AncestryDNA: latest updates to ethnicity estimates

AncestryDNA has launched a new feature, a chromosome painter, which ‘paints’ your DNA with your ethnicities, showing the DNA regions that make up your ethnicity estimate.

Overnight my kits updated to show the new information. It’s found under the ‘DNA Story’ tab.

Five years ago when I looked at my ethnicity AncestryDNA reported it as 100% European:

• 59% from Great Britain, which includes England, Scotland, Wales and the Isle of Man
• 20% Europe East
• 12% from Ireland
• 4% from Finland / North-west Russia
• 2% from Europe-West
• 2% from Italy/Greece
• <1% from the Iberian peninsula

At the time, the results seemed to underestimate my German heritage. My mother and her ancestors are from Germany.

It has now refined the results:

• Scotland 41%
• Germanic Europe 33%
• England and Northwestern Europe 13%
• Sweden and Denmark 6%
• Wales 3%
• Ireland 3%
• Baltics 1%

At https://support.ancestry.com/s/article/AncestryDNA-Ethnicity AncestryDNA explains it calculates its ethnicity estimate:

To discover where you come from, we compare your DNA to the DNA of people with known origins from around the world. These people are our reference panel. Our reference panel has over 56,580 DNA samples from people with deep regional roots and documented family trees. We survey your DNA at over 700,000 locations and look at how much DNA you share with people from the reference panel in each ethnicity region.

Recently AncestryDNA provides estimates of ethnicity inheritance from each parent. They use your DNA matches to split your DNA into the halves that came from each parent. First, they find the segments that connect only to one parent or the other. Then, they separate out the DNA you got from each parent by piecing together the segments that overlap. After they have separated your DNA into the parts that correspond with each parent, they calculate an ethnicity estimate on the two halves. From this, they can show your “ethnicity inheritance”—the ethnicity percentages passed down to you from each parent.

These are my results.

Both of my parents have tested with AncestryDNA, so I can compare the estimate with its results. The differences are partly because I inherited only part of their DNA.

Column 1 has the ethnicity percentage I am estimated to have inherited from my parent and column 2 has their ethnicity estimate from their own test with AncestryDNA.

	% I inherited from parent 1	My father’s ethnicity estimate
Scotland	41%	43%
Germanic Europe	0%	3%
England and Northwestern Europe	6%	8%
Sweden and Denmark	0%	0%
Wales	3%	14%
Ireland	0%	31%
Basque		1%

	% I inherited from parent 2	My mother’s ethnicity estimate
Scotland	0%	2%
Germanic Europe	33%	79%
England and Northwestern Europe	7%	10%
Sweden and Denmark	6%	3%
Wales	0%	0%
Ireland	3%	0%
Eastern Europe and Russia	0%	6%
Baltics	1%	0%

It seems doubtful to me that I inherited Irish ethnicity from my mother. She herself shows no Irish ethnicity in her results and my documented family tree has an Irish connection on my father’s side, reflected in his ethnicity results, with no Irish connections for my mother.

AncestryDNA’s Chromosome Painter displays these results:

My Chromosome map at AncestryDNA as at July 2022

My chromosome map divided between my two parents

When I look at the results by different regions I see that Ireland has been assigned solely to chromosome 7, as has Wales. AncestryDNA has allocated Wales to one of my parents and Ireland to the other.

I suspect the breakdown by chromosome needs to be refined.

By way of comparison this is my father’s AncestryDNA chromosome painter picture. It can be compared with the map I have developed using DNAPainter.

My father’s Chromosome Painter results from AncestryDNA July 2022

My father’s chromosome map at DNAPainter where I have been able to assign shared DNA according to ancestors shared with DNA matches

For the most part AncestryDNA has allocated regions to whole chromosomes.

So far at DNAPainter I have only managed to paint just over a quarter of my father’s DNA profile. I can make some comparison between the two diagrams.

The Basque inheritance AncestryDNA shows on the paternal chromosome 1 appears to be inherited from Philip Chauncy and Susan Mitchell, my father’s great great grandparents.

My father has inherited Scottish and Irish ancestry from both his mother and his father. His Welsh ancestry was inherited only from his father. This does correspond with my known tree.

English ancestry has only been inherited from his mother; English ancestry is not so well defined for me – many forebears were born in England but had come from elsewhere, the issue becomes from what generation ethnicity is determined.

My father has inherited his Germanic Europe ancestry from his father on chromosome 6. It is not clear which ancestors might be responsible for this inheritance.

To be useful AncestryDNA’s Chromosome Painter diagrams clearly need more work.

I remain more interested in ancestral contributions to DNA rather than the vague attributions of ethnicity.

Unfortunately, for privacy reasons (or so it is said), AncestryDNA chooses not share detailed information about DNA matches. To obtain the details and be able to derive the information about which DNA you inherited from which ancestors you need to use other companies, such as MyHeritage, Family Tree DNA, or GedMatch.

RELATED POSTS AND FURTHER READING:

• Looking at my ethnicity as determined by DNA testing
• ‘ethnicity’ DNA: beware of inheritance from daughter to mother
• Update to AncestryDNA communities: Vinnie has views
• DNA Painter – a new tool

• AncestryDNA articles
  • Chromosome Painter
  • AncestryDNA® Ethnicity Estimate
  • Ethnicity Inheritance
  • How SideView™ Technology Splits Your DNA Results by Parent
  • Ethnicity Estimate 2021 White Paper

Wikitree:

• Anne (Champion de Crespigny) Young

Finding the parents of Frederick Harold Plowright born 1881

My husband Greg’s great great grandparents John Plowright (1831 – 1910) and Margaret Plowright nee Smyth (1834 – 1897) were married in 1855. They had six children, the youngest born in 1872. In 1881 they adopted a child named Frederick Harold Plowright. I have not found his birth certificate, and until recently I did not know how he was related to the Plowright family. Until 1929 there was no formal adoption process in Victoria and so there was no directly relevant documentary material from 1881 to establish a relationship.

Frederick Harold Plowright 1881 – 1929, photograph in the collection of his grandson J P

In 2018 J P, grandson of Frederick Plowright, took a DNA test. This showed that he was related to the descendants of John and Margaret Plowright but that his grandfather was not the son of John and Margaret.

I used a DNA Painter analysis tool called ‘What are the Odds?’ to estimate where J P stood in the family tree and so how Frederick Harold might be related. The tool calculates where somebody probably fits in the family tree based on the amount of DNA they share with people about whose position in the tree you have complete confidence. The tool predicted that the best hypothesis is that J P was the great grandchild of James Henry Plowright, one of the sons of John and Margaret Plowright, and that his grandfather Frederick was a half-sibling to the other children of James Henry.

In short, it appears very likely that Frederick was adopted by his paternal grandparents.

Using the What are the odds (WATO) tool from DNA Painter to calculate how J P might be related to his Plowright cousins. Hypothesis 5 is the most likely and is indicated with a red *. J P’s grandfather’s most probable position in the family tree is indicated with a green *.

The Avoca Mail reported on 28 June 1881 that Elizabeth Ann Cooke brought an affiliation case against James Henry Plowright. This is a legal proceeding, usually initiated by an unwed mother, claiming legal recognition that a particular man is the father of her child. It was often associated with a claim for financial support.

AVOCA POLICE COURT. Monday, June 28th, 1881. (Before C. W. Carr, Esq., P.M.)

Elizabeth Ann Cooke v. James Henry Plowright. — This was an affiliation case, and Mr Matthews, who appeared for the plaintiff, asked that it might be postponed to allow it to be arranged out of court. The case was accordingly postponed by mutual consent for one week.

Avoca Mail 28 June 1881

A week later the case had been settled, presumably by the parents of James Henry Plowright agreeing to adopt the child:

AVOCA POLICE COURT. Monday, July 4th, 1881. Before W. Goodshaw, Esq., J.P.

E. A. Cooke v. J. H. Plowright. — Mr Matthews, for the plaintiff, stated that the case (adjourned from last court) had been settled

Avoca Mail 5 July 1881

Elizabeth Ann Onthong was born in 1862 in Avoca, Victoria, to Thomas Onthong and Bridget Onthong nee Fogarty. The family later used the surname Cook or Cooke. Elizabeth was the fourth of six children; she had four brothers, none of whom apparently married or had children, and one sister, Mary Ann, who married and had children.

J P shares DNA with descendants of Mary Ann

Related posts:

• John Plowright (1831 – 1910)

Wikitree:

• Frederick Harold Plowright (1881 – 1929)
• James Henry Plowright (1860 – 1932)
• John Plowright (1831 – 1910)
• Margaret (Smyth) Plowright (1834 – 1897)
• Elizabeth Ann (Onthong) Wiffen (1862 – 1927)

Tree progress September 2021

In May 2018 I wrote about the progress I was making on my family tree. The previous ten generations of my forebears have a maximum total of 1,023 people. How many of these, I wondered, could I name.

I found that I knew the names of only 319 of these (31%) Today, three and a half years later, I can name 358 (35%), only 39 more.

Ten generations takes your to your 7th great grandparents. Most of my children’s 7th great grandparents were born in the 1700s (where I know their date of birth). I know the names of 86 of the 512 forebears of this generation. I don’t know very much more than the names of 62.

For the last year I have been transferring my research to WikiTree, a collaborative project intended to produce a ‘singular worldwide family tree’.  (The genealogist Kitty Cooper discusses the scheme in a post of 26 April 2019). By contributing my research to WikiTree it will be there as a resource for my cousins to use now and indefinitely into the future, safe, I hope, from accidental and malicious damage.

There are discrepancies between my personal research tree and WikiTree. For one thing, I have names of forebears on my personal tree about whom I know nothing more than their name. These people cannot be added to WikiTree until I have more information about them. When I add a person to Wikitree, I provide source citations: I state how I know the facts being added and how I know about the relationship of the newly-added profile to the existing people on the tree. Adding my family tree slowly to Wikitree is an excellent way to review my family history research.

When looking at the 1,023 individuals of the previous ten generations of our forebears, I have only 258 recorded on WikiTree, 25% of the possible maximum.

A useful challenge that categorises ancestral profiles was posed earlier this year by the Dutch genealogist Yvette Hoitink. She suggests there are six levels of profile beyond ‘Unidentified’ (where not even the name is known):

1. Name only – perhaps the forebear is named in a child’s record but no other details are known
2. Vital statistics – know the dates but little else
3. Occupations, residence, children, spouses – know several key points of information; know when and where they were born, married, and died, but also where they lived between those key dates and what they did for a living; know who their children were, and if they married multiple times.
4. Property ownership, military service, religion, criminal activity – filled in more biographical details about their lives; researched in court, notarial, cadastral, church and military records, where applicable; if they owned property, how they acquired it, how they disposed of it; whether they left a last will or if they had a prenuptial agreement; for men, whether they served in the army; what religion they were and which church they attended; if they were criminals, what they did and what their sentence was.
5. Genealogical Proof Standard – Yvette categorises this as ancestors for whom she has finished reasonably exhaustive research and has proven who their parents are; finished researching them in a wide range of records, such as newspapers, town records, and tax records; documented them according to current genealogical standards, analyzed everything properly, resolved conflicts, written up her conclusion, and met the Genealogical Proof Standard.
6. Biography – Yvette categorises this as ancestors for whom she has not only finished the research, but has produced a biography or family story with historical context from it.

I have started a preliminary review of our tree against these criteria. I have been reasonably conservative in assigning levels: for example, I have written more biographies or family stories with historical context in this online research journal than are shown in this chart.

Surname groups from left to right: Young, Cross, Sullivan, Dawson, Champion de Crespigny, Cudmore, Boltz, Manock.
Forebears where I only know the names (level 1 shown in blue) are not yet recorded on Wikitree, I need more information to record them there.
The chart was generated with DNAPainter.

The chart was generated using DNAPainter and the dimensions facility on the ancestral tree tool. DNA Painter Dimensions are custom categories giving the ability to create and share different views of your direct line. One of the dimensions you can apply to your tree is what stage you have reached for each forebear in the six levels of ancestral profiles of Yvette Hoitink’s level-up challenge. I learned about the addition of this new DNA Painter ‘dimensions’ feature in April. I have been meaning to apply it.

Applying the dimensions to each of the profiles was laborious. I sped it up slightly by applying level 1 (only know names) to all profiles on the tree. I then individually edited each of the other profiles with what I felt to be a fair assessment of the state of my research.

When I finished adding the categories I was able to generate a summary of genealogy facts. For example for the tenth generation (the outermost ring on the fan chart) I could produce the following summary:

7th-Great-Grandparents 86 of 512 identified

Surnames: Way, Bishop, Colling, Way, Bishop, Moggeridge, Morley, Read, Hemsley, Jenner, Whalley, Hague, Gilbert, Trevithick, Huthnance, Ralph, Champion de Crespigny, Fonnereau, Scott, Gough, Trent, Phipps, Phipps, Tierney, Dana, Trowbridge, Kinnaird, Johnstone, Bayly, Holmes, Grueber, Smyth, Snell, Chauncy, Brown, Cosnahan, La Mothe, Perez, Corrin, Quay, Mitchell, Hughes, Price, Plaisted, Sier, Wilks, Wilkinson, Green, Neilson, Taylor, Miller, Cudmore, Apjohn, Furnell, Massy, Gunn, Manson, Harper, Cavanagh, Lane, Orfeur, Kirkby, Palliser, Wogan, Coates, Odiarne, Haffenden, Mainwaring, Bunbury, Latham, Kelsall, Duff, Skelly, Harrison

Research Level

• Level 1: Names only  62 12.11%
• Level 3: Occupations, residence, children, spouses  11 2.15%
• Level 4: Property ownership, military service, rel  10 1.95%
• Level 2: Vital statistics  2 0.39%
• Level 6: Biography  1 0.2%
• Unassigned  426 83.2%

I look forward to more research and exploring and recording my family history beyond collecting the names.

Related posts

• DNA Painter Dimensions: a new way to showcase your ancestral line by Jonny Perl 13 April 2021
• Six Levels of Ancestral Profiles – Level-up Challenge! by Yvette Hoitink 22 January 2021
• Progress on my tree (May 2018)
• Tree progress March 2020
• creating trees in DNA Painter
• Updating my Ahnentafel index
• Kissing cousins
• Tree progress May 2021

X is for X-DNA

Mary Hickey (1819 – 1890), my third great grandmother, came to South Australia in 1840 on the “Birman” with her sister Julia (1817 – 1884) and brother Michael (1812 – 1840) and Michael’s wife and their two young children. Michael died on the voyage; his wife and children returned to Ireland. In 1843 Mary Hickey married Gordon Mainwaring, a farmer.

Although I have found records for Mary Mainwaring nee Hickey in Australia I have not been able to trace her origins in Ireland. It is possible however that DNA may provide clues to more information about Mary Hickey and my Hickey forebears

My father has a DNA match with JW on ancestry.com. They share 21 centimorgans of DNA across 2 segments. JW is my father’s sixth cousin once removed. Their most recent common ancestors are Godfrey Massy (1711 – 1766), a clergyman, and his wife Margaret Baker; Godfrey and Margaret are my father’s sixth great grandparents. The amount of DNA shared is rather a lot for such distant cousins but not impossible. However, there may be a closer connection.

My father and JW uploaded their DNA to GEDMatch, a site that enables users to analyse and compare their DNA results. AncestryDNA uses algorithms to remove components of a match in cases where the company believes that the shared DNA may be due to general population inheritance rather than a genealogical relationship. On GEDMatch my father and JW share three segments of DNA on chromosome 3 totalling 37.6 centimorgans. They also share 49.4 centimorgans across two segments on chromosome 23, the X chromosome.

Shared segments of DNA reported by GEDMatch for my father and JW illustrated using DNAPainter. The purple bars highlight the lengths of the shared segments.

My father inherited his X chromosome from his mother, and a Y chromosome from his father. My father’s mother inherited her two X chromosomes from each of her parents but her father inherited his X chromosome only from his mother. Inheritance on the X chromosome thus has a distinctive pattern.

Godfrey Massy is shown on the fan chart highlighted in purple with an arrow pointing to his position. When the fan chart is overlaid with the X DNA inheritance path it can be seen that Godfrey Massy can not be the source of the DNA shared between JW and my father on chromosome 23.

My father’s X-DNA inheritance path is highlighted. The area with black X’s represent the X DNA inheritance paths for a male being the only possible ancestors who could be sources of X DNA. Charts generated using DNAPainter.

JW’s great great grandmother was Ann Hickey born in County Limerick in about 1823 who married James Massy in about 1841. James Massy was the great grandson of Godfrey Massy. James and Ann had a son Michael (1842 – 1888) and a daughter Margaret born 1844. Ann Massy nee Hickey died about 1845 and James remarried to a woman called Mary. In 1847, by his second wife he had a daughter they called Mary. James Massy, his second wife and his three children emigrated to Queensland on the Florentia, arriving in April 1853. James’s wife Mary died during the voyage. The shipping record states that James Massy was aged 30 (born about 1823), was born in Limerick, was a carpenter, a Roman Catholic, and could read and write.

The X DNA inheritance for JW shows that she could have inherited some of her chromosome 23 from her great great grandmother Ann Massy nee Hickey. My father and JW also both share DNA with matches who have Hickeys from Limerick in their family tree.

Ann Massy nee Hickey, JW’s great great grandmother, is indicated with orange and marked with the black arrow. Godfrey Massy, JW’s fifth great grandfather, indicated with light orange and a green arrow.

JW’s X-DNA inheritance path includes Ann Hickey highlighted with the orange arrow; Anne Hickey is a source of 25% (on average) of JW’s X DNA. Godfrey Massy, shown with the green arrow, is not a source of X DNA for JW. While there are certainly many other possibilities of sources for X DNA for JW, shared DNA matches with my father point to the Hickey line.

While exploring records for Hickeys of County Limerick I came across a series of records for a woman called Bridget Hickey of Sallymount who had applied for a Poverty Relief Loan. One of the  guarantors was a James Massy, the other was named William Kennedy. It could be a coincidence, but perhaps Bridget was related to Ann Hickey, the wife of James Massy.

The Irish Reproductive Loan Fund was a micro credit scheme set up in 1824 to provide small loans to the ‘industrious poor.’ In November 1843 Bridget Hickey, shopkeeper of Sallymount, received £4 principal on which 20 shillings interest was payable. Six years later, in 1849, Bridget Hickey, James Massy, and William Kennedy were served with a notice stating that Bridget had neglected to pay most of the amount owing . They were obliged to appear in the Sessions-House of Castle Connell.

Irish Reproductive Loan Fund, T91 (The National Archives, Kew) Security notes of borrowers and sureties for loans Archive reference T 91/178 Retrieved through FindMyPast

On the reverse side of the notice it is noted that Bridget Hickey was dead and was the sister of James Massy and of William Kennedy. I interpret this to mean she was the sister-in-law of James Massy, the sister of Ann Hickey.

overleaf from above notice

In a return to the Clerk of the Peace signed 5 March 1853 – a document associated with Bridget Hickey’s loan – James Massy, a fishing rod maker, is reported as having left for Australia in November last. This fits with his Australian arrival on the Florentia in April 1853; the Florentia departed from Plymouth on November 22. The trade of fishing rod-maker, of course, is not too distant from that of carpentry. In that time and place, fishing pole manufacture was not an ordinary trade.  Fishing could be an upper class pursuit and a maker of fishing poles could have an intermediate status in the class structure, like an estate agent or a gamekeeper.

In the same return Bridget Hickey is stated to be a pauper last seen about November in the City of Limerick. The report of her death in 1849 seems to have been incorrect.

Ireland, Poverty Relief Loans 1821-1874 Returns to the Clerk of the Peace [dated on next page 5 March 1853] Source Irish Reproductive Loan Fund, T91 (The National Archives, Kew) Archive reference T 91/180 number 1034 retrieved through FindMyPast

I am reasonably confident that James Massy, husband of Ann Hickey, is in some way connected to Bridget Hickey. Ann and Bridget were probably sisters. Bridget Hickey and James Massy lived in either of the adjoining townlands of Ballynacourty and Sallymount, parish of Stradbally. Given the likely DNA connection between Anne Massy nee Hickey and Mary Mainwaring nee Hickey, I intend to look for the family of Mary Mainwaring nee Hickey in the adjoining townlands of Ballynacourty and Sallymount, parish of Stradbally.

Related posts

• Was it all fun and games on Florentia? Posted on 25 March, 2014 by Pauleen Cass on her blog cassmobfamilyhistory.com
• J is for Julia Morris nee Hickey (1817 – 1884)

Wikitree:

• Mary (Hickey) Mainwaring (abt. 1819 – 1891)
• Ann (Hickey) Massy (abt. 1823 – abt. 1845)
• James Massie (abt. 1823 – ?) Note the surname Massy is also sometimes spelt Massey or Massie
• Bridget Hickey (abt. 1800 – aft. 1853)

DNA: Using the What Are the Odds Tool version 2

Recently I used the ‘DNAPainter‘ What Are the Odds Tool to place a DNA match in my tree and to identify her father.

M showed up in Greg’s list of matches at Ancestry.com. She and he shared 29 centimorgans of DNA across 2 segments, but she had no tree associated with her DNA. Her kit was administered by a 3rd person, D.

M and Greg’s shared matches were all cousins I knew, all of them associated with the Young branch of his tree.  M also shared DNA with Greg’s Aunt Betty: 48 centimorgans across 4 segments. M and Aunt Betty had 14 shared matches. More than ten were known cousins all linked to the Young family tree.

I messaged D and she replied that M was born in outback Queensland and that M’s father was unknown. I knew of no relatives who came from there.

48 centimorgans of shared DNA is associated with a range of possible cousin relationships. It was not at all clear how M and Aunt Betty (and Greg) might be related.

I asked D to share a screenshot of M’s shared matches with Aunt Betty. I thought that if I knew how much DNA M shared with some of our known cousins I might be able to identify how M might be related.

One of the shared matches, that of J, jumped out.  J is Greg’s 3rd cousin and is descended from one of the daughters of George Young and Caroline Young born Clarke. M and J share 815 centimorgans and so can be estimated to be 1st or 2nd cousins. Other known cousins also shared significant amounts of DNA with M, including F who shared 277 centimorgans and R who shared 443 centimorgans. Based on the amount of shared DNA F and R are estimated to be 2nd cousins to M.

I drew up a tree in the DNAPainter What Are The Odds tool, placing Betty and Greg and also J, F, R (and as well, K and B. I know how these are related.) K shares 60 centimorgans with M and B shares 55 centimorgans with M. Using the What Are The Odds tool you add how much DNA is shared between the match and the target name. The aim is to place the target on the tree.

The numbers below each name or initial are the number of centimorgans of DNA that person shares with M.

I then switched to version 2

see orange arrow for where to click to switch to version 2

green arrow shows where to click for suggest hypotheses in version 2 of the tool

and then clicked on ‘suggest hypotheses’. The tool suggested 10.

This is the tree showing the 10 hypotheses.

Scrolling down below the tree there is a table showing a matrix of the matches of M with how M hypothetically relates to those matches.

Rachel lived from 1865 to 1918. M cannot be her child, so hypotheses 8 and 10 shown by the blue and green arrows are implausible. It is possible that M could be a grandchild of Rachel, but hypotheses 6 and 7, shown by the orange arrows, have much lower scores than other hypotheses, and so I removed them too. When removing hypothesis 8 though I did not delete that person on the tree but I removed the option that it was a hypothesis.

I am left with six hypotheses.

If I scroll down I get a ranking of hypotheses.

Scrolling further I get the table with a matrix showing the odds associated with each hypothesis and the various matches.

It can be seen that hypothesis 2 (highlighted in orange) is the most likely. J is most likely a first cousin of M, our target who we are trying to place on the tree. The next most likely hypothesis is that M is a half-aunt of J.

I know from my knowledge of the family tree that J does have a full uncle, brother of J’s parent M and showing as unknown sibling child of Leslie on the tree. Thus hypothesis 2 is possible from a genealogical perspective.

I checked the electoral rolls for the period that M was born and for the location. I found that the unknown sibling was indeed living in that part of Queensland at the relevant time. M’s mother had suggested the surname of M’s father. It was similar to the surname of J’s uncle.

On the basis of the calculations of What Are The Odds tool and a review of the broader circumstances, I am reasonably confident that hypothesis 2 is plausible.  M is the 1st cousin of J. She is Greg’s 3rd cousin.

DNA Technique: Deductive Chromosome Mapping

This afternoon I watched a Legacy Family Tree webinar (recorded) by Dr Blaine Bettinger, a genetic genealogist, about a DNA technique used to map the segments of DNA that a person does not share with a match. A match, of course, is definable as a string or strings of DNA common to two people. But what about the DNA that they do not share? Can it tell us anything?

Blaine Bettinger showed how, by using DNA information from close relatives such as parents or siblings, we can work out where pieces of DNA came from: how they were inherited. The technique is called deductive mapping, inverse mapping, or inferred mapping.

The key is to recognise that on the chromosome you inherited from your father, your DNA comes either from your paternal grandfather or your paternal grandmother. Similarly, the DNA from your mother comes either from your maternal grandfather or your maternal grandmother.

If you find DNA on the chromosome that you inherited from your father that did not come from your paternal grandfather then it must have come from your paternal grandmother. The principle applies equally to matches on your mother’s side.

I was very keen to put this new technique to the test on my husband Greg’s DNA. Luckily, Greg’s brother Dennis had tested his DNA, and I was able to use his matches in combination with Greg’s. The first match I reviewed was Greg and Dennis’s paternal aunt Betty.

Note Aunt Betty and Peter, father of Greg and Dennis, are half siblings. Betty and Peter have the same father but different mothers.

My hypothesis was that for segments of DNA where Dennis shares DNA with Aunt Betty and Greg does not share DNA with Aunt Betty, those segments must have been inherited from Greg and Dennis’s paternal grandmother, Peter’s mother Elizabeth Cross.

All segments on Greg and Dennis’s paternal chromosomes were either inherited from their paternal grandfather Cecil Young or from their paternal grandmother Elizabeth Cross. If Dennis shared a segment with his Aunt Betty, he inherited that segment from Cecil. If Greg did not share that same segment with his Aunt Betty, then he did not inherit that segment from Cecil. He must have inherited the segment from his paternal grandmother Elizabeth Cross.

Using the tools at MyHeritage DNA I was easily able to extract the segment data of the DNA shared by Greg and his Aunt Betty. They share 138.5 centimorgans of DNA across 19 segments. I scrolled down to the chromosome browser on the match screen and clicked on “Advanced Options” on the right side of the screen and then clicked on “Download shared DNA info”.

This gave me a spreadsheet and I was able to copy and paste the data into DNA Painter (I have written about chromosome mapping with DNA Painter at DNA Painter – a new tool). I created a new profile for this exercise as I did the calculations.

Map of the DNA segments Greg shares with his Aunt Betty using DNAPainter

I then extracted the segment data for Dennis and Betty.

I then mapped Dennis and Betty’s match at DNA Painter. So I could see Greg and Betty’s match lined up against Dennis and Betty’s, I mapped it as a maternal match. I then looked for the visual clues of segment mismatch. I have highlighted these segment mismatches with green arrows. There were eight segments where Dennis shared DNA with Aunt Betty that Greg did not. (There were also segments that Greg shared and Dennis did not but for the moment we are concentrating on Greg’s chromosome mapping.) Four of these were complete segments and four partial segments.

I took the spreadsheet of Greg and Betty’s shared segments and pasted beside it Dennis and Betty’s shared segments so I could compare them.

Data from MyHeritage

I then highlighted the whole segment mismatches in green and the partial segment matches in purple.

I then added the four segments that were inferred to have been inherited by Greg from Elizabeth to the DNA Painter profile. I only needed to add the chromosome number and the start location and end location.

For the purposes of chromosome mapping I did not need the additional data concerning RSID start and end, the number of centimorgans, or SNPs.

When previewing the segments I got a warning from DNA Painter about match segments being overlaid and that I might have already mapped these segments.

When I tried to save the match, DNA Painter told me that there was an overlap with the segments I had already painted of Dennis’s match with Aunt Betty.

The four new segments showing DNA inferred to be inherited from Elizabeth Cross are in shown in green

The next challenge was to calculate the partial segments where Dennis shared some DNA with Aunt Betty that Greg did not at the beginning or end of a segment. I first did the calculation for Chromosome 5. The segment Dennis shared with Aunt Betty extended beyond the segment Greg shared with Aunt Betty. In the spreadsheet calculations for inferring the DNA Greg inherited from Elizabeth Cross, I copied the end location data for Greg’s segment match with Aunt Betty and the end location data for Dennis’s segment match with Aunt Betty. This created the segment that Dennis shared with Aunt Betty and Greg did not.

I painted that segment successfully. The black arrow highlights the segment Greg does not share with Betty and can thus be inferred to have been inherited from Elizabeth Cross. Underneath can be seen that Dennis shares that segment with Betty.

I repeated the exercise for chromosome 11. This time Dennis shares DNA with Betty and Greg does not before the segment Greg shares with Betty. So the calculation involved the start location of Dennis being the start location of the inferred segment and the start location of Greg’s match with Betty being the end location of the inferred segment.

I repeated the exercise of inferring segments for the remaining two segments.

The finished profile showing Greg’s match with Aunt Betty in purple, Dennis’s match with Aunt Betty in orange and in green the inferred inheritance of DNA by Greg from his paternal grandmother Elizabeth Cross based on the mismatch of Greg’s match with Aunt Betty when compared to the shared DNA of Dennis and Aunt Betty

I was confident in the logic of the results of this deductive chromosome mapping exercise and added the inferred segments to Greg’s DNA chromosome map. Before this exercise I had mapped 40% of Greg’s DNA with 161 segments being assigned. After adding these 8 segments 41% with 169 segments assigned. I have now mapped 54% of Greg’s paternal chromosome with 94 segments assigned.

I look forward to continuing the exercise and filling in more gaps.

By assigning inferred segments to either the paternal grandfather, paternal grandmother or on the maternal chromosome to either the maternal grandfather or maternal grandmother, I may be able to use the information to deduce how a DNA match links to Greg’s family tree based on the segment shared, even if that match does not have a family tree link to Greg.

A chromosome map is not just a colourful diagram. It’s a useful tool for exploring how DNA matches might be related. Information about the descent of a DNA segment, even if the segment is not directly shared by matches, could help you to calculate their shared ancestry.

Related posts

• DNA Painter – a new tool

Tree progress March 2020

In May 2018 I calculated a simple index of my family tree’s so-called ‘completedness’: how many of my forebears could I name?

I was especially interested in the number of forebears I could name in the previous ten generations, that is, up to and including seventh great grandparents. The possible maximum, if you include yourself, is 1,023 individuals. [Cousins sometimes marry, so there might be duplicates, which in practice could reduce the actual number considerably.]

Looking at our tree from our children’s perspective the figure was then 31%, 319 of the possible 1,023 forebears.

In July 2019 Dnapainter.com introduced a tree function to generate trees and calculate tree completedness. This tree function can also be be used to mark ancestors shared with genetic cousins.

As of 31 March 2020 my tree shows 344 of the possible 1023 forebears, 25 more. This just is 33.6%, slow progress of 2% over nearly two years.

Direct ancestors whose names I know are coloured; blanks represent those whose names are unknown to me.

These numbers of course don’t show all we’ve learned about our forebears and their relatives. I have done a great amount of research about the lives of people in our tree. Moreover, our family tree including indirect relatives has grown by almost half again, from around 6,000 people to 10,481 people.

The large increase is mainly due to my adding genetic cousins to the tree, among these many descendants of my forebears. I try to verify all connections. Our tree on ancestry.com now includes 16,099 records, 2,109 images, and 289 stories.

Not all of the forebears in our tree have associated genetic cousins. Some cousins have not tested their DNA. Some have tested but I have been unable to verify the connection.

Even for the cousins where I have found a connection, the shared DNA is not necessarily attributable to a particular ancestor. [There are ways of developing confidence about these attributions, some of which I described in my account of the triangulation technique I used to verify that Matilda Sullivan formerly Hughes née Darby was the mother of Henry Sullivan.

I have made the least progress on my German forebears. My mother very kindly submitted her DNA for analysis, but dissappointly, I have made no connections through her DNA. She has very few cousins and they are not close: her father was an only child, and her mother’s siblings had no children. DNA testing is not popular in Germany. On the AncestryDNA site my mother has only 27 4th cousins or closer and 12,882 matches in total; her closest match shares only 50 centimorgans. By contrast my father has 358 matches of 4th cousin or closer, his closest match shares 570 centimorgans, and he has a total of 43,912 matches on the AncestryDNA website. My suave and handsome husband Greg (editor of this online research journal) has 320 matches that are 4th cousin or closer, his closest match shares 1003 centimorgans, and he has a total of 31,875 matches on the AncestryDNA website.

On the MyHeritage website my mother has 2,035 DNA matches and her closest match shares 39 centimorgans. My father has 10,244 matches and shares 777 centimorgans with his closest match. Greg has 5,976 matches and his closest match shares 1,035 centimorgans of DNA.

On Greg’s side of the family – the left hand side of the fan – I have still to make progress on his Young, Cross, Sullivan and Morley forebears.

There is still lots of work to be done in identifying the relationships with genetic cousins, building the tree, and filling in the family history.

Related posts

• Progress on my tree
• creating trees in DNA Painter
• Triangulating Matilda’s DNA
• ‘ethnicity’ DNA: beware of inheritance from daughter to mother

 

creating trees in DNA Painter

Many tools have been developed to help users interpret the results of DNA tests.

DNA Painter maps segments of DNA to chromosomes. This helps to show which ancestors gave us which DNA segments, and how new matches are related.

On the basis of matches with his cousins, I have mapped 28% of Greg’s chromosomes, identifying the forebears from whom he inherited his DNA.

The company, DNAPainter.com,  has recently introduced a new feature: users can now upload a GEDCOM file directly.

My main tree is on Ancestry.com and has 9,992 people, with 1,975 photos, 267 stories and 14,669 records. It contains most of my research about my own and my husband’s forebears.

I regularly download a GEDCOM file as a backup. GEDCOM is a data structure created by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for storing and exchanging genealogical information. Many different different computer programs use it. GEDCOM files have
the file name suffix ‘.ged’. The GEDCOM file I downloaded today was 9.6 MB.

I uploaded the file quickly and easily to DNAPainter. I was asked whether I wanted to hide, as private, living people and who I wished to be the starting point. I used our son. His ancestors, of course, comprise my own and those of my husband. The direct ancestors of our son, 624 people that I have identified and documented, were uploaded.

DNA Painter produces a summary report on tree completeness, how many forebears have been identified, compared with the number of potential forebears. The reports highlights pedigree collapse by naming people who appear more than once in your tree.

There are three ways to show the tree:

• Tree with branches highlighted in different colours

• Fan view. This is more compact, showing more generations but no names. Tree completeness is shown, with grey cells representing forebears that have not yet been identified. Hovering highlights the names and and shows where the person appears more than once in the tree when cousins have married.

• Text view showing key dates and places

You can mark people as genetic ancestors, and add notes and surname clues. You can also modify the imported data.

I look forward to this functionality being further refined.

update : Frequently Asked Questions answered by Johnny Perl, the developer 

Q: How does it work?
A: You can build a tree manually by simply typing in the names of ancestors, or you can import a GEDCOM file exported from a genealogy site or desktop genealogy software:
– Browse your computer for your GEDCOM file
The site will extract all the people from it into an ‘autocomplete’ list
– Type some letters into the autocomplete box and select the person whose ancestors you want to extract
– At this point, the site builds a tree for the chosen person and saves it in the site’s database.
– The default option is to hide living people, replacing them with ‘Living’, so their details are never uploaded at all. You can optionally override this.
– Another default sets the import to a maximum of 10 generations beyond the home person. Unless you have lots of pedigree collapse, the site should be capable of importing more distant ancestors too. If you’d like to try this, just select ‘Import all available generations’

Q: How do I add new ancestors to my tree
A: Within the tree view, hover over a node and choose ‘add parents’ (or just ‘add mother’ or ‘add father’)

Q: Can I use my main GEDCOM file or should I extract just my direct line?
A: It’s up to you; unless you have a huge tree (e.g. more than 50,000 people), it should be fine to use your entire file.

Q: Why can’t I find myself in the list of people extracted from my tree?
A: When you created your GEDCOM file, it may be that it was privatised by your desktop family tree software. You might be listed under ‘Private’ or ‘Living’, for example.

Q: Do you store my GEDCOM file?
A: No, your GEDCOM file does not leave your computer; instead, the site extracts just the ancestors of the person you select.

Q: What is the maximum filesize?
A: The file can be reasonably big (since it’s not being uploaded anywhere!), but needs to be less than 60MB in order for your browser to be able to load the list of people. If you have an older or slower computer it may need to be smaller than this.

Q: Is my tree private?
A: Yes – just as with the chromosome maps, a tree is only ever viewable by you, the person who created it, *unless* you click on ‘share’, in which case a link will be created that allows others to view the tree if they have this link. This share status can be revoked by the owner at any point, at which time the share link will no longer work.

Q: What does ‘mark as a genetic ancestor’ mean?
A: This is intended to help users indicate which parts of their ancestral pedigree they’ve been able to verify via DNA (aka their ‘genetic family tree’). For example, if I have a confirmed DNA match with my 3rd cousin who descends from a sister of my great-grandfather David Heatherington, I might mark David as a genetic ancestor. I can then use the ‘show genetic ancestors’ filter to show just the ancestors where I’ve identified DNA connections.

Q: How can I get the help info to come up again?
A: Click the ‘?’ Icon at the top right of the toolbar on a tree page.

Q: Can I link ancestors in my chromosome map to my tree?
A: Not yet, but this is being developed at the moment for release later in 2019.

Q: Can I download a picture of my tree?
A: Not right now, but this feature will be added in future.

 

Related posts

• DNA Painter – a new tool
• Progress on my tree
• DNA: finding new connections with the latest tools

DNA: finding new connections with the latest tools

AncestryDNA and MyHeritage have recently released new tools for showing how you might be related to your DNA cousins. Both companies look at your tree and the tree of your DNA cousin. If those trees do not connect, the company tentatively connects them using in addition other public trees in their databases.

Cousinships found in tentatively-connectly trees of course need to be verified. However, although you may seem to descend in the way suggested by the tentatively-connectly trees it is possible that you could be also descended from other ancestors not presently shown on the family trees. Confidence that the DNA match is from a particular couple increases with tree completeness. This confidence increases for both you and your match if your are able to establish that there are likely no other shared ancestors. Increased confidence that you are indeed related to the suggested DNA cousins comes from sharing common ancestors and simultaneously sharing DNA other cousins who also descend from the same common ancestors

AncestryDNA’s new Thrulines tool has given me many more Common Ancestor Hints to look at. I decided to look at DNA cousins who are also descended from my fifth great grandparents Dominique Pierre La Mothe (1731 – 1807) and his wife Susannah La Mothe nee Corrin (1741 – 1803). ThruLines suggests that my father may be related to 8 DNA matches through Dominique Pierre Lamothe.

One of these matches is me; another match is one of my second cousins, my father’s first cousin once removed. These relationships are well documented. We have met my father’s third cousin, R, and I also have confidence in the documentation of that match. However, we have not met H, my father’s 3rd cousin once removed. The relationship corresponds with my family history researches, and the shared 21 centimorgans of DNA fits within the range of a 3rd cousin once removed relationship as predicted by the shared centimorgan tool at DNAPainter.com.

Four matches descend from other children of Dominique and Susannah La Mothe.

These matches were all new to me. I had not previously corresponded with these cousins, nor was I aware that our trees had common ancestors. The shared DNA is small, but is greater than the 7 centimorgan small-match-limit usually suggested for genealogical significance. The number of shared centimorgans corresponds with the hypothetical relationships.

I decided to review cousin C who is predicted to descend from Frederick John Dominique Lamothe (1805 – 1864). I had not previously documented his descendants. The family tree attached to C’s DNA has only 27 people: she lists paternal grandparents and her mother, who died in 2015; there are no maternal grandparents listed. Thrulines incorrectly shows C’s grandfather’s information as common from her tree, but that does not correspond with the only public member tree attached to her profile, so perhaps C has a private but searchable tree on Ancestry.com.

I traced 13 children of Frederick John Lamothe, of whom five were daughters. His youngest daughter Ann Jane Lamothe (1857 – 1929) married William Galloway (1854 – 1909) on 5 August 1879 at Lezayre, Isle of Man. They had ten children. The second oldest was William Edward Galloway (1884 – 1967). That he was the father of Jean (1927 – 2015) is documented on a 1951 US Border-crossing document from Canada to the US. Her husband is also named in the document, further confirming the family relationship to C. I am satisfied with the genealogical links between C and Dominique Pierre and Susannah Lamothe based on baptism, marriage, death, and census records as well as the border-crossing record.

My father has eight matches at MyHeritage where MyHeritage has build speculative trees that may explain how Richard Rafe Champion de Crespigny and some of his DNA Matches are related. Of these I had already determined the connection for six and been in contact with the six cousins. The other two matches are his cousins, brother JJ and sister MJ, whose DNA kits are administered by Jo M, the daughter of JJ. My father shares 31.3 centimorgans of DNA with MJ and 8.3 centimorgans with JJ. The shared DNA figures are within the range appropriate for 5th cousins.

My Heritage demonstrates how the two trees combine and gives a level of confidence about the match, in this case 82%. While I did not have these cousins on my tree previously I have now added these descendants to my tree on the basis of birth, death, marriage, and census records.

MyHeritage provides a chromosome browser and lists segment details. I have painted these matches on to my father’s DNAPainter profile. The overlaps of the segments all correspond with forebears who descend from Dominique Pierre Lamothe and Susannah Corrin. To date 25% of my father’s DNA has been attributed to named forebears.

In his talk Essential Considerations for DNA Evidence, presented at RootsTech 2019, Blaine Bettinger, an American genetic genealogist claimed that “Without a report of tree completedness, it is nearly impossible to evaluate the use of DNA in a genealogical conclusion, even if it is soundly supported by documentary evidence!”

I last looked at tree completeness in May 2018 when I could name 45 of the possible 64 5th great grandparents I had. I did not split my result between my father’s family history and my mother’s but when I reviewed the statistics, it appeared that 44 of my possible 5th great grandparents that I know of are on my father’s side. That is, I know the names of 68% of my father’s fourth great grandparents, the generation that includes Dominique and Susannah LaMothe. I have improved my knowledge slightly. I now know 70% of my father’s 3rd great grandparents and 42% of my father’s 4th great grandparents, i.e. those forebears he would share as most common recent ancestors with fifth cousins. The overall tree completeness score at the 5th cousin level for my father is that we know 106 of a potential 127 individuals or 83%: 17% of the tree is unknown.

Chart showing the fourth great grandparents of Rafe de Crespigny. (Generated using MacFamilyTree)

In the case of the Thrulines match with C, her tree has only 27 people and could not be regarded as complete.

In the case of the MyHeritage tree maintained by Jo M and associated with the matches of MJ and JJ, the tree has only 84 people and is also incomplete. Jo M has trees on Ancestry.com but they show that Jo M has shown only 41 of the people associated with the trees of JJ and MJ up to the 4th great grandparent level, or 32%; thus her tree could be said to be 68% incomplete.

AncestryDNA’s Thrulines tool and MyHeritage’s Theory of Family Relativity tool are similar. Both tools have come up with matches at the fifth cousin level that seem plausible. In verifying the lines of descent and contacting the matches, I have discovered a little more about the descendants of my forebears. One cousin, Jo M, has shared pictures she took of our forebears’ graves on the Isle of Man. She has also traced the La Mothe family line further back than I have.

Related posts

• S is for Suky
• Progress on my tree
• DNA Painter – a new tool

DNA: variations in DNA matches between companies

My father has a second cousin once removed, ‘GH’. I am GH’s 2nd cousin twice removed.

GH’s daughter administers his DNA kits. She asked me an interesting question. On the DNA evidence, is this the same person:

• Ancestry – AnneYoungAU on Ancestry (shares 33 cM with my father)
• Family Tree DNA – Christine Anne Young (shares 93 cM with my father)
• GEDmatch – Anne Young A947648 (shares 63.5 cM with my father)
• My Heritage – Anne Young (shares 56.3 cM with my father)

If they are the same person, how can the results be so different?

Also, on the DNA evidence, are these the same person:

• Ancestry – RRC001 (shares 110 cM with my father)
• Family Tree DNA – R. Rafe Champion De Crespigny (shares 134 cM with my father)
• GEDmatch – RD A587626 (shares 113 cM with my father)
• My Heritage – Richard Rafe Champion De Crespigny (shares 98.3 cM with my father)

DNA aside, of course, we know that they are the same two people. The first is me, the second is my father.

The reason that the amount of shared DNA seems to vary so widely has to do with different assumptions and techniques used to calculate genealogically significant DNA. As a species we share DNA with other forms of life, but much of this is irrelevant genealogically. Discarding the parts we share as living beings and concentrating on what we share as family relatives introduces different emphases. The result is apparent differences between DNA analysis by different companies.

AncestryDNA explains it in these terms:

“If you choose to upload your AncestryDNA raw DNA results to another website, they will look different for a number of reasons. Other companies do not use the same algorithms, database or methods to translate the data. Only AncestryDNA has access to the unique information available on Ancestry, including the family trees and records to help power the accuracy of the results. In addition, the proprietary algorithms that we use to calculate results are based on documented family trees and a one-of-a-kind, comprehensive database of DNA samples from around the world.”

Curious about the detail, I used DNAPainter, an online chromosome mapping tool, to investigate a little further.

I was interested to see the variation in what segments my father and I shared with GH so I painted the matches from MyHeritage, FamilyTreeDNA and GedMatch at DNAPainter using the default parameter excluding segments under 7 centimorgans and also experimenting with including all segments greater than 1 centimorgan (the lowest threshold allowed).

Reviewing the data for segments of 7 centimorgans or more I found that MyHeritage did not include matching segments on chromosome 1. The segment matched with GH corresponds to a known pile up area and is indicated with grey shading on the DNAPainter diagram. It probably indicates shared DNA without genealogical significance.

DNA profile comparing matches for GH with Rafe and Anne: 7 centimorgan threshold

Reviewing the data for all segments greater than 1 centimorgan I found that Family Tree DNA and GedMatch included these segments whereas MyHeritage did not. I shared some small segments with GH but my father did not indicating that I did not inherit these segments from the most common recent ancestor GH, my father and I share. In general 7 centimorgans is considered necessary before a segment is possibly inherited from a common ancestor.

DNA profile comparing matches for GH with Rafe and Anne: 1 centimorgan threshold

The MyHeritage estimates of shared DNA make sense in view of the 7 centimorgan threshold and by not including the shared DNA at the pileup region on chromosome 1. Unfortunately because the detail of the match at AncestryDNA is not revealed by that company I cannot comment on what data they chose to include or exclude for their match.

All this is a reminder that DNA matching, though a technique of great precision, makes certain assumptions, and operates within recognised limits. Its apparent accuracy will occasionally seem to vary. Be careful how you interpret DNA results. You are indeed related to the fly  you just swatted- you murdered a distant cousin – and you are related to yourself, since your DNA, though analysed differently by different companies is all yours. Somewhere between you and blowflies are your cousins and other family members, not all of whom you’d want to claim for immediate relatives.

Further reading

• “International Society of Genetic Genealogy Wiki ISOGG Wiki.” Identical by Descent, International Society of Genetic Genealogy, 23 Nov. 2018, isogg.org/wiki/Identical_by_descent.