In this video, I compare the capabilities of the chromosome browsers available through 23andMe and MyHeritage. Enjoy this fun point-by-point view of each company. A chromosome browser allows you to see the specific matching autosomal DNA segments for yourself compared to your DNA match list.
How many people can you compare together in a chromosome browser instead? The color of the square above is the color of DNA that represents the DNA segment that I received and match with these particular testers.
I created this example to help you understand. I may match these same matches shown with DNA that we both inherited from other ancestors — for example, I might match Match 2 on a different segment that we both inherited from Margaret Claxton. Looking at Match 3, who knows very little about their genealogy, I can tell, based on other matches, that we share Dodson DNA inherited through Rutha Dodson. I need to check every person in my cluster, and that I share DNA with on these same segment addresses to see if they match on my paternal side and if they match each other.
Family Matching phases the matches , assigning or bucketed them maternally or paternally blue and red icons above , indicating, when possible, if these matches occur on the same side of your family. I wrote about the concept of phasing, here , and Phased Family Matching here and here. Linking your matches allows Family Matching to maternally or paternally assign other matches that match both you and your tree-linked matches.
Phased Family Matching does this automatically for you, where possible, based on who you have linked in your tree. Remember our Venn diagram. My entire match-list shows many more matches on that segment of chromosome Below are just a few. Looking at seven of these people in the chromosome browser, we can see visually that they all overlap on part of a segment on chromosome But you can only view 7 at a time in the browser, so the combination of both tools is quite useful.
The downloaded spreadsheet shows you who to select to view for any particular segment. At MyHeritage, this assumes you know the shared ancestor of at least one person in the triangulation group which effectively assigns the match to the maternal or paternal side. Looking at known relatives on either side, and seeing who they also match, is how to determine whether these people match paternally or maternally. They might be valid matches on other segments, but not this one. After deleting segments under 7 cM, I combine the segment match download files of multiple family members who agree to allow me to aggregate their matches into one file for analysis so that I can create a master match file for a particular family group.
Remember that how these people match may have nothing to do with our brick wall — or it might. This is precisely WHY you need segment information , and a chromosome browser, to visualize these matches, and to confirm that they do share a common DNA segment descended from a specific ancestor.
These same people will probably appear in autocluster groups together as well. To overcome that obstacle, you can compare to known or close relatives. In fact, your close relatives are genetic genealogy gold and serve as your match anchor. A match that matches you and your close relatives can be assigned either maternally or paternally.
You can see that my cousin Buster matches me on chromosome 15, as do both of my parents, of course. Genealogy tells me that Buster matches me on my paternal side, through Lazarus Estes and Elizabeth Vannoy. That knowledge will help me identify and place other relatives in my tree who match us both on the same segment of DNA.
His Y DNA also matches the Estes males, so no adoptions or misattributed parental events have occurred in the direct Estes patrilineal line. Buster matches my father as well as several other known family members on that side of the family on the same segments of DNA.
Note that I have a total of matches in common with Buster, of which have been paternally bucketed, 4 of which are both my children and grandchildren , and 7 of which are maternal. Those maternal matches represent an issue.
All 7 are relatively low matches, with longest blocks from 9 to 14 cM. Clearly, with a total of shared matches with Buster, not everyone that I match in common with Buster is assigned to a bucket.
In fact, are not. I will need to take a look at this group of people and evaluate them individually, their genealogy, clusters, the matrix, and through the chromosome browser to confirm individual matching segments. I need to check each of the 14 segments that I match with Buster because each segment has its own inheritance path and may well track back to different ancestors. The best way to investigate the history and genesis of each segment is by painting matching segments at DNAPainter.
I wrote about DNAPainter, here. This combined arsenal of tools is incredibly exciting, but they all depend on having segment information available and understanding how to use and interpret segment and chromosome browser match information.
The best we can do, otherwise, is to presume that a preponderance of evidence and numerous matches equates to confirmation. Every vendor has strengths along with people who are found there and in no other database. Ancestry does not provide segment information nor a chromosome browser, nor accept uploads, but you have several options to transfer your DNA file for free to other vendors who offer tools.
You can download your DNA file and transfer free to other vendors. Two vendors and one third party support transfers into their systems. The transfers include matching. In the future, as genealogy and DNA testing becomes ever more popular and even more of a commodity, company sales and acquisitions will become more commonplace. In a move that may or may not be related to an attempt to cut costs, Ancestry removed 6 and 7 cM matches from their users, freeing up processing resources, hardware, and storage requirements and thereby reducing costs.
Since that time, 23andMe has increasingly pushed consumers to pay to retest on their V5 chip. Ancestry also added a health product. The various companies need some product diversity to survive downturns. Both Ancestry and MyHeritage provide subscription services for genealogy records. FamilyTreeDNA is part of a larger company, GenebyGene whose genetics labs do processing for other companies and medical facilities.
Research bleeds over into the consumer marketplace where products are improved and new features created allowing us to better track and understand our ancestors through their DNA that we and our family members inherit.
Here are a few of the research articles I published in You might notice a theme here — ancient DNA. What we can learn now due to new processing techniques is absolutely amazing. Of course, in addition to this research, the Million Mito Project team is hard at work rewriting the tree of womankind.
GEDmatch, founded in by genealogists for genealogists was 5 years old, but was sold in December to Verogen. That would be very bizarre, because every brick wall that falls reveals two more ancestors that need to be researched and spurs a frantic flurry of midnight searching.
Of course, if Ancestry provided a chromosome browser, it would cost development money for no additional revenue and their customer service reps would have to be able to support it. As companies increase in value, the number of private individuals who could afford to purchase the company decreases quickly, leaving private corporations as the only potential buyers, or becoming publicly held. What we desperately need, and I predict will happen one way or another is a marriage of individual tools and functions that exist separately today, with a dash of innovation.
We need tools that will move beyond confirming existing ancestors — and will be able to identify ancestors through our DNA — out beyond each and every brick wall. In fact, this is exactly what happened with mitochondrial DNA — twice now. A match and a great deal of digging by one extremely persistent cousin resulting in identifying potential parents for a brick-wall ancestor.
Autosomal DNA then confirmed that my DNA matched with 59 other individuals who descend from that couple through multiple children. DNA has the potential to reveal those names! We have most of the individual technology pieces today to get this done. Of course, the combined technological solution would require significant computing resources and processing power — just at the same time that vendors are desperately trying to pare costs to a minimum.
Each triangulated segment has an individual history that will lead not just to known ancestors, but to their unknown ancestors as well. We have reached critical mass in terms of how many people have tested — and more success would encourage more and more people to test. There is a genetic path over every single brick wall in our genealogy.
People give up. And the process is painful, even when it does succeed. This process has also been made increasingly difficult when some vendors block tools that help genealogists by downloading match and ancestral tree information. Obviously, the issue here is not a lack of funds. Including Y and mitochondrial DNA resources in our genetic toolbox not only confirms accuracy but also provides additional hints and clues.
These are not competing products. I would be glad to pay for a subscription for top-of-the-line innovation and tools. In what other industry do consumers expect to pay for an item once and receive constant life-long innovations and upgrades? I want vendors to be profitable so that they can invest in new tools that leverage the power of computing for genealogists to solve currently unsolvable problems. If you compare the cost of books, library visits, courthouse trips, and other research endeavors that often produce exactly nothing, these types of genetic tools would be both a godsend and an incredible value.
Among the current players, that leaves two DNA testing companies and a few top-notch third parties as candidates — although — as the past has proven, the future is uncertain, fluid, and everchanging. What is triangulation, why it is important for genealogy, and how does one go about triangulating? More importantly, why do genealogists care?
In a nutshell, triangulation allows you to discover or confirm your ancestors or ancestral lines when:. This article explains chromosome matching and triangulation step-by-step to help you sort through your matches.
A chromosome browser is essential to genetic genealogy and specifically, to triangulation, allowing you to visualize your DNA matches on your chromosomes. This article starts at the beginning with what a chromosome browser looks like and explains each step along the way. Genetic Affairs has numerous tools that facilitate and assist with different aspects of triangulation including their AutoClusters, AutoTree, AutoPedigree and AutoSegment features.
Each of the major vendors, except Ancestry, provides a chromosome browser along with some type of triangulation tool. Additionally, third parties who do not perform DNA testing offer great supplemental tools. GEDmatch and DNAPainter both provide triangulation tools, allowing you to take advantage of matches from multiple vendors. MyHeritage is the only vendor to incorporate a triangulation tool with shared matches and AutoClusters into their solution.
Of course, MyHeritage also provides traditional genealogical research records that they combine with DNA matches and trees in their Theories of Family Relativity feature , showing potential tree connections between you and your matches to common ancestors. You will find a number of people who have tested at Ancestry and other vendors, then transferred to GEDmatch to use their chromosome browser and other tools to obtain additional matches.
GEDmatch is the only vendor who triangulates all of your matches at one time — providing a comprehensive report. I utilize DNAPainter as a central location to house all of my identified segments from all vendors. The following vendors do NOT support uploads, but you can download your DNA file from these vendors and upload to the vendors above:.
DNA Tidbit Challenge: Define goals for answering genealogy questions, allowing you to focus your efforts. For a short article about the difference between Y, mitochondrial, and autosomal DNA, please click here. For more seasoned genealogists, we may have taken all the tests and answered many questions already, but still, our research needs to be guided by goals.
I regularly check my matches. I still think I may have had a half-sibling that is yet to be located. My broad goals have changed a bit over time. Unfortunately, in this case, no one descends correctly for mitochondrial DNA , meaning through all females to the current generation which can be male.
In the first couple of close generations, using autosomal DNA, we can confirm ancestral lines and parentage. We can confirm our parents and our grandparents, but further back in that, we have to use a combination of our tree and other tools to confirm our paper genealogy.
In closer generations, autosomal DNA might help, but not beyond the first couple of generations. Second cousins always match autosomally, but beyond that, not so much. Using Y DNA , if we can find a suitable candidate, I can confirm that my Estes ancestor actually does descend through the Estes line indicated by my paper trail.
If they do test and share their match information with me, and others from that same line have tested, I can see their earliest known ancestors on their Y DNA match page. If someone from that line has already tested and has joined a surname project, you can see their results on the public project page if they have authorized public project display.
This is also one way of determining whether or not your line has already tested, especially if you have no Y DNA matches to the expected surname and ancestor. To see if projects exist for your surnames, you can click here and scroll down to the search box, below.
Confirmation of a specific ancestor requires two things without Y DNA testing :. Step-by-step transfer instructions are found here. You can read all about how to use DNAPainter, here. I identify every match that I can and paint those segments to that ancestor. The fact that several people descend from Henry and Nancy, through multiple children, confirms this segment back to that couple. What about that purple person? However, I know for sure at least part of that matching segment, the burgundy portion, is through Henry Bolton and Nancy Mann, or their ancestors.
In the above example, I mentioned that each segment goes back to a couple. Clearly, in the next generation, that segment either comes from either the father or mother, or parts from both perhaps. In this case, that oldest burgundy segment originated with either Henry Bolton or Nancy Mann. Does that make sense? Just keep that in mind.
I need to see if any of my other matches have Babb as a common name. Now, I can search for Babb at any of the testing vendors to see what, if anything, I can discover. I suggest that you look at each ancestor, and in particular each end-of-line ancestor thinking about where you can focus to obtain answers and reveal new ancestors.
The reason that genetic genealogy works is because of inheritance. You inherit DNA from your parents in a known and predictable fashion. Females have 3 types of DNA and males have 4. These different types of DNA are inherited in various ways and serve different genealogical purposes. The inheritance path for Y DNA is father to son and is inherited by the brother, in this example, from his direct male ancestors shown by the blue arrow. The sister does not have a Y chromosome.
The inheritance path for the red mitochondrial DNA for both the brother and sister is from the direct matrilineal ancestors, only, shown by the red arrow. The X chromosome has a slightly different inheritance path, depending on whether you are a male or female. Autosomal DNA testing is the most common. Every person has two each of 22 chromosomes, shown above, meaning one copy is contributed by your mother and one copy by your father.
Paired together, they form the two-sided shape we are familiar with. For each pair of chromosomes, you receive one from your father, shown with a blue arrow under chromosome 1, and one from your mother, shown in red.
Therein lies the challenge for genealogy. This inheritance pattern is the same for all chromosomes, except for the 23 rd pair of chromosomes, at bottom right, which determined the sex of the child. The 23 rd chromosome pair is inherited differently for males and females. One copy is the Y chromosome, shown in blue, and one copy is the X, shown in red. They will likely share some of the same segments, but not all the same segments. I wrote about a 4 Generation Inheritance Study, here.
Keep in mind that you will only inherit half of the DNA that each of your parents carries. For example, this is me compared to my father. You did not receive the light blue and light pink segments. Those segments of DNA are lost to your line, but one of your siblings might have inherited some of those pieces.
These colored segments reflect the DNA that you inherited from your 4 grandparents on this chromosome. Understanding that you have a copy of the same chromosome from your mother and one from your father clearly shows how this happens. You carry a chromosome from each parent, so you will match different people on the same segment.
From your perspective, one or the other of your parents will match ALL of the people you match — just like we see in Match 1 and Match 2. Matching you plus either of your parents, on the same segment , is exactly how we determine whether a match is valid, meaning identical by descent, or invalid, meaning identical by chance.
Inheritance on chromosomes works in this fashion. So does the X chromosome, fundamentally, but the X chromosome has a unique inheritance pattern. The X chromosome is inherited differently for males as compared to females. If the child is a female, the child inherits an X from both parents.
Males inherit X chromosomes differently than females, so a valid X match can only descend from certain ancestors on your tree. This is my fan chart showing the X chromosome inheritance path, generated by using Charting Companion.
Only the pink and blue people potentially contributed all or portions of X chromosomes to me. This can actually be very useful for genealogy, because several potential ancestors are immediately eliminated. I cannot have any X chromosome segment from the white boxes with no color. The son inherits his entire X chromosome from his mother.
The son inherits no X from his father, because he inherits the Y chromosome instead. As with the son, the daughter can receive an entire X chromosome from either her maternal grandmother or maternal grandfather. Ancestry, unfortunately, does not provide segment information of any kind, for the X or chromosomes Note that X matches need to be larger than regular autosomal matches to be equally as useful due to lower SNP density.
I use cM as a minimum threshold for consideration, equivalent to about 7 cM for autosomal matches. In other words, roughly double the rule of thumb for segment size matching validity. My blog is full of autosomal educational articles and is fully keyword searchable, but here are two introductory articles that include information from the four major vendors:.
Literally, anytime you want to work on genealogy to connect with cousins, prove ancestors or break through brick walls. Y DNA is only inherited by males from males. The Y chromosome is what makes a male, male. If there are no adoptions in the line, known or otherwise, the Y DNA will match men from the same Y DNA line with only small differences for many generations. Eventually, small changes known as mutations accrue. After many accumulated mutations taking several hundred years, men no longer match on special markers called Short Tandem Repeats STR.
STR markers generally match within the past years, but further back in time, they accrue too many mutations to be considered a genealogical-era match. The Big Y test scans the entire useful portion of the Y chromosome, about 15 million base pairs, as compared to 67 or STR locations. Big Y customers receive, in addition to the above:. I wrote several articles about understanding and using Y DNA :.
The Y DNA test is for males who wish to learn more about their paternal line and match against other men to determine or verify their genealogical lineage. Women cannot test directly, but they can purchase the Y DNA test for men such as fathers, brothers, and uncles. If you are purchasing for someone else, I recommend purchasing the Big Y initially. Why purchase the Big Y, when you can purchase a lower level test for less money? Because if you ever want to upgrade, and you likely will, you have to contact the tester and obtain their permission to upgrade their test.
They may be ill, disinterested, or deceased, and you may not be able to upgrade their test at that time, so strike while the iron is hot. Mitochondrial DNA is passed from mothers to both sexes of their children, but only females pass it on.
She inherited it from her mother, and your grandmother from her mother, and so forth. I created a Mitochondrial DNA page with a comprehensive list of educational articles and resources. Mitochondrial DNA can be valuable in terms of matching as well as breaking down brick walls for women ancestors with no surnames.
You can also use targeted testing to prove, or disprove, relationship theories. Furthermore, your mitochondrial DNA haplogroup, like Y DNA haplogroups, provides information about where your ancestors came from by identifying the part of the world where they have the most matches. Earlier tests, such as the mtPlus, can be upgraded. The full sequence test tests all 16, locations on the mitochondria and provides testers with the highest level matching as well as their most refined haplogroup.
The full sequence test is only sold by Family Tree DNA and provides matching along with various tools. You may need to reach out to family members to obtain Y and mitochondrial DNA for your various genealogical lines. And of course, it goes without saying that every single generation upstream of the daughter, our genealogist, should all take autosomal DNA tests.
The only possible exception would be to confirm a specific Y DNA result matches a lineage as expected. You might ask, given that the parents and grandparents have all autosomally tested in this example, if our genealogist really needs to test her brother, and the answer is probably not — at least not today.
However, in cases like this, I do test the sibling, simply because I can learn and it may encourage their interest or preserve their DNA for their children who might someday be interested. You can increase your odds of having autosomal matches by making sure you are in all 4 major vendor databases. The goal of genetic genealogy is to utilize DNA matches to verify known ancestors and identify unknown ancestors.
A chromosome browser is a tool that allows testers to visualize and compare their DNA on each chromosome with that of their genetic matches. How to utilize and interpret that information becomes a little more tricky. I would suggest just reading through this article the first time, then following along with your own DNA results after you understand the basic landscape. Using your own results is the best way to learn anything. On my first 16 chromosomes, shown above, my 1C1R first cousin once removed, Cheryl, matches me where the chromosomes are painted blue.
My chromosome is represented by the grey background, and her matching portion by the blue overlay. You can select any one person, like Cheryl, from your match list to view on a chromosome browser to see where they match you on your chromosomes, or you can choose multiple matches, as shown below. I selected my 7 closest matches that are not my immediate family, meaning not my parents or children.
You see 7 images of my grey chromosome 1, for example, because each of the 7 people being compared to me are shown stacked below one another. Everyplace that Cheryl matches me is shown on the top image of each chromosome, and our matching segment is shown in blue. Those are the essential hints we are looking for. The chromosome browser at MyHeritage looks quite similar. Each vendor that supports chromosome browsers FamilyTreeDNA, MyHeritage , 23andMe , and GedMatch provides their own implementation, of course, but the fundamentals of chromosome browsers, how they work and what they are telling us is universal.
In part, whether you utilize a chromosome browser or not depends on which of the following you seek:. Fortunately, we have an entire toolbox with a wide range of tools. Different tools are better suited for different tasks. People seeking unknown parents should read the article, Identifying Unknown Parents and Individuals Using DNA Matching because the methodology for identifying unknown parents is somewhat different than working with genealogy.
This article focuses on genealogy, although the foundation genetic principles are the same. Every person has 2 copies of each of their 22 chromosomes — one copy contributed by their mother and one copy contributed by their father. A child receives exactly half of the autosomal DNA of each parent. On each chromosome, you receive some portion of the DNA that each parent received from their ancestors, but not exactly half of the DNA from each individual ancestor.
I wrote about that here. Think of a genetic blender. Our job, using genetic genealogy, is to figure out which side of our family people who match us descend from — which leads us to our common ancestor s. Of course, children and parents match on the full length of each chromosome. Therefore, if two people match you, at the same address on that chromosome, like Main Street, they could be:.
Well then, how do we know which side of the family a match descends from, and how do we know if we share a common ancestor? Identical by descent IBD means you inherited the piece of DNA from a common ancestor, inherited through the relevant parent. This chart, courtesy of statistician Philip Gammon, from the article Introducing the Match-Maker-Breaker Tool for Parental Phasing shows the percentage of time we expect matches of specific segment sizes to be valid, or identical by descent. You receive a chromosome with a piece of DNA at every address from both parents.
Of course, this means you have two pieces of DNA at each address. Therefore people will match you on either piece of DNA. However, both of those matches have the same address on their parallel streets as shown in the illustration, above.
The problem is that you have no way to know which pieces you inherited from Mom and from Dad — at least not without additional information. In order to match you, someone would either need to have an A or a T in one of their two inherited locations, because you have an A and a T, both. Your match inherited a specific sequence from their mother and father, just like you did.
The next step is to check that they each share DNA with each other. This is called triangulation. But those three match each other. A diagram could look like this:. This would mean I have two different groups. There is a link at the bottom of the section to expand the DNA details. This opens a visualization of the positions of the shared DNA.
This browser lays out your chromosome pairs as a diagram of vertical bars. This is usually the case. That will happen if my parents were related e.
And 23andMe have this information — they do show it elsewhere. By default, your own DNA kit is pre-filled as the first member of your target group of relatives.
0コメント