Friday Fun with AncestryDNA

I now know where I came from! 

Well maybe not, but I'll take you on a tour of Ancestry's latest offering.

My AncestryDNA test results have arrived and I'm very excited about it. There are different types of DNA tests and not all of them would work to help answer my biggest question, but AncestryDNA has the potential.

I've been looking for my Native American ancestor(s) and want to validate that I am at least 1/64th, or 1.5 percent, Native American. The problem is that this ancestral line crosses between male and female at least twice. A gender-neutral test is what I needed. The AncestryDNA test looks at a variety of markers to find ethnic results and is not limited by gender, so it fits my needs. The AncestryDNA test is also dynamic; the results aren't a one-time answer. They will refine their analysis and their database over time. I didn't get my answer, but do have hope that over the next few months or years it will become clear.

You want to know what it looks like and how it works. I got in at the introductory price of $99 in January (2013). My sister-in-law looked last week and the price was $129 and it's only for Ancestry members. I would estimate a two-month minimum membership would be needed to participate. Three months would be better to give you time to review your matches.

You order the test, it arrives, you collect a saliva sample, register the kit code online, send the sample back, then wait for it to be processed. The kit arrived about a week after I ordered it. The results took perhaps two to three weeks. I don't recall when I sent it back, but it was not immediately. There is a link to an FAQ that arrives by email when your results are available for review on Ancestry.com.

Here are some more screen shots from my results.

The match list, stars are set by me:

 

 

 A review match example (and yes, we had already connected before this):

 

Maps of my direct-line birth locations:

 

 

Possible match examples by name and by location:

 

 

An interesting tidbit about this match candidate is the Alabama connection. My Stapleton ancestral line runs through that Alabama birth. Right now I don't see a relationship in this match, but I certainly see a good possibility.

Ethnicity Limitations

You are wondering why I have German birth locations, yet show no German ethnicity. The ethnic results are looking further back than my tree goes. That's a drawback. Our European ancestors were warriors who invaded other lands, spreading their genes. I was surprised to see the high Scandinavian percentage of 63. I had myself categorized as only 25 percent Swedish, but those Vikings did get around!

If you have any questions, please leave a comment or drop me an email. I hope some of you will join me in this new type of genealogical adventure.

Tuesday's Tip -- Do Your Homework

Do you remember back in college that the gurus said to spend three hours on studying for every hour in class? Did we do it? I sure didn't!

The gurus of family history research have been known to say the same. For every hour in the field or in a library, we should spend three hours absorbing the information gathered, comparing it to what we know, updating databases, updating files, etc. Have I done it? Of course not!

It's so easy to sit down and search records on the internet for hours at a time. So why should I go back to look at research done yesterday or last week or even last year?

Back in 2002-2003, a cousin and I made two quick field trips to four counties just west of Springfield, Illinois. We moved fast, copying books, gathering papers, ordering files, snapping photos. I divided the results based on surname. The Maddox files became my close friends as I continued to research the family murder. But the Lake papers went into file folders after a quick glance.

This weekend I made a connection with another researcher that caused me to pull out the Lake family folders. I flipped through a file and took a good look at a marriage license from 1834. For the first time, I stopped and read through the old handwriting. For the first time, I saw that the father of the bride, my 4th-great-grandmother, had consented to her marriage. She is no longer my end-of-line person. With her father's name, entirely new research avenues lie ahead. For ten years I have had this piece of paper and had never taken the time to examine it!

I've learned my lesson. It's time to study my files and see what else I don't know. It's time to do my homework.

Tuesday's Tip -- Testing, One, Two, Three

Time to get this show on the road again, and what better way than admitting to a mistake. Would you believe my scanner failed to work when I needed it? Because scanning heritage photos is the key to my sharing and scrapping philosophy, that's an embarrassing admission. Fortunately I was not sitting at a cousin's house, trying to scan photos.

Sometime over the past few months, an upgrade caused a problem with my favorite little flatbed scanner. It's about 9 years old, but a great travel scanner. I think it was the most recent upgrade of Photoshop Elements that was incompatible with the scanner. But I had never even thought about testing any of my equipment after the upgrade.

I now have a new little flatbed scanner to tuck in my travel case. And I also have a new tip for you and for me: test your computer equipment a couple of weeks before you need to use it on a trip!