DIPPING INTO THE MYHERITAGE DNA POOL

Last week the MyHeritage website had a free  offer involving DNA test results. You could upload your results from another DNA site to MyHeritage to see what their analysis might discover. So I took advantage of it. I had already downloaded my Ancestry test raw data some time ago, and it only took about a half hour to upload it now to MyHeritage. They said it would take about 5 days before the results would be available.

It only took 4.

When I went to the website to view the results, I had a surprise. My MyHeritage Ethnicity Estimate differed a bit from that of Ancestry.

Here's my latest Ancestry estimate from a few weeks ago:

And here's the MyHeritage estimate:

The big difference is the increase in the Iberian percentage, the downsizing of the English and Celtic ethnicities, and the disappearance of Germanic Europe. My Mom's paternal ancestors were German. But these are, after all, estimates, and things may change with the next estimate from MyHeritage.

As for the MyHeritage DNA page, it is not as user friendly as Ancestry's and I find the colors used for headings and categories too light and difficult to read. However, I like how the names of shared names on family trres are right there under the names of the shared matches.

I'll have more to say about all this after I've explored the results and website further.

ONCE MORE INTO THE GENEPOOL

Ancestry sent me the results of a new update to the Ethnicity Estimate of my DNA test. There's been a few changes. Here's the latest version.

Here's the previous update from August 2018;

The main difference is I lost a few points on the Irish and English percentages, and gained new percentages from Norway, France and Spain.

 My first Ethnicity Estimate  in July 2017 was a bit more exotic:

These were the ethnicities that were lost in the second estimate.

The thing to remember is that these are estimates and may change as the DNA test results become more and more refined.

ANOTHER DIP IN THE GENE POOL

Last week Ancestry.com updated their Ethnicity Estimates on the results of the DNA tests people had taken. It was quite a topic of conversation on Facebook as the Estimate changed quite a bit for some people. It sure did for mine!

This is my original Ethnicity Estimate chart a year ago:

And this is the updated chart from last week:

Several changes happened. Ireland became Ireland & Scotland and went up 1% to 52%.

The 25% Scandinavia disappeared entirely

And so did the 24% Other Regions, which included:

In short, all the exotic stuff. Sigh.

But it did add somethings that had been missing from the original Estimate

Two of my Mom's maternal great grandparents were immigrants from Germany; the rest of her family was Irish.

And Dad's ancestors were mainly English with a few Welshmen and Scots so they are now better represented.

The general reaction among my genealogy friends is that the new Estimate better reflects what they know about their families,and I think it does the same for mine, too!

DIVING INTO THE GENE POOL PT5: MILD FRUSTATIONS AND COPING WITH CENTIMORGANS

It's been a few months since I last posted about  my DNA test results. After the exciting start,
things have settled down a bit as I grapple with some slight frustrations and with technical things about DNA that are way above my head. Here's where matters stand right now.

The numbers on my Ancestry DNA test matches:
103 shared ancestor hints, the closest beng 4th cousins.
498 4th cousins or closer. Of these, 4 are 2nd cousins and 11 are 3rd cousins.
Factoring in 5th to 8th cousins I have 22,400 matchs, up from the 19,300 original test results.

I've started keeping a notebook with info on the matches but it's in fits and starts. I still don't get
the centimorgans thing completely, the time I spend going round and round about it is time taken away from researching and writing about my ancestors.

Another frustration are the DNA Circles which go up and down. I've had as high as 15 circles but that dropped down to 12 last week and I don't know why.  The circle for 3x great grandfather Nathaniel Barker is still there but the circls for his father and brother are now gone. 3x ggf Phillip Richardson's circle is gone as well but his wife Esther Laughton's isn't.

I still haven't gotten replies from the emails I sent my 2nd cousins from Mom's White family.

Ancestry sent me an email  last week about a breakthrough and it turned out to be for a cousin who contacted me on our match back in August.

On another front, I uploaded my Ancestry Autosomnal Test result to Gedmatch. I have at least 2000 matches there. I'm still trying to wrap my head around the centimorgan thing there.





  

DIVING INTO THE GENE POOL PT3

My 3x great grandfather John Cutter West

So a little over a week ago I got my Ancestry DNA test results back and started exploring them. Some things have changed since then:

The number of matches who are 4th cousins or closer has gone up ten to 459.

Today Ancestry introduced me to my Genetic Circles, which are made up of those people who share a specific ancestor with me. More on that in another post.

But last week I started going through my DNA matches, starting with the three closest cousins on the list. One I was pretty sure was from my Mom's side of the family. When I finally figured out how to navigate the list I realized that the other two matches were as well. None had a family tree on Ancestry. So I messaged all three the following "form letter":

Hi
My name is Bill West and according to my Ancestry DNA test results we could be 2nd or 3rd cousins.

My Dad was Floyd West Jr, son of Floyd West Sr & Cora Bertha Barker. He was born in Bethel, Me.

My Mom was Anna M. White, daughter of Edward  F. White & Agnes McFarland and she was born in Boston, Ma.

You can view my tree at https://www.ancestry.com/family-tree/tree/1298720/family

Msg me back if any of this rings a bell. I'll be glad to share information with you.
Bill West

I haven't heard back yet from any of the three, but they haven't logged into Ancestry since I messaged them.Two haven't logged in for over six months. This looks like it will be a long wait.

But I had a happier result on the other side of the family. I was looking through the rest of the list and saw a 4th cousin who had a profile photo that looked of a person who looked like my Dad's Mom. I sent her the "form letter" and got a quick answer. Our DNA connection was not through my grandmother. It was from my 3x great grandfather, the Elusive John Cutter West.

My brickwall ancestor.

But that brickwall was going to come down.

To be continued.

DIVING INTO THE GENE POOL PT2

UPDATE: I have broken down my John Cutter West brickwall. Details to follow in a 
later post. 


Late Saturday afternoon I glanced at my email and found  my Ancestry DNA test results were in!  This was an early and pleasant surprise because Ancestry had said it would be 6-8 weeks before I'd see them and here they were in 4 weeks.

So I opened the email, hit the link to see my results....and found my self slightly confused and mystified.

Here's the Ethnicity Estimate graphic:

And here's the entire Ethnicity Estimate:
51% Irish
25% Scandinavian
12% Iberian Peninsula

Low confidence:
1% Africa North
3% Italy/Greece
2% Great Britain
2% Europe East
2% Europe West.
Less than 1% European Jew
Less than 1% Caucasus

It's those small amounts of exotic (for me) genes that have m emystified : North African, Italy/Greece, Europe East, Europe West, Caucasus. Did I have Crusader ancestors who brought home wives from the wars or did some Vikings with wives from their travels settle among the Irish?

More bits of information from the test results:

I have 449 DNA matches who are 4th cousins or closer, and 138  of them with share hints I have.

My total DNA matches when more distant cousins are factored in are  19,300!

As Ancestry finds more matches those numbers will go up.

The frustrating  part is the number of people I have matches with who don't have family trees on Ancestry so I can see how we match up. I don't understand why people would do that. Are they only interested in their ethnic origins but not in their ancestors? It's like buying a sports car but never driving it!

Ah well!

I'm in the early stages of exploring all this. I'll be blogging more about it as I go along.

DIVING INTO THE GENE POOL PT1

I have a confession to make. I am pretty much a science dummy. I can remember the names of the Plantagenet and Hapsburg dynasty. I can do the same with mythological gods and titles of books.

But ask me to describe how photosynthesis works and I don't recall much of what I was taught about it in school.

This holds true in my genealogical research as well. I can recite my West family forefathers' names, but I have a hard time understanding how this newfangled DNA thingy works.

I had taken a y-DNA test years ago and luckily Mike Maglio was kind enough to explain to me what it said. You can read what he told me at his Origin Hunters blog.  I'd hoped taking the test would help me break down the West brickwall but other than discovering I belong to the J haplogroup, I didn't learn what I'd hoped I would. I am a West family group of one (W309) at the West family DNA project website and after five years I still have no matches.

Bummer.

So I became skeptical about the benefits of DNA in genealogy and pretty much ignored all the hoohaw over DNA and genealogy the past few years. But as many of my genealogy buddies talked about their results from the Ancestry Autosomal DNA test my curiosity was piqued. Finally, when Ancestry offered a discount this month I gave in and dove once more into the gene pool. I ordered a test kit.

The test kit came. I spit into the tube. I struggled with the cap before I realized I was trying to put the cap on upside down. (I actually got a blister on one of my fingers from twisting it so hard!). Once I figured out what I was doing wrong I put the cap on correctly, and then mailed the kit out the next day. Two days later I received an email telling me my kit had arrived and I'd have results in 6-8 weeks. That should be late July-early August.

Now I wait.

To be continued...