Tag Archives: Basic Education

Enforced Bastardry in Colonial America – A DNA Monkey Wrench

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Sometimes when men Y DNA test, their results are returned with matches to different surnames, meaning surnames other than their own. In fact, it’s not unusual, but hopefully, they will also match several men who carry their own surname with the idea that those matches will help the tester further their genealogy by being able to connect to ancestors further back in time.

Best case, to identify the actual ancestor.

Worst case, to find hints to lead to their own ancestor through the matching DNA of others.

The Holy Grail

The Holy Grail, for many genealogists, is to find a Y DNA surname match overseas, in a small village, where the local church still has records. That’s what we did in both the Estes and Speak Y DNA projects. The DNA matches confirmed where those lines originated and the church and other traditional genealogical records confirmed we had discovered the origin location of the actual immigrant ancestor.

You can read one of several articles about the trip back to Lancashire for the Speak line here and to Kent for the Estes line here. DNA made confirming the connection between the American/New Zealand lines and the British lines possible.

However, for some, that overseas match never arrives. I’m here to tell you, 16 years and waiting on my Moore line and we still have only a few matches, and only from the brickwall ancestor in Virginia to current – nothing before and no matches with any other Moore line.

Patience may be a virtue, but it isn’t one of mine!

In some cases, like my Moore line, the surname in question only matches people downstream from the known ancestor.

Talk about frustrating.

Surname Matching Issues and Indentured Servitude

One of the reasons surname matching issues can occur, but that we seldom think of, is the situation in colonial American where indentured servants, those who sold away from 5 to 9 years of their life in exchange for for passage to America, were forbidden to marry.  Therefore, if a female became pregnant, she was forced to have the child outside of marriage – meaning the child took her surname.

If a male indentured servant impregnated someone, he too was forbidden to marry – so the child took the mother’s surname and life went on.

Based on the court notes from Richmond County, Virginia, beginning in 1692, and from Rappahannock County, before that, this was a lot more common that one would think.

Now, fast forward 300 years – the surname and the Y DNA don’t match. Better stated, the person carrying a particular surname today doesn’t match any or many people of the same surname.

Making matters worse, according to the records in North Farnham Parish, in Virginia, beginning in 1600s when the area was Old Rappahannock County and reaching through the 1800s when it was Richmond County, “bastard” children don’t appear in the baptismal records. Having said that, the records are known to be incomplete, even for children born to married parents, but given the number of illegitimate births, it’s difficult to believe that somehow all of those records just happen coincidentally to be missing.

Richmond County is lucky to have any church records. Many locations don’t.

So, if your ancestor was one of the illegitimate children born, there is:

  • Generally no record of their name in the court record.
  • No record of their name in the baptismal records.
  • Often no record of their father’s name.
  • No record of the gender of the child born to the mother.
  • Generally, no record of what happened to them.

If you’re lucky, a court record will exist where the mother was brought before the court and prosecuted for “the sin of fornication” and with having a “bastard child.” Generally, that’s not the kind of record a genealogist is looking for. They are looking for males with their specific surname in wills and deeds, not court cases involving female indentured servants bearing children out of wedlock.

As punishment, the woman’s indenture was extended, from a year in early cases, as seen in the examples below, to 5 years in a later case in Halifax County, Virginia.

Sometimes in these cases, the pregnancy causes the woman to fall into perpetual indentured servitude, as we can see in the Thatchill case.

The father? What happened to him?

Sometimes he had to pay a fee of tobacco to the church to assure that the church would not end up paying to raise the child – because an unwed mother was generally condemned to a life of misery and poverty – unable to support her child after her indenture was over.

Furthermore, many indentured servants didn’t survive. While working a slave to death was counterproductive, because the owner wanted the slave to live long and reproduce for the economic benefit to the owner, indentured servants only served for a number of years, so masters often worked these people relentlessly and maintained them in the poorest of conditions.

Enforced Bastardry

While researching my ancestors in Richmond County, Virginia, I stumbled across the three following cases of what I’m terming “enforced bastardry.” I find it somehow ironic that the very men, court and church that condemned these women for “fornicating” had arranged and condoned the very system that forced them to remain unmarried – in essence forcing them to bear those “bastard” children.

In the following cases, the word “master” does not denote a master/slave relationship in the sense of an African or Native American slave who was a slave for life. These were white European immigrant women who were indentured for a set period of time, to be freed after their indenture was served, assuming they survived, not permanently enslaved.

Permanent slaves never officially “married” within the law, and were not prosecuted for “fornication.” In fact, their owners wanted them to reproduce because children of slaves were born into the status of the mother. If the mother was a slave, so were the children.

This was a very profitable arrangement for the slave owner, because slaves that had to be purchased were expensive and in early America, often in short supply. Very occasionally, slave children were baptized, but when so, they were listed under the master’s name, generally not the name of the child and never the name of the parent or parents.

Case 1 – Katherine Thatchill and Catherine Perry, servants to Abraham Marshall

Richmond County Court Order Book, July 2, 1701 – Katherine Thatchill servant to Abraham Marshall by and with her own consent is ordered to serve her master or his assignes the full terms of one years after her time by indenture custome or otherwise be fully expired being for the payment of her fine for committing the sin of fornication.

This day Abraham Marshall confesed judgement to the churchwarden of Farnham Parish for the use of the parish for 500 pounds good tobacco in cask which this court have ordered to be paid with costs of suit. Exo. Being the fine due from Katherine Thatchill for committing the sin of fornication.

Ordered that Katherine Thatchill do serve Abraham Marshall her present master according to act for the care and trouble of her childbirth of a bastard child.

It being evidently made appear to the court that Catharine Parry, servant to Abraham Marshall did fugitively absent herself from her said master’ service the space of 15 days and that her said master hath expended 300 pounds of tobacco for percuring her againe, the court have ordered that the said Katherine do serve her said master or his assignes the full terms of one years after her time and be fully expired being for the payment of her fine for committing the sin of fornication.

These items appeared in consecutive order on the same court order page on the same day. Given the fourth paragraph, it appears that indeed, there were two women, one Katherine Thatchill and one Catharine Perry.

Amazingly, Catharine Perry only “missed” 15 days of “work” but she paid for it with another year of her life, because her master paid her fine.

Court Order Book May 6, 1702 – Capt. John Tarpley one of the churchwardens of the parish of North Farnham certifying to this court that Thomas Tatchall being a parish charge and Abraham Marshall being willing to discharge the said parish of ye said Thomas, the court have ordered that the said Thomas Tatchall do serve the said Abraham Marshall and Thomazin his wife their heires and assignes until he shall attaine to the full age of 21 years.

Apparently, Katherine Thatchill’s child lived and is now also indentured until he is 21. The only way Katherine can be with her child it to remain on Abraham Marshall’s plantation, assuming she is still alive. In essence, Abraham Marshall has now obtained two indentured servants for the next 21 years.  By that time, where is Katherine Thatchill going to go and how will she survive?  She will probably remain a servant for her entire life, in exchange for food and shelter.  Perhaps her son will do better.

Case 2 – Elinor Hughes, servant to James Gilbert

Richmond County, Virginia Court Order Book, Nov. 4, 1702 – Appearing to this court that Elinor Hughes has by her own confession fugitively absented herself out of the service of her master, James Gilbert, the space of 23 days, the court have ordered that she serve her said master or his assignes the space of 46 days after her time by indenture custome or otherwise be fully expired.

Elinor Hughes, servant to Gilbert Jones being presented to this court for having a bastard child, the court have ordered that she serve her said master or his assignes according to act in consideration for the trouble of his house during the time of her childbirth.

This day James Gilbert confessed judgement to the church wardens of North Farnham Parish for the use of the parish for 500 pounds tobacco it being the fine of Elinor Hughes for committing the sin of fornication and having a bastard child to be paid with costs also.

Ordered that Elinor Hughes servant to James Gilbert by and wither own consent do serve her said master of his assignes the space of one whole yeare after her time by indenture custome or otherwise be fully expired in satisfaction for his paying her fine for committing the sin of fornication and having a bastard child.

It’s appears that Elinor had to “pay” double the time she missed for “troubling” her master with her pregnancy, and a year for the fine he paid.  These laws and customs never benefitted the servant, always the master.

Case 3 – Ann Kelly, Servant to Thomas Durham

The drama involving Ann Kelly didn’t begin as anything unusual. Ann Kelly’s indenture to Thomas Durham begins like normal in 1699 when she was determined to be 14 years old. The court determined Ann’s age so that the length of her indenture could be determined and so that she could be taxed appropriately. Indentures of children not only involved a certain number of years, but lasted until they attained a specific age, minimally.

In 1704, in a deposition, Ann gave her age to be 20, which would have put her birth in 1684. If she were 14 in 1699, then she would have been born in 1685, so this fits.

Court Order Book Page 406, June 7, 1699 – Ann Kelly servant to Thomas Durham being presented to this court to have inspection into her age is adjudged 14 years old and ordered to serve her master or his assigns according to act.

However, by 1708, nine years later, Anne was 23 and circumstances had changed.

Court Order Book Page 372, July 7, 1708 – Anne Kelly, servant to Thomas Durham, being brought before the court by her master for committing the sin of fornication and having a bastard child and said Anne refusing to confess who was the father of the child, the court have ordered she be committed to the county goale there to remaine until such time as she shall confess who is the true father of her child and it is also ordered that she serve her master or his assignes after her time by indenture custome or otherwise shall be fully expired according to law in compensation for the trouble of his house during the time of her childbirth.

Imagine how intimidating this must have been for Ann. Not only did all those men, dressed in their finery and powdered wigs “know what she had done,” they were pressuring her for the name of the child’s father. Ann, a servant with nothing of her own, not even the right to direct her own body, stood firm, even when sentenced to jail.

Having none of this, Dorothy Durham, Thomas’s wife, steps in.

Court Order Book Page 372, July 7, 1708 – This day Dorothy Durham for on the behalf of her husband Thomas Durham confessed judgement to the church wardens of Northfarnham parish to the use of the parish for 500 pounds tobacco the same being the fine of Anne Kelly for committing the sin of fornication and having a bastard child which is ordered to be paid with costs.

I can’t even begin to explain how unusual this was. Not only did Dorothy appear at court, of her own volition, she clearly defied her husband to do so. Not only that, but Dorothy apparently controlled some financial aspects of the household, a very unusual situation for a woman in colonial Virginia. There seemed to be no doubt in anyone’s mind that Dorothy was capable and authorized to pay the 500 pounds of tobacco – even though Dorothy did say she was acting “on behalf of her husband.”

In every other similar case, some male community member steps forward and posts bail, or not, but no female ever steps forward like Dorothy did. I’m convinced that posting bail, in most cases, wasn’t so much to help the poor woman who had the child as it was to retain the services of the woman and not be inconvenienced. In Dorothy’s case, we’ll never know what motivated her to attend court alone, step up in place of her husband AND pay the fine for Anne Kelly. But she did!

Furthermore, in most cases, the female willingly named the child’s father. In this case, we do discover the name of the father the following March, and I wonder if Dorothy knew all along.

Court Order Book Page 4, March 2, 1708/9 – Anne Kelly came into court and made oath that Thomas Durham Jr. is the true father of 2 bastard children borne of her body in the time of her service with his father, Thomas Durham the elder. Upon motion of the Queen’s attorney ordered that Thomas Durham Jr. be summoned to next court to enter into bond with security for the indemnification of the parish and what charge may acrew to the parish for or by reason of the children aforesaid.

In March of 1708/09, Anne Kelly was dragged before the court a second time. This time, however, she named the father of the children – Thomas Durham Jr., the son of Dorothy and Thomas Durham Sr. While Thomas Jr. was summoned to post bond to the churchwardens so they would not incur future costs on behalf of the children, Thomas Jr. was not fined for fornication nor did he have to pay Anne Kelly’s fine for fornication and having a bastard child. Men were never fined. I guess those women managed to fornicate and get pregnant all by themselves!

This time, it wasn’t Dorothy who paid Anne Kelly’s fees, nor Thomas Durham Sr. or Jr., who should have by all rights paid her fines – but Thomas Dodson who was married to Mary Durham, Dorothy’s daughter. Anne Kelly, according to another court note, was assigned by Thomas Durham Sr. to Thomas Dodson, so was already serving at Thomas Dodson’s house, which adjoined the land of Thomas Durham Sr. In any event, after her original indenture, plus extra time for the first pregnancy, Anne was obligated to serve additional time working for Thomas Dodson because he paid her fine for the second pregnancy, caused by his brother-in-law.

Court Order Book Page 5 March 2, 1708/09 Anne Kelly servant to Thomas Dodson being this day brought before this court for committing the sin of fornication and having a bastard child the court have ordered Anne Kelly to serve Thomas Dodson or his assignes according to law after her time by indenture or otherwise is fully expired, in consideration of his paying her fine for committing the offence aforesaid.

Court Order Book Page 5 March 2 1708/09 Thomas Dodson confest judgement to the churchwardens of North Farnham parish for the use of the parish for 500 pounds tobacco being the fine of Anne Kelley for committing the sin of fornication and having a bastard child and it ordered that he pay the same with costs.

Anne Kelly arrived in June of 1699 at the age of 14. By 1709, she is still serving as an indentured servant, has had two illegitimate children, sired by her “master’s” son and still has at least two years left to serve on her indenture time, based on the court records. From this we know that Anne’s original indenture was at least for 9 years, because she was still a servant in July of 1708. A year later, in 1709, she is still serving, and has had 2 years added on to her time. This means that she will be serving until at least 1711 sometime, if not longer, and presuming she doesn’t get fined for fornicating again. This means that her indenture time beginning in 1699 when she was 14 is now extended to when she is minimally 26 years old, when she will be released with a suit of clothes to somehow make her way with two children.

And the greatest irony of all, Thomas Durham Jr. married the daughter of the neighbor planter in about 1710, beginning his “legitimate” family with her. So, while Anne Kelly is still paying with the days of her life for her crime of “sinning” with Thomas Durham Jr. on one farm, he has married the daughter of the neighbor and is setting up housekeeping – probably within view everyday of Anne Kelly.

No hard feelings there, I’m sure. I can’t help but wonder what happened to these women and their children.

Note that in  only one of these cases do we have any idea of the gender of the child and his name from a later record. In the rest of the cases, and normally, there are no names, and no birth dates, although we can at least surmise a year. We also don’t know if the children survived. There are no records in Richmond County in later years for any individual that appears to be the offspring of these women.

In colonial Virginia, the stigma of illegitimacy never washed away. The best way to remove it? Move. Far away. Preferably to the frontier where pioneers were far too busy clearing land and eking out a living to ask questions. Marry someone and start a life far distant from those damning court records and community knowledge.

If you think this scenario might fit your family situation, what do you do?

What To Do?

Unfortunately, these cases are very difficult, if not impossible, to crack.

Hints that enforced bastardry might be involved would include:

  • Few Y DNA matches to your surname
  • Significant close Y DNA matches to another surname
  • Y DNA matches to your surname only downstream of your brick wall ancestor, never at an earlier date and never overseas
  • Ancestor seems to appear out of no place in colonial America
  • No records. Bastard children were not recognized legally as the children of the father so there would be no inheritance.

Of course, the problem is that any of these circumstances mentioned above can be caused by other factors. Few Y DNA matches can be caused by few (or no) descendants or the fact that your line just hasn’t tested. No overseas matches can stem from the same thing, or the Y line has simply died out in the original location. If you’d like to read more, Concepts –  Undocumented Adoptions vs Untested Y Lines discussed more about this topic.

Matches to other surnames can result from a common ancestor before the advent of surnames or misattributed parentage, also known as NPEs or non-parental events, in other lines, as well as your own.

Ancestors who seem to appear out of no place can be a result of records destruction, or ancestors arriving as indentured servants or convicts, remaining poor and never owning land. A combination of these factors is particularly devastating for the genealogist, because it appears that our ancestor literally dropped out of the sky, arriving via the stork.

One approach I take is to look for common geography between my ancestor and the ancestors of other people with closely matching surnames. For example, in the case of Ann Kelly, we know that the father of her children was Thomas Durham, Jr. If the children were male, their surname would be Kelly, but their Y DNA would be Durham. Once you focus on a geography for the Y DNA line, you can turn to autosomal matching for that same surname to see if other people emerge as matches who are not directly descended from the paternal line.

Another avenue, and don’t laugh, is to google the various terms together, such as “Durham, Kelly, 1700, Virginia.” I’ve often found the old Rootsweb and GenForum lists to be wonderful sources of earlier research that has never made it into print or into trees anyplace. – and they both show up in Google searches.

However, in the Kelly/Durham case, as irony would have it, Thomas Durham Sr. had only one surviving son.   Thomas Durham Jr.’s only son, John, had three sons. Just recently, a Durham male descendant of Thomas Jr. through grandson Charnel was discovered and Y DNA testing is currently underway.

It will be very interesting to see if our Durham tester matches any Kelly males.

 

Testing

In order to utilize Y DNA, you must find a male from your desired line who is descended from the ancestor in question through all males to take a Y DNA test. Typically, this means a male who carries the same surname, assuming no name changes or adoptions.

Today, the only vendor offering Y DNA testing and matching is Family Tree DNA. Fortunately, they also offer autosomal testing with the Family Finder test, and Advanced Tools so that you can see if a Y DNA match also matches you autosomally. Their Family Finder matching tool also allows you to search by both current and ancestral surnames.

Click here to order either test. You’ll need both a Y DNA test and the Family Finder test to do the combined search for people who match on both the Y DNA and autosomal results.

You may also want to read the short article, 4 Kinds of DNA for Genetic Genealogy, which explains about the different kinds of DNA that can be utilized for genealogy research.

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Ethnicity and Physical Features are NOT Accurate Predictors of Parentage or Heritage

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Let me say that again, ethnicity results are NOT an accurate predictor of heritage, or parentage. This is a great deal of confusion swirling around this topic. The fact that people are doubting parentage, or grandparentage, based on ethnicity results alone is alarming.

This week I receive this inquiry:

  • I recently found my suspected birth father but he says he’s probably not because he has 2 generations of Amerindian in him and my tests came back negative until I did the analysis at GedMatch and found it to show Amerindian in small traces.

And this:

  • I recently took an ethnicity test and it showed less Scandinavian than it should. My father’s grandfather was from Sweden. Since my Scandinavian is less than 25%, is my father really my father, and is his father really his father? Now I’m really confused and frightened.

Last week, I receive this inquiry:

  • My father and I both tested, but my ethnicity doesn’t all seem to be shared with him. Now I’m doubting whether he is really my father.

And this:

  • I received my ethnicity results, which showed no Native ancestry – but I know my ancestor was Native because she looks Indian in her photo.

And these are, by far, not the only inquiries in this vein. Some variation arrives almost every single day.

Be still my heart. Let me say this again

Why?

First, let’s talk about why, and then I’d like to share what I consider to be a perfect example with you.

Why is ethnicity alone not an accurate predictor of parentage or heritage?

  • The field of population genetics, which is the underlying science beneath ethnicity predictions, is in it’s infancy. This means that if you were to test with the various vendors who offer these tests, your results would come back with different readings, sometimes significantly different readings. And this is just for one person – you – not the combination of two people. You can see my results from various vendors in the article, Which Ethnicity Test is Best?
  • Ethnicity results from all vendors can only be considered estimates based on the people they are comparing your results to (reference panels) and their internal software algorithms.
  • Some vendors have more experience than others.
  • I have seen ethnicity results that reflect an ethnicity for a child that is not included in either parents’ ethnicity results, when the parents are unquestionably the biological parents of the child. Clearly, this can’t be accurate. I suggest reading the article, Ethnicity Testing, a Conundrum, to understand more about how ethnicity estimates are generated.
  • You can easily have an ethnicity not found in one parent, if you inherited that portion of your DNA from the other parent.
  • You may not have inherited a portion of DNA from a parent in which a particular ethnicity is found. Your parent may have it, and you may not have inherited that piece of DNA. For examples of how and why this works, please read the article, Ancestral DNA Percentages – How Much of Them is in You?
  • Ethnicity estimates are only considered to be predominantly accurate at the continent level, specifically, Asia, Europe, Africa, Native American and Jewish. Yes, I know that Native American and Jewish are not continents, but their DNA is different enough from the rest that the presence of Jewish or Native DNA is presumed to be, generally, accurate, unless they are very small amounts which could also be noise.
  • Unless you’ve tracked your ancestors back several generations through genealogy, you won’t have an accurate expectation of the percentages of ethnicity. For an article describing how to do this, please read, Concepts – Calculating Ethnicity Percentages and Concepts – Percentage of Ancestors’ DNA.
  • You do inherit exactly 50% of the DNA of your parents, but you do NOT necessarily inherit 50% of each ancestors’ DNA that your parents carried. For example, if your parent carries 6.25% of a particular ancestor’s DNA, which is equivalent to that of a great-grandparent, you may or may not inherit half, or 3.12%, of that ancestor’s DNA. You will inherit someplace between none and 6.25%. Please read the article, Generational Inheritance, for more information about how DNA is inherited in successive generations.
  • You may not inherit a portion of a specific ancestor’s DNA that reflects a particular ethnic admixture, or at least not that the reference panels used by various companies can identify as associated with that ethnicity today. For more on how companies determine ethnicity, please read Determining Ethnicity Percentages.
  • In the case of minority admixture, meaning when you carry a small amount of admixture from one ethnicity – it may or may not be noise. If it’s genuine, it may or may not be found by ethnicity tests.
  • The absence of an ethnicity in your ethnicity results is not evidence that the specific ethnicity was not present in your ancestor, especially back in time several generations.
  • The lack of an ethnicity in your results does NOT equate to the fact that an ancestor of that ethnicity is not your ancestor. In other words, you can have a Native American ancestor, back several generations, and not show Native American ancestry in your ethnicity results. Absence of evidence is not always evidence of absence.
  • In the case of admixture involving both Native and African, and especially in the US, your Native or African ancestor(s) may have been admixed themselves, so you don’t really know what to expect in terms of percentages.
  • How you look, known as your phenotype, may or may not reflect perceived or real heritage at the level you expect.

Can Ethnicity EVER Predict Parentage?

Ok, given the above, is there an example of where an ethnicity test MIGHT cause us to wonder at parentage?

At one time, I would have said yes, if you “look white” but your presumed parent was considered to be black, or vice versa. I’m using black and white here as examples because in the US, we have a lot of admixture and “white” and “black” are different enough from each other that one would expect to be able to visually tell the difference, especially in relatively recent generations.

However, that’s not always true. Remember the story about the black twin and white twin from the same parents?  Here’s the Snopes confirmation, along with photos.

My Friend, Rosario

Rosario has been most gracious in allowing me to share his story in advance of a book he is currently penning. His journey is particularly poignant, considering the discussion above.

Rosario studied at Harvard and then became…are you ready…an opera singer. Rosario was raised as an Italian man, specifically Sicilian. Fitting, as in Luciano Pavarotti. Those good Italian operatic genes.

Except…Rosario discovered that he isn’t Italian.

What he is, however, is a genealogist.

Rosario’s mother was taken from her parents and raised in foster care. She had a brother who was shipped off elsewhere, to other states, bouncing from one terrible situation to another until his untimely death. Separated as a child, she had little contact with her brother until they were adults, and then only on two occasions. Her brother and her parents were hushed-up secrets.

Rosario’s mother told him that her heritage was Sicilian, and Rosario became, culturally, a Sicilian man.

Interested in the challenge of his mother’s past, and as genealogists are inclined to do, Rosario started digging in like a dog after a bone. He wanted to share his proud Sicilian heritage with his children.

What he found would amaze him, shock him and leave him reeling – all at the same time.

The Truth Surfaces

First, Rosario found inconsistencies.

For example, he found three different birth certificates for his mother. No one has three birth certificates, but his mother did. One without a father’s race, one with the father’s race redacted and then a third one with all information present. The father was identified as “black” but given that Rosario was raised as Sicilian, an area in Europe where people are darker and could be identified as black, that was Rosario’s assumption. Made sense and might also explain the confusion and the three different birth certificate versions.

Maybe.

Rosario’s first real clue came when his DNA results were returned showing the following ethnicity mixture:

  • 18% Sub Saharan African
  • 2% Malagasy
  • 2% Native American
  • 78% European

Rosario didn’t exactly know what to do with these startling results. They couldn’t be true, because his father was white, his father’s parents were white and his mother’s parents were Sicilian.

Years would pass before additional inroads would be made, hindered by the legal system, his mother’s failing health, young children of his own and the lack of relatives. Rosario had no one to ask.

Eventually, Rosario would discover that his grandparents, his mother’s parents, one white and one black, were prosecuted for engaging in sexual activity with each other – in Vermont.

In fact, they were not allowed to marry due to their different races, and their children, Rosario’s mother and her brother, were removed from their parents when the parents were sent to prison for the crime of having sex with someone not of their race.

Rosario’s grandfather was black. And yes, he was sent to prison, for having sex with a white woman – in the northeast – not in the deep south. Rosario’s white grandmother was sent to prison as well, which is when Rosario’s mother was placed in a foster home and her “darker brother” was sent away – far away – to another state where he was caught up in a horrific maze of institutional abuse.

The photo above is from one of only two times as an adult that Rosario’s mother saw her brother.

Given what had already happened to Rosario’s mother, yanked from her parents and brother and placed in a foster home by the age of 9, it’s easy to see why she fabricated the story of her family being Sicilian. Dark-skinned Sicilian was much safer than “half black” in a place and time when people were sent to prison and children ripped from their families. Her brother would eventually commit suicide as the result of the abuses he suffered as a child – and not at the hands of his parents but as a result of horrible system in which he was systematically and repeatedly abused by adults who were supposedly “better” than his law-breaking parents.

For those of you who have never suffered the horrors of a family story in which your parent or grandparents were abused or mistreated, either by people they trusted or a system that was put in place to help them – good for you. But trust me, these revelations change the entire picture of who you think you are, your self-identity – and they will, guaranteed, rock your world to the point of physical nausea and literal nightmares.

The Photo

After adjusting for a bit, trying to absorb his new reality and attempting to come to grips with the abuses suffered by his grandfather, grandmother, mother and uncle, Rosario was beset by a new drive to get to know his until-then-missing grandparents.

Who were these people, as people? What were their lives like, before and after prison? Did they love each other? What did they look like? Were there any pictures?

Rosario looked high and low, and then finally, finally…through a hint planted in his mind in the middle of the night – Rosario woke up knowing the answer.

Earlier this year, Rosario was able to obtain his grandfather, Jerome Barber’s picture – a mugshot, the only photo he, or his mother, has ever seen of this man.

Jerome Barber’s Heritage

If Jerome Barber was entirely “black,” then his child, Rosario’s mother, would have been half black, or 50%, and Rosario would be 25% IF Rosario received exactly 25% of this grandfather’s DNA.

Looking at an expected DNA contribution of 25% African, given a black grandfather, compared to Rosario’s reported rate of 18% sub-Saharan African shows that expectation and reality can vary widely. In this case, there is a 7% difference with only one generation between Rosario and his “black” ancestor. It’s probable that Rosario’s 2% Malagasy and 2% Native also descend from this line based on testing of other family members including his mother and newly discovered relatives on his father’s side.

However, even with Rosario’s 18% sub-Saharan African and a black grandfather, until I told you, one would never look at Rosario and expect him to carry African heritage.

In photos of Rosario’s mother, you’d never guess that she is half black and half white, which is why she was “kept” and placed with a white foster family, while her brother, who was darker, was sent elsewhere. Unfortunately, Rosario’s uncle passed away before DNA testing was available.

So, in this case, Rosario’s phenotype, meaning how he looks, as compared to his genotype, his DNA contents, is deceiving and so is his mother’s.

Rosarios’s mother has DNA tested, and her results show only 28% sub-Saharan African where 50% would have been expected with a 100% black father.

Rosario’s expected amount of sub-Saharan African DNA would be 14% or half of his mother’s 28%, if you are calculating from his mother, but if you are calculating from a fully African grandfather, Rosario’s amount of African DNA would be expected to be 25%. Clearly, Jerome Barber wasn’t entirely black.

Expected percentages of DNA if Rosario’s grandfather was 100% African are shown below for each generation.

Expected Actual Difference
Grandfather 100 unknown unknown
Mother 50 28 -22%
Rosario 25 18 -7%
Rosario’s child 12.5 8 -4.5%

As you can see in the above calculations, based only on Rosario’s grandfather being entirely African, there is a significant difference, especially in his mother’s generation.

Looking at these DNA amounts differently, the next chart shows the expected amount of DNA calculated on the percentage of DNA the parent actually carries. Again, we begin with Rosario’s grandfather at 100%.

Expected Actual Difference
Grandfather 100 presumed unknown unknown
Mother 50 28 -22%
Rosario 14 18 +4%
Rosario’s child 7 8 +1%

Working backwards, given the amount of African DNA that Rosario’s mother has, 28%, Rosario’s grandfather may have only been about 56% African himself.

An awful irony.

Now that you know, you can look at Rosario and his grandfather’s photo together, and you can see the resemblance.

This same scenario works in reverse too. I cannot, tell you how many times people have sent me photographs with the idea that their ancestor “looks Native” but the DNA shows none or a small amount of Native admixture. In those cases, the DNA may show less than expected or no Native admixture because the DNA has washed out in the subsequent generations, the testing panels aren’t picking it up, or the ancestor wasn’t Native to begin with. It’s extremely easy to see a resemblance, especially if it’s something you are looking “for” or expect to see.

Identifying Parentage

If ethnicity isn’t a good predictor and is highly variable, then how does one identify a parent?

As I mentioned previously, every child inherits half of each parent’s DNA. Therefore, if any child and parent both take an autosomal DNA test from a vendor that provides matching and centimorgan (cM) amounts, in addition to ethnicity, you will know for sure if those two people are parent and child.

In the graphic below, I’m showing my mother’s DNA test which shows me as a match at Family Tree DNA.

You can see that the relationship is identified as parent/child, which means, genetically, the software can’t tell which one of us is the parent and which one of us is the child, but only a parent and child will share this amount of DNA.

By the way, the only reason I have my mother’s autosomal results to utilize, above, is because Family Tree DNA archives the DNA of their customers for 25 years, which allowed me to run the autosomal Family Finder test on her DNA years after her death.

You can also see in the chromosome browser, above, that I match my mother on the full length of every chromosome. The gray areas are not measured by the testing companies. Anyone who is not part of a parent/child relationship will not share all of all 22 chromosomes with someone who is not their parent or their child, except for identical twins. Said another way, if you are a parent or child, the entire portion of every chromosome 1-22 will match and be fully colored, as above.

Identical twins will match the full length of every chromosome too, but instead of the child matching 50% of the parent’s DNA, identical twins match exactly – 100% – not 50% – so the software vendors can tell the difference.

You can view the expected amount of DNA sharing for various relationships on this chart from the article, Concepts – Relationship Predictions.

Therefore, if you want to know whether or not someone is a parent, both parties must take an autosomal test at a vendor who provides matching between participants along with the amount of matching DNA and relationship predictions. Ironically, the test that provides the matching is the exact same test that provides ethnicity results – so if you tested at one of these vendors, you don’t have to take another test. You just have to look at matching results, assuming both people tested. Even if both parties aren’t available to test, such as the parent, if you can test a close relative of the purported parent, such as a sibling and still obtain probable confirmation, because close relatives tend to match within prescribed ranges.

Please, don’t just look at ethnicity results and begin questioning, or presuming.

The vendors who provide autosomal tests along with chromosome browsers are Family Tree DNA, used in the examples above, and 23andMe.

Ancestry also reports parent/child relationships and total matching DNA in centiMorgans (cMs), minus some amount of DNA removed by their Timber process, but does not provide a chromosome browser. MyHeritage reports relationships and cM amounts, but their cM matching amounts are problematic today and they do not provide a chromosome browser. Still, one should be able to discern a parent/child relationship from either Ancestry or MyHeritage.

You can read about the various vendor offerings in the article, Which DNA Test is Best?

Genetic Genealogy Tests are Not Legally Binding

Lastly, none of the genetic genealogy tests are legally binding relative to paternity, even though they can and do clearly inform of parentage.

These tests aren’t binding because the testers’ DNA samples lack “chain of custody,” meaning the DNA sample was not given in an environment where the identities of both testers can be legally proven. It would be very easy to return a negative paternity result by having your neighbor or buddy swab or spit for you. In other words, if you are looking for legal proof, to be used in legal proceedings, you need to consult with an attorney, follow their advice and utilize the methodologies, laboratories and procedures in your state or country to achieve your legal goals.

However, if what you are looking for is simply an answer, do NOT, NOT, NOT rely on any ethnicity results or appearances as hints.  Instead look at chromosome matching between the potential child and parent or close relative in the absence of a parent.

Summary

Rosario’s comments relative to ethnicity results and testing are very profound, especially given his recent experiences:

In your published articles, you astutely state the extremely variable nature of the companies’ platforms and methodologies. This begs the question, “is admixture variable or are the companies’ platforms?”

I think that this is the more appropriate question to ask.

People are taking their admixture results literally and that is a dangerous game to play. Families break up over this potent issue. We should tread lightly until we can demonstrate a more scientific conclusion than what is currently being offered.

I agree with Rosario, and would hazard an answer to his question as well.

How much DNA we inherit from any ancestor other than our parents is variable. Which DNA we inherit from any ancestor is variable.

The vendors test results, the reference populations and their internal algorithms are all variable.

Therefore, everything about ethnicity testing is at least somewhat variable – and is exactly why ethnicity testing should NEVER be interpreted as an indicator of parentage.

Chromosome matching is not variable relative to a biological parent/child relationship. Children always inherit half of the autosomal DNA of each parent on chromosomes 1-22.

Correction note:  Jerome’s surname corrected to read Barber.  Jackson was Jerome’s mother’s surname.

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Standard Disclosure

This standard disclosure will now appear at the bottom of every article in compliance with the FTC Guidelines.

Hot links are provided to Family Tree DNA, where appropriate. If you wish to purchase one of their products, and you click through one of the links in an article to Family Tree DNA, or on the sidebar of this blog, I receive a small contribution if you make a purchase. Clicking through the link does not affect the price you pay. This affiliate relationship helps to keep this publication, with more than 850 articles about all aspects of genetic genealogy, free for everyone.

I do not accept sponsorship for this blog, nor do I write paid articles, nor do I accept contributions of any type from any vendor in order to review any product, etc. In fact, I pay a premium price to prevent ads from appearing on this blog.

When reviewing products, in most cases, I pay the same price and order in the same way as any other consumer. If not, I state very clearly in the article any special consideration received. In other words, you are reading my opinions as a long-time consumer and consultant in the genetic genealogy field.

I will never link to a product about which I have reservations or qualms, either about the product or about the company offering the product. I only recommend products that I use myself and bring value to the genetic genealogy community. If you wonder why there aren’t more links, that’s why and that’s my commitment to you.

Thank you for your readership, your ongoing support and for purchasing through the affiliate link if you are interested in making a purchase at Family Tree DNA.

Ancestral DNA Percentages – How Much of Them is in You?

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One of the most common questions I receive, especially in light of the interest in ethnicity testing, is how much of an ancestor’s DNA someone “should” share.

The chart above shows how much of a particular generation of ancestors’ DNA you would inherit if each generation between you and that ancestor inherited exactly 50% of that ancestor’s DNA from their parent. This means, on the average, you will carry less than 1% of each of your 5 times great-grandparents DNA, shown in generation 7, in total. You’ll carry about 1.56% of each of your 6 times great-grandparents, and so forth.

As you can see, if you’re looking for a Native American ancestor, for example, who is 7 generations back in your tree, if you carry the average amount of DNA from that ancestor, it will be less than 1% which will be under the noise threshold for detection – and that’s assuming they were 100% Native at that time.

Everyone inherits 50% of their DNA from their parents, but not everyone inherits half of each of their ancestors’ DNA from a parent. Sometimes, the child will inherit all of a segment of DNA from an ancestor, and in other cases, the child will inherit none. In some cases, they will inherit half or a portion of the DNA from an ancestor. In reality, the DNA segments are very seldom divided exactly in half, but all we can deal with are averages when discussing how much DNA you “should” receive from an ancestor, based on where they are in your tree.

The generational relationship chart above represents the average that you will inherit from each of those ancestors. Of course, few people are actually average, and you may not be either. In other words, your ancestor’s DNA may not be detectible at 5, 6 or 7 generations, because it was lost in generations between them and you, while another ancestor’s DNA is still present in detectable amounts at 8 or 9 generations.

How Does Inheritance of Ancestral Segments Actually Work?

For you to inherit a particular segment from one GGGGG-grandparent, the inheritance might look something like this. “You” are at the bottom of the tree. You can click on any graphic to enlarge.

In the above example, you inherited one tenth of the segment from your GGGGG-grandparent which was one third of the DNA that your parent carried in that segment from that ancestor.

A second example is every bit as likely, shown below.

In this second scenario, you inherited nothing of that segment from your GGGGG-grandparent.

A third scenario is also a possibility.

In this third scenario, you inherited all of the DNA from that ancestor as your parent.

Now, think of these three scenarios as three different siblings inheriting from the same parent, and you’ll understand why siblings carry different amounts of DNA from their ancestors.

Of course, the child can only inherit what the parent has inherited from that ancestor, and if that particular segment was gone in the parent’s generation, or generations before the parent, the child certainly can’t inherit the segment. There is no such thing as “skipping generations.”

In this fourth scenario, the parent didn’t receive any of the segment from the GGGGG-grandparent, but maybe their brother or sister did, which is why you want to test aunts and uncles. Testing everyone in your family available from the oldest generation is absolutely critical.

This, of course, is exactly why we test as many relatives as we can. Everyone inherits different amounts of segments of DNA from our common ancestors. This is also why we map our matching segments to those ancestors by triangulating with cousins – to identify which pieces of our DNA came from which ancestor.

Seeing examples of how inheritance works helps us understand that there is no “one answer” to the question we want to know about each ancestor – “How much of you is in me?” The answer is, “it depends” and the actual amount would be different for every ancestor except your parents, where the answer is always 50%.

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Standard Disclosure

This standard disclosure will now appear at the bottom of every article in compliance with the FTC Guidelines.

Hot links are provided to Family Tree DNA, where appropriate. If you wish to purchase one of their products, and you click through one of the links in an article to Family Tree DNA, or on the sidebar of this blog, I receive a small contribution if you make a purchase. Clicking through the link does not affect the price you pay. This affiliate relationship helps to keep this publication, with more than 850 articles about all aspects of genetic genealogy, free for everyone.

I do not accept sponsorship for this blog, nor do I write paid articles, nor do I accept contributions of any type from any vendor in order to review any product, etc. In fact, I pay a premium price to prevent ads from appearing on this blog.

When reviewing products, in most cases, I pay the same price and order in the same way as any other consumer. If not, I state very clearly in the article any special consideration received. In other words, you are reading my opinions as a long-time consumer and consultant in the genetic genealogy field.

I will never link to a product about which I have reservations or qualms, either about the product or about the company offering the product. I only recommend products that I use myself and bring value to the genetic genealogy community. If you wonder why there aren’t more links, that’s why and that’s my commitment to you.

Thank you for your readership, your ongoing support and for purchasing through the affiliate link if you are interested in making a purchase at Family Tree DNA.

Beware – LivingDNA Requires Customer to Indemnify Company to Download Raw Data

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Update:  Please note that LivingDNA has replaced the Indemnity language referred to below.  You can read the update here.

Say what?

Yep, you read that right.

I discovered that LivingDNA now provides a raw data download for their customers, with a huge, and I mean HUGE, caveat – indemnification of the company (LivingDNA) if they are sued as a result of your download of your DNA data.

Yes, seriously! This is not April 1st.

While this may sound like a trivial complication, it’s not, given that one of the reasons genealogists purchase ethnicity tests is to download the data and transfer the results to other companies or services for additional ethnicity results or matches to other testers, a feature not provided by LivingDNA.

Let’s walk through the download steps and take a look.

At LivingDNA, your raw data is now available on the left hand side of your page. Click on “Download Raw Data” to view.

You will then see the following screen, captured in two graphics, below. Please note that you can click to enlarge any graphic.

Do NOT do anything else until you READ and understand the entire contents of the Download Raw Data page.

LivingDNA provides what I would consider typical verbiage and also some appropriate cautions about how you may or may not match people you expect to match, and you may match people you don’t expect to match. In other words, they are gracefully trying to say you may encounter a misattributed parentage, either in your line or the line of someone you expect to match. Given that LivingDNA doesn’t provide matching services, this is especially important for their customers to understand.

But then comes the (thankfully) bolded bombshell. Bolding is theirs, not mine, although I would also add the color red.

By choosing to download your data you agree to indemnify (which broadly means to reimburse) Living DNA and its related companies and their directors and employees for any losses, damages or costs they incur as a result of any claims being made against them which relate to you downloading your data and the use by you of your data, or as a result of you having shared your data with any third party.

Holy cow.

Not only are you indemnifying LivingDNA,  you’re also indemnifying their directors and employees and related companies.  Furthermore, “claims” could mean that someone doesn’t even need to file a lawsuit.  As I said, I’m not an attorney, but I’m a savvy enough consumer to know this isn’t good for me.

You must click the “consent” box in order to proceed.

The consent says very clearly that by downloading, you agree to provide indemnity to LivingDNA. Bolding and red, both mine, below.

I have read the information provided about gaining access to my genetic data, and in particular I understand that my use of my data is my responsibility and that by downloading my data, I am providing an indemnity to Living DNA.

Merriam-Webster says this about indemnify:

I’m not a lawyer, but let me explain one thing further about indemnification. It includes the costs of defense – meaning the lawyers, and the lawyers travel, etc. Lawyer fees alone can run into tens of thousands of dollars, and more. Currently intellectual property attorneys bill at the rate of $450 per hour, or did last year, and defense preparations take hundreds of hours. If this makes you shake in your shoes, it should!

So let me say this in plain English. If you upload your LivingDNA file to any third party site and you match someone who is angry that your match revealed (or helped to reveal) that their father is not their father (for example), but is instead your father, or uncle, or cousin, etc., and they decide to sue LivingDNA for running your test – you have to pay for LivingDNA to defend themselves against the lawsuit – no matter how frivolous and no matter the outcome. I would think this would also extend to someone utilizing numerous matches to discover a link to unknown parentage if someone is unhappy about the outcome. In essence, if anyone sues LivingDNA or make a claim over anything having to do with your test, you have agreed to pay for LivingDNA to defend themselves, affiliated companies, employees and directors, even if the suing party loses. And if the suing party wins, you get to pay for that too.

The bottom line is that you have to agree that you are responsible for whatever after downloading your DNA. “Whatever” means anything that you can think of, and probably several things you can’t. The example above is by no means a comprehensive list of what could go wrong and cause you a massive legal headache. If anything goes wrong after you download your DNA, you’re responsible.

Period.

Consider yourself warned.

There is absolutely no upside or benefit in this verbiage to you. None. Nada.

So what am I going to do with my LivingDNA results? Not one single solitary thing. The ante is just too large. Thankfully, I’ve already tested with the other vendors so I don’t need to upload my results from LivingDNA anyplace.

That’s exactly what I recommend you do too – nothing. Don’t even download. Personally, I would simply test elsewhere, all things considered.

You cannot control how your matches utilize the fact that you match and what they do with that information. It will be interesting to see if LivingDNA will require their customers to indemnify them against the results of matches at their own company if they add the matching feature as they have stated they plan to do.

Given that I’m not an attorney, if you are considering downloading your LivingDNA data and uploading elsewhere, I strongly, STRONGLY, recommend that you contact an attorney and obtain a professional opinion.

Today, as I write this, I know that Family Tree DNA and GedMatch don’t accept LivingDNA files as a standard upload because the chip LivingDNA uses is different than any other vendor.

Even if everyone accepted LivingDNA files, in my opinion, given the LivingDNA indemnity language, if you want to upload your results to any site, you would be far safer to test a second time with one of the three major vendors and avoid the potential indemnity headache.

Click here to read my LivingDNA Product Review that was written a month ago, before the data download become available.

You can see which vendors accept whose transfer files in the article, Autosomal DNA Transfers – Which Companies Accept Which Tests?

Within the next few days, I’ll be publishing an article titled, “Which Ethnicity Test is Best?,” so stay tuned.

______________________________________________________________________

Standard Disclosure

This standard disclosure will now appear at the bottom of every article in compliance with the FTC Guidelines.

Hot links are provided to Family Tree DNA, where appropriate. If you wish to purchase one of their products, and you click through one of the links in an article to Family Tree DNA, or on the sidebar of this blog, I receive a small contribution if you make a purchase. Clicking through the link does not affect the price you pay. This affiliate relationship helps to keep this publication, with more than 850 articles about all aspects of genetic genealogy, free for everyone.

I do not accept sponsorship for this blog, nor do I write paid articles, nor do I accept contributions of any type from any vendor in order to review any product, etc. In fact, I pay a premium price to prevent ads from appearing on this blog.

When reviewing products, in most cases, I pay the same price and order in the same way as any other consumer. If not, I state very clearly in the article any special consideration received. In other words, you are reading my opinions as a long-time consumer and consultant in the genetic genealogy field.

I will never link to a product about which I have reservations or qualms, either about the product or about the company offering the product. I only recommend products that I use myself and bring value to the genetic genealogy community. If you wonder why there aren’t more links, that’s why and that’s my commitment to you.

Thank you for your readership, your ongoing support and for purchasing through the affiliate link if you are interested in making a purchase at Family Tree DNA.

MyHeritage Ethnicity Results

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I originally wrote about MyHeritage in February 2017, reflecting matching issues and a broken promise regarding providing ethnicity estimates to people who uploaded their raw DNA file from another vendor. I’m glad to say MyHeritage changed their minds about providing ethnicity results and, today, has honored their original commitment and provided free ethnicity results to uploaders. I feel much better about the DNA aspect of MyHeritage given this decision although their challenges with matching remain.

MyHeritage has also provided updated ethnicity results to people who tested directly at MyHeritage.

In an e-mail received today from Aaron Godfrey, their Director of Marketing, he says:

I wanted to let you know that we’ve just launched MyHeritage’s new and improved Ethnicity Estimate. The new analysis, developed by the company’s science team, provides MyHeritage DNA customers with a percentage-based estimate of their ethnic origins covering 42 ethnic regions, many unique to MyHeritage.

In addition, the new Ethnicity Estimate will be provided for free to users who have already uploaded their DNA data to MyHeritage from other services, or who will upload it in the coming months. Users who upload their DNA data to MyHeritage, already enjoy free DNA Matching, and now they will benefit from the new ethnicity analysis too.

Our Ethnicity Estimate is delivered to users through a captivating “reveal” experience featuring animation and, as of this week, original music composed by MyHeritage. Each of the 42 ethnicities has a distinctive tune, based on the region’s cultural elements; all tunes seamlessly connect to each other. You can view an example here:  https://vimeo.com/218348730/51174e0b49

An excerpt from their press release is provided below:

TEL AVIV, Israel & LEHI, Utah, May 30, 2017 – MyHeritage, the leading global destination for family history and DNA testing, and the makers of the successful MyHeritage DNA product, today announced the launch of its new and improved Ethnicity Estimate. The new analysis, developed by the company’s science team, provides MyHeritage DNA customers with a percentage-based estimate of their ethnic origins covering 42 ethnic regions, many available only on MyHeritage, representing the most comprehensive report of its type available on the market. This fascinating report gives users a much better understanding of who they are and where their ancestors came from. The Ethnicity Estimate is presented in an original and engaging format, making it not only interesting but also fun to watch and share.

MyHeritage is unique among the main industry players in allowing users who have tested their DNA already with another service to upload – for free – their data to MyHeritage. Those users receive DNA Matches for free, for finding relatives based on shared DNA. Beginning this week, users who have already uploaded their DNA data to MyHeritage, or who will upload it in the coming months, will receive – for free – the new Ethnicity Estimate. This benefit is not offered by any other major DNA company.

Development of the new Ethnicity Estimate raises the number of ethnic regions covered by MyHeritage DNA from 36 to 42. It was made possible thanks to MyHeritage’s Founder Populations project — one of the largest of its kind ever conducted. For this unique project, more than 5,000 participants were handpicked by MyHeritage from its 90 million strong user base, by virtue of their family trees exemplifying consistent ancestry from the same region or ethnicity for many generations All project participants received complimentary DNA tests and allowed MyHeritage’s science team to develop breakthrough ethnicity models based on the generated data. Thanks to this analysis, MyHeritage DNA has become the only mass-market percentage-based DNA test that reveals ethnicities such as Balkan; Baltic; Eskimo & Inuit; Japanese; Kenyan; Sierra Leonean; Somali; four major Jewish groups – Ethiopian, Yemenite, Sephardic from North Africa and Mizrahi from Iran and Iraq; Indigenous Amazonian; Papuan and many others. In some cases, competing products can identify and report an aggregated region (e.g., Italian & Greek), whereas MyHeritage has better resolution and identifies Greek, Italian and Sardinian ethnicities separately.

MyHeritage’s new Ethnicity Estimate is delivered to users via a captivating “reveal” experience (view example). It features animation and, as of this week, also original music composed by MyHeritage. Each of the 42 ethnicities has a distinctive tune, based on the region’s cultural elements; all tunes seamlessly connect to each other. This makes the report fun to watch and share over social media.

Dr. Yaniv Erlich, Chief Science Officer at MyHeritage, said, “For MyHeritage’s science team, this major update of our Ethnicity Estimate is only an appetizer. There are excellent installments on the way, and users can prepare for a feast! We have detailed plans to increase accuracy, extend our Founder Populations project further, and improve the resolution for ethnicities of great interest to our users from highly diverse origins. Our goal is to use science to further the public good, and to bring the best innovations of our science team to the public.”

If you tested earlier, your results have been updated and your “reveal intro” with music added. Check it out.

If you uploaded previously, you had no ethnicity results, but now you do.

Regions Reported

From my results, the regions that MyHeritage supports, meaning the regions they report, are as follows:

The regions above correlate with the regions shown on the map at the beginning of this article.

My Ethnicity Results

I filmed my own reveal to share with you, but viewing their Vimeo clip linked above is much better quality. I particularly enjoyed the music compositions from the locations where my ethnicity is reported.

As with other vendors who offer ethnicity services, I have compared the MyHeritage ethnicity results with my known genealogy, and then as compared to other vendors.

Let’s look at my results.

The first thing I noticed is that the British Isles is broken into two components, English and then Irish/Scottish/Welsh. Of course, looking at the map, they do overlap almost entirely.

The second thing I noticed is that, according to MyHeritage, I’m indigenous Amazonian.

My reaction to that? You’ve got to be kidding.

Now, the good news is that they did detect my Native American, which, by the way, is either from my mother’s side out of Nova Scotia (Acadian), which is proven in several ancestral lines via mtDNA and Y DNA testing, or from my father’s line from near the Virginia/North Carolina border, or both.

The bad news is that they have badly mislabeled my Native finding. What this really means is that their reference population is from the Amazon. Of course, all Native people spring from a few hearty settlers that crossed Beringia from Russia into what is now Canada someplace between (roughly) 12,000 and 15,000 years ago, so it’s not surprising that I do match the people from the Amazon at some level. However, that does not mean my DNA is indigenous Amazonian, or that my ancestors were ever anyplace NEAR the Amazon or even South America.

Ethnicity vs Genealogy Comparison

In the article, Concepts – Calculating Ethnicity Percentages, I explained how to calculate your expected ethnicity percentages from your genealogy. As each vendor has introduced ethnicity results, or updated previous results, I’ve added to the cumulative chart.

Let’s see how MyHeritage stacks up against my known genealogy.

MyHeritage uses groupings slightly differently than I grouped my genealogy, so in the British Isles region, I’ve used yellow and green to show like groupings of my genealogy as compared to the MyHeritage results. As you can see, the 44.4% England attributed by MyHeritage is very close to the 43.68% found in my genealogy. The Irish/Scottish/Welsh, not quite so close.

MyHeritage Compared to Other Vendors

Adding MyHeritage to the table with the other vendors’ current results, we find the following:

Please note that you can click to enlarge.

The easiest way to compare apples to apples is to look at the pink region totals. The various vendors separate out the geographic regions differently, so it’s difficult to compare one directly to another.

Uploading or Testing at MyHeritage

You can still upload your data file if you tested with another company, for free, and obtain your matches and your ethnicity. You can add a tree up to 250 people for free, but beyond that, you must subscribe. I have had reports of people receiving phone calls from MyHeritage encouraging them to subscribe after utilizing the free tree, although I cannot confirm this personally as I subscribed when I decided to utilize their trees.

Although you can include a tree, MyHeritage does not provide tree matching for people whose DNA matches, showing common surnames or a common ancestor if one is listed.

As always with any vendor, read the Terms and Conditions, Privacy Policy and any other linked documents when considering either a purchase or uploading your DNA results from another testing company. The MyHeritage Privacy Policy is here and Terms and Conditions are here.

You can upload your autosomal DNA results for free here.

Standard Disclosure

This standard disclosure will now appear at the bottom of every article in compliance with the FTC Guidelines.

Hot links are provided to Family Tree DNA, where appropriate. If you wish to purchase one of their products, and you click through one of the links in an article to Family Tree DNA, or on the sidebar of this blog, I receive a small contribution if you make a purchase. Clicking through the link does not affect the price you pay. This affiliate relationship helps to keep this publication, with more than 850 articles about all aspects of genetic genealogy, free for everyone.

I do not accept sponsorship for this blog, nor do I write paid articles, nor do I accept contributions of any type from any vendor in order to review any product, etc. In fact, I pay a premium price to prevent ads from appearing on this blog.

When reviewing products, in most cases, I pay the same price and order in the same way as any other consumer. If not, I state very clearly in the article any special consideration received. In other words, you are reading my opinions as a long-time consumer and consultant in the genetic genealogy field.

I will never link to a product about which I have reservations or qualms, either about the product or about the company offering the product. I only recommend products that I use myself and bring value to the genetic genealogy community. If you wonder why there aren’t more links, that’s why and that’s my commitment to you.

Thank you for your readership, your ongoing support and for purchasing through the affiliate link if you are interested in making a purchase at Family Tree DNA.

Concepts – Why Genetic Genealogy and Triangulation?

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One of the questions often asked is why triangulation in genetic genealogy is so important.

Before I answer that, let’s take a look at why genealogists use autosomal DNA for genetic genealogy in the first place.

Why Genetic Genealogy?

Aside from ethnicity testing, genetic genealogists utilize autosomal DNA testing to further their genealogical research or confirm the research they have already performed. Genetic genealogy cannot stand alone on DNA evidence, but must include traditional genealogical research. DNA is simply another tool in the genealogist’s tool box – albeit a critical one.

There are three established primary vendors in this field, Family Tree DNA, Ancestry and 23andMe, plus a few newcomers. All three vendors offer autosomal DNA tests utilized by genetic genealogists in various ways. If you want to learn more about the differences between these vendors’ offerings, please read the article, “Which DNA Test is Best?”

In order to achieve genealogical goals, there are four criteria that need to be met. All are required to achieve triangulation which is the only way to confirm a genealogical ancestral match to a specific ancestor.

  • DNA Matching – The tester’s DNA matches that of other testers at the company where they tested, or at GedMatch. All three vendors provide matching information, along with GedMatch, a third-party tool utilized by genetic genealogists.

Family Tree DNA assigns matches to either maternal, paternal or both sides of the tester’s tree based on connecting the DNA of relatives, up through third cousins, who have tested to their appropriate location in the tester’s tree.

In the example above, you can see the individuals linked to my tree include my mother with her Family Finder test, plus her two first cousins, Donald and Cheryl Ferverda who have also tested.

  • Ancestor Matching – The testers identify a common ancestor or ancestral line based on their previous work, aka, genealogy and family trees.  In the example above, the common ancestors are the parents of the brothers, John and Roscoe Ferverda.  Identifying a common ancestor is an easy task with known close relatives, but becomes more challenging the more distant the common ancestor.

Of the vendors, 23andMe does not have a Gedcom upload or ability for testers to display trees and for the vendor to utilize to match surnames, although they can link to external trees. Ancestry provides “tree matching,” shown above, and Ancestry and Family Tree DNA, shown below, both provide surname matching.

  • Segment Matching – Utilizing chromosome browsers or downloaded match lists including segment information to identify actual DNA segments that match other testers.

Family Tree DNA’s chromosome browser is shown above.

Each individual tester will have two groups of matches on the same segment, one group from their mother’s side of the tree and one from their father’s side of the tree. Each tester carries DNA inherited from both parents on two different “sides” of each chromosome. You can read more about that in the article, One Chromosome, Two Sides, No Zipper – ICW and the Matrix.

Of the three vendors, Ancestry does not provide segment matching, a chromosome browser, nor any segment information, so testers cannot perform this step at Ancestry.

23andMe does provide this information, but each tester must individually “opt in” to data sharing, and many do not. If testers do not globally “opt in” they must authorize sharing individually for every match, so testers will not be able to see the chromosome segment information for many 23andMe matches. In my case, only about 60% are sharing.

Family Tree DNA provides a chromosome browser, the file download capability with segment information, and everyone authorizes sharing of information when they initially test – so there is no opt-in confusion.

Ancestry and 23andMe raw DNA data files can be transferred to both Family Tree DNA and GedMatch where chromosome browsers and other tools are available. For more information about transferring files, please read Autosomal DNA Transfers – Which Companies Accept Which Tests?

Triangulation – The process used to combine all three of the above steps in order to assign specific segments of the tester’s DNA to specific ancestors, by virtue of:

  • The tester’s DNA matching the DNA of other testers on a specific segment.
  • Identifying that the individuals who match the tester on that segment also match each other. This is part of the methodology employed to group the testers matches into two groups, the maternal and paternal groupings.
  • Identifying which ancestor contributed that segment to all of the people who match the tester and each other on that same segment.

In order for a group of matches to triangulate, they must match each other on the same segment of DNA and they must all share a common ancestor.

Triangulation is part DNA, meaning the inheritance, part technology, meaning the ability to show that all testers in a match group all match each other and on the same segment, and part genealogy, meaning the ability to identify the common ancestor of the group of individuals.

The following chart shows a portion of my match download file on chromosome 5 from Family Tree DNA.

As you can see, these matches all cover significant portions of the same segment on chromosome 5.

Without further investigation, we know that I match all of these people, but we don’t know what that information is telling us about my genealogy. We don’t know who matches each other, and we can’t tell which people are from my mother’s and father’s sides. We also don’t know who the common ancestor is or common ancestors are.

However, looking at the trees of the individuals involved, or contacting them for further information, and/or recognizing known cousins from a specific line all combine to contribute to the identification of our common ancestors.

Below is the same spreadsheet, now greatly enriched after my genealogy work is applied to the DNA matches in two additional columns.

I’ve colored my triangulated groups pink for my mother’s side and blue for my father’s side.

In this case, I also have access to my cousins’ DNA match results, so I can view their matches as well, looking for common matches on my match list.

One of the reasons genealogists always suggest testing older family members and as many cousins as possible is because triangulation becomes much easier with known cousins from particular lines to point the way to the common ancestor. In this case, one cousin, Joe, is from my mother’s side and one, Lou, is from my father’s side.

By looking at my matches’ genealogy, I’ve now been able to assign this particular segment on chromosome 5, on my mother’s side to ancestors Johann Michael Miller and his wife Susanna Berchtol. The same segment, on my father’s side is inherited from Charles Dodson and his wife, Ann, last name unknown.

In order to achieve triangulation, the common ancestor must be determined for the match group. Once triangulation is achieved, descent from the common ancestor is confirmed.

Unless you are dealing with very close known relatives, like the Ferverda first cousins, there is no other way to prove a genetic connection to a specific ancestor.

At Family Tree DNA, I can utilize the chromosome browser and the ICW and matrix tools to determine which of this group matches each other. At 23andMe, I can utilize their shared DNA matching tool. This information can then be recorded in my DNA spreadsheet, as illustrated above.

Triangulation cannot be achieved at Ancestry or utilizing their tools. Ancestry’s DNA Circles provide extended match groups, indicating who matches whom for a particular ancestor shown in a tester’s tree, but do not indicate that the matches are on the same segment. Circles do not guarantee that Circle members are matching on DNA from that ancestor, only that they do match and show a common ancestor in their tree.  The third triangulation step of segment matching is missing.  Ancestry does not provide segment information in any format, so Ancestry customers who want to triangulate can either retest elsewhere or download their data files to either Family Tree DNA or GedMatch for free.

Summary

Before the advent of genetic genealogy, genealogists had to take it on faith that the paper trail was accurate, and that there was no misattributed parentage – either through formal or informal adoption or hanky-panky.  That’s not the case anymore.

Today, DNA through triangulation can prove ancestry for groups of people to a common ancestor by identifying segments that have descended from that ancestor and are found in multiple descendants today.

Of course, the next step is to break down those remaining brick walls. For example, what is the birth name of Ann, wife of Charles Dodson, whose surname is unknown? Logically, the DNA descended from a couple, meaning Charles and Ann, contains DNA from both individuals. We don’t know if that segment on chromosome 5 is from Ann, Charles, or parts from both, BUT, if we begin to see a further breakdown to another, unknown family line among the Charles and Ann segments, that might be a clue.

One day, in the future, we’ll be able to identify our unknown family lines through DNA matches and other people’s triangulation. That indeed, is the Holy Grail.

Additional Resources

If you’d like to read more specific information about autosomal DNA matching and triangulation, be sure to read the links in the article, above. The following articles may be of interest as well:

DeMystifying Autosomal DNA Matching

Autosomal DNA Testing 101 – What Now?

Autosomal DNA Matching Confidence Spectrum

Concepts – Segment Size, Legitimate and False Matches

How Your Autosomal DNA Identifies Your Ancestors

Concepts – Identical by Descent, State, Population and Chance

Nine Autosomal Tools at Family Tree DNA

If you think you might come up short, because you have only one known cousin who has tested, well, think again.

Just One Cousin

Here’s wishing you lots of triangulated matches!!!

Mitochondrial DNA – Your Mom’s Story

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Have you ever wondered why you would want to test your mitochondrial DNA? What would a mitochondrial DNA test tell you about your ancestors? What would it mean to you and how would it help your genealogy?

If you’re like most genealogists, you want to know every single tidbit you can discover about your ancestors – and mitochondrial DNA not only tells us about people we match that are currently living, that share ancestors with us at some point in time, but it also reaches back beyond the range of what genealogy in the traditional sense can tell us – past the time when surnames were adopted, peering into the misty veil of the past!

Every single one of your ancestors has their own individual story to tell – and if you really want to know who you are and where each ancestral line came from, mitochondrial DNA is the insider story on your mother’s matrilineal line.

What Is Mitochondrial DNA?

Mitochondrial DNA a special type of DNA that tells the direct line story of your mother’s mother’s mother’s heritage – all the way back as far as we can go – beyond genealogy– to the woman from whom we are all descended that we call “mitochondrial Eve.”

Mitochondrial DNA is never mixed with the father’s DNA, so the red circle pedigree line above remains unbroken and intact and is passed from mothers to all of their children, as you can see in the brother and sister at the bottom. Only females pass mitochondrial DNA on to their children, so all children carry their mother’s mtDNA. The great news is that everyone can test for mitochondrial DNA, unlike Y DNA where only males can test, shown by the blue square pedigree line above.

However, because of the surname changes in every generation for females, you can’t tell at a glance by looking at your mitochondrial matches’ surname if you are or might be related, like you can with Y DNA which tracks the direct paternal line which means the surname typically doesn’t change. If your match doesn’t list a common ancestor that you recognize, you may need to do some genealogy work to search for that ancestor.

This doesn’t mean mitochondrial DNA isn’t useful, because it can provide you with lots of information – some of which is useful genealogically and some that provides you with knowledge of where your matrilineal line came from and their course of travel through time, over hundreds and thousands of years.

Mitochondrial DNA is an extremely underutilized resource that gives us the ability to peer down the periscope of one family line for thousands of years.

Not to mention, it’s just plain fun!  Who doesn’t want to know more about our ancestors, and especially when the information resides within us and is so easy to retrieve.

Family Tree DNA provides 10 great mitochondrial tools for every customer. Let’s take a look at what you receive and how to utilize this information.

Haplogroup

Everyone who tests their mitochondrial DNA at Family Tree DNA receives a haplogroup assignment. Think of a haplogroup as your genetic clan. Haplogroups have a history and a pedigree chart, just like people do. Haplogroups and their branches can identify certain groups of people, such as people of African descent, European, Asian, Jewish and Native American.

While the matrilineal DNA is passed intact with no admixture from the father, occasionally mutations do happen, and it’s those historical mutations that form clans and branches of clans as generation after generation is born and continues to migrate to new areas.

If you take the entry level mtDNA Plus test which only tests about 6% of the available mitochondrial markers, those most likely to mutate, you will receive a base haplogroup, because that’s all that can be determined by those markers. If you take the mtFull Sequence test which tests all of the 16,569 mitochondrial locations, you will receive a full haplogroup designation, plus a lot more.

What’s the difference? In my case, my full haplogroup is J1c2f, meaning that my branch of haplogroup J is the result of 4 branching events from mother haplogroup J. Haplogroup J itself was formed by a defining set of mutations. The first branch was J1, then J1c, and so forth.

Haplogroup J was formed someplace in the Middle East and its branches are found primarily in the Mediterranean, Europe and western Asia today, plus, of course, diaspora regions like the Americas, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

The mitochondrial Haplogroup J Project at Family Tree DNA provides a map of the most distant known ancestors of Haplogroup J members, including all branches, shown below.

My branch, haplogroup J1c2f, a rare haplogroup, is found in a much more restricted geography. It has taken 10 years or so to accumulate 10 pins on the map.  Of course, there would be more if everyone tested and joined their haplogroup project.

How Old is Haplogroup J?

With the mtFull Sequence test, you receive a lot more information than with the mtPlus test, for not a lot more investment, as you can see in the chart below and as we work through results.

Haplogroup Born Years Ago Receive With Test
J 34,000 mtPlus
J1 27,000 mtFull Sequence
J1c 13.000 mtFull Sequence
J1c2 10,000 mtFull Sequence
J1c2f 1,000 mtFull Sequence

Estimated dates for each haplogroup branches “birth” have been provided in the paper, A “Copernican” Reassessment of the Human Mitochondrial DNA Tree from its Root by Behar et al.

Haplogroup J itself was born about 34,000 years ago, someplace in the Middle East or near the Black Sea.

Haplogroup J1c2f was born about 1000 years ago, and utilizing the map of J1c2f in combination with the known history of my full sequence matches allows me to learn where my ancestors were in more recent times. In my case, I’m fascinated by that cluster in Sweden and Norway, all of whom I’m related to with in the last 1000 years or so. Is there a message there for me about where my ancestor lived, perhaps, before the first documentation of my ancestral line in Germany in 1799?

More Please

Are you starting to see the benefit to mitochondrial DNA testing? We’ve only scratched the surface.

At Family Tree DNA, your haplogroup is shown in the upper right hand corner on your personal page dashboard.

In the mtDNA section, additional tools are shown. Let’s look at each one and what it can tell you about your matrilineal line.

Please note that you can click to enlarge any image.

You can always navigate to the Dashboard or any other option by clicking on the myFTDNA button on the upper left hand corner.

Matches

The first place most people look is at their Matches page. In my case, I have 38 full sequence matches. Full sequence matches are the most likely to match in a genealogical time frame. You can see by just looking at my matches below why entering the name of your earliest known ancestor (under Manage Personal Information, Account Settings, Genealogy) is so important!!! That’s the first thing people see and the best indication of a common ancestor. I always include a name, birth/death date and location.

As you can see, most of my matches (names obscured for privacy) have trees attached to their results and many have also taken the family finder test. Both are great news for me!

I can then view at my HVR1+HVR2 matches, which is equivalent to the mtPlus test today.

I have 266 HVR1+HVR2 matches, many of whom have also taken the full sequence test. Those who have taken the higher level test, I can disregard because their results, if they match, are already included on the full sequence match page. I do review the people who have not yet taken the full sequence test because a valuable match may be lurking there.

I can e-mail my matches by clicking on the envelope.

Results

Next, let’s look at our results. This page should really probably say “raw results,” because as many people say, “it’s just a page of numbers.”  Yes, it is, but there is magic in these numbers because they are the key to “everything else mitochondrial.”

This page shows your mutations – in other words, what makes you both different from other people and the same as people you match, which isolates your matches to people with whom you share a common ancestor at some point in time. The fewer mutations difference, generally the closer in time your common ancestor. If you match someone exactly, it means you share all of the same mutations, including “extra” and “missing” mutations typically found in people who carry your hapologroup.

There are two formats provided, the RSRS and the CRS, which I explained in the article, The CRS and the RSRS. You don’t need to know these details, but they are available if you are interested.

Some of these mutations shown are your haplogroup and subgroup defining mutations. For example, haplogroup J1c2f is defined by the mutation at location 9055, shown above. If you have all these mutations but don’t have G9055A, then you’re not haplgroup J1c2f, you’re J1c2.

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

Most mutations shown, other than haplogroup defining mutations, are typically found in your subgroup, but others are “rare.” It’s those rare extra or missing mutations that are your family-line-defining mutations. In my case, both G185A and G228A are family line defining. But you really don’t need to worry about this unless you are going to take a deep dive, because the matching and other tools included by Family Tree DNA provide further analysis in ways far easier to understand and without you having to understand or worry about the nitty-gritty details.

The beauty of these numbers, is, of course, in the underlying story they tell us. You can’t have matches without these numbers. You also can’t have maps or anything else without the raw mutation information.

Let’s look at the story they tell.

Matches Maps

One of my favorite tools is the Matches Map because it shows the most distant ancestor for all of your matches that have provided that information.

Hint: You MUST enter the geographic information through the “Update Ancestor’s Location” link at the bottom of this map for YOUR ancestor to be displayed on THIS map (white pin) and also on the maps of your matches. You can see how useful this information is!  I wish everyone would do this, even if they are adopted and the only information they have is where they were born! Clusters are important for genealogy matching as well as for more distant origins.

You can also display your match list by clicking on the “Show Match List” link under the map. You can click on the pins on the map to display the accompanying information.

On the full sequence map, your exact matches are shown in red, 1 step mutations in orange, 2 steps in yellow, so you can easily look for clusters.

Once again, the Scandinavian group stands out because many are exact matches to my German ancestor. Do you think there might be a message there?

If not for my mitochondrial DNA, how else would I ever obtain this information, given that the German church records ended in 1799 for my matrilineal line? Did they end in 1799 because my ancestral line wasn’t in Germany before that?

Migration and Frequency Maps

Are you wondering how your ancestor and her ancestors arrived in the location where you first find them?

The haplogroup Migration Maps show you the ancestral path from Africa to, in my case, Europe.

The Frequency Map then shows you how much of the European population is haplogroup J, which includes subgroups.

Haplogroup Origins

The Haplogroup Origins page shows me the distribution of my haplogroup, by region, by match type.

For example, I have 7 exact matches in Norway and 1 in Poland. Only a portion of my Haplogroup Origins page is shown here, and only the Full Sequence Matches.  HVR1 and HVR1+HVR2 matches are displayed as well.

Ancestral Origins

The Ancestral Origins page shows my matches by Country along with any comments. My matches shown don’t have any comments, but comments might be Ashkenazi or MDKO (most distant known origin) when US is given as the most distant ancestral location.

Again, I’ve only shown my full sequence matches.

Advanced Matching Combines Tools

Another of my favorite tools is Advanced Matches, available under the Tools and Apps tab.

Advanced Matches is a wonderful tool that allows you to combine test types. For example, let’s say that you want to know if any of the people you match on the mtDNA test are also showing up as a match on the Family Finder test. You could further limit this by project as well.

Be sure to click on “show only people I match in all selected tests” or you’ll receive the combined list of all matches, not just the people who match on BOTH tests, which is what you want.

There aren’t any people that match me on BOTH the Family Finder test and the full sequence mtDNA test, which tells me that these matches are several generations back in time.  For purposes of example, I’m showing my two matches on both the HVR1 and the Family Finder test, below – just so you can see how the tool works.

Because both of these people tested at the HVR2 level, where we don’t match, the mitochondrial part of this match is likely hundreds to thousands of years ago and isn’t connected to the Family Finder match.  However, if these two matches had NOT tested at a higher level, where I know we don’t match, the combined match of mtDNA and the Family Finder test might be a significant hint as to our common ancestral line.

Of course, for adoptees, finding someone with whom you match closely on the Family Finder test AND match exactly on the full sequence test would be very suggestive of a matrilineal common ancestor in a recent timeframe.

Combination matching is a powerful tool.

Projects

We started our discussion about mitochondrial haplogroups by referencing the MtDNA Haplogroup J project. Family Tree DNA has over 9000 projects for you to select from.

Thankfully, you don’t have to browse through them all, as they are broken down into categories.

  • Haplogroup projects are categorized by Y or mtDNA and then by subhaplogroup where appropriate.
  • Surname projects exist as well and are searchable for your genealogy lines.
  • Geographical projects cover everything else, from geographies such as the Cumberland Gap region of Appalachia to the American Indian project. Some projects focus on Y DNA, some on mtDNA, some both plus include people with autosomal results that pertain to that project.

Project administrators can enter surnames that pertain to their project so that Family Tree DNA can match the tester’s surname to the project list to provide the tester with a menu.

Please do READ the project description before joining, as lot of people join every project listed, even though the surname listed in that project in no way pertains to their family.  For example, in the Estes list above, my Estes line is in no way connected to the Estis family of the Ukraine or Fairfield County, SC nor are they haplogroup I, so joining the haplogroup I-L161(Isles) Y DNA project would be futile even if I was an Estes male.

Needless to say, if you’re a female who did not test under your birth surname, the project menu won’t be relevant to you, so you’ll need to use the “Search by Surname” function, at the bottom of the menu to find projects for your surname.

You can also scroll down and browse in a number of ways, in addition to surname.

All testers should join their haplogroup project so that everyone can benefit from collaboration. Testing in isolation without collaboration benefits no one.  We all benefit from matching and sharing, both individually and as a larger group.  Think of those maps and clusters!

You can join and manage your projects from your home page by clicking on the Projects tab on the upper left.

Mitochondrial Summary

I hope this overview has provided you with some good reasons to test your mitochondrial DNA or to better understand your results if you’ve already tested.

Mitochondrial DNA holds the secrets of your matrilineal line. You never know what you don’t know unless you test. You don’t know what kind of surprises are waiting for you – and let’s face it, our ancestors are always full of surprises!

You can order or upgrade your mitochondrial DNA test by clicking here.