Category Archives: Y DNA

FOCUS Step 2: Finding the Y-DNA and Mitochondrial DNA of Your Ancestors

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This is the third article in our FOCUS series, providing step-by-step instructions for identifying brick-walled ancestors.

These two articles detail the initial steps:

By now, you will have selected the ancestor you want to focus on identifying, and you have tools in your toolkit for working with DNA matches who have no trees.

You may have ordered DNA tests from multiple vendors and are waiting on results, so while you wait, we’ll start with finding the Y-DNA and mitochondrial DNA of your ancestors and identifying DNA testing candidates.

While it may sound counterintuitive, we’re going to be working with all of the major vendors, including FamilyTreeDNA, who actually tests for Y-DNA and mitochondrial DNA, plus WikiTree, 23andMe, MyHeritage, Ancestry, GEDmatch and FamilySearch. They are all quite useful in different ways.

This Type of Searching Is Different

Normally, when we search for brick-walled ancestors, we are searching backward in time. In other words, we begin with the last person we know and work back from there, hoping to identify the previous generation.

If we don’t know Lucy’s birth surname and she was born about 1750, and married William Moore in the late 1770s, we begin with what we do know in that timeframe.

Searching for our ancestor’s Y-DNA or mitochondrial DNA, and testers who carry that DNA, is fundamentally different because we begin with that ancestor and work forward in time.

In other words, if we want to find Lucy’s mitochondrial DNA, we begin with her daughters and track forward in time to the present. Hopefully, someone has already tested, and we can locate that result, but if not, we need to find people who descend through a specific path that carry Lucy’s mitochondrial DNA.

If we were searching for the Y-DNA of William Moore, we would look for his direct paternal descendant males who would carry the Moore surname.

Chicken or Egg?

I’ve been debating whether I should show you:

  1. How to locate and identify the Y-DNA and mitochondrial DNA of your ancestors first, or
  2. How to use Y-DNA and mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) to help break through your brick wall first

I decided to write the “how to locate” article first because I don’t want you to skim over and ignore the ‘how to use’ article, thinking it’s irrelevant to your research because you don’t carry the Y-DNA and/or mtDNA of your brick-walled ancestor.

There are lots of avenues to locate the Y-DNA or mitochondrial DNA of your ancestors, something you definitely want to do. You’ll soon see that Y-DNA and mtDNA information can also assist with autosomal DNA results.

These are all pieces of your ancestor’s puzzle, and you never know which one will be the one to topple that wall.

Plus, you don’t know what you don’t know about that ancestor.

Let’s jump right in!

Who Carries the Y-DNA and Mitochondrial DNA of Your Ancestor?

As a quick refresher, only men can test for Y-DNA because only men have a Y chromosome which is inherited from their father. It’s passed in a direct paternal line from father to son, never mixed with DNA from the mother. Because it’s never divided during recombination like autosomal DNA, it’s uniquely useful for connecting lineages both recently and back in time hundreds and thousands of years.

Both Y-DNA and mitochondrial DNA incur occasional mutations that function as genetic breadcrumbs, making them incredibly useful for reassembling those specific family lines where genealogy paper trails have broken or been interrupted.

Mitochondrial DNA is passed from mothers to their children of both sexes, but only daughters pass it on. This means that in the current generation, males and females can both test for the mtDNA of their direct, mother-to-mother, matrilineal line.

Anyone, including males, who descends from an ancestor through all females can test for that ancestor’s mitochondrial DNA.

If you’re lucky, you’ll carry the Y-DNA or mitochondrial DNA of the ancestor you are seeking. If not, you’ll need to do one of two things:

  1. Determine if someone has already tested for that ancestor
  2. If not, find candidates to test

Y-DNA is generally easier because you at least (hopefully) have a surname to work with that has been passed from father to son, along with their Y chromosome.

Mitochondrial DNA is more challenging since surnames change each generation, so I’ve included several mitochondrial examples. Don’t skip over them, because the same research techniques apply to Y-DNA too, especially difficult cases.

If you’re a male, I strongly recommend that you order:

If you’re a female, you can only order the mtFull test, but you may be able to ask your father or brother or a male relative (with the surname in the lineage you seek) to take the Big Y-700 to represent your father’s family line. In other words, if you’re looking for a male Estes, you can ask your 2C Estes male who descends in a direct paternal line of all Estes men from your common ancestor.

Complete Versus Partial Tests

Haplogroup-only results derived from autosomal tests are fine as far as they go – but they don’t go very far. Most are what I would call midrange, providing testers with a haplogroup from maybe 2000 years ago, and some are much more distant than that. That isn’t to say they can’t be useful in a limited capacity, but Y-DNA and mtDNA have so much more potential.

You need comprehensive Y-DNA and mtDNA test results that identify all your haplogroup-defining mutations and can be refined as more people test and match family-level mutations.

Haplogroups are important, but you also need to match with other testers. Additionally, you’ll want the most complete haplogroup possible, because it will help you genealogically by providing a complete breadcrumb trail with the ability to identify your most recent common ancestor (MRCA).

FamilyTreeDNA is the only vendor that offers these complete tests that include matching with other testers, plus additional genealogy tools.

The Big Y-700 test scans for mutations in the stable portion of the Y chromosome and is the only way to obtain that personal-level information. It’s those recent mutations that will help place you within a biological family – or eliminate you from other lines, which prevents barking up the wrong tree.

The benefit of taking the test yourself, or sponsoring a test for someone willing to share their results with you, is that you have ready access to information through FamilyTreeDNA’s tools such as:

  • Matches with other Y-DNA and mtDNA testers
  • Matches Map (ancestor locations)
  • Advanced Matching, which provides a filtered list of people who match you on BOTH your Y-DNA or mitochondrial DNA AND your Family Finder autosomal test
  • Haplotype clusters (for mtDNA)
  • Your mutations
  • Block Tree (for Y-DNA)
  • Customized Discover tools

Click any image to enlarge

  • Discover’s Advanced Tools like the Match Time Tree, shown above, which displays your matches with their earliest known ancestors (EKA) together on the Time Tree
  • Globetrekker™ (for Y-DNA with mtDNA coming soon)
  • Up to 30 Ancient Connections
  • Up to 20 Notable Connections

FamilyTreeDNA’s free Discover tool, here, provides public information for everyone about haplogroups, but if you haven’t taken the test, you won’t receive matching and customized information described above, which is essential to genealogy.

Upgrades for Partial Tests

You may have previously tested at a lower level at FamilyTreeDNA.

For mtDNA, the early mtPlus test examined a portion of the mitochondria and provided matching at lower levels, as do the 12-111 marker Y-DNA tests. Both provide a predicted high-level basic or midrange haplogroup based on the mutation information available in those limited tests.

If you took an earlier, partial test, you can sign on to your account to upgrade by clicking on the “Big Y,” even though it’s greyed out. Grey simply indicates that you don’t currently have that level of test.

Click on “Full” to upgrade to the mtFull test.

Test Features at Various Levels

Depending on the type of test you take, and at which vendor, you may have a fully refined or partial haplogroup.

Discover provides a substantial amount of information if you receive a partial haplogroup:

A partial haplogroup is better than no haplogroup, but it’s also like working with one hand tied behind your back. If at all possible, you need to work with a full haplogroup and matches.

Testers who click through to Discover from their own test, or a test they manage, can view additional features not available in the free version.

The table below shows the four different ways you can access and view your ancestor’s haplogroup. Based on the testing level and/or how they tested, the haplogroup level will vary.

Clearly, the best scenario is when you either take the Big Y-700 or mtFull test yourself, or you have access to the test results of someone who takes that test to represent your ancestor’s DNA. Primary access confers the greatest amount of information, but you can still glean information in other ways.

Feature Introductory Level Test at FamilyTreeDNA* Tester’s Big Y-700 or mtFull Test – Full Access Partial Haplogroup from Autosomal Test Your Ancestor’s Haplogroup but without Full Access
Matching Yes, at that lower level Best – at all levels No No
Matches Map Yes, at lower level Yes No No
Mutation Values Yes, STR markers at lower Y-DNA level Yes, STRs (Y-DNA) and SNPs Not directly but through Discover Not directly but through Discover
Haplotree & SNPs with surnames (Y-DNA only) Yes, at lower level Yes No No
Block Tree (Big Y test only) No Yes No No

 
Advanced Matching (multiple types of tests) Yes, at that level Yes No No
Ability to Join Group Projects Yes Yes Only test owner or manager can join Only test owner or manager can join
Discover Reports Yes, same information as the free version due to lower coverage Yes, when clicking through from your FamilyTreeDNA account Free version Free version
Haplogroup Story Yes, at lower haplogroup level Yes – best and highest level Yes, at lower haplogroup level Yes, at lower haplogroup level
Country Frequency Map and Table views Yes, at lower haplogroup level Yes, at most refined haplogroup level Yes, at lower haplogroup level Yes, at most refined haplogroup level
Notable Connections Same as free version About 20 for Y-DNA, 11 for mtDNA About 10 for Y-DNA, 3 for mtDNA About 10 for Y-DNA, 3 for mtDNA
Migration Map Yes, at lower level Yes, at advanced level Yes, at lower level Yes, at advanced level
Globetrekker (Y-DNA only, mtDNA coming soon) No Yes No No
Ancient Connections Same as free version About 30 About 10 for Y-DNA, 3 for mtDNA About 10 for Y-DNA, 3 for mtDNA
Time Tree Yes, at lower haplogroup level – generally 2,000 years or older Yes, at most refined haplogroup level, often within genealogical timeframe Yes, at lower haplogroup level – generally 2,000 years or older Yes, at most refined level
Match Time Tree No Yes – your matches & their EKA on the Time Tree including WikiTree Connections and Ancient DNA No No
Ancestral Path Yes, at lower haplogroup level Yes Yes, at lower haplogroup level Yes
Suggested Projects Yes Yes, at more refined level Yes, but must test with FamilyTreeDNA to join Yes, but must test with FamilyTreeDNA to join
Scientific Details, ages and variants Yes, at lower level Yes Yes, at lower level Yes
Compare Haplogroups Yes Yes Yes Yes

*Note that often your ancestor’s haplogroup as reported by the Family Finder (autosomal) test is more refined, meaning closer in time, than the Y-DNA haplogroups predicted by STR tests, but both are always substantially less specific than the Big Y-700 test. As of the publication date of this article, Family Finder does not yet report a mitochondrial DNA haplogroup, but that is planned for the future.

This chart only includes features you would specifically use to identify an ancestor or ancestral lineage. There are other reports provided with your test that will be of interest. Discover provides about 14 reports that include various options.

Now we can envision:

  • The benefits of finding our ancestors’ Y-DNA and mtDNA
  • The benefits of obtaining the most refined haplogroup possible
  • The benefits of being able to view the results directly

You may not be able to achieve all of these, but even a partial haplogroup is better than no haplogroup at all, and a fully refined haplogroup, even if you can’t see everything in another tester’s account, is better than a partial haplogroup.

So, let’s see how to find your ancestors’ haplogroups. I collect them all, not just for brick-walled ancestors, but because they tell a part of our story not available through any other means.

Finding Your Ancestor’s Mitochondrial and Y-DNA

If you are the DNA tester for your brick-wall ancestor, then you’re golden, but chances are that you’re not.

If you’re searching for Y-DNA, and you don’t carry that Y-DNA yourself, you’ll need a male relative who carries that Y chromosome to test.

Males carry the Y-DNA of their direct patrilineal ancestors, shown in the image below on the left side in blue, plus the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) of their mother, shown with yellow hearts at far right.

At the 4th generation level, we have 4 Y-DNA lineages to collect (light blue, dark green, medium green, and teal), and a total of 8 mtDNA lineages.

Let’s say you’re searching for your father’s mother’s mother as your brick-wall ancestor.

Your father (and his siblings) carry the mtDNA of his mother, shown above in fuchsia, as do her grandchildren through her daughters. That’s why your father has a fuchsia heart. If close family members test, chances are you can arrange to manage their test or view their results. (Be sure they take the autosomal Family Finder test too. You’ll need that later.

If you don’t manage their test for them, you’ll need to ask to see their results to view matches and work with trees.

I have a family project at FamilyTreeDNA that I manage. I ask people who have tested for a particular ancestor to join that project so I can easily view their results while they continue to manage their test, and can select how much they want me to see or do.

FamilyTreeDNA is currently working on a multi-kit management feature that will address the challenge of sharing results.

But I Don’t Know of Any Cousins…

Let’s say you don’t know of and can’t readily identify anyone who descends from your ancestor appropriately.

If the ancestor you seek is a male, mitochondrial DNA is probably not going to help you because men don’t pass their mitochondrial DNA on to their descendants. In order to obtain a male ancestor’s mitochondrial DNA, you’d need to be able to identify a sister or someone known to descend from his mother (or sisters) through all females to the current generation. Needless to say, if you know who his mother is, you probably already know who he is.

If your brick wall is a female ancestor, your first order of business is to find someone who descends from her through all females to the current generation, where the tester can be male or female.

Why is this so important?

Mitochondrial DNA isn’t admixed with the father’s DNA, so it’s not divided in each generation. This means that mitochondrial DNA is the only direct line-of-sight we have that bypasses both changing surnames and genetic recombination for females.

Who Has Tested for Your Ancestor?

If you’re NOT the tester for your brick-walled ancestor or aren’t the curator of the test, your first step is to see if someone else has already tested.

This can sometimes be challenging.

It’s impossible to obtain mitochondrial DNA for an unknown ancestor if there are no known daughters, and for Y-DNA if there are no known sons. You may need to review genealogical resources to make sure you’ve identified all of that ancestor’s children.

Barring those scenarios, there are a surprising number of resources available to find descendants.

WikiTree

The first place I check to see if someone has already tested for a particular ancestor is WikiTree.

WikiTree is the one place where you find the ancestor along with the people who have taken DNA tests who descend from that ancestor. It’s invaluable.

Normally, you have to work with matches to identify your common ancestor. WikiTree works the other way around. Your starting place is with the ancestor.

You can’t Google your mystery ancestor’s name because if you knew their name, they wouldn’t be a mystery ancestor – but you can Google their spouse or a child.

I’m using an example from my own line because my mitochondrial DNA results are connected to her.

I’m Googling:

Barbara Mehlheimer born 1822 died 1906 in Indiana at WikiTree

Google was slightly confused but the results got me to where I needed to go.

Barbara Mehlheimer married George Drechsel and her daughter was Barbara Drechsel who married Jacob Kirsch.

First, check Barbara’s WikiTree profile card to confirm you’ve found the correct person.

Next, click on the DNA tab beneath her profile information (or just scroll down). She has four DNA Connections.

You can see that one person, me, who carries Barbara’s mitochondrial DNA has connected their DNA to Barbara’s profile. I did this by entering my DNA information on my WikiTree profile, then WikiTree connects my DNA haplogroup information from mother to mother to mother to Barbara and propagates my DNA haplogroup to her, her matrilineal ancestors, and their female descendants. If you click on the haplogroup, it takes you directly to that haplogroup in Discover.

Three people have connected their autosomal results to Barbara. This information can be very important, and not just for mitochondrial DNA. It allows us to identify autosomal testers we may match at different testing companies who descend from Barbara.

In your research journal, make notes of these names, testing companies, and kit numbers. Remember that this doesn’t mean the company noted is the only place someone has taken an autosomal DNA test. I’ve tested at all of the major companies, but only GEDmatch and FamilyTreeDNA are listed here.

For Y-DNA and mitochondrial DNA, the haplogroup is shown, although when testers receive a new Y-DNA or Mitotree haplogroup, they seldom think to revise it in WikiTree. This means their current haplogroup may be more specific and improved since the WikiTree information was entered.

Some people may have tested at different levels too. In this case, Buster Estes, who is now deceased, was one of the earliest testers, long before the Big Y tests were available. He only took a 25-marker test, so his haplogroup was predicted as R-M269. Garmon, on the other hand, was able to upgrade his Y-DNA test to the Big Y-700, and his haplogroup is much more refined at R-ZS3700. Their haplogroups don’t match exactly due to the levels at which they tested, but they also don’t preclude the two testers from belonging to the same genetic line.

This screenshot of Discover’s Compare function illustrates how important the Big Y-700 test is when compared to the STR test’s predicted haplogroups. The man who developed the mutation that defines R-ZS3700 lived about 1750 CE, and the man who developed R-M269 lived about 4450 BCE, or 6,450 years ago. That’s a big difference.

Using a combination of multiple testers and genealogy, we’ve identified the man who developed R-ZS3700 and passed it on to his sons. Moses Estes was born in 1711 in Virginia and all of his descendant testers carry R-ZS3700.

Now that’s extremely useful information, because we know that any man with haplogroup R-ZS3700 descends from Moses Estes in a direct paternal line, and any man whose haplogroup is not R-ZS3700 or doesn’t include R-ZS3700 upstream of his haplogroup does not descend from Moses Estes in that way.

Please add your DNA tests, including haplogroups and your kit number, to your profile at WikiTree so that the haplogroup information can be populated appropriately to your ancestors.

Searching for a Test Candidate Using Autosomal Descendants

When you’re searching for a testing candidate at WikiTree, you can click through to the tester’s profile and view exactly how they descend from the ancestor shown.

Let’s say that no one has linked a mitochondrial DNA test to the ancestor you’re searching for, but several people have linked autosomal tests to that ancestor’s profile card.

Click on the tester’s name and then on the DNA Ancestors tab to see how they descend from that ancestor. If you’re lucky, you’ll find someone in the autosomal list who is a mitochondrial DNA testing candidate.

If you’re looking for a Y-DNA tester, begin by looking for a male with the same surname as that ancestor. If you’re looking for a mitochondrial DNA tester, you’ll need to view each tester’s ancestors.

Regardless of whether they are a mitochondrial or Y-DNA testing candidate, you’ll identify your most recent common ancestor (MRCA) for each person, information that will become essential for the autosomal tools that we’ll be discussing in future articles.

In your research journal, I suggest that you record all of their descent information now, including their names, where they tested, your MRCA, kit numbers and any other relevant notes.

If you’d like to ask them to take a specific test, or if they already have and you’d like to know more, you can message WikiTree users by clicking on their profile, and then on the little envelope beside the profile manager’s name.

Finding Your Ancestor’s DNA Descendants at WikiTree

Let’s say that no one in the DNA list of people who have already taken tests descends from your ancestor matrilineally. Don’t worry, there are still more options!

At the top of the WikiTree page for that ancestor, click the down arrow, then on DNA.

The default tab shows the DNA Ancestors of the profile you’re viewing. You’ll see Y-DNA for males, and both mitochondrial and X-chromosome ancestors for everyone.

You may notice that there’s an ancestor listed for your brick wall ancestor. That’s wonderful, but don’t jump for joy quite yet. Remember, WikiTree is a one-world tree, and you need to verify the underlying genealogy in every tree here, and at every vendor.

Always confirm using multiple sources, meaning resources other than trees. The great thing about WikiTree is that there are often several sources listed in each person’s profile, and other resources that can help immensely. I love WikiTree, but I’m always skeptical of information in any tree, and I prove everything to my own satisfaction. I wrote several articles about that topic in the Genealogy Proof Series, here.

To find testers, you’ll need to view your ancestor’s DNA Descendants.

Click on the DNA Descendants tab.

The Mitochondrial DNA Descendants view shows potential candidates for mtDNA testing. Remember, in the current generation, males and females can both test so long as they descend from that ancestor through all females.

In the case of Barbara Mehlheimer Drechsel and her descendants, there are several males who are immediately eliminated because they’ve been deceased for more than a century, and several daughters who didn’t have children.

Not every person’s line on WikiTree has been added or developed. You can see that three daughters’ lines that might hold candidates don’t list all their children, and I still need to research two additional people. That means I still have five candidate lines to extend that have potential mtDNA testers.

So, in summary, if Barbara was the ancestor I was seeking:

  • One person has already tested
  • Three daughters don’t have their families extended.
  • Two have daughters that I need to research.

For both Y-DNA and mitochondrial DNA, I like to have at least two people who descend from different children of the ancestor, and whose tests match at a level that does not preclude that lineage. This helps confirm both the genetic line and the genealogy of both testers.

With male ancestors, having more than one tester for each line through different siblings is essential.

Kit Numbers, Earliest Known Ancestors and Google

When DNA kit numbers are included at WikiTree, you’ll want to Google to see if that kit number is shown in a public Group Project at FamilyTreeDNA where you may find more information.

The exact search string to use to find a specific kit at FamilyTreeDNA within projects is:

“9993” site:familytreedna.com

Replace 9993 with the kit number you’re interested in. You can also add the word “projects”, without quotes, to the end of that string to omit forums and limit the search to within projects. This string both focuses and limits the search, filtering out most noise.

By clicking on “read more,” you’re taken directly to the Estes Family Surname Project Y-DNA page.

The green haplogroups are SNP-confirmed, unlike the red predicted haplogroups from the lower-level 12, 25, 37, 67 or 111-marker tests. The R-ZS3700 haplogroup was obtained from the Big Y-700 test, so it is the most granular and specific. If this is your line, you’ve just found your ancestor’s haplogroup. It’s also possible that, by testing, you could receive an even more specific haplogroup.

Please note that haplogroup R-M269 is the most common haplogroup in Europe, and isn’t specific enough to use for anything other than very basic information. It can rule out two people with different base haplogroups, like haplogroup I or J, for example, as descending from a common patrilineal ancestor.

Project administrators are all volunteers, and each administrator groups their Group Project members differently, so take a few minutes to review the project pages. You may find additional testers who have joined this project who descend from your ancestors or your ancestral line.

You may also find other lines with the same surname and a substantially different haplogroup, which tells you that there are multiple genetic lines with the same surname. I have one example of this in the same county, at the same time, found in men by the same exact name – think John Smith. So frustrating. Without DNA testing, we would NEVER have sorted through those two same-name but completely different lines.

However, finding people who match your ancestor’s DNA but don’t have your earliest known ancestor (EKA) may be just the clue you need to knock down that brick wall. How are your ancestor and that other person’s EKA connected, and in what timeframe? Do they share a surname? A location? Are there other clues?

It’s unlikely that you’ll be able to use a kit number to Google unless you find one at WikiTree, but you can still search using the oldest name in that line that you know.

nicholas ewstas site:familytreedna.com

Replace the kit number with your EKA, in this case, “Nicholas Ewstas” in the search string, either with or without quotes. This takes you to the same page and any other projects that someone may have joined using exactly that earliest known ancestor’s name. Keep in mind that you’re only looking at their oldest ancestor, not every ancestor between them and their EKA. Your brick wall may lie someplace in there, which is why you need to check matches and view their trees.

Since women’s surnames change in every generation, they generally won’t be found in specific ancestral surname projects like men. This makes Googling using the ancestor’s name even more important.

catherine lejeune site:familytreedna.com

We don’t know who Catherine LeJeune’s mother is, so finding that someone has entered Catherine as their EKA may be critically important.

This is especially important for female brick-walled ancestors, since using this Google string with their daughters’ names may reveal someone else’s EKA in that genetic line within a project.

After clicking through to the project page, be sure to enlarge the page to display the full project, and use your browser search since partial results with predicted haplogroups may not be grouped with full mitochondrial sequence results.

Multiple people who descend from Catherine LeJeune have tested. The first six only took the partial test years ago. The bottom two testers took the full sequence test and have a new Mitotree haplogroup – U6a7a1a. We know that Catherine was born about 1633, in France, and we can see that other people have also tested and list different EKAs. Next, it’s time to research the other ancestors shown, or check WikiTree to see if any of these testers are listed there so you can contact them.

Now that you have found your ancestor’s haplogroup, you can use the free version of Discover to learn more. I wrote about using mitochondrial DNA and Discover in the article Mitochondrial DNA A-Z: A Step-by-Step Guide to Matches, Mitotree, and mtDNA Discover.

Now, let’s move to the DNA testing companies to see how we can find our ancestors’ Y-DNA, mitochondrial DNA, or testers, at 23andMe, FamilyTreeDNA, Ancestry, and MyHeritage.

At 23andMe

23andMe is not a genealogy company. That said, if you can figure out how people are related to you, you might be able to obtain a partial haplogroup for an ancestor. 23andMe shows both Y-DNA and mitochondrial DNA haplogroups to autosomal matches, but there is no Y-DNA or mitochondrial DNA matching, or associated tools.

23andMe caps matches without a subscription at only 1,500, and they don’t support trees, so I struggle to find useful haplogroups without an associated surname.

Browsing or searching your 1,500 allowed matches (you can have around 5,000 with a subscription) for a particular surname may provide you with an abbreviated haplogroup for both male and female ancestors.

Despite my best efforts, while my maternal grandfather’s mother is not unknown, nor are her ancestors for several generations reaching back into Germany, I’ve been unable to find her mitochondrial haplogroup. Evaline Miller (1857-1939) was born and died in Kosciusko County, Indiana, where she married Hiram Bauke Ferverda, an immigrant from the Netherlands.

Ferverda is an unusual surname, so let’s use it for our example. Thankfully, I’m not dealing with something like Smith.

I entered Ferverda in the 23andMe search bar and it shows four results, two of which are in the 2C-3C range, and one that’s further distant.

I already have the Ferverda Y-DNA, so I don’t need that, but I do need the mitochondrial DNA of Eva Miller Ferverda, and I really don’t want to sift through Miller surnames.

I know who Mr. Ferverda is on my match list, and which ancestor we share. His mitochondrial DNA is not Eva Miller’s.

Fortunately, I know who Eva’s parents were, as shown above on my MyHeritage tree, so I can search for Ferverda, Miller, Lentz, Ruhle, Wolflin, and Heubach, several of which are unusual. Reaching back into Germany is difficult.

It’s likely I match all four of those people at 23andMe through a common lineage that descends from either Hiram Ferverda, Eva Miller, or both. Let’s see what I can put together.

Emily is estimated to be a 2C2R. She is younger than I am based on the birth year she provided in her profile which I am not showing for privacy reasons. Emily also stated that her maternal grandmother was born in Warsaw, Kosciusko County, Indiana, and provided family surnames that include Ferverda, Miller, Glant, Zimmermann, and others.

Kosciusko County is where Evaline Miller lived with Hiram Ferverda, and their daughter, Margaret, married Chester Glant. Margaret Ferverda Glant’s daughter, Joyce, was born in Kosciusko County and married a Zimmerman.

But now, I was stuck. That’s all I had in my desktop genealogy software.

I shifted to Ancestry, where I discovered a death certificate and other information that provided what I needed to close the gap.

This information confirmed Emily’s statement that her maternal grandmother was born in Warsaw, Kosciusko County, Indiana.

Therefore, drum roll…Emily carries Eva’s mitochondrial DNA haplogroup, which is T2b.

Let’s move on to the other two matches, both of whom carry haplogroup T2b.

Ian’s maternal grandmother’s birthplace is Leesburg, Kosciusko County, Indiana, and his surnames include both Ferverda and Robison.

Eva Miller Ferverda’s daughter, Chloe Ferverda, married Rolland Robison and had a daughter, Charlotte, whose daughter married a man with Ian’s surname. Their information allowed me to connect the dots appropriately. Ian’s mitochondrial haplogroup is also T2b, which confirms Eva Miller’s mtDNA haplogroup through a second child.

Shirley, the third match who carries haplogroup T2b, also shows the surnames of Ferverda and Robison, and tracks back matrilineally to Eva Miller.

In spite of the many challenges at 23andMe, and thanks to the rare surname of Ferverda, I’ve identified Eva Miller’s partial haplogroup, but not her full haplogroup. A partial haplogroup is much better than nothing and gives me something to work with.

I checked at Ancestry, MyHeritage and FamilyTreeDNA to see if any of those three people have tested there and have trees. Indeed, Ian tested at FamilyTreeDNA and I had corresponded with him and made a note that he is a matrilineal descendant of Eva Miller Ferverda, but he has not taken a mitochondrial DNA test there.

We know that if Emily, Ian, Shirley, or another appropriately descended person were to take a full-sequence mitochondrial DNA test, we would learn a LOT more about Eva’s mitochondrial DNA. If I can’t locate someone who has already tested, I’ll reach out to these people at 23andMe and offer a scholarship for a full-sequence mtDNA test.

It’s ironic that at the most restricted and least likely testing company, I found three people descended from Eva Miller. Hope springs eternal.

Unfortunately, T2b was formed about 8450 years ago and is a very broad haplogroup made up of many subclades, but at least I have something now – and this partial haplogroup may be just the seed I need to lead to more.

Now, let’s move to FamilyTreeDNA and hope that someone there has already taken the mtFull test.

At FamilyTreeDNA

There are multiple ways to find the Y-DNA or mitochondrial DNA of your ancestors at FamilyTreeDNA.

Project Search

You can search for surname projects along with other types of projects.

On FamilyTreeDNA’s main page, without signing in, scroll all the way to the very bottom footer where you will see the Group Projects link.

If you’re searching for a surname, enter that surname in the search box.

The next screen shows projects that people with the Estes surname, including females, have joined. This includes all types of projects and does NOT mean that these projects are relevant to your line, but it does include two surname projects you may find useful.

Scrolling down shows you how many people with the surname of Estes have tested. Keep in mind that some will be females, some use married names, and sometimes people use an alias, so they aren’t included in this count.

Surname projects for females aren’t terribly helpful since the surname typically changes in each generation, at least in Western cultures.

You can also search for keywords, such as Acadian. If you know that ancestral line is Acadian, you may find clues there, including descendants of your brick-wall ancestor.

Group Project Time Tree

Many Group Projects at FamilyTreeDNA have enabled the Y-DNA Group Time Tree feature. When visiting the project, if the administrator has the Group Time Tree enabled, click on that link under the DNA results tab.

The Group Time Tree is a genetic tree of Y-DNA testers within that project based on the groups created by the project administrator.

The groups constructed by the administrator are shown at left, the Time Tree in the middle, and the testers with their EKAs and country of origin flags at right. I’ve added the red text to reflect the Estes genealogical lineage.

Based on the timeline at the top, you can see how closely these Y-DNA testers are related in time. Each haplogroup shown represents a different branching genetic lineage – breadcrumbs at work. If you are a genetic Estes male who descends from the Estes family that originated in Kent, England, and you take the Big Y-700 test, you’ll be a member of R-BY482 or its descendant haplogroups.

Keep in mind that not all testers join group projects, so it’s likely that there will be matches on your match list that aren’t here. Furthermore, only Big Y testers appear on any Time Tree.

The Group Time Tree is public, but when you sign in to your account and click on the Match Time Tree from your account, you’ll be able to view more, including testers’ trees and WikiTree connections if your matches have connected themselves to WikiTree.

Click to enlarge

I’ve converted the Estes genetic tree into a genealogical tree in a spreadsheet based on the trees of DNA matches. I’ve also included STR testers, because they are good candidates to upgrade to Big Y tests, and they are shown in the Estes Group Project. They can’t be included in the Time Trees because they don’t have the SNPs discovered with the Big Y tests. Please note that not all testers were included in this spreadsheet.

You can follow the paths of the various haplogroups. All of the red-background, black-outlined cells are Big Y-500 or Big Y-700 testers. The Big Y-500 was obsoleted several years ago in favor of the much more informative Big Y-700 test, which reveals additional haplogroups because it tests more of the Y chromosome. I’m still hoping that people will upgrade, although some testers are deceased and can’t.

The Big Y-500 tests with red stars are candidates to be upgraded to the Big Y-700 to potentially receive a more specific haplogroup. The balance of the tests in red cells are Big Y-700 tests, which identify several additional Estes haplogroup paths.

Let’s look at an example.

Beginning at the top, we know that R-BY482 is present in Nicholas Ewstas, born in 1496 in Kent, England, because all of his descendant testers carry that haplogroup too. Additionally, three generations later, in Silvester’s generation, he developed the additional mutation named R-BY490. We know it developed in Silvester’s generation for two reasons:

  • The descendants of Silvester’s brother, Robert, born in 1603, do NOT carry R-BY490. Robert’s son Matthew’s descendants only carry R-BY482.
  • The descendants of both of Silvester’s sons, Richard (pink column) and Abraham (the entire green row), all carry R-BY490.

All of the descendants of Silvester’s son, Abraham, born about 1647, the Virginia settler, who have taken the Big Y test carry R-BY490. Additionally, descendants of several of Abraham’s sons, color-coded columns beneath the green row, have developed additional haplogroups. Several more testers would likely have new haplogroups if they took the Big Y-700 test. A new haplogroup requires at least two men with the same unique mutation (breadcrumb), in addition to R-BY490 (in this case), to identify a specific lineage and assign it a new haplogroup name.

Abraham’s son, Moses Estes, born in 1711, is a good example. We know that Moses developed the mutation R-ZS3700 because four of his descendants have taken the Big Y-700 test and have that mutation that is not found in Moses’s brothers’ lines. All four Moses descendants carry R-ZS3700, and two, in the James Carroll Estes line, have developed an additional mutation, haplogroup R-BY154784.

Until Big Y testing became available, descendants of the R-BY154784 lineage didn’t know where they fit in the Estes tree, because the connecting genealogical records between Missouri, where their ancestors are found, and Virginia, where they came from, were missing.

Therefore, if you don’t carry the Estes Y-DNA, but you can find your ancestral line in projects, you can potentially do two things:

  1. Identify the specific lineage to which you belong, especially if you have access to your relative’s test results, including matches and trees.
  2. Without matches, you may still be able to identify at least some haplogroup levels, such as R-BY482 or R-BY490, which opens the door to:
    • Using autosomal results to find matches with Estes-specific haplogroups
    • Using Discover to utilize the dozen+ public reports available for everyone
    • Asking people to upgrade

While I’ve been using the Estes DNA results because it’s a project I administer and the one with which I’m the most familiar, this same approach works for mitochondrial DNA as well, especially if you can identify your ancestor’s DNA in a project.

Finding Projects in Discover

The public version of Discover provides surname and project searches as well, but works a little differently.

Select Group Project and enter the term you wish to search for.

Clicking on the project takes you directly to that project’s Group Time Tree where you can identify your ancestral line.

People who have tested at FamilyTreeDNA can join projects. Many projects accept autosomal testers who descend from that family line.

To join projects, sign in, then from your home page, click on “Group Projects” in the header, and make your selection.

Search for Surnames in Family Finder Autosomal Matches

Now that you’ve identified your ancestor’s haplogroup, you can use that information to find, rule in, or rule out various people in your Family Finder match list as your ancestors’ haplogroup carriers.

FamilyTreeDNA displays the haplogroups of your autosomal matches who have taken the:

The Family Finder test doesn’t test either the Y chromosome or mitochondria fully, but it target-tests a selected number of non-autosomal haplogroup-defining locations. The haplogroups that Family Finder identifies are typically midrange, meaning they are from roughly 2,000 to 5,000 years old. Furthermore, different tests on different chips at different times didn’t always test the same locations. This relatively new Family Finder haplogroup feature is free.

Uploaded DNA tests from other vendors may or may not receive a haplogroup, but regardless, it will NOT be displayed to their matches. Not all other vendors test or include Y-DNA or mtDNA SNP locations in their upload files, and your mileage may vary widely.

My cousin David has taken the mtFull test, so his mitochondrial haplogroup is the most refined possible, but his Y-DNA haplogroup of R-L151 was derived from his Family Finder test. Haplogroup R-L151 is about 5,000 years old. If I needed his haplogroup, it’s useful to rule out other major haplogroup branches that might be found in other men by the same surname. Plus, I can learn quite a bit from Discover.

Haplogroups are displayed in your Family Finder match list for everyone who has taken a Y-DNA or mtDNA test, but currently, only Y-DNA haplogroups are provided for Family Finder results. Midrange mtDNA haplogroups are planned for sometime in the future.

There are several methods to search for either a specific surname or haplogroup within Family Finder matches.

Let’s use my Ferverda/Miller/Lentz haplogroup T2b revealed at 23andMe. That haplogroup would almost assuredly be broken down further with full-sequence testing, and it might have been renamed as a different subgroup of haplogroup T in the new Mitotree.

Let’s begin with searching for haplogroup T2b.

The search bar allows users to select Name, Ancestral Surname, mtDNA Haplogroup or Y-DNA Haplogroup.

You’ll notice that there are a total of 59 results that include T2b as a part of the haplogroup. The mitochondrial lineage I’m seeking is my mother’s paternal grandmother, so the matches should be on my mother’s side, although there is no guarantee I don’t match someone autosomally on my father’s side too.

I checked the trees of all 59 people in the T2b category, and unfortunately, none descended from the line I need.

If you change search terms or categories, be sure to clear your filters.

Under the Filter option, you can filter for several options in addition to searching.

For our next example, I’ve selected both the Big Y-500 and Big Y-700 tests, and searched for Ferverda.

I already have the Ferverda Big Y-700 haplogroup, but if I didn’t, I would now!

Don’t forget that you can sort by any number of fields, and you can download your entire match list into a csv file. I find that easier because I can search, sort and filter at will.

Don’t forget to check back from time to time as more matches are added.

Utilizing Haplogroup Projects

Under the Group Projects header, or by Googling for a haplogroup T2 (or T, or T2b, etc.) at FamilyTreeDNA, you can view the haplogroup T2 project, and filter for haplogroup T2b or any subclade.

Be sure to expand the project’s page size to display the entire project. It defaults to displaying 25 rows at a time, but you can see the number of pages at the bottom of the page. I expanded the page size to 5000 so that I can use my browser search for known surnames in the mitochondrial line.

By using my browser search and searching for each known surname by generation, I searched for Ferverda, Miller, Lentz, Ruhle, Wolflin and Heubach.

I was VERY excited for a minute when I found a Lydia Lentz listed as a tester’s EKA.

Because the female’s surname changes in every generation, there’s only one family in this lineage that Lydia Lentz could have been a member of to represent the mitochondrial DNA of Eva Miller whose mother was Margaret Elizabeth Lentz.

So, the question is whether or not Lydia Lentz is the sister of Margaret Elizabeth Lentz.

Shifting to my desktop software, it’s easy to see that Jacob Lentz and Johanna Frederica Ruhle had four Lentz daughters who lived to marry and have children. None of those daughters were named Lydia, so the Lydia Lentz EKA in the haplogroup T2 project is not representative of Eva Miller’s mother and grandmother.

Margaret Elizabeth Lentz is Eva Miller’s mother, and I had already searched within the project for Miller. I added Yost, Gallagher, and Overlease to the browser search in the haplogroup T2 project with the hope that someone might have listed a woman with one of those surnames as their EKA, but no such luck.

Not everyone joins projects, or provides their earliest known ancestors, but I didn’t find the surnames of any of the females in my known line here.

Let’s see if Ancestry can help.

At Ancestry

Ancestry doesn’t do Y-DNA or mitochondrial DNA testing, so you won’t find your ancestors’ Y-DNA or mtDNA at Ancestry, but their trees can help you find testers.

Let’s shift to Louisa Drechsel, one of the daughters in the Mehlheimer/Drechsel line we were working with earlier that needed more research.

I looked at the hints for Emma Louisa Drechsel, who was always called Louise or Aunt Lou in my family, and discovered another Ancestry member with Emma in their tree.

I clicked through to the tree to discover that the tree’s home person does not descend from Barbara matrilineally, which means they are not a candidate for Barbara’s mitochondrial DNA.

I then clicked on the tree owner’s name to see whether they happen to be an autosomal DNA match to me. They are not. Without messaging them, there’s no way to know whether they have taken a DNA test, and there’s really no point since they are not a mitochondrial DNA candidate.

While I’m at Ancestry, I’m going to check ThruLines to see if anyone who is an autosomal DNA match to me also descends matrilineally from Barbara. There are no autosomal matches shown who have our common ancestor in their tree, and who are mitochondrial candidates.

Remember, a male between the ancestor and the testing candidate always blocks the mitochondrial DNA path.

These people are all autosomal DNA matches.

There may be descendants who either aren’t DNA matches or who haven’t tested who might be mitochondrial candidates. They can be located by checking Ancestry’s trees for our common ancestors and determining how the tree owner relates to that ancestor, if they do.

Compare Trees is New

Ancestry recently introduced “Compare trees”, a new beta feature. It may not be fully rolled out to everyone yet, and because it’s in beta, the feature may change.

To access this feature, go to your tree, not their profile card.

I clicked on Barbara Mehlheimer’s link in my tree, which displays this little mini-profile. Then click on “Compare trees” at the bottom.

Ancestry displays your tree, at right, and the other tree, at left. You can select another tree to compare at top right.

Ancestry’s comparison only shows a total of three generations – the selected person, their parents, and their children.

The person I actually want to follow is Louisa, but if you click on Louisa’s card here, it simply compares the two Louisas – it doesn’t shift down a generation.

This means that to follow more recent generations, you have to go back to your tree, select someone further down in the tree and repeat the process.

This process is cumbersome, but doable thanks to the new Compare Tree function. I’ll come back to this after checking the rest of the “easier to harvest” fruit from other resources. Remember to make notes in your research journal so you don’t forget where you left off – although trees are always changing.

MyHeritage has one of my favorite tools.

At MyHeritage

Recently, MyHeritage has begun providing midrange Y-DNA haplogroups for some of their DNA testers. If you’re one of the lucky testers, you can use the free Discover tool to learn about your haplogroup, but a haplogroup alone won’t help you much with genealogy. You need matching and advanced tools for that.

Unfortunately, you can’t see the haplogroups of your matches, so you can’t search or filter using that criterion. You can, however, ask any men with the surname you’re seeking if their haplogroup is displayed.

Cousin Finder

MyHeritage has an ingenious tool called Cousin Finder that I wrote about here. Cousin Finder helps you find cousins who share common ancestors with you, regardless of whether or not you are a DNA match.

MyHeritage found 531 people in their database that share ancestors according to both their and my trees.

This list of matches doesn’t page; it scrolls, so I made a spreadsheet of the people who are relevant to my search for my brick-walled ancestor. Scrolling becomes difficult and very slow as you proceed down the list. I didn’t want to have to do this twice.

You can improve performance by using the relationship side filter. Because your ancestors match, MyHeritage knows on which “side” of your tree your common ancestor is found.

At this point, I’m interested primarily in identifying Y-DNA or mitochondrial DNA candidates for a specific ancestor.

Using the Drechsel/Mehlheimer line as our example, I’ll search on my mother’s mother’s side.

We already met Patty at WikiTree, but let’s pretend we don’t know Patty. I can click on “View her tree” to see Patty’s whole tree, or I can click on “View Relationship,” which shows how we are both related to our common ancestor.

As we know, for mitochondrial DNA, any male in the line between the ancestor and the testing candidate blocks the mitochondrial DNA path. Patty inherited her mother’s mtDNA, not her father’s.

I didn’t forget about Eva Miller Ferverda either.

I searched for cousins who descended from my mother’s father’s side to find mtDNA candidates for Eva Miller and didn’t find any. But I did find an entirely unexpected bonus.

My mother’s father’s line shows all the connections on that side. While clicking through each one, I quite serendipitously discovered a mitochondrial DNA candidate for Eva Miller’s husband’s great-grandmother, Anna Elizabeth Jonker, AND, separately, a potential Camstra Y-DNA tester too. Oh, happy day!

It was only later, while working on my genealogy for Frederica Ruhle and hoping to discover where she actually lived in Pennsylvania, that I discovered that MyHeritage has put a Cousin Finder link in each ancestor’s profile.

Who doesn’t love a pleasant surprise?!

You no longer need to sift through all of your cousins on a particular side, but remember, had I not done that, I wouldn’t have found either the mitochondrial descendant of Anna Elizabeth Jonker nor the Camstra Y-DNA candidate.

At FamilySearch

FamilySearch is more challenging and is best for fleshing out trees where not much research has been done. Remember that FamilySearch has access to records that are not available at either Ancestry or MyHeritage.

FamilySearch is a one-world tree. Like all trees, it’s subject to errors, so caution is always advised.

At FamilySearch, from your profile card in the tree, locate the ancestor whose Y-DNA or mtDNA you seek.

Then click on that person. Their profile card will pop up. Click on “Tree,” then, at the top right, select Portrait.

Now you can expand their children downward. Note that the little “two people” in the top left corner of the profile card means there are multiple spouses. The only way to view all of the children is to click on that person’s placard, then select the alternate spouse.

Living people have no placeholders on this tree.

You can contact contributors who provided information on a profile in the tree.

Click on the source provider’s name to see if they are related, and click on the little tree icon to see how.

However, once a year, there’s a great way to contact interested descendants.

Relatives at RootsTech

RootsTech is the largest genealogy conference in the world, and it’s sponsored by FamilySearch.

About six weeks before RootsTech takes place each year, and for about a month after, you can participate in Relatives at RootsTech.

During that time, you can select an ancestor and see which other people who have signed up for RootsTech also descend from that ancestor. I wrote about how to do that in the article, Relatives at RootsTech Reveals Cousins and Provides DNA Candidates. I almost always find someone who descends from an ancestor whose Y-DNA or mtDNA I need for my tree.

It’s a wonderful opportunity to meet new cousins and collaborate.

At GEDmatch

GEDmatch is an autosomal DNA upload site that offers a variety of matching and display options. While they don’t attempt to calculate a haplogroup, uploaders can enter their mtDNA and Y-DNA haplogroups, if known.

GEDmatch isn’t normally a resource we think of for either Y-DNA or mtDNA, but it can be useful under some circumstances.

In the One-To-Many limited free version and the Tier 1 subscription model, you can view haplogroups if someone has entered their haplogroup name, but you can’t filter without the Tier 1 version.

I filtered for haplogroup T2b and found one person in the match list with haplogroup T2b4. I then viewed the GEDCOM that this person has also uploaded, but they do not descend from Eva Miller Ferverda’s line.

GEDmatch isn’t built for haplogroups, but sometimes, if you have a known haplogroup that isn’t terribly common, you can catch a lucky break there.

Where AM I?

OK, so where am I in all of this?

I feel like I’ve searched the corners of the earth!

I’ve primarily used two examples.

  • My own mtDNA line which is the Drechsel/Mehlheimer line that I chose because it’s a great example that I knew well.

If I had actually been searching for a testing candidate, we would easily have eliminated several possibilities. Five female lines remained as possibilities that need additional research, plus my own test if someone were actually searching.

  • Then there was Eva Miller Ferverda (1857-1939), whose partial haplogroup, T2b, was discovered at 23andMe in three matches. I was able to reconstruct their trees, confirming that this was her line, but I was unable to find any testing candidates elsewhere.

Each of the DNA testing and genealogy vendors provides a way to communicate with other users of their platform.

  • At both 23andMe and MyHeritage, you can message through their platform.
  • At FamilyTreeDNA and GEDmatch, you can email your matches.
  • At WikiTree, you send an email through their platform to the profile card manager.
  • At FamilySearch, you cannot see placeholder cards for living people, so you need to check to see if people making changes to that ancestor’s profile are related. Then check their children closest to the present day for the same information. You can message through the FamilySearch platform.
  • During Relatives at RootsTech, you can message your cousins through their platform. The great thing about these folks is that you know they are interested and engaged, because they’ve just signed up for RootsTech.

Communicating With Testing Candidates

I’m fortunate that there are three mitochondrial descendants of Eva Miller Ferverda at 23andMe, one of whom is also at FamilyTreeDNA. I will message or email all three of them individually with a short, customized message that contains:

  • How I am related to our common ancestor.
  • A question about whether they have taken the mtFull test, or any test, at FamilyTreeDNA. If they have taken any test there, it’s easy to upgrade.
  • A sentence about how FamilyTreeDNA was the original genetic genealogy founder of this industry and the only company to offer the full mtDNA and Y-DNA tests.
  • Why they can benefit from taking the mtFull test and how it can help us learn more about our common ancestor.
  • An offer for a full-sequence mitochondrial DNA testing scholarship if they have not already taken that test.
  • I ask if they are interested and provide my email in case they have questions or want to discuss further.

Depending on how much space I have for the message, there are two articles I often provide links to in case they are unfamiliar with either Y-DNA or mtDNA testing.

  1. 4 Kinds of DNA for Genetic Genealogy is a very basic article for people who might be unaware that there is any type of DNA testing other than autosomal. This is often the case with Ancestry.
  2. The article Mitochondrial DNA A-Z: A Step-by-Step Guide to Matches, Mitotree, and mtDNA Discover is an in-depth article about using mtDNA. This is a wonderfully educational how-to article, but I always hesitate before sending this one because I don’t want their eyes to glaze over.

Scholarships

I gladly and eagerly offer scholarships for both Y-DNA and mtDNA testers from lines I need to represent my ancestors.

I equate scholarships to finding a rare out-of-print book about that exact family line, with only one or two copies still in existence, and only one accessible in a rare book shop in Podunk, Idaho. I would book a flight tomorrow at 5 AM to go and pick it up in person even if I had to eat beans and hot dogs for the next six months to pay for it. If you know me, you know I’m not kidding! I’ve gone on many wonderful road trips to meet with and collect DNA samples from cousins.

A Y-DNA or mtDNA test doesn’t cost nearly as much as that excursion and is even more reliable, because we know the DNA results are accurate – assuming the tester’s genealogy is accurate, which you should verify, and no undocumented adoptions or broken lineages have occurred.

Good luck on your treasure hunt!

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FOCUS – A New Series Focused on Breaking Down Brick Walls

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When I teach about genetic genealogy, people often ask, “What’s next? How can I break down my brick wall?” Sometimes I can reply that a Y-DNA test or mitochondrial DNA will help them under specific circumstances. But more often than not, what they really need is a precise, step-by-step methodology that includes autosomal DNA and utilizes multiple tools and techniques across vendors.

Even after people have taken Y-DNA and/or mitochondrial DNA tests PLUS autosomal tests at the major vendors, we still need a methodology to work with combinations of those results. Often, the answers we need aren’t just sitting there like a pretty rock, waiting to be picked up and admired, but depend on us using the results and matches as tools to help focus our search in the right direction.

It’s more like a scavenger hunt than a single discovery.

Focus

Sometimes I feel like a fish out of water – flip-flopping from ancestor to ancestor, match to match and hint to hint, hoping that the magic bullet will fall into my lap, but that almost never happens.

By this point in my research, I’ve perused all the easy records and many of the not-so-easy ones. If you don’t have a surname, or you don’t have a first name, or worse yet, you don’t have either, how is one supposed to search for records?

The good news is that you still carry at least one record in your own body and/or the bodies of your relatives. The DNA of your ancestors.

This is where we’re going to focus our efforts – hence FOCUS, the name of this new series.

Everyone is going to select their closest, or one of their closest, brick-walled ancestors, and we’re going to use several methods and tools to focus on identifying that ancestor.

Prepare

Before I publish the next article in the series, there are a few things that I’d like you to think about and do in preparation.

  • First, there’s no guarantee that you’ll break through your brick wall during this series. You might, and you also might not. You stand a much better chance of breaking through that brick wall if you focus and follow these steps than if you don’t.

Keep in mind that even negative evidence is evidence, and just because you don’t break through right away doesn’t mean you won’t. New people test everyday and new records become available too. If nothing else, your ancestor will have more meat on their bones, and you’ll have a process to build upon.

  • Second, if your brick wall is very close in time, meaning parents or grandparents, you’ll want the already-written “In Search Of Unknown Family” series, which you can find, here.
  • Third, you’ll need to keep a research journal or log by ancestor, family or location, which will also include your other related ancestors. For example, if you’re looking for Lucy whose surname you don’t know, but you know that she married William Moore, then your research journal will apply to William Moore too, and other people including their children and either spouse’s parents and siblings, whether that was your intention or not. The neighbors are probably relevant as well.

That “it takes a village” saying is particularly relevant here. People didn’t tend to move to the next location alone, and often their community consisted of their cousins and relatives – who are also your relatives, and hold clues to the identity of your ancestor. When I’m extracting records for the Moore surname in Halifax County, VA, for example, I extract everything for that and similarly spelled surnames, not just one particular person, so I don’t have to replow that field.

Tracking and Recording Your Research

If you don’t already have a research journal methodology, I would suggest a spreadsheet.

Here’s a screenshot of two rows in my “Halifax County” spreadsheet where I’ve recorded separate rows for each person in every record. Note that I started this spreadsheet years ago and omitted some columns that I later wished I had included, like the access date.

You’ll want to record:

  • Item number beginning with 1. In the example above, the item number is 6, and it’s 6 for every person in that record. Each person in this transaction gets their own separate row, with the same item number. The next record I extracted would be item 7.
  • Access date (date you found and retrieved the record)
  • Last name
  • First name
  • State (add a column for country if multiple countries are relevant for this family)
  • County
  • Town, township or city
  • Geographic places like road or creek names (these can be VERY important)
  • Year, month and day that the record occurred
  • Record repository or source (including a link if applicable – you may want to add a separate column for the link)
  • Record type (deed, will, tax list, etc.)
  • Role of individual (buyer, seller, witness, etc.)
  • Names of additional people in the record (I retain the same item number and other information, changing the name of the person, their role and sometimes an associated comment)
  • Transcribed text of the record itself
  • Comment, which can include things like the name of an image, something about what you were searching for when you found the record, links, or anything else relevant

You will want to be able to sort and filter this spreadsheet when you are finished. Hint – be sure your date fields and formats are sortable in the way you wish. I normally use filters instead of the sort feature.

The goal isn’t just to record your findings, but to make this spreadsheet as useful as possible to make discoveries that are only available by comparing and incorporating multiple records.

For example, let’s say that you’re extracting all of the Moore records in a Halifax County, VA deed book, and you want to know how many times the surname Henderson is found in the Moore deeds or in conjunction with the Moore family. Is there a pattern? You won’t recognize a pattern from any ONE record, but you may eventually wonder if the Henderson’s are related to the Moore family, and if so, how.

You’ll also want to record nonproductive or negative evidence. For example, let’s say you searched the Halifax County Plea Book for William Moore (including More and Mohr) and found no occurrences. That’s important, because otherwise you‘ll eventually search again, so enter that as a record item.

Note that with the full text search feature introduced by FamilySearch a couple of years ago, if you extracted records from a book that did NOT include every-name indexing including property lines, creek names and witnesses – you’ll want to redo that search using the full text feature at FamilySearch. There’s often LOTS of valuable information buried in records that won’t be found if you’re only viewing records indexed by buyer and seller, for example.

Your To-Do List Before the Series Begins

The In Search Of Unknown Family Series introduces important concepts, so reading that series is your first assignment in preparation for the upcoming FOCUS articles.

Test Your DNA With the Major Vendors

It’s important to test with the major vendors. Each vendor has matches and tools that the others don’t, and we need to identify and work with as many relevant matches as possible.

If you have NOT taken an autosomal DNA test at the first three following vendors, order these tests now so you have results to work with.

  1. AncestryDNA
  2. FamilyTreeDNA – Purchase a Family Finder test or upgrade an earlier Family Finder test to the new Family Finder NGS test. You should upgrade if you uploaded your autosomal DNA file from another vendor at any time, or tested at FamilyTreeDNA directly before March of 2026. The upgrade is only $29.
  3. MyHeritage DNA
  4. A fourth vendor, 23andMe, is optional, but testing there certainly won’t hurt.

23andMe Sidebar

I have an issue with 23andMe’s policy of forcing customers to repurchase a DNA test at $199 PLUS a subscription at $149 for the first year, renewable at $69 per year, in order to obtain any of their latest tools. This happened around the time of their data breach and subsequent bankruptcy.

I would feel much better about the situation as a whole if a new owner had taken the wheel, but the original owner resigned from the 23andMe board, formed another corporation, and was allowed to buy 23andMe out of the bankruptcy that occurred on her watch.

Furthermore, 23andMe does not support genealogy trees, nor do they have Y-DNA or mitochondrial DNA testing and matching, or research records.

I have (begrudgingly) ordered an upgrade for my own 23andMe test in order to include accurate information in these articles, but I won’t be focusing on 23andMe specifically aside from any unique feature. You can apply the same concepts and techniques to results at 23andMe where possible.

Test Your Relatives

If you have close upstream relatives, such as parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins who also descend from your brick-walled ancestor, please ask them to test too.

I explain what I’m trying to achieve, why their test is important, and offer scholarships to sweeten the pie. I view purchasing their DNA tests in the same way I view purchasing a rare research book that I KNOW includes my ancestors but it not available anyplace else.

Your shared matches are extremely important and may provide that brick-wall-breaker. Perhaps even more importantly, they will have relevant matches that you don’t.

So how do you know who to test? You certainly want to test everyone relevant, without wasting money.

Let’s look at this example where Lucy is the brick-walled ancestor I’m seeking to identify. Her children (labeled siblings) and grandchildren (1C) are all deceased, but second cousins (2C), Rhonda, Charles and Sally are all available to test. Test each of them because they will all have some different segments of DNA from Lucy that the others don’t have.

Lazarus is also a second cousin, but he’s deceased. However, William, my father (in this example, not my real pedigree), and his sister, Jane are both available to test.

You ALWAYS want to test both of your parents and every available grandparent or direct ancestor. In this example, I’ll only inherit some portion of Lucy’s DNA that my father has, but Jane, my aunt, will carry segments of Lucy’s DNA that my father didn’t inherit from Lazarus. Jane’s matches on those segments that neither my father nor I have may be just what we need to identify Lucy.

If Lazarus has other children not shown in this example, we certainly want to test them too.

If the relevant parent has tested, you don’t need to test any of their children. However, if the parent hasn’t tested, absolutely test as many of their children or descendants as possible.

In this case, Rhonda, Jane, Charles and Sally have all tested, so I don’t need to test their children. Their children can only have as much of Lucy’s DNA as their parents had.

However, if any of them had been deceased, then I should test as many of their children as I can to “gather up” as much of Lucy’s DNA as possible.

If any of the people upstream of the bold red people have other children, those children or their descendants would be testing candidates too. Ideally, you want as many descendant testers as possible to increase your chances of identifying that ancestor.

Selecting Your Brick-Wall Ancestor

I want you to be successful, so you’re going to select your closest brick-walled ancestor within certain parameters. If you have multiple brick-walled ancestors at the at the same genealogical distance, you’ll choose one to focus on.

Why your closest brick-walled ancestor? If your brick wall is 5 generations back from you, and they are 5 generations back from your DNA match as well, that means you’re dealing with a 4th cousin match.

This also means that ancestor’s DNA has been divided a total of 10 times – five times on the path of descent to you, and five times on the path of descent to your match.

A 4th cousin match is likely to be in the 35 cM range. You can view the matching ranges for various relationships at DNAPainter, here.

The entire 4th cousin (4C) matching range is 0-139 cM. You won’t match all of your 4th cousins and are likely to match only 50-70% of your 4th cousins.

That said, the average person has between 1,500 and 4,000 4th cousins. At the 4th cousin level, you have 32 ancestors, so only between 46 and125 4th cousins will descend from any given ancestor, and of those, only a few will have taken a DNA test. The more children that ancestor had that lived to marry and have children of their own, the better your chances of more matches.

The Selection Process

I’m going to be stepping through the ancestor selection process with you, discussing who is and isn’t a good candidate, and why. I’m also going to be using this same methodology to (hopefully) identify one of my own mystery ancestors too.

I have no brick walls closer than 4th cousins. If I did, I’d choose the closest brick wall. You should too in order to have the best chance of solving this puzzle. The further back in time, the more difficult the solve will be.

In my tree, I have four mystery ancestors at the 5X great-grandparent level on my father’s side, and one on my mother’s side.

Those will be the four ancestors I consider selecting. And no, before you do it, I don’t recommend working on all four of them at the same time. Remember, the purpose is to FOCUS.

  • Select an ancestor as close generationally as possible, because it’s more likely that both you and other people will carry at least some of their DNA, and the same segment(s) of DNA. Matches closer in time generally carry more total DNA in common, which means better matching and more shared matches.
  • Given that the majority of testers are from the US, and assuming you are from the US too, I don’t recommend selecting an ancestor from another country unless you are very comfortable with that language and working with those records. Generally, there will be fewer people who have tested from other countries. If you are going to work with an ancestor from another country, be sure you are in both the MyHeritage and FamilyTreeDNA databases.

My mother’s entire paternal line is either Dutch or German Brethren, and her Dutch ancestors only immigrated in the mid 1800s, so have few descendants in the databases.

My closest brick wall on her paternal line is Traut Enterlein, a German man who was named in an out-of-wedlock baptism for his daughter in Germany in 1823. He is not found in any other records in that part of Germany, so actually identifying “who he is”, even with a name, would be extremely difficult, and I have nothing to “anchor to” here.  He is eliminated as a candidate because he’s found in a country where I don’t speak the language, where fewer people have taken DNA tests, and we’ve already spent a substantial amount of time trying to identify him in the records.

Brick-walled ancestors on Mom’s maternal side are two generations further back in time. Half are German and the other half are a combination of English and Acadian.

  • Avoid both endogamy and pedigree collapse, if possible. I don’t recommend a line with baked-in challenges that will make DNA more difficult.

Acadians are heavily endogamous and often suffer from pedigree collapse since there were so few founding families in the mid-1600s. The same goes for Brethren families who immigrated in the early 1700s. Those lines are too far back generationally anyway, so they have already been eliminated, but if they weren’t, I’d eliminate them because of heavy endogamy and pedigree collapse, both, not to mention record loss.

My father’s side has much better candidates.

  • Try to select an ancestor where you have some familiarity with the location, the culture, and the records. If you have printed resources at the ready, possibly ones that are not online, that’s a plus.
  • When you’re trying to decide between ancestors, select one whose spouse you are sure of, and who has children you can document. Do you know important things about them like their religion, where they lived during specific times, and who their neighbors were? If not, take some time now to brush up on what you do know about their spouse and children.
  • Check back at all of the records vendors and resources, including Ancestry, MyHeritage, WikiTree, and FamilySearch, to see if anything new is easily available for either your brick-wall candidate or their spouse.
  • I do NOT recommend selecting an ancestral couple, neither of whom you can identify, unless you’re “lucky” enough to have no other brick-walled ancestors to choose from. It’s possible to solve this “double-blind” couple, but it’s substantially more difficult because you have no same-generation anchor.

My Candidates

I’m selecting one of my brick walls and hope to solve it during this process. Let’s run through the decision-making process so you’ll understand some of the considerations and why they weigh as factors. I wish I didn’t have so many choices, and I’d like to solve them all, but my best chance is to work on one at a time.

Most candidates are women because their birth surnames tend to easily become lost after they marry, and with their surname, their parents are lost too. Given how little we know, we have to presume (dangerous word), at least for now, that your missing female ancestor was the mother of all of their husband’s children, unless we know or subsequently prove otherwise.

Let’s review my candidates.

  1. Lucy was born about 1754, probably in Virginia, and died in 1832 in Halifax County, VA. She married William Moore between 1772 and 1774, who may or may not have been a circuit-riding minister at that time. She is found under her own name on the 1830 census, there’s an 1826 chancery suit, and I know who her children and neighbors are, so she might be a good candidate. One vote against selecting Lucy is that I don’t know where she was born, nor do I know where they were married, although there’s a very strong possibility that it took place in Halifax County. The fact that he was a circuit-rider means he could have met her anyplace. If they were married in Halifax County, their families could have been allied before arriving there. William Moore’s family came from Prince Edward County about 1770, and we know who his parents were. One good thing is that Lucy is a fairly uncommon name, but there are multiple William Moores in Halifax County, and there are two other Lucy Moores. One is her daughter, and one is her daughter-in-law. The fact that Lucy and William Moore had 12 known children, with at least 8 who married, means there is a good chance of matching at least some descendants. Unfortunately, I don’t have her mitochondrial DNA, which removes one possible tool unless I can find a tester.
  2. Jane, born about 1760 in an unknown location, but probably Virginia, was the wife of Lazarus Dodson. They moved across multiple frontiers into what would become early Tennessee, an area that sustained substantial record loss. Jane died between 1830 and 1840. There’s a lot of uncertainty about Jane’s life. She probably had at least 8 children, and we know something about six of them. Given that we already have a better candidate with Lucy, I’ll eliminate Jane for now.
  3. William Crumley’s wife, whose name I don’t know, was born around 1765 or 1770, possibly in Virginia. She was married to William Crumley around 1786 or 1787, probably in Frederick County, VA, or nearby. I do have her mitochondrial DNA and we know the family was Quaker which are both benefits. I’ve been working with a cousin who has delved deeply into Quaker records, and I have some records from a trip to the FamilySearch Library in Salt Lake City that I have not yet processed. She and William had at least 10 children who married, and I know quite a bit about them. She would probably be an excellent choice. For lack of another name, I’ve been calling her H2a1, her legacy mitochondrial haplogroup before Mitotree, but she has a much more complete haplogroup now. She would be a good candidate, and I REALLY want to identify her.
  4. Mary, wife of John Harrold (by various spellings), was born about 1750, possibly in Ireland, although it would be unusual for a first-generation Irish immigrant to end up deep in the Appalachian frontier. Mary died in 1826 in Wilkes County, NC. We know nothing about John’s background, other than he served in the Revolutionary War, in Virginia. He may have been living in Botetourt County, although we don’t know for sure, and there are multiple men by that name. Mary had at least 7 children, six of whom were married. We do not have her mitochondrial DNA. Given that we know so little about John, and we have better candidates with both Lucy, William Moore’s wife, and William Crumley’s wife, I’m eliminating Mary for now.
  5. Isabel, the wife of Michael McDowell – another couple from Wilkes County, NC. Their daughter married the son of Mary and John Harrold. Isabel was probably born about 1750, someplace in Virginia. We don’t know where they were married, but it could have been in Franklin County, VA. They lived in Wilkes County for several decades before moving on to Claiborne County, TN. We know very little about Michael’s early life, other than his Revolutionary War service, although I’ve written about him four times as additional information dribbles out. They had at least 8 children, and a deposition after Michael’s death tells us where they moved and settled, which is a very big plus. We know her first name thanks to a 1793 deed. Isabel is a reasonable candidate, but I eliminated her after comparison to the other candidates, in part because of multiple frontier moves with few records and no known point of origin.
  6. Elizabeth, wife of Andrew McKee, was born about 1767, possibly someplace in Virginia. They were in Washington Co., VA by 1789, although we don’t know where either originated. They may have married before they moved to Washington County, where we find several records. They had 14 children. Twelve are known to have married, and the other two probably did as well. We know who their neighbors were. We also have Elizabeth’s mitochondrial DNA. Unfortunately, we know nothing about Andrew McKee’s family or where he was from. However, Elizabeth is a strong candidate because so many records exist in Washington County, they had a large number of children, and many continued to live in Washington County or nearby, making them easier to track.
  7. If I didn’t already have good candidates, there’s one more ancestor I’d consider, even though James Lee Claxton/Clarkson is a generation further back in my tree, born about 1775, and his unknown parents are the brick walls. I know I just told you NOT to do this, so I won’t either, but the reason I might have considered his parents, or more specifically his father, as a strong candidate is because we have several Y-DNA matches, including Big-Y testers, and we know the ancestors of his matches came from NC. We also have many autosomal testers and matches, which would help immensely, and there’s a Clarkson/Claxton DNA Surname Project. A contiguous surname is a HUGE benefit not available with female ancestors, and I just feel that I’m SO CLOSE to solving this mystery. For now, James’s parents are eliminated because they are two generations further back in time than our other candidates, we know nothing about either of them, except Y-DNA results, and we have better candidates for this exercise.

After evaluation, I still have two candidates in the running – Lucy, wife of William Moore, and H2a1, William Crumley’s wife. I haven’t decided for sure yet, but right now, William Crumley’s wife is leading because I have an amazing collaborator along with some unprocessed records that may hold important information. I know there probably aren’t any smoking guns there, but when combined with DNA, we may well ignite that gunpowder.

FOCUS

Are you ready to focus?

Let’s get our ducks in a row.

  • Order any DNA tests you need to order for yourself and relatives now.
  • Select your ancestor.
  • Prepare your research journal by reviewing which records you’ve already researched and record what you have.
  • Refamiliarize yourself. Take a look at those results again with fresh eyes. It helps when reviewing match results to be able to view surnames in your matches trees and recall that you’ve seen that name before, and where.
  • Check to see if any new records or resources are now available.

Who do you want to find?

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All About AI – What It Is, What It Isn’t, and Why It Matters

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This is the second article in the AI series. The first, Your Wonderful AI Assistant – Sometimes Wrong, Never Unsure, Always Convincing, explains why I’m writing this series and what to expect. I suggest that you read these articles in publication order, as they build on each other.

AI is neither inherently good nor bad. The outcome depends on:

  • How it is used
  • By whom
  • Capabilities of the (ever-changing) tools themselves
  • The understanding level of the “requester” and the “consumer,” both
  • Safeguards applied or neglected

About AI

Let me start by saying that I don’t love AI, and I don’t hate it. I’m neither an evangelist nor a doomsayer. I’m a realist. AI is a powerful tool, capable of remarkable things and spectacular failures. Understanding the difference and interacting appropriately are the keys to success or failure.

AI is simply a tool, and like all tools, it can be used for good or evil. AI has the potential to, and does, in some cases, make our lives easier. However, the bad guys and miscreants saw that potential early and have perfected it.

AI is all around us, whether you realize it or not, so don’t think you can just avoid it, because you can’t. AI exists in many forms and is here to stay. We need to educate ourselves so we can reap some of the benefits and avoid the pitfalls.

Education and increased vigilance are the only ways to protect yourself, and I mean vigilance incorporated into the very fiber of your being. No more, “that looks interesting” and clicking without thinking. It’s so easy to do.

When I talk about AI safety, I’m referring to two types of safety.

  1. Using AI tools for reliable results, and how to determine when you’re receiving or consuming something questionable. AI failures occur often and are both irritating and misleading, but not always obvious.
  2. Literally protecting yourself from danger. This includes recognizing when AI is being used without your knowledge and how to protect yourself in the new threat landscape. I am not overexaggerating.

Unfortunately, AI safety is a sliding scale, progressing from one end of the spectrum to the other. There’s not always a clear delineation between correct and incorrect, safe and unsafe, or between different types of AI. As I am wont to say, “It depends.”

Learning about AI, both in general and in specific contexts, is critical. Not yesterday’s AI – but AI right now, because both the AI tools and AI’s capabilities are changing at lightning speed.

We all need to up our game and retrain ourselves to always stop and think first.

AI and You

There are essentially three ways people encounter or interact with AI.

  1. You’re actively using AI as a tool, such as ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, or others. This is generally safe from an actual danger or “threat” perspective, particularly because you are in the driver’s seat. However, there are aspects you need to be aware of – especially if you’re a novice. I’ll explain methodologies to use AI to (hopefully) increase your productivity and save you from following AI into the underbrush of falsehoods, inaccuracies, and misplaced confidence. In other words, so you don’t have to say, “Wow, was I ever an idiot,” too often.
  2. You’re unknowingly interacting with AI. Sometimes this is fine, but it can open the door to inadvertent reliance on incorrect information and therefore various forms of harm. Sometimes, harm rises to the level of actual danger. Understanding when you’re interacting with AI, understanding its limitations, and recognizing danger signs are important aspects of staying safe.
  3. The AI threat landscape. AI can be dangerous and used against you. I mean screaming-red-neon-flashing-sign hair-on-fire dangerous, and I’m going to explain this new threat landscape and how to improve your chances of being safe, primarily in the final article of this series.

I Use AI, But There Are Limits

I hold a graduate degree in Computer Science and have years of experience in the technology industry where security is both essential and critical. That background, while preparing me generally, cannot prepare one for the situations and well-hidden threats we now encounter every day. Being overconfident and overreliant on prior experience is foolhardy and a sure way to get burned.

The one thing that’s constant in the computer industry is change. The underlying fundamentals remain the same, but everything else changes – and AI is morphing rapidly.

I’ve been using AI since the beginning in a very restricted, measured way. I use AI regularly, tactically, and cautiously, with huge guardrails. I started out by taking classes from Mark Thompson and Steve Little, AI experts in the genealogy space, to learn how to use AI productively. That was a couple of years ago, and the entire landscape has changed since then. I make it a priority to stay current.

In the next article about using AI safely, I’ll share recommendations for training and education from Mark and Steve.

AI tools are trying to emerge from their terrible toddler stage and morph into early teens, but they relapse a lot! Sometimes AI is very helpful, sometimes wrong, and often frustrating – interspersed with amazing victories where AI helps us immensely.

Unfortunately, often it’s almost impossible to tell which is which.

Inspired by a posting in the Facebook group, Genealogy and Artificial Intelligence. Image is AI generated and appropriately labeled as such.

Here’s the caveat – I know I’m using AI. I’m not accidentally interfacing with a Chatbot, thinking it’s a human. I’m not reading something someone else posted and believing I’m reading about an experience that’s true – when it’s AI-created fiction. The question, of course, at that point, is WHY someone created it and posted it in a way that conceals its true origins.

My AI usage is intentional. I know how to be vigilant, generally what AI can and can’t do, and that I absolutely positively MUST fact-check everything. Often, I inadvertently push the limits of AI, thinking it can perform more than it can accurately, which is another reason everything must be checked. As genealogists, verifying sources should be second nature.

If you’re going to use AI, it’s essential that you do the same thing.

So, what, exactly, is AI?

What is Artificial Intelligence?

This is really a difficult question to answer, because AI has been more of a slow evolution, followed by a rapid acceleration of technology – not a specific “thing.” That acceleration occurred when standalone AI tools like ChatGPT, which we know are AI because they are specifically called that, were introduced and made available to the consuming public.

We’ve been using computers for decades now, assisting us on platforms from mainframes to PCs to tablets. Today, our phones are more powerful and useful than early mainframes.

AI is the latest in the cadre of applications, a type of tool that can either stand alone or be embedded in other software tools for specific tasks. Think Chatbots for business websites.

While AI is beginning to be “everywhere,” it’s not a universal scapegoat.

Two years in, AI is being blamed for everything. While AI does make a lot of mistakes, many issues aren’t a result of AI, and it’s not fair to presume they are. Let me give you two examples of what is and is not AI.

  • Not AI – Someone tried to enter text, meaning alphabet, in a field meant exclusively for numbers, like a month field that’s supposed to be a number and not the month name. The person was angry because “AI was wrong” and prevented the erroneous entry. First, it wasn’t wrong, and second, it wasn’t AI.

One of the earliest computer uses was to parse date fields and ensure that the “right thing” was being entered in the correct place. In this case, a numerical month, not the month name. That’s not AI. That’s just plain old-fashioned programming error-checking that’s been a part of software for decades. The program was performing exactly as it was intended.

  • AI – I submitted a spreadsheet to ChatGPT and instructed it to move all of the data in cells in column A that are entirely numeric to the same row in Column B, and to leave everything that contains any alphabetic characters where it is in column A. That’s AI, both because I’m using a known AI tool, and it’s processing my instructions to produce output that did not exist before.

The above image is what I wanted. I completed this by hand to show you what I had in mind. Working by hand is fine with 8 rows of data, but it wouldn’t be fine with 1000 rows, or more. That’s when you need a tool.

What could go wrong? Plenty.

Let’s say that I didn’t provide specific instructions and a cell contained mixed alpha and numeric, like Jane2. Or, if the tool just plain messed up because of some other unknown reason – such as the file being too long, or it misinterpreted an instruction. That’s why you have to verify everything.

With AI, it’s always some variant of the wild west frontier.

Next, I submitted my Before and After spreadsheet, above, and instructed ChatGPT to “Please put this in a chart and make it pretty.”

This is exactly what I received.

I didn’t receive what I wanted, because I didn’t tell the AI tool specifically what I wanted (spacing, color, font, size), and what I didn’t want. This isn’t a problem with the AI tool, it’s a problem with the instructions provided by the “driver.” AI is not a mind-reader, at least not yet.

Hint: When I don’t receive what I wanted, I tell ChatGPT what I wanted and ask it why I didn’t receive that, and what instructions I could provide differently. In this case, I learned that it can’t “discern colored text” (red) and only sometimes can “see” bolding.

This was a very simple comparison of AI versus non-AI. Of course there are endless variations, but in general, AI does something that produces something new or different or in another format – based on conversational instructions.

Examples of what AI can do well:

  • Take notes and summarize online meetings
  • Organize information into outline format
  • Suggest structure
  • Proofread and sometimes provide editing suggestions
  • Suggest places to look for additional information
  • Translate, transcribe and summarize both typewritten and handwritten documents, in multiple languages

Every one of these comes with a caveat. AI can always be wrong. Like any helper or intern, it’s up to us, as the responsible party, to be, well, responsible by monitoring and verifying everything.

Being wrong in places does not mean the tool isn’t useful. AI can transcribe an entire document in seconds, but I need to proofread it against the original. That’s a significant time savings for me. AI can then assist with the logic of how people are related to each other. That doesn’t mean it’s accurate, but it’s a place to start.

We have to learn how to communicate with our intern in a way it can understand to (hopefully) receive the output we want, and we have to confirm that it is.

The more difficult and complex the task, the more difficult the verification.

GIGO

The overarching theme for all computer data is GIGO – garbage in, garbage out. I know everyone can think of hundreds of examples that have absolutely nothing to do with AI. It’s the same now, but on steroids because we add the layers of:

  • Our instructions to AI, which may or may not be as thorough as we thought
  • AI interpreting what it thought we said, according to its internal rules and limitations that we don’t understand
  • AI manipulating data and producing output on our behalf

Additionally, when we ask AI to gather information about something, it can only gather what it can see. For example, some AI tools cannot reliably open weblinks, while others can. Some, like Google have internal routines to rank sites that are more reliable and accurate, and other tools do not.

Asking your AI tool for it’s sources so you can evaluate the GIGO factor is essential too.

Drinking From the Firehose

You might think AI is completely new, but it really isn’t. What’s new is the label of AI and consumer-based products where you get to be the driver.

Think of AI as the big umbrella.

In the past decade or so, artificial intelligence models have been slowly being developed, often for specific use cases. Machine learning models that are self-teaching are good examples. Genetic imputation to equalize autosomal DNA files produced by different vendors before matching is a specific use case.

Traditional programming is very specific and instructs, “If X, then Y.” Imputation, within a limited range of options, says, “Based on X, I think Y is most likely next character.” Machine learning learns by example. AI is the next generation where answers to questions are not hard-coded or self-learned in the same way.

With AI, one could interact and say, “Based on X, what do you think is next, and why?” The answer would be conversational, and would explain how the AI tool got to the result of Y. That doesn’t mean Y is accurate.

Before AI, consumers had never been in the driver’s seat, with the ability to query computers easily about anything with no programming needed – receiving conversational answers in their language of choice. Answers that are hopefully accurate.

Back in 2011, Siri became available, Amazon Alexa in 2014, and Google Assistant in 2016, but these were all command driven with a restricted vocabulary and could only perform limited actions.

In October 2022, ChatGPT introduced us to a new world, triggering the AI boom. By late 2023 and early 2024, suddenly the term AI, artificial intelligence, snowballed and was everywhere. The early versions of AI tools could only do a fraction of what they can in 2026, and could not perform tasks on your behalf.

ChatGPT prompt: “Make me a fun goofy picture with a cat that illustrates the ability of AI to make a fun goofy picture.”

Today that has all changed and it seems like everyone is making goofy pictures for fun.

Artificial Intelligence is NOT Intelligent

Let me say this loudly – artificial intelligence is not intelligent!

AI is a computer – electronic pulses in a data center somewhere. AI is trained to gather massive amounts of data, distill it in specific ways, and then, using various types of skills, interact with humans in a helpful manner. “Helpful” depends on perspective.

This field, as a whole, is really still in its infancy. That’s both the bad news and the good news.

AI tools are “new,” exciting, and frightening all at once. AI has enormous potential, but it also creates opportunities for misuse, deception, and unintended consequences.

I’m not referring to water and electricity consumption and the impact of building thousands of data centers on the environment. I’ll let you decide for yourself on that one.

Risks include:

  • Frequent errors
  • GIGO
  • Results being presented overconfidently by the AI agent
  • Faulty results being believed by the consumer (that’s you and me) with the same level of overconfidence, and without verification
  • Social engineering – meaning the manipulation and influence of people by bad actors
  • Extremely dangerous, highly malicious manipulation and applications in ways not possible before

The entire AI landscape is complicated by a lack of public understanding and made even more challenging by the extraordinary pace of this technology’s evolution.

Multiple Types of AI

There are multiple types of AI, ranging from Machine Learning models to full-blown Generative AI that creates goofy cat images for you. For the most part, today, we’re talking about LLMs and Generative AI.

Large Language Models, called LLMs, are artificial intelligence tools, like ChatGPT or Claude, that are designed to process human-like text or speech and generate output in the same way. AI doesn’t just give you a list of resources that you evaluate yourself, like a search engine; it gives you an “answer” (such as it is), writes text, and has an interactive “conversation” with you.

How does that happen?

The AI tool at the data center aggregates and amalgamates data based on your input and its training, then predicts the words most likely to come next, in what context, and how those words relate to each other.

That’s how AI forms an “answer.”

This is how and why AI, specifically LLMs, can write essays on a topic, create entirely fictitious but highly engaging social media postings and stories that aren’t presented as “stories,” but as someone’s personal experiences, meaning as “truth.”

AI, or the people who generated that AI script, or both, present fictional results with great confidence, often beautifully, and far more convincingly than humans.

This is where it’s important to differentiate between the tool itself, and the “driver,” meaning the human that’s prompting the AI tool.

  • The driver needs to prompt AI correctly and verify the output.
  • AI, the tool itself, sometimes generates incorrect information, often regardless of the prompts provided by the driver.
  • Sometimes the AI tool performs exactly as instructed, but the driver requested something “improper.” By improper, I don’t mean inadvertently or by accident.
  • Sometimes the human is unethical.
  • AI isn’t a sentient being and doesn’t understand the difference.

The human decides what to do with AI-generated results. Many times, AI-generated text, recognizable by word patterns or other characteristics (today), is posted to social media as “original” or factual, and contains incorrect information.

This is often referred to as “AI slop,” as one of the nicer terms, especially by those of us who increasingly find incorrect but convincing AI slop posted as “helpful information” and positioned as “expert,” even though it contains substantial inaccuracies.

Worse yet, very convincing AI slop can easily be generated to part you and your money.

And do I EVER have an example for you that combines AI slop and ethics.

AI SLOP and Ethics

Just two days after our new paper, on which I’m a co-author, Mitotree: The Universal Human Mitochondrial Reference Phylogeny at 10x the Resolution, was published, a company, whose name I’m not including because I don’t want to give it any oxygen or get it indexed with this article, posted a “beautiful” AI poster based on our paper – without our knowledge.

Looks nice, right?

To begin with, it appears for all the world like the authors provided this infographic, which we ABSOLUTELY DID NOT DO. Our names are right at the top. However, our names, as the paper’s authors, lend this “thing” credibility, thereby leveraging our work BOTH unethically and inaccurately.

This AI-generated infographic, although it’s not labeled as such, was created by a third party shortly after the publication of the Mitotree paper. While visually impressive, it contains several scientific inaccuracies, illustrating how quickly and easily authoritative-looking but incorrect content can be created and disseminated.

That’s one of the issues with AI – the beauty and professional appearance of AI-generated “things” encourages unwarranted confidence in the output, when the information is very wrong.

That’s why humans bear the responsibility of BOTH using AI ethically, AND verifying its accuracy. It’s also why, as consumers, we need to question everything.

My biggest issue with this situation isn’t with AI, other than the fact that it generated incorrect output – the issue is with the humans who intentionally created this, using AI. In other words, the drivers.

The infographic doesn’t say they created this incorrect rubbish, and I assure you, they never asked for permission. Then, they published the infographic on their own blog. In case you’re wondering, the company encourages uploads and charges people to get “new results.”

Now for the AI part.

The information IS WRONG and NOT a synthesis of what we published!!!! This infographic shows that all non-L haplogroups descend from haplogroup L4, which is absolutely FALSE.

Haplogroups M and N descend from haplogroup L3, and haplogroup R descends from a subclade of N. You can trust me because I’m one of the paper’s authors, or better yet, you can look for yourself, here, on Discover, or here, here, and here.

That isn’t the only thing that’s wrong, either, but how would normal air-breathing humans, meaning consumers, ever know?

Doesn’t that infographic look professional and convincing, especially if you, as a consumer, didn’t actually check everything on the document – AND its authenticity?

You’d assume legitimacy, right?

If you didn’t know, wouldn’t you be impressed with the expertise of the company that posted this infographic on their blog? And, as a normal consumer, how would you know?

You’d be impressed because you didn’t realize they hijacked someone else’s work, created this “beautiful” infographic, included the authors’ names on something inaccurate that the authors knew nothing about and didn’t endorse, and then published it. All without saying one word indicating that the infographic isn’t the authors’ work, was AI generated, or by whom.

In the past, before generating AI slop was this easy, consumers often presumed that a business was ethical and accurate. Of course that wasn’t always true, but being convincing at first glance is much easier today. Also, presume is related to assume…and we all know the rest of that story.

This is one of the dangerous sides of AI – illustrating how easy it is to deceive people now. It’s increasingly difficult to distinguish between legitimate expertise and fabricated authority. AI has removed that barrier.

You can no longer accept that anything is what it appears to be unless you’re working directly with known, trustworthy entities. The offending company completed that infographic in the click of a button and the blink of an eye, while I hadn’t even finished writing my own article about the paper’s release.

That company wants you to upload your DNA to them so that they can tell you “things” about your DNA. The intention is clear.

Of course, the consuming public, unless they were extremely vigilant, would never figure out either issue – ethics or accuracy.

I had to delete the next paragraph or two that I wrote on the topics of ethics, trust and confidence because I’m still so furious. Hot under the collar doesn’t even begin to describe how I feel about the ethics of misrepresenting something that we authors just spent six years of our lives on. Trust me when I tell you that my internal monologue was both very salty and rather spicy!😊

However, there’s good news. This infographic provides a perfect illustration of both AI slop, how deceptively great it looks, the ethics surrounding AI usage, and how difficult AI is to discern.

In fact, I couldn’t have come up with a better “bad example.”

A six-fingered hand, misspelled words or three arms in an image are obvious, and are yesterday’s AI tipoffs.

A misrepresented phylogenetic relationship or an incorrect founder-clade example is not obvious. Only subject-matter experts would or could notice if they were focused and paying attention.

That’s the problem in a nutshell.

The infographic wasn’t obviously wrong. It was convincingly wrong.

And convincing wrongness is far more dangerous than ridiculous wrongness, like six fingers, because most readers never realize they’ve been misled. Or why.

This single example demonstrates several AI themes in one fell swoop:

  • AI-generated content
  • Ease of creating complex and convincing output
  • Apparent authority
  • Misplaced trust
  • Lack of topic expertise
  • Overconfidence
  • AI slop
  • Difficulty of discerning truth
  • Yesterday’s “AI clues” are gone now – like misspelled words
  • Marketing vs. science
  • The necessity of human review
  • The fact that human review is only effective when the reviewer actually understands the subject, and cares.
  • Ethics

Like with this example, often AI slop is interspersed with accurate information, and it’s impossible to tell the difference unless you actually DO DUE DILIGENCE AND VERIFY ALL OUTPUT.

Yes, all of it.

Don’t shoot the messenger!

Hallucinations

Next, let’s discuss genetic genealogy, particularly haplogroup information. Hallucination or hallucinating is the term used for when AI simply makes things up, which often sound extremely convincing.

There’s nothing AI can tell you about your haplogroup that reputable sources cannot – and AI can’t see behind paywalls or logins, into your matches.

FamilyTreeDNA has an article in their help center titled, Why AI Models Struggle with Haplogroup Analysis.

Unfortunately, I encounter more and more instances where someone uploads their DNA to a third-party site, or “asks AI”. They receive a (sometimes substantially) incorrect haplogroup in a completely different part of the tree, complete with convincing language, posts it publicly, and then decides to argue that the third-party site, (who probably uses AI), or their AI tool, is correct.

Let’s look at an example. The mitochondrial DNA haplogroup for the Native American Anzick-1 burial in Montana that dates from roughly 12,500 years ago is mitochondrial haplogroup D4h3a. There’s no dispute about that.

A tester uploaded their mitochondrial DNA to “AI” and was very confidently told that, based on their mutations, their results belonged to haplogroup A2ex. They don’t.

ChatGPT misinformation about Anzick-1 haplogroup

They were then informed that it was also Anzick’s haplogroup. Wrong again.

FamilyTreeDNA's Discover tool information comparing haplogroups D4h3a and A2ex

FamilyTreeDNA’s Discover tool comparing mitochondrial DNA haplogroups D4h3a and A2ex. Their common ancestor lived about 66,000 years ago.

Not only did AI report Anzick’s haplogroup incorrectly on a grandiose scale, those two haplogroups don’t share a common ancestor for roughly 66,000 years – specifically haplogroup L3 who lived in Africa. AI made a massive mistake.

But it gets worse.

ChatGPT incorrect information about haplogroup A2ex.

The AI “answer” continued for four pages, containing completely erroneous information. To begin with, A2ex is a haplogroup, and “ex” has never meant excluding.

That’s bizarre, and an example of AI making something up that is patently false, but sounds wonderful and very authoritative.

The term for this AI behavior is hallucinating. I’m not publishing the rest of this exchange because I don’t want anyone (or any AI bot), for one minute, to think any of it is accurate. AI even made up mutations, along with four pages of “fairy tale.”

The individual who received this information was so excited and proudly posted it, which in turn provided incorrect information for other consumers, and encouraged them to use a badly flawed tool. Then they proceeded to argue with the experts.

They were absolutely convinced because it “felt” true to them, and because they wanted to believe they had discovered something special, and were related to Anzick. Their comment was, “You’re wrong, because AI told me it was true, and I’ve learned a lot from AI.” I was quite exasperated, but also feel sorry for them and can’t help but wonder how much else of what they “learned” from AI is wrong too, but I digress.

Most AI errors aren’t obviously wrong to the consumer. If AI said that you were descended from Tyrannosaurus Rex, you’d laugh. But if it tells you something more plausible and sounds confident, it’s very easy to be convinced. The reason these errors are so dangerous isn’t because the experts are fooled, it’s because non-experts either can’t, don’t, won’t or don’t think they need to invest the time to discern the difference.

I find it a bit baffling why anyone would use AI, or worse yet, a pay site for haplogroup misinformation, especially since FamilyTreeDNA provides the Discover website with free reports for every haplogroup. They are the unquestioned industry phylogenetic experts for both Y-DNA and mitochondrial DNA, and literally created the reference model for all haplogroups with the Mitotree.

Everyone can use Discover to access both the Y-DNA tree and Mitotree – for free – here. Discover isn’t even behind a paywall, and every customer can click through from their results page.

As far as haplogroups are concerned, there’s really no reason to rely on AI-generated answers without verifying them, because the authoritative resources are freely available and incredibly easy to access.

FamilyTreeDNA’s Discover Ancient Connection for Anzick-1.

Regarding Anzick’s haplogroup, all I had to do was enter haplogroup D4h3a in Discover and under Ancient Connections, right there is Anzick’s information.

I may start posting a link to this article on every single post where someone starts out with, “I submitted my DNA (or haplogroup) to AI, and it said…”

Let me be very direct. Don’t believe AI when it has to do with genetic information, especially Y-DNA, mitochondrial DNA, and haplogroups. AI does not have the capability of understanding topology and nuances of phylogenetic trees, and can only parrot back what others have said – correctly or incorrectly.

Incorrect information that’s publicly posted is then fed back into the AI algorithm, further reinforcing incorrect results.

You can find the free Discover tool for both Y and mtDNA, here, and you can join FamilyTreeDNA’s Mitochondrial DNA Group, here, and the Big Y Group, here.

AI Training and AI at Work

AI is trained on massive datasets of mostly unknown origin, including all public postings such as Reddit and Facebook public groups, pages and postings.

In other words, AI is always accruing additional information, including data uploaded by users.

As genealogists, we are already aware of the dangers of unsourced trees and and information that is repeated and copy/pasted without verification.

AI’s training provides more than just data points for you to evaluate, like trees.

AI bots are trained to interact in a humanlike manner. So instead of trees with hints, think hypothetically of an AI bot that reads the trees, then “creates” a wonderful story or infographic about your ancestor – that may or may not be either fully or partially accurate. But it’s beautiful, heartwarming and you love it! Plus, you don’t have to sort through all those trees, hints, and do the work yourself. AI did it for you! Win – win, right? Wrong.

AI knows how to very effectively manipulate language, images, and with them, emotion. Yours, to be specific. That’s both the bad news and the good news.

AI also has the ability to sift through large amounts of data and summarize succinctly –  sometimes even correctly. Sometimes it takes several refinements to obtain something that’s both correct and what you want. AI can discern patterns in massive amounts of data that we cannot, at least not readily.

Think of AI as your not-so-trusty but very confident and friendly intern – and I don’t necessarily mean a college intern.

Remember when you see AI published by others, their intern has been at work too.

AI itself is not a sentient being. It’s not inherently ethical or unethical. However, it has been trained to interact with you in a human way. It’s easy after tens of thousands of years of human conditioning for us to interpret AI as human.

Let me give you an example.

I use ChatGPT regularly and was having an interactive conversation after asking it a question. ChatGPT replied that it didn’t know, which is a substantial and startling improvement over earlier versions. I replied, “I’m one of the team members, and even I don’t know.” Really, there was no reason for me to say that, except we interact with our GPTs as human, sometimes even naming them. Then, ChatGPT said, “That made me laugh.”

I was a bit startled.

That made ME laugh, because AI is a machine. It can’t laugh, but it has been trained how to interact with us in a humanlike manner – often sycophantically. Remember how LLMs are trained. It knows what to say next. The smiley face was probably its “humor” clue. Making your interactions both useful and enjoyable keeps you paying your monthly subscription fee.

Remember that AI has no morals, because it’s a machine, and no ethics, for the same reason. That falls to the humans driving. If someone intentionally drives their car into a crowd, it’s not the car’s fault.

AI currently doesn’t have the ability to self-check or self-regulate, though this has improved somewhat in recent months and will, hopefully, continue to improve over time.

People who use AI can use the results for good, for nefarious purposes, or simply as a “time-saving” assistant. There are no guardrails. I could give you very ugly examples, but I’ll simply say that, if prompted, AI will generate the worst things you can imagine, including nonconsensual adult images of people that never happened. These are generally called deepfakes, although deepfakes aren’t always generated in a negative context. I’ll discuss this phenomenon as part of Generative AI in the final article where we’ll cover the dark side of AI.

Conversely, AI can be intended for good by its human “driver” but still be inaccurate and, consequently, unintentionally inflict damage or spread misinformation.

The Bottom Line

Here’s the bottom line.

Your personal threat level warning flag now needs to be permanently set to red.

You need to be increasingly vigilant, meaning actively suspicious, of absolutely everything, even exchanges that used to be safe. In other words, if you receive an email from an organization or government agency that you’ve interacted with in the past – don’t click on an embedded link because you always have in the past and it was safe then.

Hint: Go to the website directly. E-mails are very easy to spoof and your SS account password, for example, is invaluable to a hacker.

The bad guys have gotten really good at being horrible. AI is becoming more difficult to detect every day – even for those of us with a significant amount of experience.

I realize that I sound paranoid, but I just completed security update training, and the threat landscape is worse than I ever imagined. I’ll be sharing that information throughout these articles. Better paranoid and safe than trusting and sorry. What I’m striving for is an appropriate amount of alarm and a safe level of balance. I don’t want you to learn the hard way.

Today’s tip-offs that something is AI-generated will be gone tomorrow.

To use AI tools is to learn what AI output looks and feels like, so you can recognize when you encounter AI that you didn’t generate.

Now that we know what AI is, and isn’t, the next article will focus on AI Assistants, using AI successfully, and how to avoid pitfalls. You don’t want to be the president of the AI Fan Club, nor do you want to feel like you’re in an AI Escape Room.

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Mitotree: First, the Tree – Now the Paper

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It’s definitely a red-letter day.

Dr. Paul Maier, the lead author on the new paper Mitotree: The Universal Human Mitochondrial Reference Phylogeny at 10x the Resolution has uploaded the paper to the bioRxiv preprint server, here.

I want to congratulate all of the authors, most of whom are members of the FamilyTreeDNA R&D team as either employees or contractors. I’m a contractor and have had the honor of working with these amazing colleagues on this project since 2020.

About Mitotree

Mitotree was officially “born” on February 25, 2025, and the tree has been updated several times since. About 75% of FamilyTreeDNA’s customers who have taken the full-sequence mitochondrial DNA test received a more refined haplogroup with the release of Mitotree or subsequent updates. Those haplogroups are, on average, 2000 years newer than the person’s legacy Phylotree haplogroup, and some are much more recent.

This means that the tree branches have gotten much, much bushier close to the tips. In other words, lots more twigs and leaves!

Unfortunately, about 25% of testers did not receive a new haplogroup because they do not have any qualifying mutations:

  • Either because they have no additional mutations
  • Or because they have mutations, but they are unstable
  • Or because they have mutations, but no other testers have yet tested that match them to split a branch

The good news is that with the addition of haplotype clusters, everyone benefits from new matching and grouping tools. Testers are grouped into clusters on their matches page, and on the Match Time Tree in Discover, which is much more useful for genealogy.

I know this paper has been a long time coming, but it’s well worth the wait.

Mitotree was a massive undertaking. We began with PhyloTree v17 which had 5,438 hand-curated branches constructed from 24,275 full and partial mitochondrial sequences. Phylotree was last updated in 2016 before subsequently being abandoned.

The Million Mito Team developed Mitotree, a robust phylogeny with more than 54,000 branches formed from over 330,000 complete mitochondrial sequences, of which 177,196 are unique sequences.

Let’s Look Under the Hood

There are three critical pieces of information in those statements.

First, the PhyloTree curation and maintenance was not automated, and a paper detailing their build process, what mutations were included or excluded, and under what circumstances was never published.

Approximately once a year, a new PhyloTree was published where newer samples were individually evaluated and new haplogroups were hand-grafted onto an existing backbone tree.

This methodology did not allow for deep splits to become apparent, because the tree itself was never recalculated. This is exactly how haplogroup L7 went undetected until the Million Mito Team recalculated the tree, including the backbone, in 2022, and published this paper about L7’s discovery.

In other words, while PhyloTree was publicly available, there was no recipe for how it was created or maintained.

Clearly, the tree-building process had to be automated, as hand-curation was unsustainable. There were no academic programs in existence capable of handling the number of samples involved. Not even in 2016 for fewer than 25,000 samples, let alone today.

To maintain haplogroup naming consistency, the first thing our team had to do was write software to phylogenetically reverse engineer PhyloTree v17 to establish a common foundation on which to build. This step was essential for consistency and maintaining the established haplogroup naming pattern.

That software also had to be capable of scaling up exponentially. The first versions took weeks to run, which clearly wasn’t an acceptable long-term solution. Still, being able to establish a foundational backbone to build on programmatically was a victory in and of itself.

Second, PhyloTree used partial sequences, meaning HVR1 and HVR2 samples. Early academic researchers did not perform full sequence testing, so the curators of PhyloTree used what was available to the best of their ability.

With over 330,000 full-sequence samples available today, we no longer include partial samples.

Third, 177,196 of the 331,221 full sequence samples used were unique. Before launching the program to construct the tree, identical samples from known immediate relatives are deduped, when possible, in order to reduce unnecessary clutter and processing time.

This means two things. The actual number of testers is greater than 331,000. But more importantly, anyone who thinks that mitochondrial DNA isn’t interesting should take another look. More than half of the sequences used for tree-building are unique, which handily dispels the myth that mitochondrial DNA doesn’t mutate often enough to be useful for genealogy.

The Mitotree initiative has been both scientifically and genealogically successful beyond anything we could have imagined. The base tree includes approximately 180 branches that are older than 30,000 years, including the discovery of haplogroup L7 at 100,000 years old. These branches both expand and more firmly root the oldest portions of the tree.

Amazingly, haplogroup L7 has living descendants whose earliest known family members are found in Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, the UAE, Palestinian Territory, Ethiopia, Sudan, and South Africa.

Another fun discovery involved Otzi, the Iceman, a mummy found frozen in the Italian Alps who lived more than 5,000 years ago. He was thought to carry an extinct haplogroup, K1ö, named in his honor, but as it turns out, he’s actually a member of haplogroup K1f, a clade with living descendants in Algeria. Additionally, Otzi now matches four ancient burials too, so he does have cousins.

We couldn’t have made these discoveries without the right people testing, so please encourage everyone and dispel the discouraging myth that mitochondrial DNA isn’t useful or interesting. It absolutely IS, and the success stories keep rolling in!

Why Build a Phylogenetic Tree?

Simply put, the history of our ancestors, both recently and reaching back into ancient history, is revealed in the tree – and there’s absolutely no other avenue to reach this information. Ironically, it’s readily available to everyone because everyone has mitochondrial DNA and can easily take the test.

Mitochondrial DNA is different than Y-DNA, which has its own phylogenetic tree based on SNP mutations, and autosomal DNA, which has no tree.

The reason that both Y-DNA and mitochondrial DNA can have phylogenetic trees is that they are inherited from the appropriate parent with only occasional mutations, while autosomal DNA is roughly halved in each generation.

Y-DNA is inherited by males only from their fathers, with no admixture from their mother, while mitochondrial DNA is inherited by everyone from only their mothers, with no admixture from their father.

Autosomal DNA is inherited through random recombination, with half coming from each parent, except for the X chromosome which has its own inheritance pattern. X-DNA is often confused with mitochondrial DNA, but they are entirely different types of DNA. I wrote about that here.

No tree is possible for autosomal DNA, because it gets diced and riced in each generation.

The mutations that occur occasionally and randomly in both Y and mitochondrial DNA form a trail of breadcrumbs leading backward in time, or in our case, they form both the trunk and branches on the tree.

Those unique mutations, once they occur, are inherited by subsequent generations, forming a path back in time.

In current generations, those mutations provide testers with the ability to identify our closest cousins who inherited those same mutations and who have taken either a Big Y-700 test, in males, or a mitochondrial DNA full sequence test for everyone.

In this conceptual example, you can see that Ancestor 1 carries mutation A, as do the next two generations who inherited it from their parent. However, Ancestor 4 now has additional mutation B, so that person carries mutations A+B. This inheritance pattern continues through the apricol lineage as mutations C and D are added in subsequent generations, until “You” are born with A+B+C+D.

Your cousin’s ancestor, on the other hand, was also born to Ancestor 4 and carries both A+B, as seen in the green column. Three generations later, that line added mutation F. Your  ancestor 7 added mutation C, so now the apricot and green lineages can easily be genetically distinguished from each other.

When a living person tests, we immediately know, based on the combination of their mutations, if and where they fit in this lineage, because both the apricot and green branches have accumulated unique mutations that the original blue Ancestor 4 and earlier ancestors did not have.

Using our knowledge of the tree branches, when and where they occurred, provides valuable genealogical information, along with fascinating Ancient Connections, both since and prior to the adoption of surnames.

Both Y-DNA and mitochondrial DNA can reach much further back in time than autosomal DNA because they are not diluted with DNA from the other parent in each generation.

So mitochondrial DNA is both broad, meaning many leaves, and deep, meaning it helps us look straight back in time like a laser sight, all the way to the common ancestor of all humanity, Mitochondrial Eve, who lived about 140,000 years ago in Africa.

Mitochondrial DNA Presents Unique Challenges

Mitochondrial DNA presents challenges not found in Y-DNA tree building.

For example, mitochondrial DNA only has 16,569 locations available to utilize, while Y-DNA currently uses roughly 22 million “gold standard” locations on the Y chromosome.

Of those 16,569 mitochondrial locations, some are not reliable enough for tree-building.

Unreliable mutations include:

  • Insertions, where extra copies of a particular nucleotide (Thymine, Adenine, Cytosine and Guanine) have been inserted at a specific location. Those are indicated by designations such as 309.1C where 309 indicates the marker location, .1 indicates the number of insertions at that location, and C (for Cytosine in this example) indicates the nucleotide inserted.
  • Heteroplasmies occur when multiple nucleotides are detected at a specific location. They are reported by a different letter than T, A, C or G, depending on which of multiple nucleotides are found. Heteroplasmies tend to “come and go” based on detection and threshold levels, so they can’t be used the same way as more stable mutations for tree building – and are often, but not always, unreliable for genealogy. I wrote about this in the article, What is a Heteroplasmy and Why Do I Care?.

Those locations and types of mutations have been excluded from forming tree branches, or downweighted, because they are too prone to mutating back and forth. However, they *might* be useful for genealogical purposes. Less-than-reliable mutations are now used to create haplotype clusters, even though they aren’t used to create new branches on the Mitotree.

I wrote about how haplogroups and haplotype clusters are formed in these articles:

Weighting and Confidence Factors

Mitotree formation would have been a lot easier if delineations, meaning inclusions and exclusions, were clear, either yes or no, but they aren’t.

Some were obvious from the get-go, such as insertions at location 309 and elsewhere, but other situations were much less obvious.

For example, sometimes there’s a specific location that seems prone to reversion, mutating back and forth, meaning that it mutates, then returns to its original state, then repeats the process.

Reversions are a natural phenomenon that occurs frequently in mitochondrial DNA, but is rarely, if ever, found in Y-DNA.

Let’s look at an example.

Courtesy Dr. Paul Maier

How many reversions at the same location are too many, especially if they are close in the tree?

In the above example, the mutation from A to G occurs just below the first arrow, forming haplogroup L1, a branch of L. The red areas all carry that mutation, subsequently forming eight new branches.

However, one step downstream from that mutation, just above the second arrow, location 7055 back-mutates, or reverts to A from G, which is indicated by the “!”. That reverse mutation forms haplogroup L1c3.

If location 7055 continues to flip back and forth between A and G, at what point do we have less confidence in that location, and at what point should a location be excluded from the tree and prevented from creating or dividing a branch?

The answer is that “it depends,” sometimes on the branch, sometimes on the “group” of other mutations it’s found with, and other factors. Some locations are stable in some parts of the tree, but unstable in others. We certainly never expected to see that!

This means the team had to design and build a weighting methodology so that relevant mutations, such as reversions, are not summarily excluded from tree building but instead carry different confidence weighting levels, depending on the circumstances.

Some samples, such as ancient DNA, were down-weighted in general due to their propensity to contain artifacts resulting from deterioration. Ancient samples can still influence branching, just not as much as a high-quality modern sample.

Furthermore, especially when utilizing academic samples, results with a high number of heteroplasmies are excluded, along with those with ambiguous reads and missing upstream mutations, which were previously inferred with PhyloTree. Academic samples vary in quality and age, and we have no way of knowing which quality criteria were used by that lab at that time.

These types of variances made constructing and updating the Mitotree more challenging than the Y-DNA tree, which is not subject to weighting, resulting from phylogenetic tug-of-war between mutations.

In some situations, the addition of just one test can make the difference between a new branch, or no branch, in a subsequent run of the tree. Due to this type of scenario, and fine-tuning the algorithm, some people’s new haplogroups have reverted to an earlier haplogroup in subsequent Mitotree updates.

The paper and supplemental materials provide details about the exclusion process, types of exclusions, and a list of excluded marker locations.

You can view the confidence of any haplogroup in the Classic Mitotree view in Discover.

My haplogroup, J1c2f, is formed by the mutation G9055A, and you can see that the confidence rank is 7.5 out of 10.

Mousing over the little up-arrow tree icon beside the star explains changes in nearby branches, which can affect the haplogroup’s confidence ranking.

Branches are not renamed for convenience, and only when phylogenetically warranted. Existing haplogroup names used either on PhyloTree, in academic literature, or previously on the Y-Full tree are either maintained or avoided to eliminate potential confusion. No one wants two different haplogroup names depending on which tree is being viewed.

Previously obsoleted names remain permanently obsoleted and are not reused.

The paper explains further about technical corrections and tie-breaker situations. In some cases, potential branches with equal or near-equal weighting are flagged for team review.

Amazing Discoveries

I encourage everyone to read the section in the paper beginning with “Notable discoveries.” These aren’t people, as in Discover’s Notable Connections, but scientific accomplishments achieved with the new Mitotree.

Our knowledge of human migration within and out of Africa has been greatly refined, as well as the ancestral path into and across Eurasia, Asia, and into the Pacific Rim. If you have unusual mitochondrial haplogroups such as L, M, N, P, Q, R or S, you’ll absolutely want to read this.

Of course, in time these haplogroups branch and become Paleolithic haplogroups, then the Gravettian-Mesolithic followed by the Hunter-Gatherers found throughout Europe that we are familiar with. We’ve learned a great deal from rare ancient DNA samples that anchor more modern haplogroups in a place and time, and inform us of migration patterns as well as how now-extinct ghost populations gave rise to current ones.

The earliest humans, whom Mitotree has more firmly anchored, formed a trickle out of Africa that became a bifurcated stream, eventually flowing across the rest of the world. What recorded and even archaeological history cannot tell us can be and is revealed through the patterns held in our DNA today – and Mitotree is our map to read them. Common ancestors are found where our mutations as haplogroups converge, joining as we travel backward in time, piercing an otherwise impenetrable veil.

For those with Native American ancestry, Mitotree expands the two-wave theory, refining it into five or six probable migration surges, depending on how you count, based on a combination of haplogroup ages and distribution.

Summarizing from the paper:

The first wave of haplogroups A2, B2, C1b, C1c, C1d, D1, and D4h3a arrived from Asia, across Beringia or along the Pacific Corridor, about 17,000 to 18,500 years ago, and expanded along the Pacific coast. D4h3a is found almost exclusively in the Pacific region.

This was followed by haplogroup C4c about 15,800 years ago and X2a about 10,000 years ago, which expanded into the interior through the ice-free corridor east of the Rockies after the ice melted.

Next were the Paleo-Eskimo and Na-Dene speakers in haplogroups A2a, D2a, D2b, D2c/D3, and D4b1a2a1a2, who, between 3000 and 7000 years ago, made their way from Alaska, across the polar regions of Canada, into Greenland.

Na-Dene speakers, Apache and Navajo, in haplogroups A2a and B2a made their way southwest between 1300 and 1500 CE, or between 500 and 700 years ago.

Last, the present-day Inuit-Yupik expanded from Beringia to Greenland about 1000 CE.

For additional information, please see the Native American lineages section of the paper.

Mitotree has also clarified the ancestors of the Ainu/Jomon people from Hokkaido, Japan, and their ancient Paleolithic northwest Asian and Siberian relatives. The ancestors of this group and Native Americans share even earlier Asian ancestors.

The history of the Jewish people has been significantly refined as well, expanding on earlier works, and is found in the Counting the newest Jewish founders section of the paper.

  • 43% of Ashkenazi Jewish testers fell into 5 founding lineages where they had no subclades before, but they do now.
  • Two clades of haplogroup K have now been split 4000 to 5000 years ago in Romania.
  • There’s new information about the crypto-Jewish community in Portugal, Mountain Jews from Persia and the Caucasus, plus Jewish groups in India, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Israel and Libya.
  • Additionally, haplogroup M33c9b tells the story of Ashkenazi Silk Road merchants who traveled between China and Europe.

The paper reports the isolation of Sardinian-specific haplogroups and provides substantially greater structural definition for the Saami people, increasing from 22 subclades to more than 300.

The Notable discoveries section is chock full of information.

Genealogy Jump-Start

Today’s tree is ten times larger than the 2016 tree, and will continue to grow as more people take a full sequence mitochondrial DNA test, available at FamilyTreeDNA.

The greatly improved tree alone is not the only facilitator of genealogical success. A dozen reports, including Haplotype Clusters and the Match Time Tree are provided for all full-sequence testers in Discover. I wrote about how to effectively use your matches and Discover to break through genealogy brick walls, here.

There are a couple of things you need to do to increase your opportunities for success and to help Discover and Mitotree.

Genealogy is a team sport, and you can increase everyone’s success rate by completing (and updating) your Earliest Known Ancestor (EKA) and location information, found under “Account Settings” beneath your name in the upper right hand corner when signed on, then “Genealogy”, then “Earliest Known Ancestor”, and by providing a family tree or a link to WikiTree.

Identifying common ancestors is what testing is all about, and these are all important success factors. Everyone wants to identify previously unknown ancestors.

Mitotree is More Than Genealogy

Of course, as genealogists, we’re focused on how to use the new Mitotree information, paired with Discover, to identify brick-walled ancestors and learn more about them. I’ve written specifically about how to do that in these two articles:

Mitotree isn’t just an explosion for genealogy, though – it’s an incredible scientific achievement. Instead of genealogy benefiting from other specialties, now they can benefit from what genealogy has wrought.

Mitotree presents opportunities to rethink and potentially recalculate dating and information in other fields, such as archaeology, medical genetics, forensics, and history.

We know vastly more than ever before, but this is only the beginning.

With each new tester and every ancient genome added to the growing body of evidence, our understanding becomes more refined, revealing insights about our ancestors, and weaving our thread into the broader tapestry of human history.

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Robert Vernon Estes (1931-1951): DNA and Hope for Military Repatriation

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Robert Vernon Estes was my first cousin, my father’s brother’s son. I’m named after him, but I never knew him. He died years before I was born.

Robert, known as Bobby, was born on March 27, 1931 in White County, Indiana. He, along with his unit, were captured near Kunu-ri in North Korea on November 30, 1950, and he died as a prisoner-of-war around January 31, 1951 – at least that’s the date officially assigned to his death.

Truth be told, his death date is an estimate based on the recollections of men who survived the horrific deprivation, freezing temperatures, and starvation endured by the captured soldiers. He was likely buried in a mass grave outside the compound where Bobby, along with most of the other US soldiers who were held there, died.

Bobby was posthumously awarded the rank of Corporal. 

The Korean conflict active combat operations ended on July 27, 1953, when an Armistice agreement was signed between the US, North Korea, and China. A demilitarized zone (DMZ) was established, but a peace treaty was never signed, so technically, the US and North Korea are still at war. The two countries do not maintain diplomatic relations, and their relationship could be described as “frosty” at best.

While some military personnel from both the US and our ally, South Korea, have been repatriated, a long history of hostility and other challenges, including the remains of US soldiers being used as bargaining chips, have prevented the return of more than 5300 service members whose remains are still essentially being held hostage in Korea. If I sound bitter, that’s because I am.

Beginning in 1954, some remains have been brought home, but identification from the beginning was difficult, often due to comingled remains resulting from mass burials. Those remains were identified when possible, using techniques available at the time, and all remains were honorably buried.

Recently, due to advances in processing forensic remains and autosomal DNA matching, another 100 people have been identified from 55 boxes of mixed remains turned over following the 2018 Singapore Summit. Those boxes are believed to hold bones from roughly 250 distinct individuals, so the majority have yet to be identified.

Unidentified remains are buried at the Punchbowl, the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, in Honolulu, Hawaii. More than 800 graves are marked as “Unknown” from the Korean War and await exhumation for advanced DNA testing.

By Gage Skidmore from Surprise, AZ, United States of America – National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=115138509

While there is no burial, missing service members are honored in the Honolulu Memorial within the cemetery. 

The names of the missing are etched on the walls of the Courts of the Missing.

Bobby’s name was also engraved on the Wall of Remembrance at the National Korean War Veterans Memorial in Washington DC when they included the names of the missing in 2022.  

Here’s a closeup.

Because Bobby was held above the DMZ, in North Korea proper, in a deserted mining camp called the Pukchin Camp, nicknamed Death Valley, and because the North Koreans were uncooperative, Bobby’s remains were classified as “nonrecoverable” in January 1956.

Hope Rekindled

Unrecoverable in 1956 based on political circumstances and lack of information about which soldiers had been captured, where they were held, when they died, and where burials for that facility occurred, doesn’t necessarily mean unrecoverable forever.

Today, Bobby’s status has been updated to “deferred” which isn’t quite as final and hopeless as “nonrecoverable.”

In 1956, they had no way of knowing about DNA and technology that would become available decades in the future.

Unfortunately, the political environment has remained essentially unchanged now for 70 years, but 70 years isn’t forever.

Yes, I know that identifying Bobby’s remains and bringing him home are both extremely unlikely, but a very low probability is not zero.

As genetic genealogists, we understand that with the passage of generations, the amount of shared autosomal DNA decreases with each generational recombination, so it was important for me to work with AFDIL to preserve my DNA in the hope of one day identifying Bobby – even after I’m gone from this mortal realm.

I might not be able to stand in Arlington, honoring Bobby as he is buried, but maybe my daughter will. Hope springs eternal!

DNA Analysis

The military began collecting DNA samples using bloodstain cards in 1992. For soldiers who served before that and whose remains needed to be identified, various types of forensic analysis were performed.

In the 1990s, when DNA first began to be used for service member identification, DNA matching was performed using mitochondrial DNA because there are hundreds of copies of mitochondria in the cytoplasm of each cell, which means mitochondrial DNA is easier to recover in degraded remains.

This also meant that a sample was needed from the soldier’s mother, sibling, or a relative in the soldier’s direct matrilineal line, not interrupted by a male. Women contribute their mitochondrial DNA to children of both sexes, not intermixed with any DNA from the father, but males do not pass it on to their children.

Around 2010, Y-DNA, passed from father to son, began to be used by AFDIL as well.

At that time, the remains were not processed to extract DNA for autosomal matching, as ancient or forensic DNA extraction technology did not yet exist – and has only been refined for widespread utilization in the past few years. Initially, autosomal matches for repatriation were only used to match immediate family members, so DNA testing was unavailable to cousins of soldiers.

Men who died in WWI, WWII, Korea, and Vietnam may not have immediate family members left – and that number dwindles daily.

  • Bobby had no children.
  • Bobby’s mother, Lucille Latta, was born in 1906 and died in 1952. She had only one sibling, a brother who died in 1966, and their mother was adopted, so there was no source to obtain Bobby’s mitochondrial DNA for matching.
  • Bobby’s only sibling, a brother who had no sons, died in 1986, and their father, Joseph Estes, died in 1994, eliminating the possibility of Y-DNA matching.

This means that there were no immediate or appropriately related family members available for either mitochondrial or Y-DNA testing – effectively slamming the door on the possibility of identification.

The DNA results of soldiers’ remains, and their family members, are held separately from any commercial or law-enforcement databases, so without an appropriately descended family member’s DNA test submitted for this specific purpose, there is no opportunity to identify the soldier.

Until recently, more distant family members were precluded from participating.

The AFDIL Team

In 2023 and 2024, I was privileged to work with the AFDIL team on the Washington Family Project. This was a proof-of-concept project, of sorts. AFDIL undertook this project in the process of refining their methodologies for working with badly degraded remains. The Washington Project was perfect because we knew who was supposed to be buried in each location. The team authored an exciting paper detailing the results.

It gives me cold chills to realize that I was a small part of the effort to open the door for more distant family members to submit autosomal results to identify their missing service members. When we started working together, they had no idea that I’m a Gold Star family member, representing Bobby, and I had no idea the doors this project would open.

Today, those efforts have borne fruit. AFDIL has expanded its family participation policies and guidelines.

Needless to say, I’m thrilled.

Swabbing for Bobby

I requested my swab kit as soon as possible.

I was so excited the day the package arrived.

In addition to swabs, the package included a letter plus several pages of information and instructions.

For notification, be sure that someone living and reliable is listed as the primary contact for your soldier. We discovered that no one was listed for Bobby, but now I’m his official contact and I’m also his closest living next-of-kin.

Oh good, now we’re getting to the DNA swabbing part! Not that I’m anxious or anything!

I had to sit down and really study this chart, which was difficult given my level of excitement. I needed to make sure I really qualified. I mean, I knew I was supposed to – but this was the hard line do-not-pass-go paper right here. A tiny part of me was terrified that something had gone wrong and I wouldn’t be accepted.

The missing soldier is the blue center. I labeled “Me” four images to the right.

AFDIL invested a lot of time in creating this chart that includes autosomal candidates in yellow, mitochondrial candidates with red borders, and Y-DNA candidates with thick dark blue borders.

They had put an oval around “me” on the chart based on their understanding of our relationship from previously submitted documentation. In the paperwork, they asked me to confirm the relationship again.

Next came the swab kit and the labels.

Now I’ve swabbed and labeled everything, following the instructions.

Popping them into the included FedEx envelope.

All I had to do was find a FedEx shipping location and drop the envelope off. I cried as I did the handoff – praying that someday these little vials will provide the key to identifying Bobby.

A week or so later, I received an email stating that my sample had been received and was being processed.

They would be in touch if anything else was needed from me, or, if anything was found.

Now…we wait. Perhaps forever.

But maybe not.

I’ve now preserved the possibility of identifying Bobby’s remains if they are ever returned. And a tiny part of me has my fingers crossed that some of his bones were in that mixed sample, simply waiting for the technology to catch up.

This Memorial Day Weekend

This Memorial Day weekend, in addition to writing this article, I’m working on a wall-hanging to honor Bobby and his ultimate sacrifice.

I’ve been working on this for a while, but it’s so emotionally intense for me that I have to put it away and give myself a break from time to time.

Obviously, I’m working on the layout and I’ve laid these blocks alongside the panel to illustrate. When finished, there will be two rows of stars that function as borders surrounding the center panel.

I’m debating whether I should put a gold star in the center of both sides, or a smaller gold star in the center of a star block, or maybe gold stars of some sort in all four corners. I’m also considering having Bobby’s name, along with his birth and death dates, embroidered near the boots.

After my death and my daughter’s, I’ve left instructions for this quilt to be donated to the Indiana Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument, if they want it, where the brick honoring Bobby’s service was laid in the summer of 2021.

You can read more about Bobby in these articles:

Honoring Bobby and Other Unrecovered Soldiers

For years, it has been my dream to attend Bobby’s military burial at Arlington National Cemetery. He has earned that, and it seems that’s the least, the very least, we could do for him. Of course, part of warfare is psychological, not just physical, and refusing to return the remains of those killed is part of that. Even worse is knowing how he was tortured and died.

My heart still bleeds for him and his mother.

We don’t know if Bobby’s remains will ever be “discovered” and brought home. I’d say it’s extremely unlikely.

We don’t know if, by some miracle, Bobby’s remains are among those unidentified mixed samples already buried in Hawaii. That too is unlikely because Bobby was held in a remote location and his remains, wherever they actually lie, are not easily accessible.

As each generation dies, and as Bobby’s bones age, the chance of obtaining a quality DNA match decreases.

While I can’t do anything about the passage of time, nor about Bobby’s bones deteriorating, I can make sure my own DNA is preserved in AFDIL’s Family Reference Database, maintained by the Family Reference Sample Laboratory, a division of the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System’s DNA Identification Laboratory (AFMES-AFDIL). You can read more here and here.

You can search for a POW/MIA service member, here.

If you qualify to submit a sample for a deceased service member whose remains have yet to be identified, you can’t order a DNA sample kit directly like we do from testing companies. You need to request a DNA sample kit after providing information about how you and the soldier are related. You’ll be assigned a case number and a case worker.

Click on this link for more information, including websites, or call the appropriate number below to determine if you qualify and to request a DNA kit.

  • United States Army: (800) 892-2490
  • United States Marine Corps: (800) 847-1597
  • United States Navy: (800) 443-9298
  • United States Air Force: (800) 531-5501
  • Department of State: (202) 485-6106

This Memorial Day, please remember the sacrifices of our fallen heroes, those veterans who never came home, and their families who never stopped waiting.

Ancient Connections: Where Archaeology Meets Your Ancestors

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Ancient Connections, a report found on FamilyTreeDNA’s Discover platform for both Y-DNA and mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), can be used in multiple ways to enhance your genealogy and unlock secrets.

It’s exciting to examine ancient burials linked to our ancestors and understand how we connect to them. Ancient Connections offer a wealth of information, providing clues that can help unravel long-standing mysteries.

Today, there are more than 12,960 Y-DNA Ancient Connections in Discover, along with more than 25,310 mitochondrial Ancient Connections, and that number increases weekly.

Why the disparity, you ask? Remember, everyone has mitochondrial DNA, but only males have Y-DNA.

In addition to matches, your DNA results hold something even more powerful – evidence of where your ancestors and their cousins lived in the distant past, when they lived, and the cultural context surrounding them. These essential insights are unavailable through any other means. Ancient Connections help us answer the age-old question, “Where did I come from?”

Could These People Be My Ancestors?

I’ll show you how to answer another question, too. Which of these Ancient Connections could potentially be your ancestors, and which ones are your “haplo-cousins”?

Regardless, they all help us understand our ancestors’ past, and that of their descendants.

Discover is for Everyone

FamilyTreeDNA provides a free version of Discover that everyone can use. There’s also an enriched version with additional information for their customers who have purchased Y-DNA and mitochondrial DNA tests.

Discover has something to offer for everyone.

Mitochondrial DNA is passed from mothers to all of their children of both sexes – unmixed with the DNA of the father.

Everyone has their mother’s mitochondrial DNA, which is passed intact, except for an occasional mutation, directly down through generations of mothers. It’s not admixed like autosomal DNA, so we don’t lose some portion in each generation. This is exactly why we can track mitochondrial DNA infinitely far back in time and why it’s so crucial for understanding the origins of your mother’s specific line.

Y-DNA is passed from fathers only to their sons, which is what makes males male. Like mitochondrial DNA, Y-DNA is not admixed with any DNA from the mother, so we get a laser line-of-sight view of the direct patrilineal line back in time. The Y-DNA direct paternal line is the male’s surname line in cultures where males carry their father’s surname.

If you’ve tested at or upgraded to either the Big Y-700 level or the mtFull, full mitochondrial sequence test, you will receive the most granular haplogroup possible, meaning the closest in time and most informative. You’ll also match with other testers who have taken the less-refined lower-level tests.

The most informative and precise results occur when both people have taken the premium tests. As more people test and science advances, you may receive a new haplogroup from time to time when you and another tester share a rare mutation – so these tests are evergreen.

Both Y-DNA and mitochondrial DNA testers at any level have access to Discover on their dashboard for those products, although the results of lower-level tests provide less information.

The Free Version of Discover Compared to the Premium Version for Testers

Here’s a comparison of lower-level Y-DNA tests and the Big Y-700.

Click any image to enlarge

Y-DNA testers who have only taken the 12-111 STR panel tests receive a predicted haplogroup, and when clicking through to Discover, receive up to 10 Ancient Connections.

For example, If your Y-DNA haplogroup is predicted as R-M269, the most common male lineage in Europe that arose some 6450 years ago, your Ancient Connections begin with the closest genetic match to R-M269. Viewing Ancient Connections that are 6500 years ago will certainly be interesting, so please do look, but probably not terribly useful for genealogy.

However, if that same person were to upgrade to the Big Y-700, they would receive a much more recent haplogroup, and along with it, up to 30 Ancient Connections within their major haplogroup lineage, R in this case, plus the oldest sample in the database. For some haplogroups, there may not yet be 30 Ancient Connections, although new ancient samples are added weekly for both Y-DNA and mitochondrial DNA.

All Ancient Connections begin with the matches who are genetically closest to the haplogroup requested.

The same scenario holds true for mitochondrial DNA testers who previously tested at the HVR1/HVR2 level, but not at the full sequence level, which is the only test available today.

This article focuses on testers at the higher levels, meaning the Big Y-700 and the mtFull tests, and how to utilize their 30 closest Ancient Connections. We’ll walk through step-by-step examples using both.

However, before we begin evaluating our Ancient Connections, we need to cover two fundamental concepts.

BCE, CE and Converting to “Years Ago”

It’s helpful to understand date structures and how they are used.

It’s easy to get confused when seeing the dates of CE, current era, and BCE, before current era, which means we misinterpret the information.

For example, the year 100 CE is the year 100 that occurred roughly 1900 years ago. We round 2026 to 2000 for these types of calculations. The year 100 BCE, before current era, occurred approximately 2100 years ago. I often prefer to work in “years ago”, because it equalizes the numbers, meaning you’re less likely to get confused about how long ago someone lived or something happened.

To do the calculations from BCE dates to “years ago,” add 2000, so 2250 BCE equals 4250 years ago.

For CE dates, subtract from 2000. The date 500 CE occurred 1500 years ago.

This can be especially confusing when you’re dealing with the same number on either side of the current era, which began in the year 1. There is no year zero. For example, we need to be vigilant not to confuse 500 BCE, which was 2500 years ago, and 500 CE, which was 1500 years ago.

Now, on to our second concept.

Haplogroup Age and Burial Age Are Not the Same

When viewing Ancient Connections, the genetic age of the haplogroup, meaning when it was formed, and age of the burial are two different things.

Haplogroup R-ZP18 is about 4250 years old, and this Late Iron Age, pre-Roman burial which is also R-ZP18, occurred about between 2337 and 2043 years ago.

Haplogroup ages and the date they emerged, which show on the Timeline, sometimes mature and are refined with additional testers and branching.

Burials are dated using various techniques, and sometimes the ages provided in the academic papers are earlier than the genetic age of the haplogroup, shown on the Timeline at the bottom of the Connections page.

Discover makes no attempt to “fix” this situation, because it’s unclear which age should be changed. It’s not unusual to be unable to fully analyze ancient remains. For example, let’s say a sample is determined to have the SNP for R-ZP18, but simultaneously lacks downstream SNPs and some upstream SNPs, and the burial was dated from surrounding soil or artifacts. In that case, it would be impossible to know what is precisely “accurate”, but the sample is accurate enough to be included in Ancient Connections. This is also why some samples aren’t included in Globetrekker™ calculations. Some low-quality samples are excluded entirely.

Every ancient sample is individually analyzed by R&D team members before being included in the phylogenetic tree and Ancient Connections. Sometimes, the scientists at FamilyTreeDNA can assign a more specific haplogroup than was available to the paper authors at the time of publication because the tree has since branched.

As you receive new Ancient Connections, your older ones, except your final or oldest connection, will roll off of your list.

That’s one reason I devised a process for analyzing and recording my Ancient Connections, and for determining which ones might be actual ancestors – or at least aren’t precluded from it.

First Peek at Ancient Connections

Sign in to your FamilyTreeDNA account and click on the Discover link on the dashboard for the type of test you wish to view.

In the Y-DNA example, I’m using my male Estes cousins. As a female, I can’t test for the Estes Y chromosome, so I recruited others to represent my line. You can see the results in the Estes DNA project.

After signing in, click on Discover, then on Ancient Connections.

Y-DNA Ancient Connections 

It’s a bonanza!

Your Ancient Connections are displayed at the top of the page, ordered from genetically closest to most distant. These are archaeological samples whose data has been extracted from academic papers and analyzed before being include in Discover.

You’ll see a description of the first sample, or any sample you click on. The Timeline for that sample, along with your haplogroup and your common ancestor’s haplogroup, is displayed at the bottom of the page.

The first, meaning closest, Ancient Connection is highlighted, so let’s take a look.

  • “You” are shown in the dark purple frame (with purple arrows) at right, with your haplogroup, in this case R-ZS3700, which is placed on the Timeline at the bottom of the page in the appropriate location.
  • The Ancient Connection named “North Berwick 16499”, whose name was taken from the academic paper in which it was found, is shown in a red frame and placed on the timeline based on information provided in the paper.

“North Berwick” has been assigned to haplogroup R-ZP18, either in the paper, or by the FamilyTreeDNA R&D team if a more refined haplogroup can be determined, and is this tester’s closest Ancient Connection based on its position on the list.

Note that you may have other Ancient Connections who are genetically equivalent in age, meaning they too would be R-ZP18. In our case, only one sample is assigned to that haplogroup.

  • Your Shared Ancestor, in the green frame, is the first man who carried R-ZP18, which emerged about 2250 BCE, or 4250 years ago.

Notice that I said, “the first man.” That man’s sons, grandsons and so forth were also haplogroup R-ZP18. Some went on to develop new downstream haplogroups, but apparently, North Berwick, by the time he lived, had not. Either that, or a downstream haplogroup cannot yet be determined due to a lack of other testers in that lineage.

Men with downstream SNPs (mutations), meaning downstream haplogroups, also descended from R-ZP18. Those SNP mutations become downstream haplogroups when two or more men who carry the same SNP mutation match each other. For example, our Estes ancestor who carries haplogroup R-ZS3700 descends from R-ZP18 through a distinct series of downstream SNPs (mutations). While we carry R-ZP18 in our lineage, it’s not our most refined haplogroup.

However, for North Berwick, haplogroup R-ZP18 is his most refined haplogroup.

Because of this, we know for sure that North Berwick and the Estes men both descend from the original R-ZP18 man who lived about 4250 years ago, but we can’t tell when they shared a common ancestor between 4250 years ago and 3750 years ago when the next downstream haplogroup R-BY342, was formed in the Estes lineage.

Because North Berwick does not belong to a different downstream haplogroup, it’s genetically possible that the Estes men could descend from him during that 500-year timeframe. There’s nothing to exclude that possibility based on his haplogroup alone, but looking at when North Berwick lived is another matter.

North Berwick lived between 2337 and 2043 years ago, which is 1400 years LATER than when the first downstream haplogroup, R-BY342 was formed, about 3750 year ago, in the Estes lineage. This precludes North Berwick from being our direct ancestor. Instead, he’s our “haplocousin.” We share a common upstream ancestor.

What we absolutely CAN confirm, though, is that between 500 and 1300 years earlier than North Berwick lived, between when haplogroups R-BY342 and R-ZP18 were formed, both North Berwick and our Estes ancestor descended from the same man.

This kind of information is like waving a red flag in a genealogist’s face. We immediately need to know more.

This is just the beginning, and we have so many questions!

Revealing More Information

Did our common ancestor live in or near North Berwick, or someplace else? What do we know about the history of North Berwick?

What can we discern about North Berwick?

  • When did this man live, and where?
  • What do we know about him?
  • Who was he?
  • Did he live close to where my earliest known ancestor in this line is found?
  • What can I tell about his culture?
  • Were there grave goods that provide at least a peek into his life?

So many questions!

Discover tells us that he lived between 337 and 43 BCE, so between 2337 and 2043 years ago, during the Late Iron Age, and is associated with the Iron Age Britain cultural group.

The Ancient Connections “Reference” provides information about the paper where the North Berwick sample was found. No links are provided because sometimes the paper is behind a paywall, and you can’t access it without paying, and sometimes it’s a preprint and will appear later elsewhere. Sometimes one paper actually uses data from an earlier paper, and it gets complicated.

The first thing I do is Google the paper – Patterson et al. 2022. Google provides two links – one that’s free, and one that isn’t. Many times, the sample data is found in the supplementary material, which may also be behind a paywall, even if the paper isn’t.

I know you’re going to think it’s a pain, but I strongly encourage you to read every paper, though sometimes they can be challenging to understand, so read them when you’re fresh, not tired, and can concentrate. If nothing else, at least read the abstract. There’s so much great information buried in academic papers, including nice maps and discussions of the burial site. You can also learn more sometimes by Googling the burial site itself.

Let me give you an example from this paper’s abstract. I’ve added the brackets [ ] for clarity, from the body of the paper:

Between 1000 and 875 BC[E], EEF [Early European Farmer] ancestry increased in southern Britain [England and Wales] but not northern Britain [Scotland] due to incorporation of migrants who arrived at this time and over previous centuries, and who were genetically most similar to ancient individuals from France. These migrants contributed about half the ancestry of people of England and Wales from the Iron Age, thereby creating a plausible vector for the spread of early Celtic languages into Britain.

How does this information align with our North Berwick man? He lived between 2337 and 2043 years ago, and the EEF ancestry increased in southern Britain between 3000 and 2875 years ago. The authors do add “over previous centuries” which probably accounts for the 500-year gap and gets closer to when R-ZP18 lived. North Berwick is found in Scotland, not England or Wales, so not part of the group of people most closely aligned with the ancient French migrants from this timeframe. Maps in the paper confirm this as well.

Googling the paper and sample name provided additional sourced information. This paper incorporates samples from earlier papers and performed a different type of analysis.

Ironically, I wrote about this in detail in 2022, here, before Discover was introduced, so I had absolutely no idea that North Berwick 16499, discovered on Law Road in North Berwick, was related to my ancestors, and therefore, to me.

In that article, I researched and mapped the samples. North Berwick 16499 is located on the coast, along the harbour, not far from Edinburgh.

The burial was excavated in the cemetery of the original St. Andrew’s Church in North Berwick, originally built in the 1100s, but now in ruins.

This paper’s supplementary material explains that:

Excavation of a substantial square cist at Law Road, North Berwick, uncovered the remains of four inhumations of Late Iron Age date (Richardson et al. 2005). Two adult males 3603 (Skeletons C46 and C51) and a female around 16–18 years of age at death (Skeleton C50) appeared to have been displaced for the burial of an adult female (Skeleton C47), wearing an iron brooch. One of the males (C46) had been buried with a bone-handled iron knife.

What I wouldn’t give to see that iron brooch and bone-handled knife.

C51 is North Berwick 16499, “our” skeleton. A cist grave is a small, stone-lined burial box, and this one was preserved beneath medieval deposits.

That reference gave the even more precise location of Law Road and St. Andrews Street and informs us that the remains are held by National Museums Scotland. Checking their collections confirms that they hold these items, plus the bones. However, there are no photos shown. Contacting them for images might yield results.

What the paper did not say is that little was known prior to these excavations about early North Berwick.

By Stefan Schäfer, Lich – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=19450589

North Berwick was known to exist as a ferry landing from the 7th century, but an archaeological survey of Berwick Law, a hill that overlooks the town, revealed much earlier information:

The earliest features on North Berwick Law comprise a pair of newly discovered cup-marked rocks and the scanty remains of a prehistoric hilltop fort discovered by RCAHMS (1957, xv), whose outworks appear to be more limited than suggested by previous authorities (Feachem 1963, 119; OS 1975). The lower SW flank of the Law is dotted with the remains of a prehistoric settlement comprising at least 12 hut circles or house platforms and fragments of an associated field system of small cairns and banks.

Unfortunately, the perimeters of Berwick Law have been settled and farmed since, and the hilltop has served recently in the same capacity as it probably served initially – as a lookout across the firth. The residents would have been watching from this highest point for invaders arriving by sea.

It’s about half a mile from the foot of the hill to the burial cist.

The survey also mentioned that they found “stray bronze age finds” that had likely been disrupted by subsequent settlement. The bronze age in Northern Scotland began about 4200 years ago, about the time that R-ZP18 lived, until about 2800 years ago. Whoever North Berwick 16499 was, the man who was buried here some 2400 years ago, he was probably associated with this hilltop fort, perhaps farming at the base, probably living in one of those huts or nearby. His body wouldn’t have been taken far for burial.

We are left to wonder how long his family had lived here, and how they had arrived. Was his cist burial a sign of status? Was he sent to commend the fort, or had his family settled here centuries earlier? Did our ancestor descend from this location, too?

After our analysis, we know that our ancestor did not descend from North Berwick 16499 himself, but North Berwick definitely descended from our ancestor.

If you’re thinking this is a rabbit hole, it definitely is – but what a rabbit hole! There is so much to be gleaned from these Connections.

The Evaluation Process

I needed a process to keep track of these Ancient Connections, my findings, and how they relate to my Estes ancestors. Who begat, or might have begat whom, and where?

I created a spreadsheet as I read and analyzed each Ancient Connection relative to my ancestral line. I include what I know about it, and what I THINK I know about it. Those can be two vastly different things. I follow this same process for every ancestral line where I can find a representative Y-DNA or mitochondrial DNA tester.

For example, there’s a persistent rumor that the Estes family line descends from the d’Este family of Italy. That rumor was spun up long before we had genetic proof that our line was found in Kent, England, in records dating back to about 1495. Fortunately, church records, for the most part, and some civil records still exist.

The first known record is the will of our Nycholas Ewstas written on January 1, 1533/1534 in Deal, Kent, England. We confirmed that this is our Estes line by testing the Y-DNA of his descendant who still lives a few miles up the road, compared with the descendants of Abraham Estes (1647-1720), the man who immigrated to Virginia in 1673. We believed that Abraham Estes, who married in 1672, then immigrated 14 months later, was one and the same person.

Based on the details of the d’Este rumor, the Estes line was supposed to descend from one Francesco d’Este (Esteuse), an illegitimate royal son, exiled to France about 1471 after the death of his father, Azzo VI of Este, by a jealous half-brother, complete with a royal allowance. There are mentions of him in the Dutch and French courts, then nothing. Silence.

Apparently, various Estes lines in England liked the idea that he crossed the English Channel and settled in the fishing village of Deal, with his descendants carrying the surname Estes, a derivative of d’Este. King James apparently believed there was a connection and made that suggestion himself in one instance, although it’s unclear if that Estes man was from our Estes line.

It’s difficult to prove a negative, so we need to rely on the evidence we do have, much of which has been discovered and accumulated in more recent years, since the genesis of that rumor which was widely believed.

To begin with, it makes no sense that between 1471 and 1495, the family suddenly went from being a wealthy exiled royal circulating at court in France and the Netherlands, to peasant fishermen on the coast across the channel.

There is a legitimate royal lineage that does descend from the d’Este family in Italy, but until and unless someone who is a descendant of the direct male line of the House of Hanover, which reaches back to the Azzo line of Ferrara, takes the Y-DNA test, there’s no proof positive. Either their Y-DNA would match the Estes line, or not. I’d wager that it does not, but I’d love to find out for sure.

I’m hopeful that some nugget in Ancient Connections might add weight to either side of the argument.

Creating a Spreadsheet

First, I’ll show you the Ancient Connections spreadsheet built for the Estes line, then I’ll demonstrate how to build it.

Here’s the finished spreadsheet. Every haplogroup’s spreadsheet will be different.

I placed the four confirmed Estes haplogroups at the bottom because that’s the base from which the Ancient Connections are built, beginning with the closest Connection first.

“My” haplogroup, meaning for my ancestor’s Estes male line, is R-ZS3700, but there’s one additional downstream haplogroup, which I’ve included for completeness.

Let me alert you now that you WILL receive new Ancient Connections, which means that for every new Connection you receive, one more distant Connection rolls off the end because it’s outside of your 30 genetically closest Connections threshold. I’ve received new Ancient Connections in the past three months, between the time I originally began gathering this information and when I published this article.

The underlying message, in addition to maintaining your spreadsheet, is to set a calendar alert to check your Ancient Connections regularly. One rolled off that was more distant genetically, but was located only 10 miles away from where my Estes ancestors originated in Deal, England.

We’ll build the spreadsheet so you can easily expand it as new Connections are added.

Also, note that you may receive multiple matches from the same archaeological excavation site, which, of course, is highly suggestive of a family. If the multiple burials are in the same exact location and from roughly the same timeframe, I only record them on the spreadsheet once to reduce clutter, but I add a note that there are multiples.

The Build Process

Referencing the image above, haplogroups in the column directly above the originating haplogroup, R-BY154784, then R-ZS3700, colored apricot, are parent haplogroups – meaning that these haplogroups descend from the haplogroups above them. Look at R-ZP18, North Berwick, above R-BY482 as an example. This means two things.

  1. It’s possible that my ancestors could descend from these individuals in this column. However, all things considered, it’s more likely that they are a “cousin” of my ancestor who lived at that time and carried that haplogroup before a new mutation happened and branched into a new downstream haplogroup. That’s exactly what we proved about North Berwick based on when he lived and our downstream haplogroup formation date.
  2. Every man who shares that haplogroup, R-ZP18, absolutely DOES descend from the original man who carried that haplogroup-defining mutation that arose about 2250 BCE or about 4250 years ago. That one man in whom R-ZP18 occurred is noted above North Berwick, in red, indicating that both North Berwick and the Estes men descend from the man whose name is now R-ZP18.

On my spreadsheet, I’ve colored the cells of the haplogroups that I do descend from, and the burials I might descend from, apricot. The common haplogroups that burials and contemporary testers downstream descend from are in bold red text (R-ZP18 and R-DF49).

Burials who carry a different branching haplogroup, meaning they aren’t R-ZP18, but branch FROM from R-ZP18, are shown with their branches in blue. My ancestors cannot descend from blue haplogroups because we are on different branches of R-ZP18. Our branch is apricot.

Let’s add the next Ancient Connection.

Here’s the Time Tree Timeline of the second Ancient Connection, named Mount Pleasant 746, found at All Saints, Cambridgeshire, England, who lived between 940 and 1365 CE.

This shows two things.

  • My R-ZS3700 ancestor cannot descend from the Mount Pleasant burial, since R-ZS3700 doesn’t carry the mutation for R-BY173525, found in the Mount Pleasant burial.
  • However, since R-BY173525 branched from R-ZP18, we DO SHARE a common ancestor who lived about 4250 years ago. This means that between 4250 years ago and 940-1385 CE, the man found in Cambridgeshire, and my ancestor found in Kent around 1495 CE, both migrated in different directions from where their common ancestor, R-ZP18, lived, wherever that was.

The next closest Ancient Connection is Vor Frue Kirkegård 336, buried in the yard of a former monastic church in Vor Frue Kirkegård, Aalborg, Denmark, which dates from the 12th century. This man lived between 1536 and 1806 CE.

Again, my Estes ancestor who carries R-ZS3700 can’t descend directly from this man. Three things preclude Vor Frue Kirkegård 336 from being our ancestor:

  • The fact that Vor Frue Kirkegard 336 carries R-BY203953, but the Estes line does not.
  • Vor Frue Kirkegard 336 does not carry, R-BY342, the next downstream SNP for the Estes line.
  • Vor Frue Kirkegard 336 lived between 1536 and 1806 CE, which is contemporary with or after the earliest documented Estes ancestor was living in Kent, England circa 1495.

In this case, the locations are not in close proximity, over 500 miles apart by a combination of land and water. This distance would be less compelling as an elimination factor if the men were further separated by time.

In this case, any one of the first three pieces of evidence, alone, would preclude Vor Frue Kirkegard from being our ancestor.

Once again, R-ZS3700 shares the common ancestor of R-ZP18 with Vor Frue Kirkegård 336, along with Mount Pleasant 746 and North Berwick 16499. All of those men shared one common ancestor 4250 years ago.

Now, we have the bottom portion of our tree built out – meaning everyone who either carries haplogroup R-ZP18 as their primary haplogroup, or descends from that man.

Moving up the tree in the apricot column, you’ll notice that I’ve left spaces that leave room for the branching haplogroups in blue on the right. You won’t know how many spaces you need or the configuration until you start building the tree in your spreadsheet.

I listed both “5 haplogroups” and “3 haplogroups,” in the apricot column. You can spell those haplogroups out if you wish, but for my Ancient Connections, they didn’t matter. They may matter in the future, though, if you have an Ancient Connection who descends from or branches from one of them.

If you need an easy way to determine your ancestral lineage, the Ancestral Path is just the thing for you and will help build your spreadsheet.

Your Ancestral Path

It’s easy to view which haplogroups are in your direct ancestral line. Just click on the “Ancestral Path” link in Discover’s sidebar.

Your haplogroup is shown at the top, with the parent haplogroups in order beneath. I’ve boxed the “5 haplogroups” between R-BY482 and R-ZP18 here, and then the “3 haplogroups” between R-ZP18 and R-DF49, which is where we find the next closest Ancient Connections.

One bonus of the Ancestral Path display is that you can see how many Ancient Connections are in the database for each haplogroup, at far right.

As I continue to build out my spreadsheet, the next four burials are all R-DF49, a haplogroup that was formed about 4400 years ago. Three of those burials are in England, and the fourth is in the Orkney Islands. They are all apricot, meaning:

  • They don’t carry any downstream haplogroups
  • They all descend from R-DF49
  • Based on haplogroups alone, nothing precludes the Estes line from descending from any of those men

Evaluating each Ancient Connection in the same way we did for North Berwick, when they lived, as compared to our Estes men, and where, may eliminate some of these burials as possible direct ancestors.

The balance of the Ancient Connections descend from R-DF49 through different branches and are colored blue, removing them as possible ancestors of R-ZS3700.

Regardless, we all share an ancestor, R-DF49, about 4400 years ago, just shortly before R-ZP18 lived some 4250 years ago. It would make sense that R-DF49 and R-ZP18 lived in relatively close proximity, given that they only lived about 200 years apart.

What else can we learn about these Ancient Connections?

Migration Map

To view all of your Ancient Connections on a map, just click on “Migration Map” in Discover’s sidebar.

The haplogroup whose path you are viewing, in this case, R-DF13, is the red dot on the bar at the top and is shown on the map with a red circle, but is mostly obscured here by the blue and red circles with numbers in the British Isles.

That haplogroup’s migration map, and your Ancient Connections, are displayed together. Individual burials not in close proximity to others are shown with individual trowels, and multiple burials are shown with blue and red circles, with the number indicating how many burials are found at that location.

Expanding the map shows more detail. I placed a red star to indicate the Estes lineage in Deal, at the bottom right.

Many of the blue and red circles have expanded, too.

By clicking on the blue circle, you can see which samples are found there. In this case, these 7 matching samples were all found in the same archaeological dig.

By clicking on any sample, you’ll see additional information.

One of my original questions was whether or not there was any indication whatsoever, even a smidgen of possibility that the d’Este rumor might be true. Some Estes researchers are not convinced by other arguments.

Given that our closest Ancient Connection lived about 2000 years ago in the British Isles, as do most, but not all, of the other Ancient Connections, it’s exceptionally unlikely that the progenitor of the Estes lineage was living in Italy in the 1400s, just a generation before our Estes ancestors are found in the records in Deal, and some 2000 years after the parent haplogroups of R-ZS3700 were already well-established in the British Isles.

There’s another place to check for additional information.

Notable Connections

Sometimes Notable Connections includes people who are either “ancient” themselves, and whose haplogroups have been identified through their descendants, or are from burials, or a combination of both. The difference is that their identity is not entirely a mystery.

When evaluating Notable Connections for genealogy, focus on:

  • Their haplogroup
  • Your shared haplogroup
  • When and where they lived
  • Any precluding factors like we found when analyzing North Berwick

Notable Connections are all interesting, but only a few may be relevant to your genealogy or your ancestors’ journey to where you first found them.

Speaking of their journey, Globetrekker™ shows you the most likely path of your ancestor’s haplogroup over time.

Globetrekker™

Globetrekker™ is currently only available for Y-DNA, and only for those who have taken the Big Y test.

Clicking on Globetrekker™ through my cousin’s account shows the path of his haplogroup, through Europe, in this case, into England and, if I enable them, includes relevant Ancient Connections. One Ancient Connection, Mount Pleasant 746, at Cambridgeshire, is found on the estimated genetic haplogroup path.

We’ve already determined that the Estes line cannot descend from Mount Pleasant 746, but the locations of the descendants of our common ancestor, R-ZP18 can still provide substantial clues about where our common ancestor might have lived, and his culture.

I’ve also enabled Globetrekker™’s “Sibling Lines” which indicate haplogroup siblings with the thinner lines. These display options are easy to toggle on and off.

Note that this is an estimated genetic path. In other words, it’s not exact. Especially, paths of the newer haplogroups can and will change over time as more testers test, and earliest known ancestors (EKAs) are added. I wrote about how to add EKAs in the article, “Earliest Known Ancestors” at FamilyTreeDNA in 3 Easy Steps. Please add yours, along with their location.

Sometimes the most refined haplogroup did not emerge in England, R-ZS3700 in this case, but in America. However, since the descendants have noted their EKA correctly as originating in England, that’s where the most refined haplogroup is also shown.

Furthermore, other than for Native Americans who are indigenous to the Americas, Globetrekker™ and the Migration Map both stop at the originating land mass for both Y-DNA and mitochondrial DNA.

You can read more about Globetrekker™, here.

What About the d’Este Family Story?

Now, about that d’Este family story.

Globetrekker™ utilizes the “least cost” migration methodology, which means the easiest, least risky, route of passage from place to place for our ancestors. The Strait of Dover is the closest link to the European mainland, and was shallower at that time as well.

There’s absolutely no genetic evidence that points to Italy or anyplace south for the Estes ancestral line. In fact, haplogroup R-S552 emerged about 4650 years ago, and appeared about the time that this lineage crossed from continental Europe into what is today England. There’s no evidence that this line back-migrated to the continent, to then remigrate back to the British Isles after 1471.

Ancient Connections show us that there’s evidence of the Estes ancestral haplogroups in many locations across the British Isles, long before Frencesco d’Este was being exiled from Italy. Multiple Estes family members appear in the earliest records in the Deal area, so it’s certain that they were well established and probably fishing on those same shores hundreds, if not thousands, of years earlier, based on Ancient Connections these various migration maps.

These provide one more very large nail in the coffin of that much-loved but extremely unlikely family story.

The final piece of evidence would be if a proven male descendant of the d’Este line tested and did or didn’t match. I’m not holding my breath.

Mitochondrial DNA

The methodology for building your Ancient Connections spreadsheet is exactly the same for mitochondrial DNA, with one exception.

You immediately know that you cannot descend from any male burial, because men don’t pass their mitochondrial DNA on to their children of either sex. You could, however, potentially be descended from his mother, or sister, or cousin, etc. Otherwise, the guidelines are the same.

Sometimes, Ancient Connections can resolve long-standing conflicts.

The Conflict Surrounding Radegonde Lambert

For a very long time, it was believed that Radegonde Lambert, an early Acadian woman born around 1621, was Native American because there were no known people, other than her, with that surname in Acadia. Based on the birth years of her children, she married Jean Blanchard, a French man, around 1642.

It doesn’t help any that French soldiers arrived in 1632, family settlement began about 1636, but there are virtually no records until the 1671 census, nearly 40 years later. Lots of people perished during that 40 year window.

Radegonde could have married before her arrival in Acadia, and Lambert may not be spelled accurately. We are fortunate that French women are referenced by their birth surnames, not their married surnames, so she is listed as Radegonde Lambert, the wife of Jean Blanchard on the 1671, 1678 and 1686 censuses.

Based on the conflict swirling around her presumed Native American ancestry, plus early mitochondrial DNA HVR1/HVR2 results that pointed to haplogroup “X”, which has both Native American and European branches, Radegonde began to be reported as “DNA confirmed Native”. However, that was incorrect, and she was NOT DNA confirmed as Native. Haplogroup X2a and subclades are Native American, while other haplogroup X AND X2 subclades are European, as can be viewed in the Acadian AmerIndian DNA Project.

By the time full mitochondrial sequence testing became available, that incorrect “confirmation” was firmly entrenched in family trees and among researchers, leading me to pen the article, Haplogroup X2b4 is European, Not Native American.

While ho-hum with a yawn today, it was radical at the time and greeted with quite the kerfluffle. After all, Radegonde was proven Native and HOW DARE ME! 😊

Prior to Mitotree, Radegonde’s haplogroup was X2b4, but now it’s been extended to X2b4t2, which arose about the year 500, or around 1500 years ago.

X2b4 and subclades are quite rare, with only 353 descendants today, including subclades.

X2b4t2 only has 65 members.

Clicking on the “Other Countries” link takes you to the Country Frequency report.

Click on “Table View.”

Note that the 36 “Other Countries” includes people who have listed “Unknown Origin,” who are counted individually. People listing United States often mean they are brick walled here. Some people interpret this as Native American, but there is a separate United States Native American category. Not everyone selects the correct category.

These locations are user-reported in the Earliest Known Ancestor (EKA) information, which is critical for Discover reports. I wrote about how to complete that information in 3 easy steps, here. Please add yours, including location!

One person has reported that Radegonde Lambert is “United States Native American.” She’s not Native, and she never lived in the United States either. During her lifetime, Acadians lived in Nova Scotia, where three censuses accurately reflect her residence.  Perhaps that incorrect information was entered by someone years ago, and never changed. Most people don’t think to update their EKA information.

Unfortunately, when misinformation is provided, or not corrected after we learn more, new testers view that as nuggets of evidence, and the misinformation cycle continues.

One of the benefits of Ancient Connections is that they are NOT based on trees, historical records, or genealogy of any sort. Ancient Connections are based on archaeological digs, and the location of the excavation is not subject to question.

So, let’s take a quick look at Radegonde Lambert’s Ancient Connections and see what we find.

A Quick Sneak Preview

Because I’m interested primarily in a quick view of locations, I’m skipping right to the Migration Map where all of the Ancient Connections are shown.

Radegonde’s Ancient Connections are scattered all over Europe, but there’s absolutely nothing in the Americas.

Given that Native burial excavations are culturally frowned upon in many locations, we might not see any in the US, but we also wouldn’t see any recent burials in Europe, given that the Native people have been in the Americas for well over 10,000 years.

Generally, even when Ancient Connections are missing in the US, we still find some contemporary testers with proven genealogy who carry that haplogroup, and at least a few ancient burials in Canada, Mexico, Central and South America.

The first seven Ancient Connection matches carry haplogroup X2b4, and the rest are European subgroups of X2b4. There are no closer matches as of today, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be eventually.

X2b4 emerged sometime before 5200 years ago, clearly someplace in Europe, possibly central Europe.

Radegonde’s X2b4 match locations are:

  • Malá Ohrada site in Prague – the individual lived 5800-5400 years ago
  • Hetty Peglers Tump, Gloucestershire, England – lived 5639-5383 years ago
  • Sorsum, Hildesheim, Lower Saxony, Germany – lived 5350-5100 years ago
  • Passage Tomb, Carrowkeel, Cairn K, Sligo, Ireland – lived 5100-4600 years ago
  • Kolín I-7b, Bohemia, Czech Republic – lived 4835-4485 years ago
  • De Tuithoorn, Oostwoud, Netherlands – lived 4579-4421 years ago

It’s unquestionable that X2b4 was found across Europe, not in the Americas, 5000 years ago.

This image is NOT from Radegonde Lambert’s Ancient Connections. I’ve included it to illustrate a Native American branch of haplogroup X2.

The descendants of Native American haplogroup X2a, shown above, match Kennewick Man, who is also X2a, as their closest Ancient Connection. He lived between 9250 and 8390 years ago along the river in present-day Kennewick, Washington. Their second-closest Ancient Connection is with an X2a1 burial found in Windsor, Ontario, who lived between 1223 and 1384 CE.

Neither of these unquestionably Native burials are found in the Ancient Connections of Radegonde Lambert’s descendants.

It’s worth noting here that when evaluating rare haplogroups, their Ancient Connections may reach far back in time. For example, if a Native American haplogroup only has a few Ancient Connections within the Americas, the rest of their Ancient Connections, if any, will be found on another continent. Failing to read the results thoroughly and thoughtfully could lead to an inappropriate and incorrect conclusion.

For example, haplogroup X is found in Eurasia prior to the migrated of people across Beringia, the now-submerged landmass connecting Asia with Alaska, to become the indigenous people of the Americas. Therefore, if there are less than 30 closer X2a Ancient Connections, one would expect to find Ancient Connections reflecting that continental Asian, or even Eurasian, heritage far back in time.

Notable Connections

One final tip for both Y-DNA and mitochondrial DNA is to check Notable Connections and selectively add them to your spreadsheet, if appropriate. Sometimes you’ll find people there that are both Notable and Ancient.

Not that we need more evidence about whether Radegonde Lambert’s matrilineal ancestors were Native or European, but Notable Connections provides us with one more corroborating piece of evidence.

Cangrande della Scala was an Italian nobleman who lived around 1300. He and Radegonde share a haplogroup X2b1″79 ancestor in Europe around 9000 years ago, which was after the Native people had crossed Siberia and Beringia to begin settling Canada and the Americas.

If there was any question left about Radegonde Lambert’s origins, Ancient Connections resolved it, with a backup volley from Notable Connections.

Radegonde Lambert was my ancestor, so I’m going to build her Ancient Connections spreadsheet and savor every discovery, but if I were simply seeking confirmation of or the answer to the question of whether Radegonde Lambert was Native American or European, I need look no further.

Mitochondrial DNA Case Study

In the article, Mitochondrial DNA A-Z: A Step-by-Step Guide to Matches, Mitotree and mtDNA Discover, I wrote in detail about utilizing mitochondrial DNA to break through genealogy brick walls.

My goal was to detremine if Catherine LeJeune, Edmee LeJeune and Jeanne LeJeune dit Briard were sisters or at least matrilineal relatives. Fortunately, we had several testers.

As it turned out, Catherine and Edmee were European sisters, but Jeanne did not share a matrilineal ancestor with Catherine and Edmee. Jeanne was Native American.

Next, we wanted to discover as much information about the LeJeune sisters as possible.

I created an Ancient Connections spreadsheet for the LeJeune sisters and included those results in my analysis, so please take a look. Their Ancient Connections were unexpected and simply astounding.

You literally never know who is waiting for you, nor the message they hold, just waiting to be delivered.

Ancient Connections are clues from your ancestors.

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Sixteen Unique Trees at FamilyTreeDNA: How and When to Use Each

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I love all the various trees at FamilyTreeDNA – and I’m not referring just to traditional genealogy trees with people, names, and dates. I’m talking about phylogenetic or haplogroup trees – the ones you use to understand your Y-DNA and mitochondrial DNA haplogroups, origins – and more. These trees tell you ABOUT your ancestors, those people in the more traditional genealogy tree, and the combination of both is powerful.

This article introduces the various trees available at FamilyTreeDNA, when and where you’ll find them, and what they can do for you.

Haplogroup Trees

Phylogenetic, or haplogroup trees, provide a genetic path from you, or the tester, today, back in time to Y-Line Adam, or Mitochondrial Eve – the first two humans who lived AND have descendants today.

Let’s start by explaining about Y-DNA and mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), their inheritance path, and what they mean to you.

Y-DNA

Only men have a Y-chromosome, so only biological males can test their Y-DNA.

Y-Line Adam, Y-DNA haplogroup A-PR2921, lived about 232,000 BCE, or 234,000 years ago.

Is it possible that one day someone will test whose results push that date back somewhat? Yes, of course, as we are always learning, and many testers split branches.

Today, all 711,000+ modern descendants who have tested carry the mutation named A-PR2921 as their oldest SNP (single nucleotide polymorphism), or haplogroup-defining mutation in their Y-DNA. That’s because we all descend from that one man.

If you’re a male, Y-DNA testing tells you about your direct paternal line by matching with other men who have also taken a Y-DNA test, and by revealing valuable information from before the adoption of surnames. There’s no other way to reach that far back in time.

If you’re a female, you can recruit males in your family to test.

The Big Y-700 test provides the deepest-reaching and most refined Y-DNA test available, which is essential for both genealogy and tree-building.

Mitochondrial DNA

All people have mitochondrial DNA, inherited from their mother directly through her matrilineal line – meaning her mother, her mother, her mother, and so forth – directly up your tree through all mothers.

Everyone inherits their mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) from their mother, but only females pass it on. Both males and females in the current generation, meaning you, can (and should) test their mitochondrial DNA.

Mitochondrial Eve, mitochondrial DNA haplogroup L, lived about 141,000 BCE, or about 143,000 years ago. All 315,000 testers descend from this one woman.

Like with Y-Line Adam, one day the results of future testers may push this date further back in time. A full sequence mitochondrial DNA test, mtFull, is necessary to test all 16,569 mitochondrial locations.

Test Types

FamilyTreeDNA has been in business for more than 25 years. Technology has advanced dramatically during that time. While they continue to offer new tests and products, they strive to maintain value for their original testers.

Even though some early testers may have joined their ancestors, matching with their test results is still beneficial to us.

Present-day DNA testers can still derive value by matching the earlier, lower-level, lower-resolution tests. Not as much value as if the original tester had taken a higher-level test, but those tests may not have been available at that time.

Matches, surnames, genealogy, locations, and haplogroups provide us with valuable information. The more people who test, the larger the pool becomes, and the better our chances of discovering something that refines our understanding of our ancestors – and identifies who they are.

Before we look at the trees available, let’s take a look at where haplogroups come from. Different level tests assign different levels of haplogroups, based on how much is tested.

Let’s answer two common questions:

  1. Where can you find your haplogroup, and what does it mean?
  2. How can haplogroups be different for people who descend from the same ancestor?

Where Do Haplogroups Come From?

Since the beginning, FamilyTreeDNA has always provided their customers with haplogroup information. Haplogroups are very genealogically useful today, but initially, 25 years ago, they were only able to provide essentially continental-level origin information for your particular line. That too was useful, and helped to identify and eliminate common lineages – just not as useful as today.

Science and testing have both come a long way. Present-day testers still match with people who only tested at a lower level. You never know what you might find at that level – a match to someone who has not taken the current tests, but is still very relevant because they share your ancestor. In fact, they may be the only tester who does.

For Y-DNA testers, you’ll notice several match categories that reflect different testing levels – along with the number of matches at each level. At one time, you could purchase each one of these tests individually, then later upgrade to higher-level tests. Today, only the 37 and 111 marker tests, and the Big Y-700, which scans the entire gold-standard region of the Y chromosome, are available. Higher level tests include the lower-level tests.

Click any image to enlarge

Different types of tests provide either a predicted or a confirmed haplogroup which shows on your match list.

Without getting all sciency on you – the 12-111 marker tests test targeted STRs, or short tandem repeats, which can’t be used for haplogroup assignment and confirmation. They can and are used to compare to other testers for matching because the number of repeats, or stutters, are inherited on the Y chromosome. The Big Y test scans the Y chromosome for SNPs, single nucleotide polymorphisms, which are stable mutations that define haplogroups. I wrote about this in the article, STRs vs SNPs, Multiple DNA Personalities.

Some haplogroups are much further down the tree, or more current, than others. Your most current haplogroup, only available with the Big Y-700 test, is the best because it brings you the closest to current in time, often placing you within family branches. The Big Y-700 scans about 23 million locations on the Y chromosome, revealing both known and unknown mutations, not just a few markers, making it the most refined and relevant test genealogically.

Each higher-level test includes the lower-level tests. You can see what tests your matches have taken by looking beneath their names on your match list. In this case, these Estes men who match my cousin have taken the Family Finder (or uploaded an autosomal transfer), and taken the mtFull test. One match initially took the Big Y-500 but has since upgraded to the Big Y-700, and the other originally tested at the 111 marker level, and has since upgraded as well.

The Big Y-700 includes all lower-level tests, such as the Big Y-500 (now obsolete), the 111, 67, 37, 25, and 12 marker STR tests. You still match with people who only tested at those levels, plus everyone else who ordered a more refined test.

The haplogroup you receive is more or less refined, based on the test level you take.

Y-DNA Test Type Haplogroup Provided Relevance Upgradable
Y-DNA STR 12-111 marker tests (only 37 and 111 are available today – the rest are obsolete) Predicted based on STRs – very reliable at the level predicted Predicted (not confirmed) haplogroup that was generally formed a couple thousand years ago, or earlier Yes, if enough quality DNA remains. Only 37, 111, and the Big Y-700 tests are available today. Recommend the upgrade to Big Y-700.
Individual SNP test (now obsolete) Confirms a predicted haplogroup or tests a single SNP to confirm a closer haplogroup Relevant at the level tested – either positive or negative result was reported Individual SNP tests have now been replaced by Big Y-700, which covers all individual SNPs that were available to test, plus much more.
Big Y-500 test (now obsolete) Confirmed haplogroup within range of that test’s ability, replaced by much more granular Big Y-700 Big Y-700 is more refined and moves the tester towards more current haplogroups, so more genealogically significant Yes, upgrade to Big Y-700 if enough DNA remains, or tester can re-swab
Big Y-700 – scans the entire gold-standard region of the Y chromosome – approximately 23 million base pairs Top-of-the-line SNP-confirmed test, most granular and refined. Scans for known and previously unknown mutations. Extremely accurate. Generally advances the tester into a genealogical timeframe, and often divides testers into multiple lineages descended from a known common ancestor No more advanced test is available.
Family Finder autosomal test or transfer Confirmed to mid-range level if possible. Not all transfer files have Y-DNA or mtDNA SNPs so you get what you get. Useful in autosomal matching for locating people you may be related to you with that surname. Ask the match if they are willing to take a Y-DNA test, if relevant, or sponsor a testing scholarship for them.

Family Finder haplogroups are relatively new at FamilyTreeDNA. Each chip level that FamilyTreeDNA has used for testing over the years, and the chips that other vendors have used, contain different SNPs (or none at all on the Ancestry test) that can be measured for some level of haplogroup. Other vendors generally don’t quality-control for either Y-DNA or mtDNA SNPs because they don’t use them. This is a “you get what you get” freebie.

That said, most Family Finder haplogroups are closer in time, or “better” than the predicted R-M269, the most common haplogroup in Europe, often reported with STR testing.

Not everyone with a transfer kit receives a haplogroup. Due to quality and reliability issues, you cannot see haplogroups on your autosomal match list for those who only have a haplogroup through an autosomal transfer.

Using our male Estes testers as an example, we find the following haplogroup results at the various testing levels:

Haplogroup Haplogroup Formation Date Ancestor or Haplogroup Formation Location Haplogroup Source
R-M269 4450 BCE (6450 years ago) Between Ukraine and Kazakhstan, north of the Black and Caspian Seas Predicted from 12-111 STR marker tests
R-BY487 700 CE (1300 years ago) UK, Scotland/England Family Finder DNA SNP Confirmed
R-BY482 1550 CE Robert Eastye b 1555 Ringwould, Kent, England Big Y-700
R-BY490 1700 CE Silvester Eastye b 1596 Kent, England Big Y-700
R-ZS3700 1750 CE Moses Estes 1711 VA Big Y-700
R-BY154784 1850 CE Joseph Estes b c 1790 VA or TN Big Y-700

All of these are valid and accurate haplogroups – some are just closer in time and much more useful than others. All of these men have R-M269, because it is a parent haplogroup of all of those downstream haplogroups. The Big-Y tested men beginning with R-BY482 don’t share the haplogroups below them, because they don’t have those mutations that are downstream on the tree. However, the men at the bottom with R-BY154784 have all of the SNPs above them.

Note that all haplogroup formation dates are ranges. I’m showing the midpoint here.

When upgrading, if the original tester is deceased, select the highest-level test available, as there may not be enough DNA to run more than one test. When I offer scholarships now, I always just offer the Big Y-700 test to avoid future issues.

If the tester you need is no longer available, consider the possibility that other people, family members perhaps, might be available to test to represent this same line.

Next, let’s look at mitochondrial test levels and haplogroups.

Mitochondrial DNA Test Type Haplogroup Provided Relevance Upgradable
HVR1 & HVR2 tests (no longer available) Predicted based on around 1000 markers – very reliable at the level predicted Predicted haplogroup, not confirmed, generally formed a couple thousand years ago or earlier Yes, if enough quality DNA remains. Only the mtFull test is available today.
mtFull, full sequence test Tests all 16,569 SNP locations in the entire mitochondria. Most granular and refined. Extremely accurate. Often brings tester into genealogical timeframe, especially with the new Mitotree. Divides testers into multiple haplotype lineages, sometimes descended from known common ancestor. No upgrade needed to receive new Mitotree and mtDNA Discover benefits.
Family Finder autosomal test or transfer Coming soon. Will be the same criteria and caveats as Y-DNA SNPs. May be able to find a similar or upstream haplogroup that might point to a common ancestor. Ask autosomal match if they are willing to take a mtFull test, if relevant, or sponsor a scholarship for them.

Ok, now that we understand more about haplogroups, how they are determined, and where yours came from, let’s look at all of the trees at FamilyTreeDNA.

Trees Within Your Y-DNA and Mitochondrial DNA Account

Let’s start with trees found within your personal account, so sign in.

Each tree has a different purpose and unique benefits.

Tree #1 – Your Matches Genealogy Trees

Each of your matches may have provided links to genealogical trees. They may show trees in multiple places too; at MyHeritage, an archived tree at FamilyTreeDNA, and a WikiTree link. I makes notes about their trees in the comments field, and I also keep a spreadsheet to look for commonalities.

Tree #2 – Haplogroups and SNPs for Y-DNA Testers

Next, for Y-DNA testers, click on the Y-DNA Results and Tools.

You’ll see the Haplotree & SNPs tile on the dashboard.

The Haplotree and SNPs link takes you to a phylogenetic tree that defaults to your haplogroup, where you can view:

  • Variants – SNP mutations that define your haplogroup
  • Surnames with this haplogroup – so long as there are multiple public testers
  • Countries – self-reported for earliest known ancestors (EKA)
  • Recommended Projects – haplogroup projects only – others such as surname projects are found in Discover under Suggested Projects

Tree #3 – The Block Tree for Big Y Testers

People who have taken the Big Y-700 test have a separate section that includes tools for the Big-Y test that aren’t relevant for the 12-111 STR marker tests.

Big Y testers will see the Block Tree tile on their dashboard.

The block tree is an alternative way of displaying matches on a phylogenetic tree. While the Discover Time Tree is viewed left to right, this tree is displayed top to bottom, with each mutation being represented by one grey bar on the scale at left. Each mutation corresponds to approximately 100 years, which is a rough average for the frequency of Y-chromosomal mutations.

People with 30 mutations or fewer are shown as matches, with the goal of reaching back about 1500 years.

Each large block shows the mutation for which the haplogroup is named, such as R-BY482, at the top. The mutations, known as variants, shown below that haplogroup name, are found in the results of each person in that haplogroup, but in the future, people without those mutations, or with additional mutations, will form a new branching haplogroup.

The green “Private Variants” at the bottom of the branches display the average number of mutations of people within that group awaiting another tester to have the same mutations, so a new branch can be formed. I view Private Mutations as “haplogroups in waiting.”

Discover

In addition to the haplogroup trees shown in your account at FamilyTreeDNA, there are several additional trees in Discover for both Y-DNA and mitochondrial DNA. Discover, updated weekly, is a suite of tools for both Y-DNA and mitochondrial DNA that, cumulatively, provides a book about your haplogroup results.

Discover comes in two flavors:

  • The publicly available free version with limited functionality
  • Your private version with expanded functionality available from within your account

You can access Discover, here if you’d like to follow along.

Discover is a publicly available free tool introduced in the fall of 2023 that provides more than a dozen reports, enabling a deeper understanding of all haplogroups.

Just select Y-DNA or mtDNA and enter your haplogroup of choice.

Think of these menu choices, in the sidebar, as chapters in your personal book. Every chapter has something interesting to tell you. Please read them – don’t just scan.

In addition to the free version, if you have taken a Big-Y or mitochondrial DNA full sequence test at FamilyTreeDNA, you’ll have additional information available.

For mitochondrial DNA results, just click on the pink Discover tile.

For Y-DNA results, click on the blue Discover tile.

Within Discover, you’ll find three distinct trees.

Trees #4 and #5 – Y-DNA and Mitochondrial DNA Time Trees

The Time Tree shows your Y-DNA or mitochondrial DNA haplogroup displayed on a timeline, along with:

  • A self-reported ancestral country indicator for every person’s DNA in that haplogroup
  • Haplotype groupings indicating exact matches between everyone in that haplotype.

A haplotype is a grouping of people whose DNA matches exactly, including unstable or hypervariable locations too unreliable to use for haplogroup formation. However, those mutations may be relevant for genealogical matching.

I wrote about haplogroups and haplotypes here and here.

Tree #6 and #7 – Y-DNA and Mitochondrial DNA Class Tree View

The Classic Tree is available for both Y-DNA and mitochondrial DNA.

On the Classic Mitotree View, you can display and filter the tree, including haplotypes, in seven ways, as shown in the dropdown “Display Options.”

Tree #8 and #9 – Y-DNA and Mitochondrial DNA Tree Branch Comparison

Have you ever seen two haplogroups and wondered how closely they are related? Compare provides that answer.

Here, I’m comparing my haplogroup to that of a family member. Everyone is related, but how long ago are we related on our matrilineal lines?

Haplogroup J1c2f compared with haplogroup V216a shows that our common ancestor lived a VERY long time ago – about 55,000 years in the past, someplace in the fertile crescent.

For either Y-DNA or mitochondrial DNA, you can compare two haplogroups. This provides specific information about those two branches of the tree, and where they intersect. To view more about the common ancestor, just pop R+10398 into Discover and learn more about when and where that ancestor lived.

Trees #10 and #11 – Match Time Trees

Match Time Trees are one of the most useful Discover features.

In addition to the Time Trees and Classic Trees provided for everyone in Discover, test takers will also have a Match Time Tree that shows all of your matches, organized genetically.

For mtFull testers, your matches are organized by haplotype cluster. People in your haplotype cluster are your exact matches.

I have over 100 full sequence matches, so I’m only showing the first few in this screenshot. In addition to the match’s name, their EKA (earliest known ancestor) is shown, if provided.

On the Y-DNA Match Time Tree, links are provided to genealogical trees of the tester, which could be an archived FamilyTreeDNA tree, a MyHeritage tree, WikiTree, or some combination.

You can actually see your matches’ WikiTree tree on your Match Time Tree by enabling another feature.

Trees #12 and #13 – WikiTree Tree Integration

While you’re still on the Match Time Tree page for either Y-DNA or mitochondrial DNA, click on Display Options, above the Time Tree, and enable WikiTree Connections. Unfortunately, the default for this great feature is “off.”

I’ve enabled “Share Mode” at the top to obfuscate the names of the testers, and I’ve adjusted the vertical spacing so you can see more in my examples. You’ll notice the grey lines with dots inside circles. I think of these as beads or maybe knots on a rope, but they actually represent a line of ancestors.

Each tester with one of those grey dot bars has connected themselves to their ancestors at WikiTree, a public one-world tree. Living people are not shown, hence the dash marks to the immediate left of the tester’s name.

By mousing over any of the dots, aka ancestors, you can view information about this ancestor of this Estes tester at WikiTree. Ancestors appear in genealogical order in their relevant place on the Time Tree. How cool is that!!!

WikiTree, like any tree, public or private, can have errors. Always verify any tree using original source documents.

As far as I’m concerned, the Match Time Tree is one of the very best features of both Y-DNA and mitochondrial DNA testing and matching. There are so many options to select from, so take some time to look around.

Your Personal Version of Discover is Best

Y-DNA Discover and mtDNA Discover can both be useful for any level of haplogroup, but the best results are obtained when clicking through from the tester’s FamilyTreeDNA account. Big Y and full sequence mitochondrial DNA customers receive additional information, not available in the free, public version of Discover, including

  • The Match Time Tree
    • Including WikiTree integration
  • Globetrekker™ (Y-DNA, mtDNA coming eventually)
  • Up to 30 Ancient Connections, as compared to 3 in the free version
  • Up to 30 Notable Connections, as compared to 3 in the free version

 

Tree #14 – Group Time Trees

I absolutely love Group Time Trees. They are similar to Match Time Trees, but unlike Match Time Trees, are publicly viewable for Group Projects if the volunteer project administrators have enabled this feature for the project.

There are two ways to access Group Time Trees – through publicly accessible Discover or directly through any project.

In Discover, select Group Project in the dropdown.

Then type the name of the surname project you’re seeking. You’ll be presented with a menu if the surname you’ve entered is found in multiple projects, or administrators have listed it as “of interest” in their project.

I clicked on the Estes project.

Viewing the Estes DNA Project, under DNA Results, you can see the various options.

Selecting Y-DNA Results Overview displays the project results by administrator-defined group. The teal groups all descend through Abraham Estes through various sons.

However, by clicking the Group Time Tree instead, you can view all these testers and their results in a Match Time Tree format, arranged genetically.

Clicking on the Group Time Tree link takes you to the Group Time Tree for this project. A menu is displayed at left, based on how the administrator has grouped the project.

I’ve selected several groups that I know descend from the original Estes ancestor from Kent, England. Testers who have joined the Estes project and granted permission for their results to be displayed publicly are automatically grouped genetically, at right, with their surname and EKA (earliest known ancestor), assuming they have entered that information.

Earliest Known Ancestors (EKA)

You’ve probably noticed that earliest known ancestors, along with their locations, are used in many places.

Please enter both your direct paternal (father, father, to father’s line) and direct matrilineal (mother, mother, to mother’s line) earliest known ancestors, along with their locations. I wrote about how to do that in “Earliest Known Ancestors” at FamilyTreeDNA in 3 Easy Steps, here.

Trees #15 and #16 – Public Trees

In addition to trees within testers’ accounts, Discover trees, Group Time Trees, and WikiTree tree integration, FamilyTreeDNA provides two additional public trees.

FamilyTreeDNA made the Y-DNA and mitochondrial DNA haplogroup trees freely available years ago, at the bottom of their main company public page – without signing in.

These trees are still actively maintained today and are free for everyone to use.

To find these trees, scroll all the way to the very bottom of the page, in the footer, to the Community section. Yes, I know, it’s a bit like a scavenger hunt!

You can select to view either the Y-DNA or mtDNA tree. I love this tree, because it shows how many SNP-confirmed people have been tested. That number does not include the thousands of academic and public samples that may be utilized to help define haplogroups, and that you’ll sometimes see in your Ancient and Notable Connections.

So, if you receive a new haplogroup, but you don’t see a new match on your list or on the Block Tree, it’s probably because you match a high-quality academic sample.

The trees display from the root, meaning the oldest haplogroup is shown at the top. In the Y-DNA tree, above, haplogroup A-PR2921 is “Y-Adam”.

You can select any haplogroup on the bar across the top, search by country, or select a specific branch name to view.

The tree itself is viewable by country, as shown above, or by variant, meaning the haplogroup-defining mutations, shown below.

Additionally, for the Y-DNA tree, you can choose to display by surname, so long as there are two or more testers with that identically spelled surname who share this haplogroup and who have given permission for public display.

Please note that these people are all SNP-tested and confirmed at the level reported, but they are NOT all Big-Y testers.

This feature alone can be genealogy-changing because they may be surnames associated with your ancestors in records, or they may just be neighbors. Or maybe you thought they were “just neighbors,” but they are actually related.

At one time, customers could order an individual SNP test for R-M269 to confirm their predicted haplogroup. That test is no longer available, but anyone who took that test to confirm R-M269 and never tested or received results (like Family Finder) at a more granular level will be reported at R-M269. Note that 687 is the number of distinct surnames shown, not the total number of testers.

The three “hamburger dots” on the right side provide options for a user-reported Country Report based on the location of their earliest known ancestor, and a Surname Report. The surname report for R-M269 shows a total of 2448 testers who share those 687 surnames.

It’s a Whole Forest

Who knew there were 16 unique trees available at FamilyTreeDNA!

Each tree has a unique purpose and provides information not available elsewhere.

Take a look and see what kind of information is waiting for you – and don’t forget to check back often.

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The New FamilyTreeDNA NGS Family Finder Test

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Click on any image to enlarge

Recently, in a press release, FamilyTreeDNA announced a new version of their Family Finder autosomal test that increases coverage from about .02% to about 9% of the human genome. Increasing coverage to this level using precision genomics holds great promise for the future.

Everyone who has purchased a Family Finder test since the beginning of March is automatically tested using the new technology – and it doesn’t cost any more than the earlier test.

Image not to scale because if it was, you would be able to see the bottom line at all:) This is meant to convey the message of more data!

As shown in this slide presented by Dave Vance, Senior VP and General Manager at FamilyTreeDNA, the new test covers 400 times more DNA locations than the industry-standard microarray chip-based test.

The typical vendor microarray autosomal DNA test covers somewhere between 400,000 and 750,000 locations.

Utilizing this new technology is an investment in the future.

You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know

To quote Dave:

Two numbers I want you to remember.

0.02 is the percent of your whole genome reported by standard autosomal tests today. All of your ancestry estimates, shared segments, and autosomal matches come from that small fraction.

9 is the percent of your genome that our new Family Finder test reports at high quality coverage. Starting right now — that’s over 400 times more data, from the very same test.

And the real point isn’t the number. It’s what that data makes possible. This gives us the foundation to unlock deeper, more meaningful insights — not just today, but for years to come. And when it becomes possible to go even further, I want FamilyTreeDNA to lead the way.

But what does that 9% mean for your genealogy research?

It means fewer unexplained matches, a clearer understanding of how people are related, and more confidence in the conclusions you draw from your autosomal DNA. Moving from connections to explanations, and from data to answers.

And until we can start rolling out those deeper insights, for now you’ll still get the same trusted Family Finder experience you’re used to — but you’ll also have the benefit of data that’s ready to unlock even more as new insights become possible.

In fact, you can watch Dave for yourself, at RootsTech, on the mainstage, here, having the unenviable position of following the Irish-step-dancing Gardiner Brothers. Yea, Dave, I didn’t get that gene either!

What makes NGS sequencing so special?

Sequencing Types

NGS is the abbreviation for Next Generation Sequencing, also called massive parallel sequencing. Rather than using individual probes, NGS is a high-throughput technology that simultaneously sequences millions of DNA fragments while still allowing targeting of specific regions.

Dave wrote about the differences between different types of sequencing, here.

All vendors select or target locations in the human genome that are most relevant for their product set, purpose or goals.

The older microarray sequencing machines have been in use for many years. They use probes to read specific targeted addresses, one by one, identifying which of four nucleotides is present at each location on your two copies of each chromosome.

The four nucleotides, adenine (A), thymine (T), cytosine (C), and guanine (G) are the building blocks of DNA, and you receive one from each parent at every location on chromosomes 1-22. Chromosome 23, the sex selection chromosome is a little bit different due to X-DNA and Y-DNA, but the locations are still read the same way using NGS technology.

The results of DNA testing are essentially a downloadable output file with the following information for each read:

  • The RSID SNP cluster ID chromosome
  • The chromosome number
  • The position (think street address) on the chromosome
  • The results, which are the abbreviations for the nucleotide found on the first and second strands of your DNA at that location

In autosomal DNA testing, positions on strands cannot inherently be identified as maternal or paternal without additional techniques such as parental comparison or phasing.

This data file is not meant for you to analyze, but for computers to compare to other DNA testers. Needless to say, the power of the data lies in the information it holds, such as ethnicity, haplogroup-identifying mutations, and matching with other testers.

The output files must be compatible with each other, or the vendors must make accommodations for any incompatibility.

Regardless of the sequencing type, currently, all genetic genealogy vendors’ download files use this same pattern.

The difference between the files and file types from each vendor is:

  • The technology used for the test
  • How much DNA is tested
  • How many rows of data are provided in the download file
  • The quality of the results

Sequencing Type Differences

Let’s put this in terms that we all understand.

With microarray sequencing, a utility worker is sent to each address to read the two nucleotides.

With both NGS and whole-genome sequencing, many addresses are read at the same time. Think of a fleet of drones flying over a neighborhood and reading what is written on the rooftops of each house address.

The difference between the type of NGS sequencing utilized by FamilyTreeDNA, and whole-genome sequencing is threefold:

  1. NGS targets specific addresses and neighborhoods in a controlled manner, because we know they are useful and are specifically interested in the data at those locations. In other words, it omits oceans, deserts, and other places that we know aren’t useful for genealogy.
  2. Whole-genome sequencing covers the majority of the genome, even though more than 90% of the genome is identical in all humans. In other words, the fleet of whole-genome sequencing drones flies over everything, including oceans and deserts, reading and storing everything.
  3. The number of times the drones fly over each address.

For example, a low-pass whole-genome test would fly over the entire world (your genome), scanning it once or twice, but there will be cloud cover and weather in some locations. Typically, you want at least two complete reads from each address to compare to ensure a minimum level of quality. The missed areas need to be estimated with tools like imputation to fill in the blanks.

The breadth of DNA covered is known as “coverage”, or “pass coverage”. So, whole-genome testing covers all or most of the genome, including more than 90% that is not genealogically relevant because it’s identical in all humans.

With NGS sequencing, you specify which locations or neighborhoods you want the drones to read, and you instruct them to fly over just those regions, say, 5 or 10 times. Even if there’s weather or another issue, chances are that at least some of those passes will be able to read both nucleotides.

How many times a particular location, or base, is read is known as “read depth” or “sequencing depth”. The greater the depth, the higher the quality and accuracy of the targeted locations, which means less imputation or “fixing” is needed.

Within the industry, confidence to coverage correlation is about 93% confidence of accuracy for both alleles at a given location at a depth of 5X, which rises to about 99% accuracy at a depth of 10X.

Using our examples, whole-genome sequencing covers about 98% of the genome, at a depth specified by the vendor. Low-pass whole-genome testing is typically performed at a depth of 2X, meaning each location is scanned twice.

NGS combines the best aspects of both “drone style” and “targeted” reads, providing the highest accuracy for the areas that are most important for genetic genealogy at an affordable price, while also targeting enough of the human genome to allow for new discoveries that may be important to either population genetics for ethnicity identification, or to identify your own family lineage mutations.

Yes, you can get both high coverage and very deep reads. That’s called medical-grade whole-genome sequencing, where your entire genome is sequenced to a depth of at least 30X, but it’s both expensive and not useful for genealogy. None of the genealogy vendors are prepared to, or need to, process the massive amount of data generated by a medical-grade whole-genome test, so there is no benefit to taking that type of test for genealogical purposes.

Why is NGS Sequencing Important?

FamilyTreeDNA has moved from the 700,000+ SNPs previously read on their microarray chip, to more than 280 million base pairs. So, from about .02% to about 9% of the 3.1 billion base pairs of the human genome.

Technology has improved to the point where NGS sequencing is no more expensive than microarray sequencing and provides substantially more results.

In other words, there’s no reason NOT to implement this technology now. The new Family Finder test is fully compatible with their earlier Family Finder tests, so everything is painless.

Plus, NGS allows FamilyTreeDNA to target specific locations that benefit their customers, such as both Y-DNA and mitochondrial DNA SNPs. Of course, you’ll still need to take the Big Y-700 or the full sequence mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) test for full results and matching – but males will receive a confirmed Y-DNA mid-level haplogroup now, with midrange mtDNA haplogroups coming in the future for Family Finder testers. This is a feature that other vendors don’t target or provide at the same level.

I’m very hopeful that these foundation haplogroups will serve as an “appetizer” and will encourage more people to take both the Big Y-700 (males only) and the mtFull test (for everyone), as applicable, to receive those types of specific matches and learn more about their ancestors.

Speaking of the future, how do you future-proof your DNA?

Future-Proofing Your DNA

If you’ve already tested, should you purchase a new Family Finder test for yourself now?

No.

I know you didn’t expect that answer, but here’s why.

Everyone who purchases a Family Finder test, which uses NGS technology, receives the same matching and features as the legacy test.

FamilyTreeDNA doesn’t yet know the benefits and discoveries that will eventually be available, and they won’t know until after they have results of customers to work with.

Having said that, you will definitely want to future-proof your DNA and the results of anyone whose results you count on to help sort through your own.

So, let’s make a plan!

Assuring Future Compatibility

Plan 1 – Test Your Relatives:

Your closest relatives are your best assets. They help you determine how you match others, who you share ancestors with, and the identities of those ancestors. You absolutely need to test the following relatives if they are available:

  • Parents
  • Grandparents
  • Siblings, both full and half – test all of them if both parents aren’t available for testing.
  • If your sibling(s) are deceased or not available, their children carry half of their DNA, but not the same half, so test everyone available. You don’t need to test your siblings’ children if that sibling is available to test.
  • Aunts and uncles, or their descendants if they are not available
  • Great-aunts and uncles, or their descendants if they are not available
  • First and second cousins

Plan 2 – Person Has Never Tested:

Plan 3 – Already Tested at FamilyTreeDNA:

  • If they or you have already taken a Family Finder test at FamilyTreeDNA, an upgrade offer will be forthcoming soon. You don’t need to do anything now.
  • If the person is critical for your research, elderly, or there is some other reason for concern, the tester or kit manager can contact FamilyTreeDNA customer support now and inquire whether or not there is an unopened vial of DNA.
  • To assure that there is enough DNA left for the future, or that the DNA sample is not too old, you can request that a “C/D vial” set be sent to you/them just in case. Be sure the current address is valid.
  • This is also a good time to be sure that your/their Beneficiary Information and/or Kit Manager information is current as well. You’ll find both under Account Settings beside the name in the upper right corner of the page.

Plan 4 – Uploaded From Another Vendor:

  • If you uploaded your DNA file to FamilyTreeDNA from another vendor instead of testing there, hold your horses for now. You’ll clearly have to swab, because when you do an upload, only the data file is uploaded. No DNA is actually transferred or uploaded. I’m not sure what process will be put in place for transfer/uploaded testers, but FamilyTreeDNA will let you know when something is available.

What NOT to Do

I contacted FamilyTreeDNA and this is what they ask customers NOT to do:

  1. Don’t request that your current test be deleted so you can order a new one. This removes everything – linkages, trees, family matching, permissions, project membership, other tests, and notes. Not just for you, but for your matches who have done work on their match with you as well.
  2. Don’t order a second kit, which causes “twins” in the system. I don’t have inside knowledge, but I’ll bet there will be special upgrade pricing if you just wait a bit!

I’m Excited

I don’t know what the future holds, but I’m hoping for:

  • More granular ethnicity (we always want that, right?)
  • More confident matching
  • Improved relationship identification
  • Additional tools to identify descendants of specific ancestors
  • Tools to identify missing ancestors

As a contract member of the R&D team, I’ll let you know when my NGS results are back and how they compare to my matches on the current chip. You know I’m building that spreadsheet already!!

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RootsTech 2026 – The Wind Beneath Our Wings

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I started writing this article on Sunday evening, the day after RootsTech ended, and I’m basking in the afterglow. Also, my back and feet may never forgive me.

As a tongue-in-cheek comment, I think someone coined the word “exhausterwhelmulated” and defined it as being exhausted, overwhelmed, and overstimulated all at once. Yep, that’s me.

However, I need to add another couple of words to this – gratitude and joy.

Gratitude and Joy

I’m going to try to express this without sounding too sappy.

Do you recall the joy you used to feel when you spotted a relative you loved dearly but didn’t get to see often? Think of the unbridled joy as you piled out of your parents’ car and spotted your grandmother coming out of the door because she saw the car pull up. You ran as fast as your little legs could carry you directly into her arms, and got hugged so tightly it nearly squeezed the breath out of you.

I don’t know what the word for that would be, but it’s similar to how RootsTech feels.

Let me explain. Continue reading →

RootsTech 2026 Schedule: Online and In-Person Sessions Plus Book Signing – You’re Invited!

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RootsTech is right around the corner.

Like always, there’s so much energy swirling around RootsTech, whether you’re attending in person or virtually. I can hardly wait!

If you’re attending RootsTech in Salt Lake City, I hope we have the opportunity to connect. Please be sure to say hello.

I have a few DNAeXplain badge ribbons left, so be sure to ask me for one. When they are gone, they’re gone and will soon become a RootsTech collector’s item!.

Register

Be sure to register for the free online conference, here, if you aren’t attending in Salt Lake City. All of the in-person only sessions have a syllabus available, and many speakers include their slides. So be sure to check everything out, even sessions that are in-person only.

Join Relatives at RootsTech

Oh, and while you’re at it, sign up for Relatives at RootsTech, here, and see which of your cousins are attending either virtually or in-person. I’ve written several articles about how I utilize Relatives at RootsTech, here.

Roberta’s Schedule

Here’s my presentation, appearance and book-signing schedule.

“Monday’s with Myrt”, hosted by Pat Richley-Erickson (Myrt), a RootsTech tradition, is always broadcast from the FamilySearch Library in SLC on the Monday before RootsTech. Myrt live-streams interviews and discussions with lots of people you know. 

I’ll be discussing something completely out of the ordinary for me – with surprise visuals! Here’s the link. Come join us for the fun!

Thursday is a VERY Busy Day With Four Sessions

This recorded session is available for everyone at this link, beginning when RootsTech opens and throughout the conference. This session is sponsored by FamilyTreeDNA, which makes sense because they are the only vendor that offers X-DNA matching.

Show Floor

Two of my events will take place in booths on the show floor. The book-signing in in the GenealogyBank booth, at far right, and the MyHeritage session is right inside the main entrance where you can’t miss it!

You can purchase my books during the signing while supplies last. If you’ve previously purchased a book and would like it signed, you can bring the book, of course, or I will have some bookplates with me that I will gladly sign for you.

  • Thursday, March 5 – 2 PM Mountain Time (SLC), MyHeritage booth #900, Everything I Love About MyHeritage

Ok, so this session might not include quite EVERYTHING I love about MyHeritage. I’m going to begin in an unexpected place with an underutilized tool, Cousin Finder, and work my way through using the rest of the MyHeritage DNA (and supporting) tools successfully. Two fun case studies in my own family with an unexpected twist that every genealogist dreams about. MyHeritage makes it easy to jump the pond!

Mitochondrial DNA to Z is in-person only, so not recorded or livestreamed. Here’s the link which includes my slides. (You’re welcome!).

Friday Holds Two Great Sessions – Including One That’s Livestreamed

Y-DNA to Z is in-person only, so not recorded or livestreamed. Here’s the link which includes my slides. (You’re welcome!).

Mapping Maternal Connections, sponsored by FamilyTreeDNA, is available both in person and online. As a contract member of the R&D team, and as a genetic genealogist, I’m really excited to share the latest updates with you, as well as how I’m using the new MitoTree, matching and Discover to solve long-standing mysteries. Here’s the link, which includes a syllabus.

Just so you know, recordings of online sessions will be available after the event, so if you miss it, come back to view later.

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Share the Love!

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

Subscribe!

If you haven’t already subscribed, it’s free. You’ll receive an e-mail whenever I publish by clicking the “follow” button at the top of the main blog page, here.

Help Keep This Blog Free

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

Thank you so much.

DNA Purchases and Free Uploads

Genealogy Products and Services

My Books

Genealogy Books

Genealogy Research