical info…hopefully. People tend to enter more when they are prompted and in Ysearch does that in the transfer or data entry process. I wish Family Tree DNA did more of this type of prompting on their website. The only thing I couldn’t see that would have been quite helpful was the oldest ancestor info without clicking on the User ID.

Surprisingly, I picked up several DNA lines from Ysearch. They fell into three categories. First, the unusual names that did not have projects at Family Tree DNA. Second, surnames from projects that were poorly displayed at Family Tree DNA, meaning the oldest ancestor info wasn’t shown, so one couldn’t tell if their family was represented or not. Third, surnames with many matches. It was easier to tell if there was a possible fit at Ysearch than in projects at Family Tree DNA. I compared a couple of surnames at both locations, and people do tend to enter more info at Ysearch than they do at Family Tree DNA in terms of the oldest ancestor.

On the other hand, searching at Ancestry was entirely futile. They do have an option to see if a surname has tested. If so, they show you the name of the person who tested and their haplogroups. Not useful. The only way to do anything more is to look at the profile of every person to see if their tree is connected or to contact them. Very, very not useful.

While checking projects for the paternal surnames at Family Tree DNA and at Ysearch was easy, looking for females who descended from my ancestors and who have tested was quite difficult. We need a mitochondrial DNA data base that has the maternal ancestors of everyone who has tested that we can search to see if our maternal line is represented. I think we’re missing a lot of opportunities by not having this functionality.

One thing that happened that I didn’t expect is that in each generation, I lost lines, but I also picked up other lines and sometimes, they had been DNA tested. By “picked up,” I mean that if we have a female marrying into the family, back one generation, we have her father. Some of those ancestral lines had been DNA tested. I expected that since many were quite far back in my tree, there wouldn’t be DNA lines for them, but that wasn’t the case as long as I had enough information to uniquely identify them and the correct end-of-line person. In other words, just having Nicholas Estes doesn’t cut it, but having Nicholas Ewstas born 1495, Deal, Kent, England, died 1533, same location, wife’s name Anny is clearly enough to identify this man.

Unfortunately, I have a lot of Dutch on my Mom’s side, and a few generations back, on my Dad’s as well. Relative to surnames, projects and DNA testing, Dutch lines tend to be rather hopeless, especially when you’re back to when surnames were being formed, unless you know someone from that line to ask to test.

The Dutch used patronymics where the father’s name was used plus an ending -zoon for sons, -dochter for daughters. For instance, Abel Janszoon Tasman is “Abel son of Jan Tasman”, or simply Abel Janszoon. In written form, these endings were often abbreviated as -sz. and -dr. respectively e.g. Jeroen Cornelisz. “Jeroen son of Cornelis”, or Dirck Jacobsz. Of course, the next generation would be Jan son of Dirk, or Jan Dirckszoon or Dircksz.

This means there was a different “surname” in every generation. In the village, everyone knew who you were, but outside the village….and beyond that century, it’s a nightmare. Patronymics were used in Holland until 1811, whereupon emperor Napoleon forced the Dutch to register and adopt a distinct surname. Often, they simply made the patronymics the new family names, and modern Dutch patronymic-based surnames such as Jansen, Pietersen and Willemsen abound. Others chose their profession or habitat as family names: Bakker (baker), Slachter (butcher), van Dijk (of dike) etc. But then, the spelling changed, within families and when immigrating. All of this, combined, makes finding Dutch ancestors very challenging and surname projects difficult.

Germans adopted surnames long before the Dutch, in most cases, so we find a few more that have projects and have tested. In my case, I often only have one or two generations here, at most, and then the line jumps overseas. Names are spelled differently and the European people don’t have the love affair with genetic genealogy that we Americans have. I think it has a lot to do with the fact that we are looking for our roots and they just look outside the window to see theirs.

The Pietistic faiths are difficult too. Many of the descendants still practice the faith, or if not, a very conservative related faith. It’s difficult to convince people who sometimes don’t have electricity and who don’t own a car, preferring a horse and buggy, that DNA testing is something they want to do. However, when I actually visit, I’ve had pretty good luck, at least with the more radical segments who have telephones (but not cell phones) and drive cars now.

So where does this leave me? I’m a little richer than when I began this comparison. I didn’t find new ancestors, but discovered DNA information about the ones I already had. I know more about them now, and about their ancestors, and where they were before I found them in my family tree. I know about their clan, who was Celtic, Anglo, Viking and Native American.

I also got to add two more confirmed Native American lines to my chart today. That made me feel great. I’m glad we’re unearthing the truth about our ancestors that was only held in whispered stories and shadows before.

Who can you find to test for your own DNA Pedigree chart?

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Marja and Me

Posted on August 20, 2012 by Roberta Estes

Sometimes things just don’t go as we have planned. Some people just refuse to stay in the box where they are supposed to be. Marja is one of those kind of out-of-the-box people. As it turns out, that is a very good thing!

Marja is Finnish and started e-mailing me in March. She was referred by Family Tree DNA, and she had lots and LOTS of questions. In one long paragraph, she asked me 17 different questions pertaining to 4 different kits. And that was one of her shorter e-mails!

To say I was a bit overwhelmed is probably an understatement. However, I could tell that her questions were a result of exuberance and a desire to learn about this fascinating new field, all in one large bite if possible. She had been doing her homework. Seldom do I have a new client using words like Genbank and understanding what it is.

So, we sorted the questions into groups pertaining to specific kits and Marja ordered two reports, one for her father’s Y-line, and one for her mitochondrial.

Normally, I send a form to each new client for them to complete. They send me the completed form which includes their questions, with their photos, and when their results are all back from the lab, I schedule their work. Simple, structured, and everything works.

Like I said, Marja operates outside the box. Marja is history buff and a communicator. Given that I’m a history buff and a sponge, and I knew little about Finland, I welcomed the opportunity to learn. By the time I began the first report, I had over 100 e-mails to sort through from Marja, all with tidbits of information about Finnish history, farm names, which is how people take surnames there….and by the way, the surnames change when they changed farms. Now that’s a genealogists headache. I learned wonderful things from Marja and she learned from me.

Over the ensuing months, we became friends. We made some fascinating discoveries. We both love maps. I did graduate work in GIS Systems back in the 1990s. We both particularly love antique maps. I always include maps in reports. She sent me a beautiful, ancient map of Finland to include in her reports.

Marja and I both love bridges too, especially really unusual bridges. Marja and I both love and use math and statistics. Marja is a physicist with a degree in experimental physics, topped by an MBA. It was at that moment I truly understood Marja and appreciated all of her questions. Her specialty is error theory. My undergrad is in Computer Science, topped by an Information Systems MBA. One day Marja and I stumbled across the fact that we both love space. She met her husband at a space exhibit. My husband and I do geeky things like visit the old Mission Control at the Johnson Space Center and stay awake half the night to watch the Mars Curiosity land. The list of uncanny coincidences was growing.

But then, it happened. Surely, it was inevitable. I received an e-mail from Marja and she asked if I had noticed we were related. What? Really? Well, the cobblers kids have no shoes and I had not been keeping track of my Family Finder matches nor those at GedMatch. She had.

But how could we possibly be related? Marja is Finnish, through and through. I am a Heinz 57 mutt, but with no Finnish. On my Mom’s side, lots of German and Dutch, but nothing in Scandinavia at all. Or so we thought. But there it was, a segment of matching DNA, big as life. There was no doubt….Marja and I are related. I’m convinced that on that segment lies the bridge/map/space/geeky-female genes.

When I finished Marja’s father’s report, I had included a photo of an archaeological site that I though was relevant to her father’s story. Kuninkaanhauta, the King’s Grave, is the largest bronze-age barrow in Finland and likewise amongst the most eminent in the Nordic countries. These hillgraves are made of very large piles of stones and this one is very near where her father’s ancestors lived.

After I delivered the report, Marja asked me to replace that photo with another. I was kind of disappointed, as I was so pleased to have found that archaeological site and photo. But then I looked at the photo Marja had sent me. It was exactly the same mound, but WITH her father standing alongside.

Marja and I also discovered that we share a love of archaeology and the ancient history it unearths.

We began to mine the history of Germany, Finland and the Netherlands, along with our families, to see how we might connect. It may be through the Mennonites, as we both have some matches there. Perhaps before they were Mennonites. My mother’s family was Brethren, another Anabaptist faith, not terribly far removed from the Mennonites.

And it might be through Marja’s Finnish Fleming family who may have been German originally. It might be through the people from what is now the Netherlands who settled in Finland. It might be from the Saxons who greatly influenced the Finnish culture, although that is an awfully long way back to have an unbroken segment of DNA of this size.

As we went through this process, I finished her reports and our client/customer relationship had long since evolved into one of friendship. We also discovered our love of jewelry and of hearts. I think jewelry is an international language among women.

One day, Marja wrote, “This I want to share with you, Euran sydän Eura’s heart. I bought it from Kalevala Koru. Based on the archaeological findings in Eura, from the Viking time 850-1150. (Eura includes Kiukainen again nowadays as it did in the history) . Kalevala Koru is an old company established by Finnish women. They have many fine products based on archaeological findings. More to less every Finnish woman has got Kalevala Koru jewelry. Who knows, it might have been cousin Mike’s and my ancestor who has given this kind of heart to his wife. Funny enough, when I showed this to my sister she remembered she had a similar one in her jewelry box.”

The Kalevala Jewelry company has beautiful items, designed from historical and archaeological finds in Finland. What a wonderful idea.

You can take a look at www.kalevalakoru.com.

And then one day, I opened my mailbox to find a box from Finland, and inside the box was Eura’s heart. What a beautiful gift and a lovely gesture. I felt like a kid at Christmas unwrapping the beautiful box with the bow. Now, not only are Marja and I connected by our genetic ancestors, whoever they were, some hundreds of years ago, who contributed to us our common DNA segment, but by our friendship and also, now, our Eura hearts.

http://www.kalevalakoru.com/jewelry/catalog/Pendants/1095/2

Thank you so much Marja. You are indeed a lovely cousin. I’m so glad we met. Isn’t genetic genealogy great, and isn’t this what it’s all about? Finding and meeting family and developing relationships! And in this case, in the most unexpected of ways. Marja is herself a gift indeed.

As Marja says, “I love this journey of ours. It’s absolutely crazy that we found each other…7 billion people in the world….based on things we love…and then to find out we’re related.” Yes, indeed, it’s almost unbelievable.

But our story isn’t finished yet. A few days later, I received another e-mail from Marja. She said, “Did you know that you are related to my cousin on the X-chromosome?” What? You’re kidding? How can that be? She is Finnish through and through and I am not. Or so we think. Here we go again, except with one small difference. The X chromosome has special properties that make it easier to track. If you want to know more about how to use the X chromosome, you’ll have to join me for a future blog, “X Marks the Spot.”

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Thank you so much.

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