A Dozen Ancestors That Aren’t – aka – Bad NADs

Posted on April 14, 2015 by Roberta Estes

Sooner or later, this happens to every genealogist. You are “gifted” with an ancestor one way or another and either they turn out not to be your ancestor at all, or at least not by that surname. Then, you have to saw that branch off of your own tree! Ouch!

There are lots of ways for this to happen, but this past week, we added a new way – and to me – this new avenue is even more frightening because it carries with it the perception of validation by DNA. After all, DNA doesn’t lie, right? Well, it doesn’t, IF it’s interpreted correctly. And that IF should be in the largest font size possible.

Bad New Ancestor Discovery (NAD) #1

Yep, last week, Ancestry.com released a new feature that uses only your DNA to find your ancestors called New Ancestor Discoveries. Great idea. Not terribly accurate – at least not yet. Ancestry has since changed their marketing verbiage to reflect that they aren’t necessarily finding new ancestors, they are finding potential ancestors and relatives, and these are hints, not gifts of ancestors. That’s much more accurate.

If you want to, you can catch up with all of that with my blogs here, here and here, and then a final blog by Ancestry “splainin’ things.” But how I got the new ancestor is much less important that the fact that I did receive two new ancestors, a man and a wife, and they are unquestionably incorrect. This phenomenon is now called Bad NADs on social media – NADs being “New Ancestor Discoveries.” Genealogists do have a sense of humor.

So let’s just suffice to say that if you receive a “new ancestor” from Ancestry, treat it as a hint. It might be a new ancestor. It might be someone related to one of the same lines, which is why your DNA matches. In other words, your real ancestor might be the aunt of the woman listed as your ancestor – and you just happen to share DNA with two of her sister’s kids descendants, which is why you got put into her “circle.”

Or, these people may not be your ancestors at or even related. How can that be, you ask? Easy – if you match each of two people through different ancestors, and they just happen to share a common ancestor – it looks like you might share that ancestor too. As I said, treat this NAD as a nice hint and start your research. Don’t attach these ancestors to your tree without verification…or you may well just have to saw those Bad NADs off.

But Ancestry’s new ancestors are just the newest way to get bogus ancestors. Let’s look at how I’ve obtained wrong ancestors, aka Bad NADs, and then had to go out and chop branches off of my own tree. Is that ever painful – because I’ve gotten attached to all of those people on that branch, thinking they were “mine.

So I’m thinking, maybe I should have titled this article “12 Ways to Get (Rid of) Bad NADs?” Sounds like a social disease. No, wait….it is! You often get it by associating with other genealogists:)

Bad NAD #2

Copying trees, or more creatively put, ancestor grafting. Grafted NADs.

I have to admit, I started to do this once or twice, but thankfully, THANKFULLY, I was just skeptical enough to copy those trees down as a separate file and they are still hanging out there on my computer waiting to be attached. Needless to say, they never will be. They served as great starting or reference points for further study.

And thankfully, THANKFULLY, this novice error was made in the days of Rootsweb trees and not Ancestry trees. What is the difference, you ask? Well, you could copy someone’s GEDCOM file from Rootsweb and then attach some part or all of it to your tree on your computer. At Ancestry.com, it’s much MUCH easier just to copy all or part of a tree and connect it to your own tree. Just click, click and it’s done. Like it was never not a part of your tree. Instant gratification graft – complete with every single one of their errors – all included in the price of your subscription. In fact, they’ll even change YOUR information already input if you’re not careful. Yep, will clean that right up for you.

Had it been that easy for me in the beginning, I would have had an awful mess to unravel – because many or even most of those online trees are wrong. Skeptical about that? Let’s run an experiment.

I searched on Ancestry and checked the first 50 entries for my immigrant ancestor, Abraham Estes 1647-1720 to see how many of them had his wife’s name listed incorrectly as Barbara Brock.

Care to guess how many? Go ahead, guess!

All 50. Every last one.

Ok, well maybe the second 50 aren’t so bad.

Nope, all of those too – so now we’re up to 100 out of 100 wrong trees.

All of these, without one shred of evidence, because none exists.

But wait….there’s more.

Ok, let’s look at the third set of 50. Finally, the last entry on the third set shows his first wife listed as Barbara Burton, which is accurate, and his second wife, from whom all of his children descend, as Barbara Mn? Well, Mn is not accurate either, whatever it means, but at least it’s not Brock and there is a question mark present. But 149 of the first 150 were flat out wrong and wrong in exactly the same way. The 150th one is wrong in a different way.

Ancestry lists these trees in “best first” order, so if you look at the top trees, they will be the ones with the most sources and information. The sources for all of these surnames? Other trees. In other words, hearsay. And repeating hearsay 149 times doesn’t make it any truer than it was that first time when it was 100% wrong.

All 149 people need to saw that Bad NAD Brock branch off of their tree.

Ok, so now let’s look at how Barbara became to be erroneously identified as a Brock.

Bad NAD #3

A book. The Written NAD. In this case, a historical novel – but it could just as well have been a poorly researched non-fiction book. These things, once in print, take on an air of permanence, a life of their own, and authority they should never have.

In this case, there was a historical novel written in the 1980s. In that novel, which included the Estes family, the author gifted Barbara with the Brock surname. He also gifted another one of my ancestors, Abraham’s son, Moses’s wife, Elizabeth with the surname of Webb. I think he found the Webb surname in an early land transaction, so he made Webb Elizabeth’s surname in the book because it “worked” with the historical record in the story. Moses bought land from her family in the book and that became the birthplace of Moses’s wife’s surname, transplanted of course to hundreds of trees like so much kudzu.

Guess what, Elizabeth Webb is just as wrong for the same reason, and just as pervasive as Barbara Brock. Thanks Bud, thanks so much for the Bad NADs.

In Bud’s defense, he did say it was a historical novel, but so much of his novel was based on the truth that it was easy to extrapolate, and believe me, people did.

Just the same, saw off that Webb surname

Bad NAD #4

Assuming and hypothesizing. Yep, this one was my own doing – albeit unintentionally. Self-Inflicted Bad NADs.

I found my female ancestor as a widow in the census with a male of about the same age that was listed as “imbecile” and speculated, with a cousin, that the man living with her could have been her brother.

Well, it wasn’t, because when I ordered her husband’s pension papers from the War of 1812, she tells us her maiden name, her father’s name, her marriage date and more.

But by then, the damage was done. The cousin let it out into the wild and those trees were being copied and now James Claxton/Clarkson’s wife’s name is Sarah Helloms or Sarah Helloms Cook in many trees. There is no “recall” button. By the way, her father was Joel Cook, just for the record, and her mother was Alcy, surname unknown.

If you’ve got something else, get the saw! You know, the only thing worse than sawing off NADs that someone else gave you is sawing off your own Bad NADs.

Bad NAD #5

Bad sources, in particular, wrong mother’s name on death certificate. Talk about a bum steer. So, Wild Goose Chase NADs.

This occurs far more often than you’d think. On my great-grandfather Joseph Bolton’s death certificate, his birth location is incorrect and his mother is listed as Nancy Cristie. Joseph’s mother was Margaret Herrell Martin before she married Joseph Bolton (Sr.) as her second marriage. Where they got Nancy Cristie is absolutely beyond me. And yes, we know that Margaret Herrell WAS his mother both through family, through other documents and through DNA.

I wasn’t 100% convinced until I had the DNA evidence – simply because this was such an official document.

Looking at this, you would think Joseph’s wife, who knew Joseph’s mother, would have gotten her name right – at least her first name. But, if you look further into the situation, Joseph’s wife, Margaret, was herself very ill with the flu and pneumonia and she too would die within a few days. Her death certificate says she had been sick since February 18^th, so she could not have been the direct informant on Joseph’s death certificate – regardless of what it says. Either that, or they were quizzing her on her death bed, after her husband had just died, and it’s no wonder the answer made no sense.

This isn’t the first or only time I’ve seen this type of erroneous information on legal documents. I’d much rather see that dreaded blank space than incorrect information. At least with a blank, you’ve not been sent off on a wild goose chase.

At least with this incorrect information, there IS a source. Unfortunately, death certificates and obituaries are particularly bad about having accurate names. I had to have my mother’s obituary run 4 times until it was correct. The newspaper was NOT happy with me – but I was even less happy with them. Often, these records are all we have, unfortunately, that tie people to parents and families together. And let’s face it, who is ever going to find the second, third or fourth copy of an obituary.

Bad NAD #6

Lax research methodology and drawing conclusions when one shouldn’t. So, Assumed Bad NADs.

In Halifax County, VA, Moses Estes’s wife, Luremia Combs interacted constantly with George Combs and his wife, Phoebe. Plus, Moses and Luremia named their first son George. Moses and Luremia bought land from George and Phoebe. Over the years, the correlation or accepted relationship between these people came to be that Luremia was the daughter of George and Phoebe. Indeed, it certainly did look that way. But it wasn’t.

In fact, it wasn’t until a list of heirs came to light in a lawsuit in Amelia County that we learned that indeed, John Combs with an unknown first wife was the father of Luremia, and that George was likely the son of that John, or the brother, who was also named George. In any case, George was not the father of Luremia.

However, if you look at those first 50 trees at Ancestry, every tree that has any father for Luremia has George Combs.

Get the saw…Bad NAD George has gotta go…

Bad NAD #7

Poor, bad or incomplete transcription. Clerical NADs.

Luremia Combs, in an early deed, is difficult to read. If you don’t read any later documentation, it looks like that word might be Susannah. In fact, one transcriber transcribed it as Susannah and one as Lurana. It’s only with the benefit of knowing her name is Luremia that you can see that early document is Luremia, not Susannah. I don’t even need to tell you how many trees say either Susannah or not knowing what else to do, people combined the two and she is now Luremia Susannah. Sigh.

At least in this case, you have the right person, just with a different first name – well – except for those trees who have “made up” the story that Moses married sisters by the name of Susannah and Luremia. I don’t know if you need a saw as much as you need an eraser and glue.

Bad NAD #8

Wrong spouse, also known as the Oops NAD.

A lot of spouses died, and people remarried rather quickly out of necessity. Many children of first marriages were simply listed on the census with their step-father’s name and some used that surname, not their father’s name. That’s just the way it was at that time. Same situation for wives. Just because you find your ancestor in the 1850 census, age 11 or 12, with a family that includes wife “Mary” as the wife doesn’t at all mean that Mary was the mother of all of the children.

Eventually, you may “discover” this if the Y DNA doesn’t match the “fathers” line, but it’s rare to discover this through mitochondrial DNA – although it’s technically possible. More often, you’ll discover it accidentally, like by finding a marriage for your ancestor after his or her first children were already born.

Hmmmm….where’s the saw???

Bad NAD #9

Relying on someone else’s documentation. This would be the Trust Me NAD.

In some cases, you just have no choice in this matter. For example, I’m connected back through many generations through Nathaniel Brewster and Sarah Ludlow to King Edward I. I cannot, if I had the rest of my lifetime to do it, recreate the body of research that has been done on the royal descendants. So, I am left to judge the quality of the information available, and based on that, determine what to use. I guarantee you, I will never in my lifetime look at anyone’s tree as a source. However, wills, deeds, leases, historical documents and books are all sources that I think I can depend on…most of the time.

Be vigilant and watchful with a healthy dose of skepticism. Look for well documented sources – and it’s even better if they include photos of the document itself – even if you can’t necessarily read it! Keep that saw within reach.

Bad NAD #10

Accepting family stories as gospel – aka- the Telephone Game NAD.

No, I’m not saying your grandpa lied to you. But he might have made the story better, so you would enjoy it more. Or his grandpa might have done that with him. Or, someone might have quite innocently gotten the generation wrong, or the location, or, or, or….

Remember that game, Telephone, from when we were kids?

We have the perfect example of this in the Estes family. In 1852 William Estes left Iowa for the gold fields of California. He never came back. That much is fact, and it’s documented in a land sale that the family “didn’t know his whereabouts.”

Everyone agrees that he died…eventually. I mean, he’s assuredly dead now, regardless of what happened then. One story out of that family says he died on the way to California, one says he died on the way back and one just says that they never knew what happened to him and assumed he died because he wrote his wife and told her he was selling his gold claim and coming home (which, if true, means he couldn’t have died on the way out). One version said he was traveling with a man who said he got sick and that he was probably murdered by that man. And these stories are from his children and grandchildren – not generations later.

But wait, what if he didn’t die right away? What if I subtly changed the essence of the story in my telling of it, inadvertently, by saying that everyone agreed that he died. They didn’t really – they assumed he died. Maybe he just stayed in California, fell in love with a nice widow lady, or a spicy showgirl, remarried and had another family – letting his family in Iowa think he was dead.

Taking this story into consideration, you can see how that Indian Princess story might have happened.

Bad NAD #11

Two men, same name. Same wife’s first name. Same county, same time. This is the stuff genealogy nightmares are made of. The Twofer NAD.

Want to know how we finally told the difference between the men? One could write, the other couldn’t. One had a group of people who witnessed deeds and lived nearby on tax and census lists. The other had a different group.

Yep, saw that branch off!

Bad NAD #12

And of course, there is always the nonpaternal event – where the DNA doesn’t match who it should. I call those “undocumented adoptions.” It’s tempting to think of these as Bad Boy (or Bad Girl) NADs, but they aren’t necessarily. See the step-father surname discussion in NAD #8.

Regardless of how they happened, they are undocumented and they are an “adoption” of sorts. In essence, these are typically discovered when the expected Y DNA does not materialize in a particular line. In other words, it doesn’t match the known ancestral family line. This is exactly what happened in my Younger line. This is also sometimes discovered utilizing autosomal DNA, especially in close family members, 2^nd cousin or closer.

How people react to this, and what you do about it, in terms of further testing to determine where the disconnect happened, is entirely a personal decision that is different in every situation.

In some cases, the Y DNA of the tester does match another surname, and the connection becomes immediately obvious, like it’s the wife’s first husband’s surname. In other cases, we never make that biological connection – but the great thing about DNA is that it’s out there fishing for you, every minute of every day.

______________________________________________________________

Disclosure

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

Thank you so much.

DNA Purchases and Free Transfers

Genealogy Services

Genealogy Research

Legacy Tree Genealogists for genealogy research

And A Dozen Things I Got Right

Posted on March 19, 2015 by Roberta Estes

Yesterday, I told you about some things I’d do differently, from the beginning of my genealogy adventure or as soon as I could, if I were starting over. But while I made some mistakes, I did get a few things right too. Now, I’d like to tell you that this was on purpose or a result of brilliance or stellar planning, but it wasn’t. Mostly, it was either flat out luck combined with a dash of common sense, or a result of my training in a related field. Still, I’d like to share these things, because they are every bit as relevant now as then – and in some cases, maybe more so.

1. Talk to the older people. Now you’re going to laugh at this, but when I started working with genealogy, my father’s family lines were in the south – in Appalachia – and many people didn’t have phones. And I mean land-line phones – you know – the kind that were black with rotary dials. Those who did were often not terribly comfortable with them. I heard one man yell at a child who answered the phone when I called one evening about 8PM, “Hang that thing up. You know we don’t answer the phone after dark.” Seriously? So, if you wanted to have a “real conversation” with these people, you went to visit. In person visits are much better, because it encourages story-telling, helps people recall that they do have a box of pictures someplace, and maybe they’ll go and find them, and allows people to really get to know each other. Of course, today, I’d be carrying DNA kits in my bag too. Oh, and mind your manners – take a small gift when visiting – flowers work well for ladies and often, some kind of food goodie for men.

2. Visit local hangouts, like the local coffee shop, the local breakfast place, and mingle with the locals. You’d be surprised what they know, and what they’ll tell you – many times things that your family won’t tell you. And they know who to ask about who owns that land “up yonder” too, and they’ll tell you about the time your grandpa got arrested for tipping the outhouse over on the mayor’s daughter, or put feathers in the stove at the school, causing quite a stink, or getting in trouble for “taking a girl over the state line.” Ahem. But they’ll make you promise never to tell who told you. By the time you leave, you’ll feel like family and have had a great local meal.

3. Visit the local churches that were in existence when your ancestor lived there, and near where they lived. In some cases, I’ve found information in church records, including minutes, that I found no place else – including the fact that my grandmother’s birth year was “adjusted” forward by one to make her conception date after her parents’ marriage. You can’t be baptized a year before you’re born.

4. Visit the local libraries, genealogy societies and court houses. Ask for family “vertical files” which are contributed information on various family lines. Copy the entire file. Courthouses are infamous for keeping older records “out of sight” someplace, so ask what else is available. See if there is someone who is familiar with the older records. Not everyone who works there is and they may inadvertently tell you that they don’t have certain records, when they do. Ask if they have archives, which are often in a separate location.

5. Find your ancestors original land. I do this by following deeds to the current (or near current) and praying, praying that there isn’t a tax sale or estate sale where the land changes hands and I can’t track it forward because an executor made the sale. Sometimes if you “lose” your ancestor’s land, you can track the neighbors land and “find” who owns your ancestor’s land later. Sometimes you can identify the land based on an old family cemetery and don’t need to do the deed work. Visit that land (with the current owner’s permission, of course.) Stand where they stood. See what they saw. This is one of my all-time favorite genealogy activities. Be careful about bulls though….just saying. Daryl, my travel-buddy cousin in the photo below, can tell you all about our great adventure being held captive by a bull. Yes, we were trapped inside the cemetery. I’m sure our southern cousins are still laughing about this. Sometimes you find more than your ancestor’s land.

6. Enter information into a genealogy program, along with notes for each person, along with the source and date for the note. Be anal. Enter everything. Your mistake won’t be entering too much, but not entering enough, or forgetting to enter your source. Then, file those records. Organize yourself and stay consistent. A filing cabinet (or 2 or 3) are your friends.

7. Housekeeping. Back up your data. My profession was in a technology field, so I applied the same principles to my own data as I did to my clients’. Not only do I back my system up regularly (nightly), I keep multiple copies and I also make sure there is an off-site copy periodically. I figure if I do that, I’ll never need it. Also, make sure you have current anti-virus/internet protection software as well. I use Norton’s Symantic 360 Premier Edition and I wouldn’t be without it – on my desktop and laptop too.

8. Share. There is nothing I dislike more than someone who has information about an ancestor and refuses to share it. One woman sent me half a document once – on purpose – then told me to do my own research to find the rest – except there was no clue of where to look. That’s akin to holding the ancestor hostage and it’s flat out evil. Yes, I’ve run into a few, but not many. And it has made me resolve to never be that way. They are the perfect example of serving as a bad example. Some of my best results have come through collaboration – the Henry Bolton and Nancy Mann stories are wonderful examples of collaboration with multiple DNA testers and researchers – and there’s more coming to this story – again, thanks to collaboration. We’ve discovered things together we could never have found alone. In another case, a cousin was very generous, sharing with me. A few months later, I wrote to ask him something, and he told me he had lost everything. I sent him his entire package of information he had sent me, plus some. He was ever so grateful he had shared, and so was I, for multiple reasons. His own selfless act of generosity was in turn, his own salvation. Talk about karma at its best.

9. Love the journey. I can’t tell you how much researching my ancestors has enriched my life. The trips, the people I’ve met and the bond I’ve formed with those ancestors whose lives I never knew about before, but can now appreciate. I’m making sure they are honored and remembered, hopefully, long after I’ve joined them. Get in the car (or plane) and go. There is nothing like visiting where your ancestors lived. And I swear, sometimes they help you. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve called my husband from some ancestral adventure and said, “you’re not going to believe this.”

10. Love your cousins. I come from a very small nuclear family and they are all deceased now. Yep, I’m the last one standing. So, other than my children, my various cousins are my family now, along with my quilt sisters, which is a whole other story. I’m extremely lucky to have met those cousins through genealogy and many have become fast friends, some for just about as long as I’ve done genealogy. I would never have met those wonderful people without genealogy.

11. Stay current with technology and see opportunity in change. Having said that, I still have not forgiven Microsoft for various versions of Windows upgrades. You remember, I know you do. I hear you moaning. While change is not my favorite thing, I guarantee you, and I hate change for the sake of change – I still slog through what I need to slog through to stay current. Technology is the single biggest enhancement and tool we have as genealogists. It’s the foundation for delivering digitized records and other types of information, none of which was available 20 years ago online – and much of which will eventually be available, I hope. But without keeping current with the hardware, software and operating systems, you won’t be able to access the information. Furthermore, being flexible enough to adopt and adapt to new technologies like Facebook and messaging allows us to reach another generation – you know – the generation who are cleaning out the houses that may well have boxes of pictures, Bibles and old letters we covet.

12. Do not wholesale copy other people’s work. And yes, I mean those Ancestry trees. Don’t do it. Make your own mistakes – don’t copy others. Genealogists don’t let genealogists copy trees. I don’t care how inviting it looks. I do look at the sources and proofs other people have for individual ancestors, and if I think there is something worthwhile, I evaluate that information separately. I never, ever copy/paste an ancestor into my tree.

13. Ok, so it’s a baker’s dozen. Take pictures, lots of pictures. Of the area, of the old churches, of the neighborhood, of local landmarks – your ancestor would have seen them all and they are part of their story. If you find cousins with old pictures, sometimes the best you can do is to take pictures of their pictures, and of them of course. I now travel (don’t laugh) with a scanner packed in a special suitcase in my car, along with my laptop. And when you get home, of course, share with all of your cousins!

Your ancestor’s story isn’t over yet. You and your family are part of it and so is your journey to document their life and times.

This picture has become one of my all-time favorites. It’s my cousin (yes, who I met through genealogy) Daryl (at right) and me, wading in the creek at Cumberland Gap, where our ancestors are from. It was a miserably hot day and that cool water felt so good. We’ve had so many fun adventures together and this shows us enjoying ourselves in the stream that runs through my ancestor’s land. While this isn’t our common ancestor, it’s our common Dodson line. We’ve chased these families all over the south. It doesn’t get better than this.

______________________________________________________________

Disclosure

Thank you so much.

DNA Purchases and Free Transfers

Genealogy Services

Genealogy Research

Legacy Tree Genealogists for genealogy research

Eleven Things I Would Do Differently

Posted on March 18, 2015 by Roberta Estes

I’ve been feverishly working each week on my ancestor for the 52 Ancestor’s challenge. Of course, this means I’m going back through everything for that ancestor, and for the county where they lived, and everything about their siblings and parents and aunts and uncles….oh my.

This process has given me ample opportunity to take a look at what I could have, would have and should have done differently over these past 37 years, had I known that one day I would be doing this.

Remember, I never started out to be a genealogist. I just wanted to know something about my father’s family. That was before the days of internet and there were no online classes. I don’t even know if there WAS a Mormon Church or Family History Center where I lived at that time, and it didn’t matter, because…remember…I wasn’t doing genealogy – so I didn’t need a class in how to do something I wasn’t doing.

One day, a few years later, someone said to me….”oh, so you’re a genealogist”….and I told them, no, I wasn’t.

Famous last words. I once said I wasn’t pregnant too…

So, now that I’ve admitted to my genealogy addiction and long-ago declared that I have absolutely no intention of recovering…what would I do differently had I known I was going to become thoroughly addicted…to make the process easier on myself and to be more productive.

1. I would write down everything and DATE it. I can’t tell you how many notes I have from early interviews with people in Claiborne County without even the name of the person I was talking to. Of course, I KNEW at that moment and I would NEVER forget….right????

2. I would note not only who I was talking to, but where, why and something about the person other than their name. I can’t tell you how many times, later, I was to discover that the person I was talking to was actually a cousin through an entirely different line and I so wished I had asked a different set of questions.

3. I would write down on every piece of research not only what I found, but what I didn’t find. In other words, not just that I found the following Estes records, but that I looked for ALL Estes records, not just ones for my first names, and that I also looked for Dodson records, but found none. This also applies to entirely nonproductive lookups when you find absolutely nothing in a reference resource. Otherwise, you’ll probably look in that same place several times over.

4. I would transcribe my research into two documents (utilizing copy/paste), described below, and at the time I did the research or shortly thereafter, when I still had a prayer of reading my own handwriting.

5. I would create a master county research document for all research from that county, regardless of the surname. Most of your relevant counties are going to hold more than one of your ancestral surnames. After all, people got married, even if they didn’t record it or the courthouse burned and you can’t find it.

To give an example of this, all of the tax records for Moore, Dodson and Estes, including surrounding neighbors, by year, including years where none where listed, would be in the county file, where individual records pertaining to a specific family surname or ancestor would be in their own or family file – see item 6.

6. I would create a master timeline of all family items by surname. I call these files “John R. Estes Everything” files. Clearly the John R. Estes Everything file will include some things that would also be in his father’s and his children’s files. In essence, this is what I’m doing with the 52 ancestor’s articles, except I’m interweaving the stories as told by the facts. In some cases, like in Halifax County, I have the “Estes Everything” file that is later broken into individual files when I can sort through the data. If I have a theory, I also write it in this document. It’s so much easier if I can see what I was thinking or trying to prove or disprove at a particular point in time. When I think I’m wrong, I don’t delete it, I write WHY. In some cases, I’ve later discovered I wasn’t wrong and had deleted that info and discourse with myself, it would have been gone. Yes, this is considered talking to yourself, just to be clear. And yes, I answer myself too because if not me, who? I mean, it’s not like my ancestor is going to reach down there leave me a note.

7. I would utilize a spreadsheet and record everything from the beginning. Of course, spreadsheets didn’t yet exist on computers when I began but I’ve since made up for it. I have now done this for most of my surnames. I transcribe the item, and then the spreadsheet is indexed by every surname. This allows me to go back and sort by surname and to discover that, for example, John Doe signed as a witness for deeds for several members of a particular family. This sometimes is extremely useful in sorting families in a county with the same names. And sorting a spreadsheet is so much more accurate than my memory. “I think I remember seeing…..”

In this case, the spreadsheet started for all of my Halifax County, VA records but quickly expanded to cover all entries for all of my Halifax County, VA surname families in Virginia and NC. Abbott is NOT one of my surnames, but you can clearly see that the Abbott family is somehow connected to the Moore family. In the example above, if I wanted to see the will of Joseph Abbott, I would sort for item 171 and the full text would be there under his entry. This entry would not be in this spreadsheet, were there not something in Joseph Abbott’s will that involved one of my surnames. Some of the Moore lines are mine, and some are not, as proven by DNA – but they all lived in the same county. That should be illegal! And they should not be allowed to name their children the same names either – but they did and now it’s left to us to unravel the puzzle.

8. I would take pictures of everything, meaning research documents, including the cover or title page. I started this using a good camera that does NOT require a flash years ago – but since then many counties and state archives don’t allow the practice. But I would do as much as I could. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve wanted to see the original document again. If in doubt about focus or quality, take 2 pictures. By the way, this is not in lieu of transcribing or extracting, but in addition. Sorry.

9. I would NEVER, ever read any historical fiction books. Not only can I not remember the difference between the historical fiction and the actual history of the family or area, neither can other people. There is one particular surname, Brock, that appears as a spouse of Abraham Estes, the immigrant, that was introduced in a well-meaning historical fiction book in the 1980s and is now the surname of Barbara, the wife of Abraham Estes, in thousands of trees everyplace – without even a teensy tiny shred of evidence anyplace except for citing each other’s wrong trees. And there are so many of them…they surely must be right. Right? In fact, if you ask the tree-owners, they will tell you they are sure that’s her name. But not one can tell you HOW they are sure, except that there are so many trees that they can’t all be wrong. Right? Wrong! Makes me pull my hair out.

10. I would rethink sharing a hypothesis. Years ago, I found a census record in which one of my ancestors, who was widowed, was found with an elderly man by a different surname, living in her household. We’ll call that surname Hell, because that’s what this became. (It was actually Helloms.) I hypothesized to another cousin that I thought Sarah’s surname might be Helloms and that this invalid male might be her brother. Not long afterwards, I discovered that Sarah’s husband, James Clarkson/Claxton had died in the War of 1812, ordered his paperwork from the National Archives, and discovered in that paperwork that Sarah’s surname was Cook, when and where they were married and that her father’s name was Joel Cook. No question. Hands down. Not Helloms. However, in the mean time, the Helloms surname from Hell had attached itself to trees, as fact, and now you find Sarah Helloms, Sarah Helloms Cook and more permutations, or mutations. And while that cousin should never had published speculative information as fact, publicly in her tree, I probably should not have shared that speculation either. On the other hand, collaboration is important – so I don’t know exactly what I should have done differently – but the result has been a disaster. Ironically, when I tell people that Helloms isn’t correct, and give them the source for the original problematic information, and the correct information, they often argue with me. Go figure!

11. DNA test everyone to the fullest extent possible at the time. I have cheap-sized myself and often, it can’t be fixed later. For example, I mitochondrial DNA tested the one living daughter of my paternal grandmother many years ago now. At the time, I only paid for the HVR1, which was probably about the price then of the full sequence today, thinking I could upgrade later. Well, guess what….NADA. We tried to upgrade a few years later and the quality wasn’t good enough, and she has since passed away. So, no full sequence and even more crushing, no autosomal upgrade. It’s killing me. Eat beans if you have to. Get the DNA when you can and test as much as possible. It’s ultimately worth it. Don’t put it off. Otherwise you will live to regret it and you’ll wish you had eaten those beans.

12. (Yes, I added this one later.) I would write the full source, not just a note like “Halifax County Court Order Books.” I would write the full book title, the book number/letter, the range of years it covered and the page number, of course. Sometimes I did, sometimes I didn’t, probably related to how tired I was at the time. My notes pages that went together would get permanently joined as well, immediately, so no strays floating around.

13. (Ok, I added two later.) Label all photographs, including contemporary ones. One day, they won’t be contemporary anymore and you’ll be trying to figure out by kids clothes, haircuts and relative sizes, living pets and the house at the time which Christmas was which. For digital photos assemble them in one place and then back up that source onto a different medium or computer.

Reflecting back upon earlier errors and mistakes through ignorance and learning from them instead of repeating them (again) is called wisdom, and it’s one of the only benefits of getting older. I hope you can benefit from some of my oversights. There has to be a silver lining someplace!

______________________________________________________________

Disclosure

Thank you so much.

DNA Purchases and Free Transfers

Genealogy Services

Genealogy Research

Legacy Tree Genealogists for genealogy research

Autosomal DNA 2015 – Which Test is the Best?

Posted on February 5, 2015 by Roberta Estes

Update: This article is now obsolete, but I’m leaving it for historical context.

—

Original article:

One of the questions most often asked today is which autosomal DNA test, or testing company, is the best, meaning Ancestry, 23andMe or Family Tree DNA.

The answer is often that it varies depending on your goals, individual priorities and budget. As with all things, circumstances with the vendors change over time. They offer new products, change features and overall, sometimes their actions and choices make them more or less valuable and attractive to the consumer.

This article reflects my opinions about what is good, and bad, at each vendor, today, in February 2015, and what they do best and worst. I am reviewing them in alphabetical order.

23andMe

Best Feature

Ability to download matching information about who your matches match that you match as well, along with common matching DNA segments, allowing direct triangulation.

In the example above, you can select the profile of any person you match and match against the profile of anyone else you match, showing you the common DNA segments of all parties.

Good Features

Chromosome Browser
Ethnicity feature tends to report minority Native and African when other companies sometimes fail to do so.
Ethnicity painted on chromosome segments.
Matching names provided in order of frequency found – of course this assumes that the matches have entered a list of family surnames, which isn’t often the case.
Y and mitochondrial DNA haplogroup estimate provided.

Not So Good

Trees – were horrible before. 23andMe has recently partnered with MyHeritage which will require a subscription if your tree is larger than 250 individuals. The jury is still out on this but the initial release has been rocky and appears untested.
Most of their customers are not genealogists and are not interested or know little about their genealogy. Fortunately, serious genealogists often test with multiple companies so you’re likely to catch them at either Family Tree DNA or at Ancestry.
Very low match response rate to inquiries. Positive response is required to see matching DNA segments.
Must communicate through internal message system.
Unfriendly website – difficult to find information.
Big Pharm alliances, contracts and medical patents – and your DNA is included one way or another, individually or aggregated, depending on the level of your authorization.
Corporate focus is on medical and not genealogical.
Customer support is poor, slow and often never replies.
Limit of roughly 1000 matches, at which point your matches begin to be trimmed. You can retain more if you have established communications with people. I have over 1200 matches today, but I don’t know how many I have lost. This can make your effective matching threshold much higher than their published number by virtue of the fact that your smallest matches are forever being trimmed after you reach the 1000 match threshold.
Spit kit versus swab kit.
Cannot adjust matching threshold.
V4 chip precludes data transfer to Family Tree DNA
Test not available worldwide, meaning data base is not worldwide. Also not available in NY or MD.

Worst Feature

Horribly cumbersome and confusing multiple introductory and authorization/acceptance hurdles cause many people to not contact, communicate with and authorize sharing with most of their matches. I wrote about this here.

Ancestry.com

Best Feature

The shakey leaf hints that show you who, of your DNA matches, also share a common ancestor in your pedigree chart. This drastically reduces the amount of initial footwork you need to do.

Good Features

The size of their data base increases likelihood of matching.
DNA Circles provides additional evidence of ancestral connection.
They are a genealogy, not a medically focused company.
Provides list and links to matching surnames on matches trees, even when no common ancestor is identified.
Clean, easy to use interface, although major changes have been announced and I have no idea whether that will be a positive or negative

Not So Good

Some people have private trees which means they can see your match information, including a common ancestor if there is one, but you cannot see theirs.
Ancestry ethnicity sometimes finds minority amounts of admixture, but can also be significantly incorrect on majority ancestry, so it’s difficult to have confidence in the consistency of results.
Subscription required (starting at $49) to see matches/circle members which may not be fully understood before testing by consumers. In my case, I have a full subscription, so it’s a moot point, but that is not the case with everyone and it can be an unwelcome surprise.
Ancestry’s consent allows them to sell anonymized results to buyers, including Big Pharm, should they choose to do so. As of October 2014 when I visited Ancestry as part of DNA Day, they stated that they had not sold any DNA data at that time.
Communication is only through internal message system.
Spit kit versus swab kit.
Customer service is often uneducated about genetic genealogy in general, although they are responsive.
Combination of matching and Circles leads people to believe that these are confirmed genetic matches to that particular line, even though Ancestry states otherwise, if one reads the text.
DNA is an auxiliary tool and not a primary or priority corporate focus.
Corporate history shows lack of commitment to DNA and to clients who tested – meaning their on-again-off-again DNA history the destruction of the Y and mtDNA data bases in October 2013.
Academic phasing may have trimmed real matches.
Test not available worldwide, meaning data base is not worldwide, although Ancestry has just announced availability in the UK and Ireland.
Y and mitochondrial DNA ignored.

Worst Feature

No chromosome browser or equivalent type of tool or tools. I can’t state this strongly enough and it is a HUGE negative and requires that you transfer your results to either Family Tree DNA or to Gedmatch where you do have tools.

Family Tree DNA

Best Feature

Full service genetic genealogy company – focused on genetic genealogy.

Good Features

Accepts transfers from Ancestry and V3 chip from 23andMe
Partnership with National Geographic for research.
Chromosome browser which includes in-common-with feature, search by surname and search by ancestral name.
Matching Matrix individually and within projects for administrators.
Projects and the ability within projects with advanced matching to see everyone you match autosomally within that project.
Match names and e-mails provided – not forced to utilize an internal messaging system.
Consent signed when ordering test is all that is needed for full matching and all features.
Does common surname matching with all matches – bolding the results.
Matching attempts to take highly endogamous populations into consideration.
Includes access to other genetic genealogy tools like various levels of Y and mtDNA tests.
Data base includes results for all tests, in one place, and resulting matches show Y and mtDNA haplogroups if that test has also been taken.
Searches can include multiple types of test results, like everyone who matches both the mtDNA and the Family Finder test.
Archives DNA for 25 years, allowing upgrades to be done on order without re-swabbing if DNA is adequate and viable.
Testing performed in in-house lab.
Project administrator liaison provided.
Educational webinars for general genetic genealogy education and new product/feature releases. Archived webinars available on demand.
Project administrator conference annually for the past decade.
New features regularly released.
Swab kit versus spit kit.
Responsive to customer and project administrator needs and requests.
Their customers more likely to be serious genealogists versus someone who tested initially for medical information (at 23andMe before December 2013) or impulse buyers.
They do not sell and do not request consent to sell your personal or aggregated data to outside buyers. If your DNA data is ever requested for an academic research project, you will be individually contacted for consent.
No subscription that increases actual cost of utilizing the test results.
Available worldwide (unless illegal in the location, like France.)

Not So Good

Cannot see if your matches also match each other on a specific segments, so cannot directly triangulate.
Cannot adjust matching threshold for initial match, but can after initial match.
Ethnicity often does not pick up small amounts of minority admixture found by other vendors and at Gedmatch.

Worst Feature

Trees are difficult to use.

Recommendations

1. In light of the above, my recommendation for autosomal DNA testing for genealogy if you can take only one test, order the Family Finder test with Family Tree DNA. They are unquestionably committed to genetic genealogy, have the most comprehensive set of tools, including a chromosome browser and other matching tools, and are overall the best company. The Family Finder test costs $99, unless you purchase when it’s on sale or have a coupon. (Current coupon code for $15 off is 15for15.)

2. If you can test with two companies, test with Family Tree DNA and Ancestry.com. You can do this by testing with Ancestry.com and transferring your results to Family Tree DNA, This approach costs about $187 total: to test at Ancestry ($99), for the first year basic subscription at Ancestry to see all your matching results ($49) if you aren’t already a subscriber, then to transfer the results to Family Tree DNA (free) and unlock the results ($39) unless you find 4 more people to transfer and then the unlock is free. Note that you will still need to swab to obtain the genealogy benefits of Y and mtDNA testing if you choose to take those tests in addition – and I hope you will because those are very valuable genealogy tools too and not available at the other vendors.

3. In my opinion, 23andMe has become a distant third in DNA testing due to their floundering and lack of commitment in the genealogy market-space, their prohibitively difficult introduction system that requires individual approvals for communicating and then for sharing of DNA (meaning matching) for each person you match, their recent alliance with Big Pharm, and their continuing lack of responsiveness to requests for genealogy enhancements. Lastly, you can no longer transfer your results from 23andMe to Family Tree DNA because 23andMe moved to the v4 chip (in December of 2013) which reduced the number of SNPs tested from about 900,000 to about 600,000, making the results incompatible with Family Tree DNA. However, just because they are third doesn’t mean you shouldn’t test there if you are really serious and want to fish in all of the ponds. It’s just the third choice if you can’t test at all three.

Judy Russell, The Legal Genealogist just wrote an article, 2015, Most bang for the DNA buck, which I suggest you read as well. She makes some very good points, although our approach is a bit different. But then again, I’d expect that. I’ve spent my life doing “analytical” types of things and she has spent her life doing “lawyery” types of things, and there is nothing better than two perspectives to draw from.

The Future

It will be interesting to see what the landscape looks like a year, 2 and 5 years from now. I think the X-prize (pardon the pun) will go to the company or companies that provide comprehensive tools and make genetic genealogy as easy and productive as possible – for both the beginner and the advanced user. No small feat – that’s for sure!

______________________________________________________________

Disclosure

Thank you so much.

DNA Purchases and Free Transfers

Genealogy Services

Genealogy Research

Legacy Tree Genealogists for genealogy research

Haplogroup C3* – Previously Believed East Asian Haplogroup is Proven Native American

Posted on December 23, 2014 by Roberta Estes

In a paper just released, “Insights into the origin of rare haplogroup C3* Y chromosomes in South America from high-density autosomal SNP genotyping,” by Mezzavilla et al, research shows that haplogroup C3* (M217, P44, Z1453), previously believed to be exclusively East Asian, is indeed, Native American.

Subgroup C-P39 (formerly C3b) was previously proven to be Native and is found primarily in the eastern US and Canada although it was also reported among the Na-Dene in the 2004 paper by Zegura et all titled “High-resolution SNPs and microsatellite haplotypes point to a single recent entry of Native American Y chromosomes into the Americas.”

The discovery of C3* as Native is great news, as it more fully defines the indigenous American Y chromosome landscape. It also is encouraging in that several mitochondrial haplogroups, including variants of M, have also been found in Central and South America, also not previously found in North America and also only previously found in Asia, Polynesia and even as far away as Madagascar. They too had to come from someplace and desperately need additional research of this type. There is a great deal that we don’t know today that remains to be discovered. As in the past, what is thought to be fact doesn’t always hold water under the weight of new discoveries – so it’s never wise to drive a stake too far in the ground in the emerging world of genetics. It’s likely to get moved!

You can view the Y DNA projects for C-M217 here, C-P39 here, and the main C project here. Please note that on the latest version of the ISOGG tree, M217, P44 and Z1453 are now listed as C2, not C3. Also note that I added the SNP names in this article. The Mezzavilla paper references the earlier C3 type naming convention which I have used in discussing their article to avoid confusion.

In the Messavilla study, fourteen individuals from the Kichwa and Waorani populations of South America were discovered to carry haplogroup C3*. Most of the individuals within these populations carry variants of expected haplogroup Q, with the balance of 26% of the Kichwa samples and 7.5% of the Waorani samples carrying C3*. MRCA estimates between the groups are estimated to be between 5.0-6.2 KYA, or years before present.

Other than one C3* individual in Alaska, C3* is unknown in the rest of the Native world including all of North American and the balance of Central and South America, but is common and widespread in East Asia.

In the paper, the authors state that:

We set out to test whether or not the haplogroup C3* Y chromosomes found at a mean frequency of 17% in two Ecuadorian populations could have been introduced by migration from East Asia, where this haplogroup is common. We considered recent admixture in the last few generations and, based on an archaeological link between the middle Jōmon culture in Japan and the Valdivia culture in Ecuador, a specific example of ancient admixture between Japan and Ecuador 6 Kya.

In a paper, written by Estrada et all, titled “Possible Transpacific Contact on the Cost of Ecuador”, Estrada states that the earliest pottery-producing culture on the coast of Ecuador, the Valdivia culture, shows many striking similarities in decoration and vessel shape to pottery of eastern Asia. In Japan, resemblances are closest to the Middle Jomon period. Both early Valdivia and Middle Jomon are dated between 2000 and 3000 B.C. A transpacific contact from Asia to Ecuador during this time is postulated.

This of course, opens the door for Asian haplogroups not found elsewhere to be found in Ecuador.

The introduction of the Mezzabilla paper states:

The consensus view of the peopling of the Americas, incorporating archaeological, linguistic and genetic evidence, proposes colonization by a small founder population from Northeast Asia via Beringia 15–20 Kya (thousand years ago), followed by one or two additional migrations also via Alaska, contributing only to the gene pools of North Americans, and little subsequent migration into the Americas south of the Arctic Circle before the voyages from Europe initiated by Columbus in 1492.

In the most detailed genetic analysis thus far, for example, Reich and colleagues identified three sources of Native American ancestry: a ‘First American’ stream contributing to all Native populations, a second stream contributing only to Eskimo-Aleut-speaking Arctic populations, and a third stream contributing only to a Na-Dene-speaking North American population.

Nevertheless, there is strong evidence for additional long-distance contacts between the Americas and other continents between these initial migrations and 1492. Norse explorers reached North America around 1000 CE and established a short-lived colony, documented in the Vinland Sagas and supported by archaeological excavations. The sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas) was domesticated in South America (probably Peru), but combined genetic and historical analyses demonstrate that it was transported from South America to Polynesia before 1000–1100 CE. Some inhabitants of Easter Island (Rapa Nui) carry HLA alleles characteristic of South America, most readily explained by gene flow after the colonization of the island around 1200 CE but before European contact in 1722. In Brazil, two nineteenth-century Botocudo skulls carrying the mtDNA Polynesian motif have been reported, and a Pre-Columbian date for entry of this motif into the Americas discussed, although a more recent date was considered more likely. Thus South America was in two-way contact with other continental regions in prehistoric times, but there is currently no unequivocal evidence for outside gene flow into South America between the initial colonization by the ‘First American’ stream and European contact.

The researchers originally felt that the drift concept, which means that the line was simply lost to time in other American locations outside of Ecuador, was not likely because the populations of North and Central America have in general experienced less drift and retained more diversity than those in South America.

The paper abstract states:

The colonization of Americas is thought to have occurred 15–20 thousand years ago (Kya), with little or no subsequent migration into South America until the European expansions beginning 0.5 Kya. Recently, however, haplogroup C3* Y chromosomes were discovered in two nearby Native American populations from Ecuador. Since this haplogroup is otherwise nearly absent from the Americas but is common in East Asia, and an archaeological link between Ecuador and Japan is known from 6 Kya, an additional migration 6 Kya was suggested.

Here, we have generated high-density autosomal SNP genotypes from the Ecuadorian populations and compared them with genotypes from East Asia and elsewhere to evaluate three hypotheses: a recent migration from Japan, a single pulse of migration from Japan 6 Kya, and no migration after the First Americans.

First, using forward-time simulations and an appropriate demographic model, we investigated our power to detect both ancient and recent gene flow at different levels. Second, we analyzed 207,321 single nucleotide polymorphisms from 16 Ecuadorian individuals, comparing them with populations from the HGDP panel using descriptive and formal tests for admixture. Our simulations revealed good power to detect recent admixture, and that ≥5% admixture 6 Kya ago could be detected.

However, in the experimental data we saw no evidence of gene flow from Japan to Ecuador. In summary, we can exclude recent migration and probably admixture 6 Kya as the source of the C3* Y chromosomes in Ecuador, and thus suggest that they represent a rare founding lineage lost by drift elsewhere.

This graphic from the paper, shows the three hypothesis that were being tested, with recent admixture being ruled out entirely, and admixture 6000 years ago most likely being ruled out as well by utilizing autosomal DNA.

The conclusions from the paper states that:

Three different hypotheses to explain the presence of C3* Y chromosomes in Ecuador but not elsewhere in the Americas were tested: recent admixture, ancient admixture ∼6 Kya, or entry as a founder haplogroup 15–20 Kya with subsequent loss by drift elsewhere. We can convincingly exclude the recent admixture model, and find no support for the ancient admixture scenario, although cannot completely exclude it. Overall, our analyses support the hypothesis that C3* Y chromosomes were present in the “First American” ancestral population, and have been lost by drift from most modern populations except the Ecuadorians.

It will be interesting as additional people are tested and more ancient DNA is discovered and processed to see what other haplogroups will be found in Native people and remains that were previously thought to be exclusively Asian, or perhaps even African or European.

This discovery also begs a different sort of question that will eventually need to be answered. Clearly, we classify the descendants of people who arrived with the original Beringian and subsequent wave migrants as Native American, Indigenous American or First Nations. However, how would we classify these individuals if they had arrived 6000 years ago, or 2000 years ago – still before Columbus or significant European or African admixture – but not with the first wave of Asian founders? If found today in South Americans, could they be taken as evidence of Native American heritage? Clearly, in this context, yes – as opposed to African or European. Would they still be considered only Asian or both Asian and Native American in certain contexts – as is now the case for haplogroup C3* (M217)? This scenario could easily and probably will happen with other haplogroups as well.

______________________________________________________________

Disclosure

Thank you so much.

DNA Purchases and Free Transfers

Genealogy Services

Genealogy Research

Legacy Tree Genealogists for genealogy research

Family Tree DNA Announces *Free Autosomal Transfer from 23andMe and Ancestry

Posted on October 19, 2014 by Roberta Estes

One of the major announcements this past week at the Family Tree DNA administrator’s conference was that Family Tree DNA will now be accepting, and encouraging, free data transfers from both 23andMe (V3 chip only) and Ancestry.com.

*For free, you will be able to see your top 20 matches, but if you want to contact those matches or unlock the rest of the Family Finder functionality and tools at Family Tree DNA, you’ll need to pay $39 or recruit 4 additional people to upload their files, whether they pay to join or not. Compared to retesting at $99 or the previous transfer price of $69, this is a great value.

Yesterday, I received this notification from Family Tree DNA that was sent to all project administrators.

As Senior Director of Product Michael Gugel shared at the recent conference, for the first time ever, people that have taken an AncestryDNA™ or 23andMe© (V3) test can transfer into the FTDNA databases for free by visiting https://www.familytreedna.com/AutosomalTransfer? and following the instructions to upload their raw data file.

Within an hour or two, we provide a preview of what’s waiting if they transfer by showing the top 20 matches along with an estimate of the total number of matches in the FTDNA database.

Full functionality can be unlocked by either paying $39 or recruiting four other people to upload, thus unlocking the rest of the matches.

Here are some important points to know:

We only accept the 23andMe V3 chip that was used on tests sold between November 2010 and approximately November 2013. There are a couple of ways to find out what chip was used for your test other than simply the timeframe. One is size; v3 chip files are about 7.83 MB where V2 and V4 chips are smaller. If you’re tech savvy, you can unzip the file and check chromosomes: Chromosome 1 for v3 starts at 82154 (rs4477212) where v4 starts at 734462 (rs12564807)and v2 starts with position 742429 (rs3094315).
We do not have any plans to accept V2 or V4 chips. if you try to upload the wrong chip version, the system will tell you that the file doesn’t have sufficient data. Since neither chip contains enough of the SNPs included in Family Finder, we would have to impute too much data. Basically we’d have to make assumptions about the missing SNPs that we’re just not willing to make at this point.

Blaine Bettinger at The Genetic Genealogist wrote detailed instructions about how to do the transfer and what to expect, so take a look.

At the $39 price, or recruit 4 and it’s entirely free, this transfer becomes the best autosomal vendor value available today. I know that people are already taking advantage of this offer, because I’m seeing new people join my projects and their item purchased indicates “free transfer.”

Spending the $39 (or recruiting 4 additional participants) allows you to unlock and access the following Family Finder features:

Full data base matching
Ability to contact matches directly via e-mail
Ability to join projects that accept autosomal participants
Ability to see matches by and within projects
Searching for matches by surname
Searching for matches by ancestral surname
Ability to view your matches family trees
Ability to upload your GEDCOM file or create your family tree to facilitate surname matching
Utilizing the “In Common With” tool to see who you and your matches both match
Utilizing the Matrix to see if your matches also match each other, suggesting a common ancestor
Seeing results on the Chromosome browser
myOrigins ethnicity information

The more kits in the data base, the more matches, so don’t wait. You can’t lose by doing the free transfer and seeing what matches might be waiting for you.

Haplogroup Projects

Posted on August 29, 2014 by Roberta Estes

So far, in our Projects series, we’ve talked about Autosomal Matching within Projects and Surname Projects.

Today, we’re going to talk about Haplogroup Projects, a second type of project sponsored by Family Tree DNA for DNA participants who test at or transfer results to their labs.

You can transfer autosomal results from either 23andMe or Ancestry for $69. You can transfer Y and mitochondrial DNA results from Ancestry.com to Family Tree DNA for $19 until the end of September when your results, along with the data base, will be destroyed at Ancestry.

If you tested at 23andMe, you receive a Y (if a male) and mitochondrial DNA haplogroup. To obtain the various markers for either Y or mtDNA, you’ll need to order those tests from Family Tree DNA. A haplogroup estimate alone won’t do it and your haplogroup may change with additional marker testing. You can read more about why and how this works here.

While surname projects focus on surname lineage, haplogroups focus on haplogroup or deep clan lineage. You can read about haplogroups here and the new naming convention that took letter/number names like R1b1a2 to SNP based names like R-M269, here and here.

If you would like to review the difference between STR and SNP markers, click here and if you’d like to understand SNP testing and why someone would want to do that, click here.

Haplogroup projects exist for both Y and mitochondrial DNA. In general, they are research projects carried out by citizen scientists, sometimes with the aid of professionals in the field. They are extremely beneficial to both participants and the genetic genealogy community as a whole. There have been a slew of discoveries at the hands of project administrators, who are all volunteers.

While the projects are discovery focused, for participants, viewing project pages, such as the haplogroup matches page, can be very useful in determining the location and migration path of any particular haplogroup and subgroup. I recently used haplogroup location information when writing about Elisabetha Mehlheimer and my attempts to figure out if her ancestry is German or Scandinavian. Your personal haplogroup history extends much further back in time than your individual match history. If someone from your genealogical line has tested, you can track each of your ancestral lines back in time utilizing haplogroups. Where were they, what were they doing and which groups of people were they migrating with? Were they Africans in Africa, hunter- gatherers crossing the Asian plains, the world’s first farmers migrating from the Middle East into Europe or Native Americans crossing Beringia into the New World? They are in you, and their history is held in the DNA of their descendants.

Projects are established when an individual requests, generally via an e-mail, Family Tree DNA to establish a new project. Family Tree DNA does not allow duplicate or competing projects, but they are very generous in terms of projects that are in the same haplogroup but focused on different areas. For example, there is a haplogroup Q project and then a Nordic Q and an Amerindian Q project as well.

Haplogroup E is a bit different. There are two primary haplogroup E projects, one for each of the two major E lineages, and then subgroups based on downstream SNPs or other interests, like Scotland.

Didn’t know that haplogroup E, which is considered African or North African/Mediterranean is found in Scotland and England? Not only is it found there, we know how it arrived. That too was a discovery of genetic genealogist, Steven Bird.

As you might have noticed, haplogroup projects are all about sharing. This is the perfect example of where there is incredible strength in collaboration. The great news is that sharing doesn’t cost, you, the participant, one penny. It’s free.

Joining

So, how does one join a haplogroup project?

At the top of your personal page at Family Tree DNA, you have a “My Projects” link.

Fly over that link and you’ll see the above options.

Click on Join.

The first thing you’ll see are projects where the surname administrator has entered specific surnames of interest to that project. In my case, my surname is Estes, and these are the projects that include the Estes surname in their surname list.

Haplogroup projects are not in this list. Yes, I wish they were, based on the haplogroup involved, but there are many haplogroups that don’t have surname projects, especially subgroups – so technically, it would be very challenging to implement this feature. I still wish it was offered, because I think the vast majority of testers don’t know about haplogroup projects, which ones to join, or why they would want to.

To view mitochondrial or Y DNA haplogroup projects, scroll down. At the bottom of the list, you’ll find both, alphabetized, with the total number of projects in that category displayed.

Looking at mitochondrial haplogroup K, there is only one project, so there are no decisions to make about which project or projects to join.

Click on the haplogroup letter to view the list of projects, then on the project name to view the project description. In most cases, the project administrator’s name is displayed with their e-mail in case you have questions.

I really hate to see projects with only one administrator, although my own fall into that category. It’s generally not by choice. If you see a project with only a sole administrator and you have an interest, consider volunteering. Everyone needs a backup, just in case.

Y DNA projects should only display the Y tab at the top of the page, and mitochondrial DNA projects, the mtDNA Results tab. Mitochondrial DNA results aren’t relevant to a Y project and vice versa.

To see how participants are grouped within the project, click on the mtDNA Results tab and then “Results.”

Project administrators can group projects in any way they see fit, but generally haplogroup project administrators group participants by subgroup. In some cases, particularly with mitochondrial DNA, they may go ahead and group people based on a newly defined but not yet published haplogroup or a defining mutation that may become a haplogroup. That’s what Bill Hurst has done below with haplogroup K1a10. You’ll notice that some of the participants are not classified as K1a10 by Family Tree DNA – that’s where the experience of the haplogroup administrator comes into play.

Generally, haplogroup administrators know more about a given haplogroup than anyone else in the world…and yes…I do mean that literally.

Which Haplogroup to Join?

So, how do you know which haplogroup project or projects to join.

On the surface, that’s a very easy question to answer, and then, it gets a bit more complex.

Of course, women can only test for mitochondrial DNA, but men can test for both Y and mitochondrial DNA.

On your main personal page, you have a badge for both your Y and mtDNA haplogroup.

The haplogroups listed here are your most distinct, meaning the furthest down the tree you can go based on the testing level you’ve taken. New branches are still being defined for both mitochondrial and Y DNA as people continue to test at higher levels and we, as a community, continue to learn.

If you receive a new branch assignment for Y DNA, your badge will change because your new terminal SNP will be a different SNP name. So, when this person took the Big Y test, their haplogroup changed from R-M269 to R-L193. The base haplogroup letter always precedes the SNP name – so we know it’s haplogroup R.

If a new haplogroup branch is defined for mitochondrial haplogroup H63a, it would then simply be added on, so potentially H63a1. Mitochondrial DNA retains the older letter/number/letter structure.

Finding Your Place on the Tree

In the case of Y DNA haplogroup R, which is by far the most complex of the male haplogroups due to its sheer size and the massive number of downstream SNPs discovered, you’ll have to look at the haplotree on your personal page to determine your path back to the main branch of haplogroup R. On the My DNA Tab, under Y DNA, click on the Haplogroup and SNPs page link.

At the top of the page, it tells you a bit about your terminal SNP and which SNPS have been tested positive and negative. Based on this verbiage, we know the terminal SNP R-L193 is downstream of M343, which just happens to be haplogroup R1b, one of the two major branches of haplogroup R. You can see the base of haplogroup R at the top of the page, and beneath that, the row with P241 is haplogroup R1.

Haplogroup M343 is highlighted in yellow and you can see where it descends from the P241 row as a brother to the M417 row.

Scrolling down one more time, we now see our terminal SNP and the branches to reach that SNP. I find it much easier to work from the terminal SNP back up the tree, following the branches like creeks and rivers. And just in case you are wondering, yes, I did select the most difficult haplogroup as an example because either you’ll be prepared, or when you look at your own non-R Y haplogroup, you’ll be overjoyed at how simple it is!

In this case, this is what our path of descent looks like from haplogroup R. Some of these subgroups will have projects defined. Other won’t or will be included in a general haplogroup project.

Old FTDNA Haplogroup	Defining SNP Mutation	Project Defined
R	M207	R-R1b All Subclades
R1	M173	No, not other than R-R1b All Subclades
R1b	M343	No, not other than R-R1b All Subclades
R	P25	No, not other than R-R1b All Subclades
R1b1a2	M269	No, not other than R-R1b All Subclades
R	L23	No, not other than R-R1b All Subclades
R	YSC0000072	No, not other than R-R1b All Subclades
R	L51	No, not other than R-R1b All Subclades
R	L151	No, not other than R-R1b All Subclades
R	P311	No, not other than R-R1b All Subclades
R1b1a2a1a1b	P312	P312 (R1b-P312)
R1b1a2a1a1b4	L21	R L21 and Subclades
R	L513	R L513 and Subclades
R	L193	Currently included in L513

To determine which subclades have projects defined, and which ones are appropriate to join, visit the project join page and look at the haplogroup R options. Only a few of the 55 haplogroup R projects are shown below.

The first project you see is the “R-R1b and all subclades” project and by looking at the description, we know that this applies to M343, so that project is available for this person to join.

To make my life much easier, I do a screen search (Ctl+F) for the SNP I’m searching for. I find two instances of M173, but looking at the project definition, I can see that this is not appropriate. Why? Because it’s for people who are M173 positive but M343 negative, and this person is M343 positive, so there is nothing appropriate for this person in the M173 project. Please read project descriptions – each one is structured differently depending on its goals.

In the case of our participant, he is qualified to join 4 different haplogroup R projects, and I encourage everyone to join the appropriate projects.

When joining a project, be sure to read all of the project pages. Every project has 4 pages available: Background, Goals, News and Results. Not every administrator uses every page, but you’ve find extremely valuable information on at least some of the pages, and every project is different. Many projects will have either a Yahoo group or a Facebook group to discuss research and findings. These pages are where the administrators will tell you how to interact and obtain information.

I like to use project R-L21 as an example because it is one of the most active and best managed haplogroup projects I’ve encountered. Kudos to the administrators, and in particular, Mike Walsh. On the Background page of the L21 project, you will find a current haplotree, not found elsewhere, that details the new haplogroup branch definition beneath L21 based on SNP testing.

Do understand though that if you join any project, your Y DNA 12-111 marker results are available for anyone on the internet to see, and your SNP results may be too, depending on whether the project administrator has enabled SNP viewing. Yes, I know this sounds intuitively obvious, and it is, but I have to say this, just like I had to tell my kids over and over not to hit the bee hive with the stick.

So, if you don’t want old stick-in-the-mud auntie Broomhilda to know that your haplogroup is…shall we say…not what the family expected, then don’t join projects – because sure as shooting…someone’s gonna tell her! Once something is on the internet, consider is gone, released into the wild, and viral, especially if you don’t want it to be!

For mitochondrial DNA, your HVR1 and HVR2 results will be publicly viewable, but your coding region or full sequence results will not be due to possible medical information being in the coding region.

Depending on how the project is set up, your oldest ancestor and/or surname may be visible too. I encourage all project administrators to enable both the surname and the oldest ancestor field. We discussed this in the Surname Project article. There isn’t any reason not to.

Y DNA projects have two options that mtDNA projects don’t have.

The first option is colorized results, which are both easy and useful. I find these most useful in surname projects, but in haplogroup projects, they make it easy to spot groupings of people.

The colorized results of the first few participants are shown above for the haplogroup R-21 project. You can see that the administrators have included a recommendation for SNP testing in each category name.

When viewing colorized results, the system calculates the minimum, maximum and modal (most common) values for each marker value in each group that the administrator has set up. In this case, you can see that the most common value is 13 for marker 393 and the first few participants in this grouping have values of 11 and 12.

The second additional option for Y DNA is that the administrator can display confirmed SNPs of participants. Some administrators display this information and some do not. There is no harm, that I know of, that has ever come from displaying this information. However, do be aware that screen scraping of the data does take place.

Most of the individuals who purchase either individual SNP testing or one of the more comprehensive tests, like the Geno 2.0 or the Big Y do so not only to understand more about their own family deep history, but to contribute to the scientific effort as well. Without the thousands of testers and the compiled information, we would have made little progress in this field in the last decade. For example, we have gone from about 800 known, registered SNPs pre-Geno 2.0 to well over 35,000 today and that number grows every single day.

Big Y

As Mike so succinctly put it recently, the Big Y is still in the research arena, for early implementers and adopters, for those who want to be on the leading edge, to help define the frontier. Yep, sounds like my ancestors.

The Big Y test is one of two avenues to obtain (nearly) full sequencing of the Y chromosome.

From a participants viewpoint, it may be confusing. From the administrators viewpoint, it someplace between your worst nightmare and a DNA geeks dream come true, and vacillates between the two. If you want to make and document discoveries, a true genetic explorer, this is the place to be. This is it, the front line, the cutting edge, the frontier.

From an administrator’s point of view, I wish that everyone who is interested in SNP testing would just take the Big Y and get it over with. The Big Y combined with STR results is a very powerful tool and we not only test for SNPs that are known, we test for newly discovered SNPs as well. However, I well know that the cost of the Big Y at $499 is a deterrent for many people and they would prefer for the administrator to recommend a SNP or two to test for $29 or $39 and to arrive at the same end point. Obviously, that isn’t going to happen. The only exception would be if someone else within your group has tested and you can use their results as a guide. Still, if you have new SNPS, you’ll never find them without the Big Y or similar type of next generation sequencing test.

Administrators do recommend the next SNP in a SNP step-by-step progression, but you have to know if you are positive or negative before being assigned the next SNP to test. Sometimes step by step SNP testing is immediately productive, meaning you have a negative results and you’re done with that line, and sometimes it’s a long, expensive ordeal where the money would have been better spent on at least the Geno 2.0 test which is in-between step-by-step SNP testing and the Big Y. That applies to most of haplogroup R, for example. The Geno 2.0 cost has been reduced to $159 as well, so this becomes an attractive option if the participant can’t do the Big Y test. Genographic results, of course, can be transferred to the participants Family Tree DNA account.

For the administrator, as much as we love the new information flowing from the Big Y tests, trying to manage these tests and make sense of them as a group is a NIGHTMARE. Individuals have matching results on their individuals web page, but administrators have no tools to manage the entire group. Everyone has developed their own methodology. Mike, in the haplogroup L21 project, sometimes uploads multiple spreadsheets daily. However, it’s all this hard work that has defined the new L21 tree branches.

In fact, this tree is no longer up to date because the administrators can’t fit the branches on the chart above, so they have limited this tree to the major subclades of DF63 and DF13. That’s the bad news and the good news all rolled into one. It’s no wonder this has been called the SNP tsunami. I think this comes in the category of “Be careful what you wish for!”

Grouping and Mapping

Two of the most critical, and useful, components of haplogroup projects are the ability to group individuals and then display maps of those groups. Enabling mapping is absolutely critical. Unfortunately, some haplogroup projects are housed at World Families and they do not implement the mapping feature. I cringe every time I need to utilize one of these projects. I feel that all projects are significantly handicapped without mapping, but this is especially critical to haplogroup projects because the maps speak to population migration and movement.

Below is the map of the European individuals in the L21 project who are L21, but have no further SNP testing.

My Estes guys are in here, on that brown balloon in Kent. What, there are too many balloons to see? Well, maybe we need to take some SNP testing to narrow the field and further define our haplogroup. I’m positive that Mike would agree!!!

If my Estes guys test positive for DF63, that makes quite a difference.

This map pretty much confirms that they these men aren’t Irish, while the next group looks to confirm just the opposite.

And look at this group. Think that SNP FGC11134 might have evolved in Ireland?

All of the men in these last two maps are in L21, so advanced SNP testing, participant grouping by SNPs and mapping, together, can be a very powerful tool in sorting out the finer points of family ancestry.

This helps not just the person who tested, but all others who descend from that line. This is quintessential collaboration and sharing. While my Estes cousin might contribute by takeing a Big Y test, he’ll also benefit from the Big Ys that other men took, and being a genealogist, he’ll be watching his other non-Estes lines to see what they are discovering as well. Most of us can only contribute on one or two lines, y and mtDNA at most, but we can all be a beneficiary on all of the rest of our ancestral lines.

I hope you’ll not only join haplogroup projects, but that you’ll utilize them to their fullest potential for all of your projects and ancestral lines. If you’d like some help assembling a DNA pedigree chart, I’ve written an article titled “The DNA Pedigree Chart – Mining for Ancestors.” It’s the genealogists version of panning for gold. Enjoy!!!

______________________________________________________________

Disclosure

Thank you so much.

DNA Purchases and Free Transfers

Genealogy Services

Genealogy Research

Legacy Tree Genealogists for genealogy research

Challenges with Irish Autosomal DNA Genealogy Research

Posted on August 18, 2014 by Roberta Estes

Dr. Maurice Gleeson gave an excellent (and humorous) presentation this last weekend at the i4gg (Institute for Genetic Genealogy) in Chevy Chase, Maryland.

Although his focus is Irish, this information applies to anyone utilizing autosomal DNA.

He has very graciously made his presentation available on YouTube. Enjoy.

______________________________________________________________

Disclosure

Thank you so much.

DNA Purchases and Free Transfers

Genealogy Services

Genealogy Research

Legacy Tree Genealogists for genealogy research

Surname Projects

Posted on August 7, 2014 by Roberta Estes

This is the second in a series about DNA projects, how they work and how they can benefit testers and others. DNA projects aren’t just for those who test. There are other benefactors too – like those who descend from your paternal line and can’t test because they are females – for example.

Most people don’t utilize all of the project features nor the features they do use, fully.

The first article in this series discussed finding autosomal DNA matches in any project, whether it’s a surname project, a haplogroup project or a geographic project.

Today’s article about surname projects discusses the projects from both the administrator’s perspective as well as that of the participant. I administer several surname projects and I work with them on behalf of my clients when I’m writing their Personalized DNA Reports every day. So, I see them routinely from every angle. All of the projects that I’m discussing are found at Family Tree DNA and are for their clients. Joining projects is free and you can join as many as you want.

Surname projects were the first type of project to be defined by Family Tree DNA. These are the most straightforward of project types, at least on the surface, because it’s inherently obvious if you are a male, and if you carry a particular surname. Only males can test their Y DNA, because women don’t carry a Y chromosome – and the Y DNA follows the surname path – so long as that surname path does not include any nonparental events or adoptions.

So, if you’re a Smith male, you would test and join the Smith project, an Estes male joins the Estes project, and so forth.

Finding a Surname Project

If you don’t know whether a project exists for your surname, there are two ways to find out.

If you’re not yet a client of Family Tree DNA, click here, and on their main page scroll all the way to the bottom. In the Community column, all the way to the right, click on Projects.

This takes you to the project search page where you can enter the surname you are searching for in the Project Search box in the upper right corner, or you can browse through the various surname and geographic projects using the alphabetic options on the left.

Entering a surname and searching will take you to the page with relevant information for that surname, in this case, Estes.

It tells you how many people with the surname of Estes have tested. The 157 shown will include both males and females.

It shows you if there is an Estes surname project. There is, and there are 170 members. We’ll talk about what that means in a minute.

Then, other projects are shown were the project administrators have listed Estes as a surname of interest. This does not automatically mean that these projects are relevant to your Estes line, but that the surname is of interest to that project for some reason.

To order a kit and join the Estes project, click on the Estes project link.

The next page allows you to join the Estes project and purchase DNA testing of various types. Purchasing a kit through this page automatically joins you to the project.

The project administrator is automatically notified and you will receive a welcome e-mail if the project administrator has implemented that feature. Many administrators include a request for your genealogy in their welcome e-mail. After all, a surname project can and does pertain to all instances of that surname, and the administrator has no way of knowing how you are connected to which line without your genealogy info. This also helps them group your results appropriately.

An Alternative Project List

If you don’t want to look at the projects by category, and you want to simply scroll through a list alphabetically, this link at Worldfamilies.net provides you with exactly that service. Keep in mind that haplogroup, geographic and surname projects will all be intermingled, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. They also provide a surname search.

The links that show “project site” indicate there is also a WorldFamilies.net project for that surname as well.

Joining Projects After Testing

If you have already tested, and I’m referring to Y DNA testing here, you’ll want to join your surname project, and possibly others, after your results are back. In some cases, you won’t know what projects you qualify to join until your results are back, such as haplogroup projects. DNA testing determines your haplogroup.

To join a project, on your personal page, on the top left, you’ll see My Projects. Click on Join.

You will see a list of projects where the surname administrator has entered Estes as a surname of interest.

What does this mean to you and how do you decide which projects to join?

Read the project descriptions.

Some of these projects are clearly NOT relevant for you.

Myth – Many people think that the projects they see on these lists are “being recommended” by Family Tree DNA. Not true. The fact that the project appears on the list is the sole function of the administrator entering that surname in the project surname list of their project profile.

Let’s take a look at this list for our Estes participant.

In this case, the Estes ancestor in question is a descendant of Abraham Estes, so the Estes project would be appropriate. Reading the description of the Estis Jewish Ukraine project, that one doesn’t fit, and neither does the Jester project. Why are these listed under the surname Estes? Because the project administrators entered Estes as a surname of interest – because clearly Estis is misspelled Estes and Estes may be a found when looking for Jester as well.

That leaves three other projects to look at.

By clicking on the I-L161 (I2a2b-Isles) Project, you can read the description, as follows:

It’s rather unusual for a haplogroup project to include surnames, but it’s entirely up to the administrator. Apparently, at least one of the Estes lines is I-L161 and this project administrator wants to be sure to catch any others. So, if your Estes haplogroup does not match the project description, then this project is not for you either.

The last two projects are the Cumberland Gap Y and mtDNA projects. Why is Estes listed here?

The description tells us that the project is for those families whose ancestors settled in or passed through the Cumberland Gap region that is associated with Claiborne, Hancock and Hawkins Co., in Tn., Lee, Russell or Scott Counties in Virginia, or Bell or Harlan Counties in Kentucky. If this fits your paternal line, the Estes family line, then this project is a good fit for you. In this case, it is. If not, then this isn’t the project for you.

The last project is the Cumberland Gap mitochondrial DNA project. Since we’re discussing Y DNA testing, a mtDNA project is not relevant to you, so this isn’t the project for you either.

Of the 6 projects listed as possibilities, only 2 are relevant to the Estes line in question.

Myth – All projects listed are relevant to you.

The only projects that appear as a result of a surname search are projects where the administrator knows that the surname is relevant and goes to the effort to enter relevant surnames when they define their project.

Myth – All projects relevant to you will be listed. Not true – neither Family Tree DNA nor the other project administrators have the ability to determine what is relevant to your family line.

It may behoove you to browse through the projects in the Y Geographic and Dual Geographic categories. For example, my Estes family is from Kent in England. Is there a Kent geographic project? No, but there is a British Isles by County project.

Maybe this would be interesting. Based on their description, the Estes family qualifies because we have a proven geographic connection to Kent.

Dual projects apply to both Y DNA and mtDNA. We’ll talk about special challenges for these types of projects when we discuss Geographic Projects.

Administrators

Administrators of all projects are volunteers and receive no compensation for their services. Most are somehow connected to the projects they manage. For example, I administer the Estes surname project, my maiden name, the Bolton project, my paternal grandmother’s maiden name, and so forth.

The knowledge and dedication of administrators varies as much as individual people do. Some administrators spend an inordinate amount of time on their projects, and some barely any. If you have problems contacting a project administrator, notify Family Tree DNA. Something may have happened and a new administrator may need to be found. If you have expertise in the specific surname line, consider becoming a co-administrator. Nearly unanimously administrators are looking for help and for a backup, just in case something does happen.

Unless the administrator does something unethical or outside of the administrator guidelines, they have the freedom to group and run the project in the manner they see fit. If you would like to see something done differently, make that suggestion, nicely, or volunteer to help.

You might be surprised how much criticism administrators receive from people who disappear entirely the minute the suggestion is made that they do something besides criticize.

Challenges

There are three main challenges faced by surname projects.

Women
Nonparental Events
Autosomal DNA

Women

One of the challenges every surname administrator faces sooner or later is how to handle women who descend from these lines, or carry the surname, and want to join the project.

Often, this request stems more from a desire to belong than a scientific basis. Let me explain.

My maiden name is Estes and that is the surname I identify with most strongly. I would like to join the Estes project because I “belong” there. As a female, I can test my mitochondrial DNA and my autosomal DNA, neither of which are relevant to a Y DNA project.

Many administrators simply don’t allow females in this situation to join – and that is their prerogative. I always have included females, and not just because I am one. Why? Because it doesn’t hurt the project or cause me as an administrator any problems or extra work. It makes them feel included, and often, women are the “keepers” of the family history. With the advent of autosomal testing, I’m glad that I have included females because now I have a group of Estes descended people already gathered.

Each project admin can enable or disable Y DNA results and mtDNA from showing on their public project page.

A Y DNA project should have mtDNA disabled, so the mtDNA of the women and men who join are not showing in this project, because they are not relevant to the Estes surname project.

Nonparental or Nonpaternal Events (NPEs)

What do surname administrators do in two awkward instances?

The first is when someone thinks they will match an ancestral name, like the descendants of Abraham Estes, the US immigrant, but they don’t match any Estes line?

I refer to these situations as undocumented adoptions even through they are generally referred to at NonPaternal events, or NPEs. This means that somewhere, somehow, an “adoption” has occurred. It could be in the current generation as a legal adoption. It could be in the 1800s as a step-child taking the surname of his step-father. It could be in the 1700s as an unwed mother gave her child her surname, but the child carried the Y DNA of his unnamed father. Or, it could have been due to an infidelity or a relationship that was unwelcome. Regardless of why, or how, or when, I tell people that they ARE an Estes, that this is their line, and it’s simply a newly documented Estes line. I go to every effort to make them feel welcome and included and I try very hard to avoid any words that have negative connotations or could be hurtful or make them uncomfortable, like, for example, illegitimate. Generally, the information alone is quite a shock and I try to position it in the best, most positive, light possible. Of the undocumented adoptions I’ve been able to identify, most of the time it has to do with a step-father giving a child his surname. Certainly, an act of love. Every surname will have these circumstances, given enough time and testers.

Administrators have a variety of ways to deal with this, depending on the cirumstances at hand and how the participant feels about the situation.

In some cases, I give them their own category based on what is known. Hershel Estis from the Ukraine is a good example. So is Moses of Pendleton District, SC. When I don’t have a lot of information, I may simply group them in the “New Estes Line” category.

And then there’s the opposite situation. Someone with a non-Estes surname matches an Estes – and I mean exactly including all the rare marker values. They are obviously genetically an Estes, but they don’t know when that Estes line got genetically inserted into their surname line. Taking a look at their genealogy and where an Estes might have lived in close proximity might lend an important clue about where the change might have occurred.

I welcome these folks into the project too. It can’t hurt and it gives them a sense of belonging. They are clearly related. I group them with the line they most closely match.

Autosomal DNA

Autosomal DNA testing is wonderful and it has caused so many walls to fall. However, it’s difficult to work with in a project because there are few good tools. Part of the problem is that, unlike Y DNA results where you have a few hundred people at most, who match on 111 markers at max – with autosomal you have thousands who match you, but may or may not match each other on millions of locations. How do you effectively display this kind of information and make it relevant to projects?

Because I want to know more about the Estes autosomal DNA, I encourage people who do not carry the Estes surname, but do descend from an Estes ancestor to join the project. This applies to all of my surname projects. Why?

It does cause me more work, which is why many admins don’t encourage or allow it. And the level of work differs for males and females. Females won’t show in the Y part of the projects, so if mtDNA display is disabled, they don’t show publicly at all – so no problem. But males are different. They will each show in the Y part of the project, even though they aren’t Estes males unless I disable the display for each of them individually, and then they want to know why they aren’t in the project – when they are.

What I do is to create a category called “Autosomal Estes.”

This means that they descend autosomally from an Estes, even though they are showing on the Y page. I realize this isn’t the ideal solution, but until Family Tree DNA implements a third tab that says “autosomal” in projects, it’s about the best I can do. Other suggestions from admins about how they handle this situation are certainly welcome.

Autosomal Matching

In the first Projects article, we talked about autosomal matching from the perspective of the participant. By utilizing the Advanced Matching feature, any participant can see who they match autosomally within any project they have joined.

My own advanced matching example in the Estes project is shown below.

However, administrators have a second tool that they can use, but the results are not publicly displayed. I almost hate to mention this, because I don’t want admins to be overwhelmed with requests. Keep in mind that you can see your own individual match results utilizing the technique above, for every project you have joined. Of course, you can always see your matches in all projects from your personal page.

Administrators have a group of genetic reports available to them and among those is the Illumina OnmiExpress Matrix. It looks and functions like the regular Matrix that we all use to see which of our matches that match us also match each other.

This matrix gives the administrator the ability to see who, within the project, who matches whom. However, with a large project, the administrator would have to do these matches in “shifts” or the sheer number overwhelms the size of the screen, etc.

As an administrator, it’s easier to view a members results individually to see who they match. For example, if I want to see if Tommy Moore, my Moore cousin, matches anyone within the project, it’s much easier just to look at Tommy Moore’s results. That’s why Tommy is in the Estes project, so that I can do just that since I’m the one responsible for Tommy’s kit.

As an administrator, what I’d really like is the ability to simply generate a file that downloads to a spreadsheet with a match matrix for everyone in the project.

And by way of reminder, just because people match autosomally within a project, it’s not proof positive that their common ancestor is that surname, although it is indeed, a good hint and a good starting point. The ancestor from which the DNA originated can only be proven through triangulation and the matrix tool. Now, the good news is that indeed, you have lots of opportunities for triangulation within a surname project.

Other DNA

Sometimes in projects, you’ll find “other DNA.” In my case, in the Estes project, there are three Moores, a Lentz and two Campbells, etc. This is because these are tests that I have sponsored and I have them in my project where I can access them easily as an admin. In the case of the Moore line, they are also “Estes related” autosomally in that John R. Estes married Nancy Ann Moore in 1811, and these Moore folks are from that family line. The same holds true for the Campbell line.

Does this get a little blurry and a bit messy? Yes, but that’s also why it’s important, really important, to read the project description and what the admin has to say. It’s also why each project has a contact for the project administrator. If in doubt, ask, but AFTER reading, please:) You would be amazed how may requests admins receive that have been already answered if the person would have read the project information.

About the Group

Each project, at the top of the page, has an “About this Group” tab.

Those tabs include the project background, goals which will often include information about specific lines being sought, news and results. I should be a better administrator and keep mine more up to date.

In the Younger project, one of the early goals was to determine if the Halifax County, Virginia group of Youngers was related to the notorious Younger Gang Youngers. If you take a look at the results section, you will see that the administrators have written about the question and the answers, as well.

As administrators, we collected the genealogy of each participant and before publishing this information, by kit number, we sent each of the participants the document and obtained their approval. Yes, it was a pain, but it was necessary, as we didn’t want to divulge information that was not acceptable to the participants. Only one participant declined to participate. Having gathered and published this information has been a godsend repeatedly.

The corresponding Younger Y DNA project page is color coded to match the results description.

Every project is managed differently.

WorldFamilies.net

One of the weaknesses of the Family Tree DNA projects is that there is no avenue for the administrators, other than documenting the genealogy/pedigrees in the “About the Group” section like we did in the Younger project, to provide genealogical information about the lines being tested. Several years ago, WorldFamilies.net stepped up to the plate to work with Family Tree DNA to provide an alternative display for project administrators.

In some ways, I think the enhanced pedigrees are wonderful because they connect with the kit number from their WorldFamilies Y DNA page.

However, the down side is that the results are not automatically updated from Family Tree DNA and there is no Match Mapping. Now you may be thinking to yourself, “how important can match mapping be?” The answer is that it can actually provide the brick wall breakthrough for some people. For example, just yesterday, one of my clients found on their match mapping that the oldest ancestor of one of their low level matches was located very close to their own ancestral line. You can see their white balloon almost on top of a red match balloon underneath.

While they might not have bothered to contact this person, because there were a low level match, not having tested at a higher level – now they definitely will contact that person.

For someone whose surname is stuck in the US, an ancestral match to someone of the same surname and matching DNA in the old country can be the cannonball that breaks through the brick wall of “where are we from?” That’s exactly what happened with my McDowell line in Ireland.

Mapping is an extremely important tool, and one that’s often not utilized to its full potential.

Some WorldFamilies projects also maintain their project page at Family Tree DNA as well, so you can have the best of both worlds.

How to Help Yourself

Projects form the framework for DNA matching and solving long-standing problems, but they can only do so much. There are many things that participants can do that will help projects solve those mysteries.

1. Update the most distant ancestor field. This is important because anyone perusing the project will be able to tell if your line is potentially their line too. Remember, your DNA represents the paternal line DNA for thousands of us who care a great deal about it but can’t test for your surname’s Y chromosome. You never know what we might have in terms of research that might be useful to you, if we can find you through our common ancestor.

See all of those blank Paternal Ancestor Names? That’s because no one entered the most distant ancestor information. We can’t find you if your oldest ancestor information isn’t there.

Conversely, admins need to enable the “oldest ancestor” field to show. It helps recruit new members and disabling it has no benefit that I’ve ever been able to discern. I can’t tell you how disheartening it is to find no oldest ancestors listed and then be unable to contact the administrator to find out if any represent your family line. In this case, project mapping isn’t enabled either, so the public website project is virtually useless.

2. Upload a GEDCOM file. Every individual’s results have a location for a GEDCOM file. Uploading a file prevents people from writing to you and asking questions that could easily be answered. With autosomal testing, uploading a GEDCOM has become even more important.

Currently, your personal and genealogical information is managed from the “Manage Personal Information” link on the left hand side of your personal page. I’m hoping Family Tree DNA will put link this back on the top of the page with the other list of links.

Click on Manage Personal Information.

Of the above options, Most Distant Ancestors, Surnames and the GEDCOM file need to be addressed.

3. Enter your matching map geographic information. This is done from the Matching Map which can be found on your Y DNA list at the top of your personal page.

Click on Matches Maps, and then on the bottom of the map of matches, you’ll see “Update Ancestor’s Location.” Your most distant ancestor’s location will be defaulted to the equator if you don’t enter this information.

Clicking on “Update Paternal Location” steps you through the process.

Enter the location, then click on search.

The location will be returned to you.

If this is correct, click on “select.”

Click on next is this is correct.

Then click on save and exit.

Now your white balloon shows up where your most distant ancestor in this line is known to have lived. Hey, who are those other purple people living nearly and who match my ancestor? Are they Estes folks? Well, just click on their balloons to see.

See why entering most distant ancestor and their location is so important?

Summary

Surname projects are very powerful tools. They are most powerful when we, as participants, provide full information, and administrators enable as much information as possible to be displayed which includes the fields for “most distant ancestor” and the mapping function.

For many genealogists, the only way they will ever be able to determine the Y DNA of their 5^th great grandfather is through finding their line in a surname project. If you’re interested in ways to do that, take a look at the article, “The DNA Pedigree Chart – Mining for Ancestors.” You never know who is waiting for you!!!

Please join me for the next article in this series about Haplogroup Projects.

______________________________________________________________

Disclosure

Thank you so much.

DNA Purchases and Free Transfers

Genealogy Services

Genealogy Research

Legacy Tree Genealogists for genealogy research

23 Ways To Be a PITA

Posted on March 16, 2014 by Roberta Estes

No, not PETA, the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, but PITA – Pain In The Arm….yes….arm…what are you thinking???

For most people, being a PITA doesn’t come naturally….so you might need some help knowing how to be one, or perhaps perfecting your PITA skills. Yes, in case you’re wondering….my tongue is firmly implanted in my cheek.

For genetic genealogists, there are special ways to be a PITA. Let me share some of these with you, just so you can fine tune and add to your PITA skills.

First and maybe the best ways to be a PITA, right off the bat.

1. Send e-mails with no subject or punctuation and an indecipherable topic, especially to someone you’ve never communicated with before. Here’s an example. You can just copy and paste this and send it to anyone you want to irritate or confuse.

“i would love to have any information you could give me…..thanks…..”

I so want to send this person something about penile implants. Is this wrong?

2. Send e-mails with no capitals or punctuations. This is always a wonderful way to impress people.

i just wanted to let you know that i have no idea how to type or how to use the period or comma keys or how to use the shift button i’m also using the fact that i’m using my phone as an excuse not to use punctuation however I can manage to type half of my life story for you to try to decipher so get out your special decoder ring

3. BETTER YET, SEND THE ENTIRE MESSAGE, INCLUDING SEVERAL PAGES OF YOUR ANCESTORS NAMES WITH NO DATES OR OTHER IDENTIFYING INFORMATION IN ALL CAPITALS. THEN ASK FOR ANY INFORMATION THAT PERSON MIGHT HAVE ABOUT THOSE ANCESTORS. THIS IS ESPECIALLY USEFUL WHEN FIRST INTRODUCING YOURSELF AND LETS YOUR NEW CONTACT KNOW JUST HOW IMPORTANT THEY ARE AND HOW MUCH FUN IT’S GOING TO BE TO COMMUNICATE WITH YOU.

4. When a match asks you for genealogy information, just send them a link to your Ancestry.com tree. You can then sit back and laugh, knowing that they have no idea where to search in your 35,723 people for a common ancestor without looking for every surname they have. Plus, you have the added benefit that Ancestry will help you be a PITA by attaching your tree to their account like a giant kudzu vine that they can’t disentangle without knowing the secret handshake.

5. When a match asks you for genealogy information, never, ever send them something actually useful, like a pedigree chart with an index. Instead send them rambling e-mails with disconnected tidbits from both sides of your family, or that link to your Ancestry tree. Go to sleep then, knowing they will be up all night trying to figure this out.

6. Ask for, or better yet, demand free consulting. Select someone at random (not me please, I already receive more than my share – 17 yesterday alone) and send them a rambling stream-of-consciousness e-mail several pages long. At the end, tell them that you can’t afford to pay anything, but ask if they would tell you “what they think.” Before sending these to anyone in the genetic genealogy community, send several to other professionals, physicians or lawyers in your community and see how that works out?

Now, if someone is a project volunteer, that’s a bit different. They still don’t “owe” you free consulting, but they have set themselves forth as a volunteer resource. Still, try to be respectful of their time and be brief and concise in your requests.

In other words, the 21 page e-mail I received this week from Person Unknown demanding that I, as a project administrator, figure out how the “requester” was related to three people in the large Cumberland Gap project (also persons unknown) was, well, ahem, a bit over the top, to put it mildly. No, I confess, I did not read all 21 pages and the only reason I know it WAS 21 pages long is because I wanted to use it as a bad example. If that was your e-mail and I’ve just offended you, well, I’m sorry you’re offended, but that is not the way to win friends and influence people, nor to get your questions answers or your problems solved. It is, however, a great way to be a PITA. In fact, you win this week’s PITA award!

Here’s an example of a reasonable, concise question from my blog:

“Thanks for that explanation, I needed that information. Still would like to know what a “back mutation” is.”

And the answer:

“A back mutation is when a mutations happens, like from A to C, and then the reverse happens, a mutation from C to A. It initially looks like no mutation happened, unless you are aware of the intermediate step and that two mutations actually happened.”

There’s a big difference between a simple one or two line general DNA question and a multi-page personal epistle that the receiver has to read three times and make charts to even begin to unravel or understand, so, to be a PITA – always make yourself annoying and then you can wonder why you never receive replies from people. Then complain about not receiving replies.

Oh, and if you do write to a project administrator, never, ever tell them how or why you are writing specifically to them – it’s much more fun to leave them guessing. The sender of the 21 page epistle did not SAY it was the Cumberland Gap project – they left that for me to decipher.

7. Skim articles, don’t click on the links, and then ask questions of the author that would have been answered if you had clicked on the links they provided in the first place. They love receiving several of these e-mails every day!

Now, if you have DNA tested at any of the three major testing companies, there special ways for you to be a PITA with each one. Let me give you some fresh ideas.

At Family Tree DNA

8. Join a DNA project, any project. Then, when the administrator sends you a welcome message, introducing themselves and asking for genealogy information, send them a nasty note. Here’s one I received recently. You can just use it.

“Who the hell are you and why are you contacting me. Don’t ever contact me again.”

9. Family Tree DNA does you the very large favor of providing you with the e-mail addresses of your contacts instead of forcing you to go through a message system like at 23andMe and Ancestry.

When sending an e-mail to someone you match, be sure to never include the name of the person you match, or what kind of a test you took that matches. This will confuse them and make them really want to answer your inquiry. Many people manage test kits for several people and if you don’t put the name of the person you match in your e-mail, they will probably think it’s their kit, and then they will either spend a lot of time looking for matches and/or putting together genealogy info to send to you that is not useful. Then, after you receive the info, tell them you’re sorry, but the match was to a different person. That will truly endear you to them.

10. Don’t ever update your e-mail address…then complain online and loudly about how you never receive contacts from either your project administrator or your contacts/matches.

11. Don’t upload your GEDCOM file either, because someone might accidentally discover a common surname match or a common ancestor, and that would be just awful. It would also provide Family Tree DNA with the information to bold matching surnames on your autosomal match list for you, AND you’d get a $10 coupon…all of which would be just terrible.

12. Volunteer to be a project administrator, then do nothing at all. Leave your project entirely ungrouped, and refuse any assistance. In this case, you really don’t have to DO anything to be a PITA.

Better yet, create an off-site (non-FTDNA) website instead of using the one at Family Tree DNA and remove any information that could be useful to someone searching for their ancestral line. Here’s an example.

Don’t want to create your own website? Well, you can be almost as large a PITA by using the Family Tree DNA page and simply disabling anything useful, like, you know, most distant ancestor. That way people can see that there is a project and their line MIGHT be hidden in there, but they have no way to find out other than contacting you. Then, don’t answer, of course.

At 23andMe

13. Give yourself a really innovative “screen name,” like, say “Your cousin” or “3^rd cousin” or better yet, “My Mother.” That way when you send contact requests or sharing requests to people, it looks like it is coming from their mother…and if their mother has already passed over…well…let’s just say your contact request could be really startling. Worse yet, if that person matches two people who are equally as creative and both named themselves “My Mother,” how will they ever tell you apart??? And can you really have two mothers? OMG, I feel an identity crisis coming on…

14. Tell your contact that you are really interested in genealogy, provide a little bit of genealogy info, just a couple tidbits, maybe a juicy morsel, but then refuse to share your DNA.

15. Don’t provide any surname or location information. That might give someone a clue as to how you connect – so don’t ever do that.

16. I’d tell you to never upload your GEDCOM file, or create one, but you can actually be a larger PITA by uploading your file at 23andMe, because their file reader interface works so poorly that your match will be more frustrated trying to read the file than by not finding one at all. So you can be a PITA whether you upload your file or not. How’s that for good luck!

17. Don’t ever reply to contact or sharing requests. I know this one is already quite popular. About 90% of the people there already do this, so you’ll be in good company. If people at 23andMe aren’t interested in genealogy, there is an opt-out, but don’t opt out because you can be much more of a PITA by leaving yourself in the genealogy pool but never replying to anyone, especially close matches. Drives them crazy!

At Ancestry

18. First and foremost, never, ever reply to messages. I know that this one is very popular, because many of my DNA matches, including my closest match at Ancestry has implemented this scheme. She, I assume, due to the name (unless I’m related to the boy named Sue) and I share a common great-grandfather. In this case, I have photos she might really like to have. Too bad she is being a PITA.

19. Make your tree private, AND never reply to requests. This is the ultimate tease, because your match KNOWS the information is there, right there, hiding just out of reach, and can’t get to it.

20. Copy and paste several trees together because, after all, the names match and, hello, it wouldn’t BE on Ancestry if it wasn’t RIGHT. Right? You can then scare the bejesus out of someone when they discover that their non-Mormon grandfather had 7 wives and 35 kids….all while married to their grandmother. That’s always fun. Then, when they frantically contact you to ask about it, don’t even think about replying to that message.

21. Insist that because you and your Ancestry DNA match have a shakey leaf and a common ancestor in your tree, that you KNOW that’s your DNA match because Ancestry SAYS SO. When your match tries to explain that connection might be incorrect, may not be your DNA match and that there is no way to prove it, at least not without utilizing tools from either GedMatch or Family Tree DNA, don’t reply to them anymore. That will certainly solve the problem!

22. Send random people invitations to your Ancestry tree – and be positive your tree name has absolutely no identifying words in it. Like the one I received recently, for example, named “A Global Tree of Life.” Yep, I can tell you right away who sent that to me and why!!!

23. Oh yes, and in true PITA-esque fashion, never, ever say “Thank you,” to anyone, ever, for anything. Thank you is such an easy thing to say and it makes the person on the receiving end feel good about whatever it was they did for you – even if was “just” answering your question. So don’t slip up and do this! Otherwise, you’ll certainly be thrown out of the PITA Club!

Added PITAs

24. Instead of being grateful for free things, like blogs and webpages, and simply unsubscribing or ignoring them if you don’t like them, make nasty comments. That will certainly confirm your PITA membership and make the person providing the free content feel warm and fuzzy about the time they invest.

“How about I unsubscribe to your boring emails about your family I have been getting the last year. Ms PITA.”

______________________________________________________________

Disclosure

Thank you so much.

DNA Purchases and Free Transfers