A Face Breaks a Brick Wall

 

You've put your profile photo on Facebook and other social media, but what about the genealogy sites that you use? Genealogy is often a collaborative effort -- another form of social media. Have you uploaded your profile photo to sites like Ancestry and MyHeritage? If so, do you use the same photo on all those sites?

I haven't done as well as I could, but was recently reminded of just how important that consistent profile photo can be. Thanks to a DNA match who uploaded the same photo to Ancestry and MyHeritage, one of my most challenging brick walls was demolished. It was that profile photo which grabbed my attention.

When you look at your DNA matches, which ones intrigue you? The matches with photos always lure me first, while the others are all just a forgettable blur. 

I was specifically looking for matches related to the surname Vosseler. One of my family testers (with a photo) has a MyHeritage match to a gentleman of that name who lives in Germany (with no photo). 

Looking at seven shared matches, there are five matches with triangulated segments (example boxed in red), which is an important clue. Two of the seven matches have profile photos.

 

 

 

 

The gentleman near the top looked familiar and the segment was triangulated with Mr. Vosseler. I had seen that photo on Ancestry DNA. Why had I seen it? This was an important match.

 

Going to the same family tester on Ancestry, I was able to find the man in the match list. He had the same photo, though the two sites show it a bit differently. The face was the same and there were far more shared matches on Ancestry, some with a much higher shared cM level.

 

Using the shared matches from Ancestry, I was able to identify a surname of interest, build a tree, and demolish the 20-year-old Vosseler brick wall.

 

Looking at these nine matches to the highest match, there are only two photos, the first being the face that broke the wall. 

 

 

Sadly, with both Ancestry and MyHeritage, there are very few profile photos in this entirely random look. 

The moral of the story? Upload a profile photo. Be a welcoming and consistent face to your matches and collaborators. 

There is a lot of advice online about good profile photos. I'll be updating mine soon. Will you join me?

 

The Case of the Missing Matches

Soon many DNA matches will quietly vanish from our Ancestry DNA match lists. Will you miss any of your matches?

• I will miss Elaine, a 90-something woman who has amazing knowledge about the complex web of our German roots.
• I will miss Mandy, a young mother who may connect with either German or Swedish ancestry, but is a fun contact.
• I will miss Lou, an African-American man who is probably a descendant of my Alexander ancestors, slave owners in South Carolina.

I told you about Lou a year ago in The Case of the Missing DNA. Comparing notes from various DNA tests and web sites, Lou and I discovered that Ancestry had ignored about 10 cM of our matching DNA, placing our match at a low 8 cM.

Now Ancestry plans to drop matches that are under 8 cM. Will I keep Lou as a match? What matches will Lou miss? Will he be able to solve the mystery of his South Carolina roots?

It's a challenge for the descendants of enslaved persons to find ancestors before 1870. Loss of low-level matches will increase the difficulty of finding those distant cousins. In this time of racial enlightenment, Ancestry is moving in the wrong direction.

Instead of hiding matches and ignoring strands of DNA, Ancestry needs to improve their data science capabilities. Yes, as a data scientist, I understand that is easy to say and hard to do. It's time for Ancestry to do the hard work.

DNA and The Butterfly Effect

Would law enforcement be able to use genetic databases like GedMatch to solve crimes if Ancestry had provided a chromosome browser to their customers?

The CEO of Ancestry this week cautioned that consumers need to be careful about the companies with whom we share our DNA. She pointed out that Ancestry has the highest standards around privacy and does not cooperate with law enforcement.

I almost fell off my chair laughing. In another post I'll explain how Ancestry reduced privacy options recently in a way that has me highly concerned and caused me to unlink several DNA tests from my tree.

The CEO's statement made me think also about cause and effect.

If Ancestry had provided a chromosome browser, they would have been able to serve their customers who want hard science in addition to warm fuzzy feelings. We would not have needed to turn to GedMatch and other companies for this service.

Additionally, if Ancestry had accepted DNA uploads from other companies, they could have provided cross-company matching and captured a larger share of the market. Instead they ceded this market to GedMatch and now to other companies.

I did a (non-scientific) check of my top 3000 matches on GedMatch. A full 50 percent of my matches were from Ancestry. And my family and I have better privacy on GedMatch than on Ancestry, which is a story for another day.

My opinion is that Ancestry's choices have been an important cause of the growth of GedMatch. I'm personally on the fence about law enforcement using genetic databases. However, I also think Ancestry needs to own its part in the situation, rather than denigrate companies that fill gaps in Ancestry's DNA offering.

So I ponder if the Golden State Killer was caught thanks to a long-ago decision made by Ancestry. Was it cause and effect?

The Case of the Missing DNA

A recent inquiry from a DNA match sent me into the mysteries of AncestryDNA matching. I was appalled at what I learned.

In the field of data science, we use the term "single source of truth." You would expect that DNA matching would be consistent across all the different testing companies, so any and all of them would be a valid source of truth. Not so. If you skip the story, please take a moment to look below at the explanatory graphic.

It started with a routine email from a gentleman I'll call Lou. He found our match on Family Tree DNA and asked if it was possible we were related through a particular surname. He closed by telling me he was of African-American descent.

Knowing the challenges faced by African-Americans who are researching their roots, I gave the email far more attention than I would have if it had been from a Caucasian match.

Lou and I had no shared matches on FTDNA, so  I turned to Ancestry, where I have identified many cousins from that branch of my family. But there was a problem. Our match on Ancestry was only 8 cM (1 segment), where on FTDNA it was 27 cM (3 segments). How is that even possible?

Our FTDNA match includes a couple of short segments. Eliminating them leaves our FTDNA match at 19.9 cM (1 segment), still more than double what AncestryDNA showed. We exchanged some emails to discuss the source of the data.

• Lou had uploaded his AncestryDNA results to FTDNA, MyHeritage and GedMatch. 
• Lou had tested with 23AndMe and uploaded that result to GedMatch.
• I had directly tested with FTDNA and MyHeritage, in addition to AncestryDNA. 
• I had uploaded my AncestryDNA result to GedMatch. 

All match combinations except AncestryDNA are in the range 17.8-19.9 cM, with one segment in the same approximate range in chromosome 12. Of course we can't see what AncestryDNA is suggesting.

Choose Your Source of Truth

My brother's match to Lou is also in a similar range to these numbers. At Ancestry DNA, Lou's brothers and daughter have a stronger match to me than Lou does. However, none of them have uploaded to GedMatch, so we can't see the science behind the numbers. This particular chromosome range does appear to fall in or near an ISOGG-documented slight pile-up area.

So this leaves the possibility that AncestryDNA has chosen to ignore some of the match due to pile-up. Wouldn't it be nice to be told that?

Does Ancestry have a computational error on my match with Lou, since Lou's daughter matches me more strongly than Lou matches me? Or does she match me in an entirely different way via her mother's lines?

What is the best source of truth? If you are using only AncestryDNA for your DNA matching, you are not seeing the whole truth. GedMatch is free. FTDNA is inexpensive. MyHeritage has some great tools. You can choose your source of truth.

Tangled DNA

Have you taken a genealogical DNA test yet? If not, why not? It's easy, inexpensive and a little bit of fun. The fun ethnicity results are less useful than the ability to identify cousins, but the latest ethnicity estimates from AncestryDNA are a huge improvement for me. Your mileage may vary.

Identifying cousins who are DNA matches can be tricky due to intermarriages. Some of those marriages are within religious or ethnic groups. Some are within small communities and even within families. If you are trying to figure out your DNA cousins, you probably have seen some trees that leave you scratching your head in bafflement.

Within one of my families, there are a handful of generations where the DNA is so tangled that making cousin assumptions can lead to incorrect conclusions. DNA may someday untangle the branches, but only with careful analysis and triangulation outside the tangled branches.

I don't carry any of the tangled DNA, but I want to share my research for my known and unknown cousins. The next few posts in the 52 Ancestors series will be about ancestors in the Allee family and the challenges that I have found during 20 years of research into the large family of my mother's adoptive father. 

Allee-Lucas Family, about 1909

Analyzing Ancestry DNA Matches on a Snowy Day in the South

What is the relationship between the number of matches at Ancestry DNA and the number of matches that are 4th-6th cousins or closer? It seems as if those numbers should correlate, but they don't. Rather the variation seems to be related to ethnicity.

I'm learning a new (sort of free) data analysis tool and, during today's snow holiday, I took the opportunity to experiment with my own data instead of my employer's. Here are my results and thoughts, gathered while ten inches of snow fell and interrupted by a two hour power outage.

A contact told me that a very large number of pages -- a large number of matches -- tend to belong to testers who have heritage from the American South. My heritage is about 30% American South. Of the 14 tests to which I have access, only two have that high a percentage. But others of the tests have higher page counts. One of my in-laws has a normal page count, yet an absurd number of close matches, as shown above.

I used Excel to collect all the statistics. I gathered the ethnicity percentages for each test. The number of close matches came from the main page. Then the fun part was estimating the number of pages, typing the page number into the page number box, hitting enter and seeing what happened. Then paging backward or forward to see the total number of pages. All page counts were rounded up.

In the graph you can see how the number of pages is a fairly close range, but the number of close cousins does not always move in the same direction. Not what you would expect, is it?

What is the ethnic breakdown for the person with so many close cousins? That person is of Hispanic descent, as are some others in the graph. Choosing Europe South, Iberian Peninsula and Native American hits the high points for that person. Now there is a clearer relationship between the number of close cousins and the ethnicity. It seems that this could be due to endogamy in the Hispanic population coupled with a high birth rate and a curiosity about ethnicity within that population.

Just to round out the exercise, here's a similar look at how European ethnicity relates to match counts. Notice that higher Scandinavian ethnicity (darker blue) results in fewer close matches and fewer pages.

It was a good day to spend some time thinking about the characteristics of Ancestry DNA matches and, in the process, to learn more about the tool.

Hidden DNA at Ancestry

A couple of months ago Ancestry made another change to their policies for managing DNA test results. It is a mix of both good and bad, depending on your perspective. You can choose to hide your test from your DNA matches. If you make that choice, you also can’t see your matches. If you have extreme privacy concerns, this change could be a blessing. However, you could also skip the test or choose to delete the test from Ancestry. So this change feels a bit ridiculous.

It seems a lot of people merely want their ethnicity results, but not matches. If they choose to hide their results, they will disappear from our match lists. That would help reduce the wasteland of useless results that we researchers must wade through.

However, sometimes even a match without a tree can help with a breakthrough. I’ve assisted a couple of adoptees who relate to tests I administer, with skeleton trees that are private. I recently received a nice thank you from such a researcher who identified her birth grandfather after I shared just a little information.

I also had a personal victory. Over a year ago Roberta asked on the DNAExplained blog about converting a New Ancestor Discovery into an actual ancestor. I was able to do that recently with the help of a treeless match. It did take a lot of lucky breaks.

I administer a test for a college student that I’ll call Missy. Her parents divorced when she was young and her father poisoned the relationship by casting doubt on Missy’s parentage. His French-Canadian Catholic family was not pleased with Missy's mother. Conversely, her mother’s family, including me, was incensed at his behavior.

I tested Missy simply as part of testing many family members. Ironically, her DNA is more heavily French-Canadian than her older sibling’s. She has 12 new ancestor discoveries — more than anyone else among my 11 family tests — and most of those discoveries are French-Canadian.

For several years I have been blocked at Missy’s living paternal grandmother. Let’s call her Grandma Case (as in case study). I knew her birth date and her maiden and married names, but could not identify her parents. I also needed to do this work without reaching out to other Case researchers.

One of Missy’s New Ancestor Discoveries has the Case surname and was born in the Montreal area in about 1799. This looked like a good hint, but I was not interested in spending the time to do a descendants study.

Missy has a close DNA match with no tree, but with 329 centimorgans shared across 14 DNA segments. Lucky break number one.

The man we’ll call Eddy Case used his real name when he registered his DNA test. Lucky break number two. I waited for a year to see if Eddy would provide a tree, but it didn’t appear. One day, when reviewing the new ancestor discoveries, I decided to see if it was possible to break through the brick wall with just the information I had.

A Google search on Eddy’s name turned up only four matches in the entire US. Lucky break number three. Too many matches would have put a quick stop to the research.

One of the four men lived in the right area of Michigan. He had been interviewed in a newspaper article, giving his age. Lucky break number four.

Eddy was born before the 1940 census. Lucky break number five.

Starting from the 1940 census, I quickly ran up his tree and arrived at the new ancestor discovery couple. All the work to this point would have been done for me if Eddy had posted a tree. So this part of the journey is not a show-stopper when working with a promising NAND.

The next step was to determine possible relationships between Grandma Case and Eddy Case. One of my considerations needed to be the fact that the French-Canadian community is endogamous, which can make the match stronger than it might otherwise be.

Blaine Bettinger at The Genetic Genealogist has researched how DNA match strength corresponds to relationships. He has posted a PDF with several handy charts at his website and he updates it periodically. He has clustered relationships by strength and provides tips about how to determine probable relationships. He also tracks endogamy in his collected information.

From the charts, I could see that the match between Eddy and Missy falls into clusters 4 or 5. Grandma Case could be a younger half-sister to Eddy, a first cousin, a niece, or some other relative within two generations.

 

The next step was to document Eddy’s siblings and cousins. Missy had no matches to anyone in Eddy’s mothers family,  but had a number of matches related via Eddy’s grandmother’s family. I decided to ignore the possibility that Eddy was a half-sibling to Grandma Case and focus instead on Eddy's first cousins.

Tracing Eddy’s aunts and uncles, I ran into a number of roadblocks but was able to eliminate most branches through obituaries or early deaths. Finally, when ready to give up with three open branches, I found an obituary on an obscure website that listed Grandma Case as a daughter of the deceased. Lucky break number six.

Grandma Case was indeed a younger first cousin to Eddy, making Missy a 1C2R to Eddy, which is a cluster 5 match.

Would I have eventually made the find without Eddy’s DNA match? The close match with a clear name and the wonderful relationship chart led me to the right branch. If Eddy chooses now to hide his DNA tests from his matches, someone else may not have the hint they need to make a discovery.

The entire project was completed in one weekend. That is fast in genealogy time! So thank you, Eddy Case, for your contribution.

Save the NANDS

New Ancestor Discoveries (NANDs) on the AncestryDNA site tend to sneak quietly onto the main page and, after hanging out a while, they sometimes disappear. NANDs can be descendants of ancestors, but they can serve as clues. If your tree is not deep enough, like some of mine, the NANDs can be actual ancestors.

Quite a few NANDs walked off the pages of my family members recently. Sadly, one NAND that I wanted to research disappeared. A few wandered off my own page and onto the pages of other family members.

Having lost a cherished NAND, I decided it was time to keep track of the NANDs. I've created a spreadsheet that includes just the key information, including who the NAND was given to. You may want to keep track of your own NANDs, saving that information in case they walk away.

Not everyone has NANDs, so I'll show you what one looks like. David Donald Dickey and his wife, Margaret S Hayes, may turn out to be very important to me. They appear to be from my Mother's Pennsylvania lines, possibly through her Lake family or her Kerr family. Fortunately that couple wandered over to another family member. Here's a look at how they appear on the main page and what you'll see if you click into a NAND.

A NAND is a composite of a number of trees and can be a bit of a mess if some of the trees are messy. But a clue is a clue.

Here's my simple spreadsheet.

Now I'm saving my NANDs. You might want to save yours.

Ready, Fire, Aim: Ancestry Misses the Target

Ancestry announced a change to DNA test management late this past Thursday that angered many of their core customers. Effective immediately, only one DNA test can be activated from each Ancestry account. The blog posting where the announcement was made was followed by hundreds of frustrated comments. I share many of the concerns stated by others and won't repeat them here. Rather, let me tell you about my first cousin.

Ro was raised in the eastern US, while I was raised in the west. We've now switched coasts. I can count on two hands the number of times we've seen each other in person. We email and are friends on Facebook, but we're not close. Ro lives on a fixed income, but decided to take a DNA test with Ancestry. We got together last year and she explained something that had just not registered with me before: she was an orphan.

Her father had died when she was in grade school and her mother had placed the children in boarding schools. The family unit was irretrievably broken at that point. Ro and her mother had a tumultuous relationship, but were starting to mend it when tragedy struck. Traveling on icy and treacherous roads, the two were in a horrendous accident. Both were badly hurt. Her mother never fully recovered. She died after lingering and fighting for over two years.

Ro's mother and my father, siblings, were orphaned young. Likewise, both their maternal grandparents (our great-grandparents) had been orphaned. Ro and her siblings had also been orphaned in their 20s. They were the third generation of orphans in four generations. Like many adoptees and orphans, she was curious about her heritage.

Ro had a free Ancestry account under which she registered her DNA test. When her test popped up as a match to mine, I looked over her tree and suggested a couple of changes that would make our trees align. She was able to make simple changes, but did not have an easy way to add the many generations of ancestors that I shared with her. I had done some work on her father's family, also, so had plenty of data to share.

After trying a couple of ways to get my data into her tree, we gave up on doing it the right way and used the dirty way. Ro gave me the password to her Ancestry account. Today her tree has about 100 names more than the number she started with. I maintain (or don't maintain) her tree. If there are questions from other researchers, she sends them to me.

I also have elevated rights for her DNA test. When I first logged into AncestryDNA as Ro, I was appalled at how limited her account was. Having spent as much as $100 for the test, she could only see a few of her top matches. That seems blatantly unfair. Instead, I am the one who reviews her matches and writes notes for them.

Ro also asked for a favor. Could I find any newspaper coverage of that awful car accident? I looked at several newspaper websites, including Newspapers.com (owned by Ancestry), to which I had a subscription at the time. I found some possible matches in that collection, but there was a problem. That particular newspaper was part of the "Publisher Extra" collection. Even with my paid subscription, I couldn't check out the articles without paying additional subscription fees.

In a previous post, I stated that Ancestry wants two things. This new policy shows they want three things:

1. Your money for subscriptions
2. Your genealogy data to grow their database
3. Your DNA, with permission to use it for research

I'll stay with Ancestry for now, but I won't be buying any more DNA test kits from them. We'll all see what effects this policy will bring to the Ancestry landscape.

Two of my distant cousins who are reading this (I hope) might be able to find that newspaper coverage for Ro. One of you moved a couple of years ago from a state near me to a state where we have our shared roots. You are my best hope, as you now live near the accident site. The other cousin may have access to a full Newspapers.com subscription through your FHC. If either of you are willing to try to help Ro learn more about her past, please email me.

Ancestry DNA and the NADS

Yesterday, on the DNAeXplained blog, Roberta speculated on how the "New Ancestor Discoveries" at AncestryDNA could be of use. She calls them NADs and that's a great abbreviation. She also asked for input from her followers. This is my response.

How do I turn a NAD into an actual ancestor? First, here's a look at the progress in my genealogy journey. Ancestry has made a mess of my DNA match tracking, so this chart is a bit outdated. It shows dots where I have accumulated DNA matches. The red arrow points to James Childers, the topic of this post. Notice that I don't have parents for James.

The areas with large numbers of dots reflect the large numbers of matches who, like me, have tapped into published family genealogies. I'm sure I have many matches at the edges of all my non-Swedish lines, but I am stuck, have not researched, or have not found a published genealogy for those lines. James Childers is an ancestor that I have not researched, because I was not entirely positive that his daughter was my ancestor, until DNA matching added to the evidence.

James C. Childers was born about 1804 in South Carolina. He married in Madison County, Alabama, in 1828, and died between the Alabama census of 1855 and the federal census of 1860. He had ten known children: two sons and eight daughters.

Ancestry gave me a NAD named Robert Childers, who was born in South Carolina and died in Georgia. Sadly, Ancestry has since taken him away. Robert was a handful of years older than James and would likely have been a brother or cousin. According to a top match, Robert's father was Jacob Childers who died in York, South Carolina.  Aha, there's a South Carolina connection!

Faced with this hint, Roberta asks, what do I do with it?

I absolutely do not adopt Jacob Childers as my ancestor based on a DNA match to a few of Robert's descendants. For me, the hard work follows to do a Childers single-name study in Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina.

My strategy is to take hints from my NADs, but use conventional genealogy to prove the line. DNA is a great tool, but it certainly doesn't replace good old-fashioned research.

Why Should I Use GEDMatch for My DNA?

Addie is an adoptee, looking for her birth parents. She tested her autosomal DNA with 23AndMe. Addie has a good match with some people who tested at FamilyTreeDNA and with some who tested at AncestryDNA. But there's a huge problem: how does she find those matches? Each company shows only matches from within their own customer base.

GEDMatch is the answer.

GEDMatch expands the playing field for all autosomal DNA testers and it provides the chromosome browser and triangulation tools that are missing from AncestryDNA. Fortunately for Addie, a number of her matches had uploaded their DNA results to GEDMatch.

My father, who tested at FTDNA, is second on Addie's match list at GEDMatch, while my brother, who tested at AncestryDNA, is first. Our first cousin is 13th, while my half-uncle and I don't match at all. Of course, there are many others on her match list. Several researchers now have a multi-way conversation going on to try and help with her search.

Along with the larger conversation, I have a one-on-one conversation going on with one man. We think that there is a relationship not only between his aunt Ethel and my dad, but also between my mom and Ethel. That is because my brother matches Ethel in other chromosome locations than my dad matches Ethel. If we were working only at AncestryDNA, we would never have known about that subtle nuance.

Jim Bartlett recently shared on his blog ten reasons to upload to GEDMatch (or FTDNA). Note that GEDMatch is entirely free, while FTDNA is not. In the comments on that blog post Jim explains just a bit about how to download and upload DNA results. Instructions are also available at GEDMatch once you register for an account.

The team at GEDMatch has made some changes since I last wrote about this fabulous website. The match list still shows the kit number, the Y-DNA haplogroup and MtDNA haplogroup and the matching segment totals, including matches on the X chromosome. The display of the email addresses and names of testers has been improved. One of the features that I most appreciate is the concise listing of matches. Both AncestryDNA and FTDNA require a lot of scrolling.

This is the top of my match list. My dad and daughter are 1 generation away from me, while my brother is 1.3 and other family members are 1.5 to 2 generations away. Beyond immediate family, the number of generations rapidly rises to 4 and beyond.

The first letter of the kit shows if the test was done at Ancestry (A), FTDNA (F) or 23AndMe (M).

17th on my match list is my third cousin once removed. When I click on the "A" in the Autosomal column, I can run the one-to-one chromosome comparison, with or without a graphical representation. I like to include the graphs, rather than numbers alone, because I can better visualize the match. Clicking on the X for an X-chromosome match works in a similar way.

I see that we have matching DNA on chromosomes 2, 4 and 18.

At the end of the compare are some statistics about the match.

     Largest segment = 20.4 cM
     Total of segments > 7 cM = 41.8 cM
     Estimated number of generations to MRCA = 4.2

I can use this information as part of mapping my chromosomes to ancestors. These segments probably came from our shared Mooney/Alexander ancestors. We still need to verify them against other Mooney and Alexander descendants.

I've also shared about the ethnicity models at GEDMatch and how I can run my family's DNA through different ethnicity models, depending on their known ethnicity. The result is a pie chart with a legend.

GEDMatch does all this for free. I choose to donate to help support the site, so I do have access to some other tools. Fellow DNA testers -- readers and cousins -- come along for the ride and enjoy the new discoveries that await you at GEDMatch.

My 2016 Genetic Genealogy Goal

Looking for descendants of Aaron Lake, born about 1775

• Aaron Lake lived in Breckinridge County, Kentucky, at the time of the 1820 census.
• Is he the same Aaron Lake who lived in Perry County, Indiana during the 1820 census?
• Was he the man enumerated in Washington County, Pennsylvania in the 1800 census?
• Did he pay taxes in Washington County, Pennsylvania in 1800?
• Did he marry and have children in Hunterdon County, New Jersey?
• Was he the same Aaron Lake who died in Morgan County, Illinois, on July 6, 1835?
• Which man, if any, is my ancestor?

Researchers have shared this tidbit online: Mary Ann Lake (daughter of Aaron Lake) was born about 1794, in Hunterdon County, New Jersey. She died in 1852, in Leopold, Perry County, Indiana, where she was buried in the St. Augustine's Catholic Church Cemetery. She married John Baptist Alvey on June 8, 1813, in Breckinridge County, Kentucky.

My ancestor, Lindsay Lake, was born in Breckinridge County on May 5, 1813. He named his eldest son Aaron. Lindsay died in Morgan County, Illinois on August 19, 1876. Lindsay has the dubious distinction of my ancestor who married the most times. His son said it had been seven times, though it may have been eight. Son Aaron, born in 1835, is my ancestor.

An Illinois neighbor, Israel Lake, provides additional clues. He was born in Pennsylvania about 1809 and married in Perry County, Indiana, in 1829. One of his descendants and I have an autosomal DNA match at the 5th-8th cousin level. Israel's death is unknown, but was after 1880 and most likely was in either Cass County or adjoining Morgan County, Illinois.

William Lake was born December, 1800, in Pennsylvania. He married in Perry County, Indiana, in 1824, and died in Vermillion County, Indiana, on Aug 27, 1868. His probate mentions Linzey Lake, likely my ancestor. I have a trace autosomal DNA match to a descendant of William Lake. William named his eldest son Aaron and another son Israel.

Lord Harrison Lake was born in Pennsylvania before 1800, married in Perry County, Indiana, in 1822, and died in Cass County, Illinois about 1846.

Both Y-DNA and autosomal DNA can help with this relationship puzzle. If you are a male Lake descendant, with all male Lake ancestors back to any of these men, please join the Lake surname project at FamilyTreeDNA. If, like me, your Lake ancestry wanders between males and females, your autosomal DNA can help. Consider testing with the FamilyTreeDNA Family Finder or with Ancestry DNA. Also be sure to upload the results to GedMatch.com. Let me know via a private comment here, if you do one of these tests. The more cousins who test and communicate, the more we can learn about the Lake family.

Lindsay Lake had a mix of step and natural children. Obviously, we need DNA from only his natural children. Fortunately for us, his heirs had a court battle over his estate. His named heirs, all believed to be natural children are: Aaron Lake, Cynthiana Lake Fanning, John L. Lake, Susan Lake, Josephine Lake, George B. Lake, and Isaac H. Lake. I have a 4th-6th cousin match with a descendant of Cynthiana.

The minor children of the Aaron Lake who died in Morgan County in 1835 were named in his probate:

• Angeline married George Sibert
• Rebecca married Edward Hardy

I look forward to hearing from Lake cousins near and far!

Autosomal DNA Matching 101

A friend who is just embarking on the genealogical DNA journey says it's too complicated. I have to agree that it can be overwhelming.

• If you are taking the AncestryDNA test, focus on learning about autosomal DNA. 
• If you are taking the Family Finder test at FamilyTreeDNA, it is also an autosomal DNA test.
• Ignore Y-DNA and mTDNA for now.

The first thing that I suggest is to subscribe to the DNAeXplained blog by Roberta J Estes. Sometimes her posts pertain, sometimes they don't, but her work is a great resource.

After you subscribe to the blog, visit the publications section of Roberta's DNAeXplain.com website. Scroll down to the section titled Working with DNA and see what you might want to download and read.

You've ordered an autosomal test, but what will it do for you? The purpose of an autosomal DNA test is matching your DNA to that of cousins known and unknown. It can answer:

1. Who shares my DNA? 
2. How much DNA do we share? 
3. What segments do we share? 
4. Who else shares those segments? 

Unfortunately Ancestry only answers question 1 and hints at question 2. However, the genealogical community uses Ancestry more heavily than FamilyTreeDNA , so that's where more matching will take place. The Family Finder test at FTDNA answers all 4 questions. The free website GEDMatch also answers all 4 questions.

When your test is completed, you can download your results from Ancestry, FTDNA or 23AndMe, which I don't use. You really don't want to look at your results file -- it's big and has a lot of numbers and letters. But it's yours and you will want to get that download file to use at other websites now and in the future.

What can you do with your downloaded file?

• GEDMatch levels the playing field for matching. It is a free site supported by donations and we who use it need to donate. Bear that potential cost in mind, as well as the possibility the site could vanish.
• An Ancestry test result can be uploaded to GEDMatch.
• GEDMatch accepts uploads from FTDNA.
• GEDMatch accepts uploads from 23AndMe.
• FTDNA accept uploads from Ancestry. It's $69 today to upload.
• FTDNA accepts uploads from 23AndMe, also $69 today.
• Ancestry will not accept an outside test result. 
• DNAGedcom will  accept uploads from FTDNA and from 23AndMe. More on this tool next time.

GEDMatch is the free site where we all can meet, regardless of the original test company. I've chosen Ancestry for my brother's autosomal DNA test, knowing it gives me flexibility in handling the results.

I'll use my cousin Mary as an example of matching via Ancestry and GEDMatch. She and I both tested at Ancestry, which predicted that we were in the range of 4th cousin to 6th cousin with a 96% confidence factor. We also have a leaf that we have a common ancestor in our trees. We had already connected, so none of this was a surprise.

We both uploaded our Ancestry results to GEDMatch.

GEDMatch provides a list of matches, similar to Ancestry. It also includes matches who have tested with other companies.

I look in my match list for Mary (in yellow), make a note of her kit number, and click on a link to run a one-to-one match. The match process provides a very clear answer to how much DNA we share and what the segments are.

GEDMatch estimates 4.2 generations to our Most Recent Common Ancestor. Mary is my 3rd cousin, once removed. Our common ancestors, William and his wife, are 4 generations from her and 5 generations from me. Both Ancestry and GEDMatch have done well with their estimates.

GEDMatch gives us other tools, including the ability to see others who match both of us. Someone who matches us both on chromosome 2 between 74188298 and 105591639 is now known to be related to us in the lines of William or his wife or both. As we accumulate matches, we can refine our knowledge. There can be a "gotcha" here, which I'll cover next time.

As I write this post, GEDMatch is in the midst of a transition with many tools unavailable and new uploads not being accepted. I have every confidence that they will be back to provide for Ancestry users the missing tools.

FTDNA works in similar ways to GEDmatch, but the interface is prettier and comes at a price. Here we see a couple of my Dad's matches.

The top is his confirmed cousin from Sweden. The little green icon shows that there is a family tree (GEDCOM) loaded by that person. The estimated 2nd-4th cousin has been replaced by the actual relationship that we calculated and then manually set.

The bottom match has no tree, but has listed some of her surnames. I'd rather see a tree. That's so important to facilitate making the connection.

FTDNA provides graphical comparison of matches and allows me to download my matches, their email addresses and the chromosome matching segments, similar to those shown above. It also provides a tool to see who else matches both me and one or more of my matches. One of the downsides of FTDNA is that a lot of the participants have not provided a family tree.

The autosomal DNA test is another tool in your genealogical toolbox. You still have to figure out the connections.

I hope this post helps with some basic understanding. Next time: the magic of DNAGedcom.

DNA Test Types

We've seen how DNA inheritance works -- now what about the test types. What are they and why use one?

Here's a reminder of a man with his father's Y-DNA in blue Mizuhiki, his mother's mtDNA in purple Mizuhiki and his randomly inherited autosomal DNA in paper.

There are three main tests: autosomal, Y-DNA and mtDNA. I think the FGS2013 speaker sponsored by Ancestry explained the difference best. He told us that an autosomal test is designed to answer the question, "to whom am I related." The Y-DNA and mtDNA test are to answer the question, "am I related to you."

I've been reading a fascinating book of an adoptee's search for his father and how DNA was instrumental in his results. It's a wonderful story that tells how using two types of tests were needed to get the right answer to the mystery. He had to use both autosomal and Y-DNA tests. His book is Finding Family by Richard Hill.

The AncestryDNA test and the Family Tree DNA (FTDNA) Family Finder are both autosomal tests. A bunch of people take tests and the computers compare my DNA to that of everyone else. The best matches come to the top and it's up to me and my matches to figure out how we're related. The autosomal matching is most useful up to about 6 generations. After that, it quickly loses its usefulness. Autosomal tests seem to have settled at $99 right now.

Y-DNA and mtDNA are passed down fairly intact for many generations, though there are occasional  mutations. Both of these tests can be done at different levels of thoroughness and different prices. The more expensive the option, the more useful they are. However, they are very narrow in terms of what they tell us.

The Y-DNA test is used to compare DNA of men who share a surname to determine relationships and ancestry. Men who are adopted or in doubt of their parentage can use this test to look for the answers. One of the FGS2013 speakers who manages a surname project recommends the 67-marker level, currently priced at $268 at FTDNA.

The mtDNA test is fuzzier in my mind. I've recently upgraded my own from the basic test I took in 2005 to the "full sequence." When I see how it helps, I'll report back. The full sequence at FTDNA is currently $199.

I recently ordered for my father a kit from FTDNA. I paid for both an autosomal test and an mtDNA test. But I didn't order a Y-DNA test. Let me explain why I made the choices.

1. Autosomal. Because autosomal matching is only effective for a few generations, I can add one more generation of effectiveness for a fairly low price point. I will also be able to tell which of my own matches come from which side of my tree.

2. Y-DNA. My father's male line -- father-to-father -- is well documented back into Sweden. By the time we get back a few generations, the surname starts changing due to the use of patronymics. Our current surname is somewhat common in Sweden, but we are not related to many people who have the same name. Because Y-DNA is passed intact down the male line, it will be possible in the future to test my brother or nephews if we ever feel the need. So I chose to avoid this pricey test.

3. mtDNA. This choice is complicated to explain. I don't have a particular reason to test my father's mtDNA. We are fairly sure of his female ancestry, due to my own autosomal matches. However, recall that mtDNA is passed only mother to child and never father to child. My dad carries his mother's mtDNA. There are only four other living people with that same (known) mtDNA: two living uncles, a male cousin and one female cousin, who has no children. At the death of those five people, my paternal grandmother's mtDNA will be lost forever. So I paid for the test just to be sure I've captured it.

Another FGS2013 speaker asked the rhetorical question, why we do DNA testing. The answer that popped into my head (as well as hers) is "because we can."

DNA Fan Chart

One of the challenges with our DNA match tracking is how to visualize the results. At FGS 2013, a speaker representing AncestryDNA demonstrated an interesting way to see those matches on a fan chart.

I've adopted his approach and placed a dot at the common ancestor(s) for each confirmed match. There aren't enough generations on this lovely fan chart from ClubScrap's Generations digital kit, so the furthest matches show the line associated to the match.

Why are there clusters of distant matches? In each and every case, tenacious researchers have written and published a book about a family group in America in the 1700s. Those books then have been used by genealogists like myself to connect with earlier generations. DNA matching now lets us connect to those distant cousins.

With the move to online trees, I fear this type of book will no longer be written, leaving us to search through dozens of unsourced trees to find the occasional nugget. We won't see the interrelationship with other families in the community cluster -- the relationships that often lead to solutions for tough genealogy problems. DNA may become ever more important to our search.
  

I Have Matches -- Now What

I just had a chat with someone who is right behind me on the DNA journey, but is feeling lost. So today I'll share some progress.

The tools at each DNA web site are different than the others, but the end goal is the same: connection with cousins. Ancestry is missing a key tool that can be found at GedMatch and at Family Tree DNA (FTDNA). That tool is the chromosome browser or chromosome comparison.

I was contacted by a gentleman that I'll call John. He is in my match list both at GedMatch and at FTDNA and he's been working with DNA for quite a while. I have part of my tree available at FTDNA and he had checked it out. His family and mine had intermarried in Weakley County, Tennessee, during the late 1800s. We don't see a common ancestor yet, though we know we must have one. But what does our DNA tell us?

Looking at GedMatch, he's near the top of my match list with an estimate of 4.2 generations to our common ancestor. His kit number is on the left and his email on the right. I've hidden both of those items. He and I don't have any X-chromosome (#23) DNA in common. But our Autosomal DNA (#1-22) has a fairly large matching area.

Let's do a chromosome review at both GedMatch and FTDNA.

GedMatch shows us, in blue, several areas where we have matches within different chromosomes. It's larger on the screen. This is just small so I can show more of the matching areas.

Here's the FTDNA match list, where John is the second one. He has an email address, a tree at FTDNA and I can add a note. Some of his his surnames are shown and I can also see which DNA tests he has done.

In the chromosome browser, I select John (in orange). This browser shows only the larger match. I was able to find several other people in my match list with a very similar matching pattern. The gray areas are not used in matching. At the top, I can download the matches to Excel so I can see the numbers.

OK, we have matching DNA. So what? My first question to John was what he knew about the source of that section of shared DNA.

John has worked with several of those matches over the past few months and they can't find the common ancestor. I'm new to the game, but I bring some new surnames to explore. We have a location to focus on, which John said they didn't have before. I also knew more about my family than John did and he taught me things about his family. Together, we have a clearer picture of how our families relate.

If John and I can find our common ancestor, everyone who matches us on that piece of DNA will suddenly know what they are looking for. We'll be able to say that segment came from our ancestor X. Anyone who matches that location in the future can be advised to look for their connection to ancestor X and their parents and siblings. Others may be able to help refine the source of the DNA as the mother of X or father of X.

The chromosome browsers are interesting, but useless by themselves. The payoff is when you find the connection to that common ancestor X.

What's the strategy? Work the closest matches first. Review trees. Send emails. Ask if they know about the common ancestor in the DNA segments where you match. When you find the common ancestor, document the DNA segments and look for others that match those segments. Then reach out to those others to let them know what you've found. And, of course, hope others will let you know when they unpuzzle a match.

I sent such an email the other day. I searched on a particular surname, found a match, found the common ancestor couple in his tree, then used the chromosome browser. I looked for others with a matching segment and emailed a woman to share what I found. I now have a list of 8 DNA segments that associate to two surnames. The largest is on chromosome 22 from 41311622 to 44012037. It's up to me to keep track of those numbers and the associated surnames. I'm looking for a way to do it, but Excel is what I'm using for now.

I hope that example is simple enough to follow. Let me know.

Ethnicity Through DNA -- Revisited

Earlier this year I shared my questionable ethnicity analysis as provided through AncestryDNA. The more I work with the DNA tools online, the more disappointed I am with Ancestry. So I paid to import my Ancestry DNA map into Family Tree DNA (FTDNA), as well as importing it into the free GedMatch website.

Of the various tools, I like what's currently available in GedMatch for ethnicity evaluation. For me, it has provided several ways to look at my ethnic background and to figure out for myself what fits. The best part is that it is free. As one of my friends says:

Free is in my price range!

First let's look at the AncestryDNA ethnic breakdown and then at one of the models from GedMatch.

Quite a difference! GedMatch lets me put my DNA map through a number of ethnicity models where my DNA is compared with control samples from other countries. That's called admixture. There is no one admixture that tells me all I want to know. By looking at all of them, I found several that flagged my Native American ethnicity, as well as refining European and Asian roots.

Here's a look at a 13-ethnic group test that shows Native American. It doesn't analyze the various European areas in depth, as the 36-group test above did. Nor does the pie chart show the Native American or other small percentages.

All of this requires analysis and thought. It's not as simple as the Ancestry model pretends.

I'll be writing a lot more about DNA. If you're working with DNA genealogy, be sure to check out the DNA Explained blog for explanations, tips, tricks and forms. It's a great resource that I'm leaning on in my own journey to understanding DNA.

Ancestry Tested My DNA -- What Next?

Here we are with our heap of matches on AncestryDNA. We've reviewed them and made notes, but what next? Where do we start? How can we benefit?

My philosophy is the same as any other genealogy problem: start with what we know and work toward what we don't know. DNA is just another tool in our genealogy toolkit.

Upload Your Tree

First, take the time to put your ancestors into an Ancestry tree linked to your DNA results. Make it private or make it public -- just get it done. In the background, your tree will be matched to the trees of your DNA matches and in time (a lot of time) you will get common ancestor hints. I removed my tree in early May after about 70 days online and replaced it on May 8th. As of now, May 27th, there are still common ancestor hints that have not reappeared.

I also suggest, if your tree is private, that you add any theoretical people so that you might get a match on them. For example, I have a possibility of an ancestor named Abednego Carter. He's now in my private tree, not publicized to anyone, but just hanging out looking for a common ancestor match.

Look for Hints

Check every few days for the common ancestor hints. This is not the same as the "shaky leaf". The hint in the DNA matches is that you have a common ancestor. One day there are two hints and the next day there are three. You won't be notified -- you have to look for them yourself. Use the filter "Has a Hint" and slide the relationship range to both ends. These hints are not perfect. I have one such hint that is actually wrong because the other person has some incomplete information.

Use the Optional Notes

See the little note symbol above with each match? Jot a note in there to remind yourself of what you noticed. It pops up when you hover over it with your mouse.

Collaborate

Starting with your closest cousins and those with shared ancestors, see what they know that you don't. Ask about their sources. If you have information they don't have, share it with them.

One of my 7th cousins had a woman's surname that I don't have. She didn't have a good source, but she gave me a clue to work with. In another line, I sent a copy of a probate packet to a 6th cousin who hadn't seen it.

Compare Matches

See my 2nd cousin at the top of my match list? She and I compared notes on our 3rd cousin matches and found that one of them is in both our match lists. Now we know which of our lines he relates to. We can work with him to identify another generation, most likely in his tree, possibly in ours. Helping him may help us and he has the potential to become another collaborator in our shared line.

Work Near to Far

Work those 2nd and 3rd cousin matches before moving on to the 4th and 5th. If you don't know how you relate to the 2nd or 3rd cousin matches, figure that out. The more you know about generations close in time, the easier it is to work back in time.

Stay Alert, Reach Out, Share 

I was probing a 3rd cousin's information ("Bud") and found that I kept looking at "Tim's" tree for hints, as it was far more complete than Bud's. Sure enough, Tim is in my 5th cousin matches.

It turns out that Tim is the nephew of Bud, which then would indicate that 3rd cousin is not accurate! It is more likely that Bud is a 4th or 5th cousin. So I've mentally set him aside for now to work other 3rd cousin matches.

I also sent Tim a message about a family book which will help him with his research, as his known ancestors are intermarried with mine. He was excited to see his ancestors named, including two generations he didn't yet have. We don't have a common ancestor yet. But now I am watching for his ancestor's surnames, as one of them may be my ancestor. And he will be watching for my ancestor's surnames, as the opposite may be true.

It's Karma

I started by asking how we can benefit from this DNA adventure. I think the answer is in the sharing and collaboration.

I'm reminded of a collaboration from years ago. You all know those lovely pre-1850 census pages -- the ones that are just a series of numbers. I'd been collecting them for a puzzling branch of the family. A county-level researcher asked if I could identify a couple of women for whom he had a maiden name, but not parents. I was able to place them in the family based on a pre-1850 census. Without him, I never would have found names to match the numbers. Without me, he would not have identified parents. We had very different parts of the puzzle, but together we solved it.

I believe that when we help others, others will help us. Those of us who are further along will help those coming behind. Together, we'll all move forward.

Organizing AncestryDNA Matches with My Sixteen

If you're working with AncestryDNA results, you have what is called a heap in computer terms. It's a pile of data that can't be easily searched.

So I've decided to do some of my own organization, using my sixteen great-great-grandparents as a starting point. I'm using Excel to list the matches, but other spreadsheet programs could be used as well. In fact, any method that works for you is better than no method.

I sorted my matches in relationship order and then filtered to see only those with common ancestor hints. For each match, I capture enough information to be able to know how the person relates to me and I color-code it to match the colors I assigned to my sixteen.

I include the great-great-grandparent number (1-16) where the common ancestor can be found. For very close matches, there are multiple choices -- I just chose one. I also note that there is a match and the degree of the match (2nd cousin, 4th, 6th, etc). The Ancestry user name and the administered by name, the tree name, and the surnames that match also go into the spreadsheet. I also add any notes from reviewing their tree. In the future I will add a column for chromosome matches once I start working with that data from Gedmatch.com.

After including all the matches with hints, I changed the filter to show all matches and began working down the list in relationship order. I assign possible numbers and colors where I think there is a possible match. I  finished all estimated 4th-6th cousins with available trees and had about 70 matches in the list. I have now started into the 5th-8th moderate confidence matches.

Notice the little down arrows in each column. I've added Excel filters so that I can select and review a set of data by family branch, surname, or even words in my notes.

As an example, using the filter on surname, I can see just my matches with the surname Alexander in their ancestor list.

I hope this gives you some ideas about managing your own AncestryDNA match list.

AncestryDNA Frustrations, Features and Alternatives

Today I've been having some challenges with AncestryDNA not performing well. So I searched Twitter for tweets using hashtag #ancestrydna

The recent tweets are very interesting and lead to a number of informative blog posts! I'm glad to know other users are using the Beta Feedback button to tell Ancestry what we need. And I'm not the only one saying that AncestryDNA has a long way to go. Ancestry is promising a search tool this summer for our DNA matches, thank goodness.

But even more exciting, I learned about another DNA tool -- a free tool. Check out this comic strip:
Find New Ancestors with DNA! (http://bitstrips.com/r/S1J61).

I've now signed up at Gedmatch.com and have uploaded my AncestryDNA data. The site is having problems due to overwhelming demand from frustrated AncestryDNA users. They estimate that I may have match data in about two weeks, but I'm sure that will depend on when they fix the issues.

I'm looking forward to seeing the DNA match results from GedMatch. I'm hoping a couple of my cousins will join me at GedMatch so we can see how well it works.