DNA Analysis

haminka

I would like to have a DNA analysis of mine and my daughter's ancestry. We are a bit of an eclectic mixture, especially my daughter, like a little European Union so it would be interesting to see the outcomes.
Would you be able to recommend a reliable DNA analysis centre in Ireland to buy a kit from? I don't want to buy an expensive kit to find out that the analysis isn't really reliable.

pinkypinky

There's no company in Ireland but all of the majors (FTDNA, Ancestry, 23andme) supply to Ireland. The lab work is done in the USA. Ancestry has the biggest database but FTDNA has the largest number of Irish people in theirs at present.

Ipso

The tests may not be able to pinpoint individual countries, a lot of them tend to look at things at a regional level; Isles, Scandinavia, North Europe, South Europe etc

pinkypinky

Also, this from the Ancestry Insider blog is worth considering.

MAGZERFLOOD

You can buy DNA kits in the Irish Family History Centre, EPIC Ireland, Custom House Quarter, Dublin. They sell autosomal and Y DNA.

p15574

pinkypinky wrote: »

Also, this from the Ancestry Insider blog is worth considering.

It would be interesting to see the results of a similar study just using one person - if you submitted your dna to the same company three times, under three different names, would you get identical results?

pinkypinky

MAGZERFLOOD wrote: »

You can buy DNA kits in the Irish Family History Centre, EPIC Ireland, Custom House Quarter, Dublin. They sell autosomal and Y DNA.

Which company is providing the tests?

pinkypinky

p15574 wrote: »

It would be interesting to see the results of a similar study just using one person - if you submitted your dna to the same company three times, under three different names, would you get identical results?

Actually, no, because different companies use different markers. I saw Dr Maurice Gleeson show his own results from the 3 main companies. They were broadly similar but not identical.

p15574

pinkypinky wrote: »

Actually, no, because different companies use different markers. I saw Dr Maurice Gleeson show his own results from the 3 main companies. They were broadly similar but not identical.

I meant if you sent your DNA to one company three separate times, would you get the same results? This to be repeated for all companies, to verify their reliability.

pedroeibar1

pinkypinky wrote: »

Which company is providing the tests?

When it opened EPIC had a booth for FMP so I'd assume it's the FMP partner "FamilyTree". They do three main ones, Family Finder, Y-DNA (37 marker) and Mt full sequence.

The OP really needs to ask herself what she wants / expects to find from a DNA test.

Badly Drunk Boy

pinkypinky wrote: »

There's no company in Ireland but all of the majors (FTDNA, Ancestry, 23andme) supply to Ireland. The lab work is done in the USA. Ancestry has the biggest database but FTDNA has the largest number of Irish people in theirs at present.

I've done all three (and on FamilyTreeDNA, I did the Family Finder and the Y-DNA 111 marker), and out of them, I personally liked 23andme best. Maybe it was the presentation, or the extra health information (even though I know not to rely on any of that), but it was definitely the one I preferred. It costs €169 for each person.

(And it turns out I wasn't adopted!! :pac: )

tabbey

Badly Drunk Boy wrote: »

(And it turns out I wasn't adopted!! :pac: )

We don't mind if you were or not!

Thankfully times have changed.

th283

My mother recently got the results from one of the ancestry DNA tests and I would definitely recommend it. It was definitely interesting, it gave a breakdown of her ethnicity as well as links to people who have also taken DNA tests that she is related to. There was one 2nd cousin and over 80 3rd + cousins who have been tested. Within hours of getting the results I was in contact with a 3rd cousin in Florida who was able to provide me with information and photos going back generations

pedroeibar1

Badly Drunk Boy wrote: »

I've done all three (and on FamilyTreeDNA, I did the Family Finder and the Y-DNA 111 marker), and out of them, I personally liked 23andme best. Maybe it was the presentation, or the extra health information (even though I know not to rely on any of that), but it was definitely the one I preferred. It costs €169 for each person.

(And it turns out I wasn't adopted!! :pac: )

That does not answer the question - what were the differences between the results from the different companies?
The Y 111 marker test from FTDNA costs $369. Why bother to do lesser Y tests with others? The test company you advocate (23andme) is accepted generally as the least suitable for genealogical purposes becuse it concentrates on health issues... what compatability has that test with for e.g. FamilyFinder?

cobham

I am looking at an unused 23 and me kit. My side is fairly well mapped going back the generations and I think my other half have might be more interesting. As for family tree links, is it only confined to other people who also have submitted data from a 23 kit? I dont think we want to know of medical stuff, enough of that in family tree:(

On another topic a friend did two different companies, Ancestry and Find my Past and I think got similar results

tac foley

My da's lot came from Southern Scandinavia sometime in the 700-800 AD 'invasions'. We don't need a DNA analysis to tell us that - tall, blonde, mostly blue-eyed and built like brick outhouses, every male person in my dad's family going back to his great-grandfather, who died aged 96 in 1910, looked as though they had just stepped off the long boat. Scania is full of people who look exactly like us. Before that? Who knows?

The same as everybody else from that part of the world, I'd guess.

Just looking up the basis of my family name in Old Irish will get you an idea of our particular history.

tac

hammy007

FTDNA does Y-DNA, mtDNA, as well as autosomal DNA (family finder test). 23andme and Ancestry only do autosomal tests. Autosomal tests are good to try at different testing companies, because the ethnicity results may be slightly different, and your matches will be different. FTDNA now offers a transfer, so for example, if you've done a test at 23andme or elsewhere, you can pay a fee to transfer DNA results to FTDNA. The cost would be much less than doing another full test.

That being said, I would also highly recommend uploading your autosomal results to gedmatch.com. It is a database that compares autosomal tests from all the various testing companies for those who have uploaded, free of charge. It's a good way to compare to others who may have taken a test with a different vendor from you.

What I have found between the testing companies: I always recommend FTDNA first, because you can compare specific chromosome segments with your matches, which is a powerful tool, whereas Ancestry only shows you matches with the same names in other trees (a nice feature, but segment compares would be helpful). 23andme is more health focused, and I know a lot of people that don't like their upgraded website. I'd recommend FTDNA first, and Ancestry second.

BowWow

The Late Late show will have a section on DNA this Friday the 17th. 4 guests and Ryan Turbriody have submitted a test sample and the results will be revealed on the show.

Ipso

As it's Saint Patrick's day I hope they don't try to play some unique Irish snowcflake nonsense and I hope they are up to date on recent findings.

th283

I just saw that ancestry have a special offer on their DNA tests for st Patrick's day- €85 including shipping

Alicat

Just ordered mine today. Hoping it might help with a family mystery, as well as being interesting in general.

torrevieja

Folks i have a question on this DNA

to get results you are depending on other people from all over the World to have done these DNA test in other words if your 1st 2nd 3rd etc cousins have not done these tests its unlikey you will get results or am i wrong

Ps what did people think of the results on the Late late test?

What is the difference between these Y-DNA, mtDNA, and autosomal

spurious

I got 1400 or so 'matches' when I did the FTDNA one - mostly Americans and Australians. My mother then did hers, which helped me separate the matches into those from her side and my father's.

My father's cousin has since done it and his matches should help further.

One Irish match I have since found out is descended from my father's maternal grandmother's family and most of the Australians are through my mother's side - a Timothy Dillon who went out there about 1820.

One problem is that when you contact some matches, they don't know much of their own genealogy so you end up knowing there's a connection of some sort but not where. Also, all but maybe twenty or so matches are really very distant indeed.

I suspect it's one of these things the more people take a test, the more it will give relevant results.

jo_gil

I completed both Family Finder (autosomal) and YDNA  testing with FTDNA and submitted sample in November 2016.

The family finder (FF) results were uploaded to my account at their website late February 2017 (waiting time 5 to 8 weeks).  The FF test compares your DNA with other testers, including anyone closely related to either of your parents, grandparents, or greatgrandparents, etc. FF will identify potential cousins (1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th) but the results don’t tell exactly how your related - its an approximation. Working with this cousin you can compare family histories to try and identify who was your common ancestor.  You are likely to have mixed results. If both matches have well documented genealogy you could quickly find that common ancestor, but in many cases the paper trail is just not there. As more people test result will become that much better.

The YDNA test can only be taken by a male and compare against your fathers DNA;  his father, his father and so on as far back as you can imagine. Certainly further back than any paper records might be available. (In my case that means looking at only the Gill DNA and excluding all other family lines)  The value that I'm expecting from  this is to identify others with shared DNA in Ireland. My research focuses around Longford and Roscommon but because or Irish naming conventions and limitations with existing records I have met brick walls that hopefully this approach will help to work around. FTDNA has uploaded the results to my account but not finalized technical analysis. Hoping that will all be done soon.

As commented by others on this board, dna data can be copied over to other sites (GedMatch/ Geni / Ancestry / etc) - the more data bases you join then chances to find matches also increase. 

After chasing the paper trail for more than 20 years I'm happy to add DNA results as another tool in my efforts to build our family history 

 

Following:   Gill, Francis, Daly, Casey, Coyle, McCormick,

Counties:    Roscommon; Longford

pinkypinky

Please use the forum search function to read other threads about DNA - good summary here.

dubhthach

With regards to ordering multiple tests from one company to verify how accurate they are. It's worth pointing out that most of these autosomal tests (23andme, Ancestry, FTDNA FamilyFinder) use a "SNP chip" eg. a "chip" that contains circa 500k-1 million discrete testing points (probes). It's quite possible that a sample could either be low-grade or that there could be issue with some of the specific test probes.

What I would say personally is that I've done two separate Autosomal tests (and imported one of these into third company) and the results are roughly comparable.

For example in FamilyFinder (using imported 23andme data) they had me down as 90% "British Isles" -- in comparison Ancestry (new testing sample) has me as 89% Irish (range 77-100%) and 2% British. So 91% vs. 90% isn't that bad going if ye ask me.

What you have to remember of course is that their calculators are based off the sample populations they have. If for example Ancestry was to drop their Irish sample population more than likely you would the level of "British" go way up in my above sample.

One thing that's always worth doing is signing up for GEDmatch and than uploading rare data, you can than use various calculators to come up with various admixture results.

When it comes to Autosomal tests Ancestry has the scale at the moment and they are rapidly growing their database, having them on the Late Late Show was bit of clever marketing that's for sure.

torrevieja

Folks i have a question on this DNA

to get results you are depending on other people from all over the World to have done these DNA test in other words if your 1st 2nd 3rd etc cousins have not done these tests its unlikey you will get results or am i wrong

Ps what did people think of the results on the Late late test?

What is the difference between these Y-DNA, mtDNA, and autosomal

pinkypinky

Torrevieja, please my post above where I link to a basic description of what you're asking.

dubhthach

Aside from the link post above a good overview can be found here in this presentation by Debbie Kennett that occurred in the RDS back in 2015:

With regards to matches, it really depends on what you are looking for. For example on a Y-DNA test you could potentially show a match with another man who you last shared a common ancestor with in the 16th century. Obviously as more people test the dataset gets bigger and bigger.

In many cases these databases are dominated by diaspora members (eg. Americans basically), getting more Irish based people into relevant databases is useful as a means of providing an anchor back to Ireland for some of these people etc. In general Ancestry and like will show you potential 4th/5th/6th cousins, given genetic recombination it's only really accurate for finding links back to about 200 years ago. After that the level of potentially shared DNA segments basically drops to 0%.

Here's some images from ISOGG wiki on cousin matching (autosomal testing)







Generally what you often see is stuff like 4th and 5th cousins pop up. Which basically drops you somewhere in the 19th century (potentially late 18th century) depending on shared ancestor.

dubhthach

With regards to the Late Late show, well I thought it was good marketing that's for sure. The feature they showed (Genetic Communities) is currently in Beta and hasn't been rolled out let.

In case of Healy-Rae it actually make sense given that up until 1606 there existed a seperate county in West Cork/South Kerry eg. "County of Desmond" which basically reflected the Kingdom of Desmond which has resisted Cambro-Norman incursion under the rule of the McCarthy's



If you look at that map ye'll see that the "O'Healy" are down as landholders to east of Muskerry, in what is now County Cork, but which wasn't part of Cork before 1606.

It made for a great laugh, but we have to remember of course is that our concept of counties is very much a social construct that develop out of conquest, many of course do have some basis in previous overkingdoms but the boundaries are often fluid -- for example Western Offaly was historically part of Meath (Westmeath actually reflects better sub-kingdom of Midhe, whereas (East)Meath represents Brega -- within the province of Midhe), likewise part of modern Laois was part of Kingdom of Osraighe (Upper Ossory) and was bit not conquered by the Normans, the rest of Kingdom became modern county of Kilkenny.

Derrane been related to Blathanid distantly make sense in context of Conamara/Árann -- after all one of reasons the language survived as primary language in the Galway Gaeltacht was due to lack of contact/movement from the anglisced areas around it.

Byrne having wide level of matches make sense given history of Dublin both as urban area (thus potential ancestors from all over place) and also given it's history as centre of the Pale. Given that he appeared to have ancestor associated with Fermanagh this could explain his Scottish connection etc.

BowWow

dubhthach wrote: »

ata)having them on the Late Late Show was bit of clever marketing that's for sure.

Genuine question - Was there one for everyone in the audience?

dubhthach

I'd hope so, how many people are in the Late Late audience? North of 100? That's a nice way to add to their database of actual Irish based samples.

Ipso

Did they test for haplogroups?

pinkypinky

There was indeed one for everyone in the audience.

torrevieja

BowWow wrote: »

Genuine question - Was there one for everyone in the audience?

Yes there was ...

torrevieja

Actually all of my question wasn't answered i asked if people related to you dont do the dna test how will u ever know ? and also asked are u depending on the more people who takes the test ?

pinkypinky

I've suggested you use the search function to read many other threads about DNA on this forum.

I think the answer is pretty obvious: everyone will have a lot of matches, how close they are is potluck. As the years go by, more and more people are getting tested. Every time I log in, I have new matches. But the closest I've found and confirmed is a 3rd cousin.

torrevieja

pinkypinky wrote: »

I've suggested you use the search function to read many other threads about DNA on this forum.

I think the answer is pretty obvious: everyone will have a lot of matches, how close they are is potluck. As the years go by, more and more people are getting tested. Every time I log in, I have new matches. But the closest I've found and confirmed is a 3rd cousin.

Can i ask Pinky which company you took the test and do the different companies exchange there results with each other ?

pinkypinky

I've used FTDNA - there is some exchange between companies but you have to pay to do it. Third party site gedmatch.com is the way to go.

torrevieja

pinkypinky wrote: »

Third party site gedmatch.com is the way to go.

Can you elaborate what you mean by that thanks

RGM

pinkypinky wrote: »

I've used FTDNA - there is some exchange between companies but you have to pay to do it. Third party site gedmatch.com is the way to go.

FTDNA is currently accepting autosomal transfers for free.  You get your full list of matches.  They are charging $19 to unlock Chromosome Browser, myOrigins, and ancientOrigins.

This is their new policy as of last month.

pinkypinky

It's a site where you can upload results from the 3 main DNA testing companies.

pedroeibar1

dubhthach wrote: »

I'd hope so, how many people are in the Late Late audience? North of 100? That's a nice way to add to their database of actual Irish based samples.

That studio seats 200, but the main advantage is that the event brought DNA ancestry before a much wider audience so it should generate better familiarity and a wider potential customer base.
All the DNA companies have serious customer communication issues, their claims are too strong and they obfuscate the results where the sample size is too small.

dubhthach

pedroeibar1 wrote: »

That studio seats 200, but the main advantage is that the event brought DNA ancestry before a much wider audience so it should generate better familiarity and a wider potential customer base.
All the DNA companies have serious customer communication issues, their claims are too strong and they obfuscate the results where the sample size is too small.

Well even if they got a 20% return rate that's not bad, an additional 40-50 Irish people in the AncestryDNA database is a start. Given that there was a bit of fun with it (using the currently unreleased "Genetic communities" feature) I imagine they might actually get a better return rate than that. It does help that the postage is free back to Dublin offices of Ancestry in John Rogerson quay.

BowWow

Looked at a recording of the LLS today - very interesting section on DNA and absolutely great marketing by Ancestry.

I'm waiting on my own results at present, but recently got my wife's. Whilst we can get all her European results, on the LLS the 5 people sampled had DNA results narrowed down to province/county. Is this available for all people tested?

RGM

BowWow wrote: »

Looked at a recording of the LLS today - very interesting section on DNA and absolutely great marketing by Ancestry.

I'm waiting on my own results at present, but recently got my wife's. Whilst we can get all her European results, on the LLS the 5 people sampled had DNA results narrowed down to province/county. Is this available for all people tested?

No. That is a brand new feature still in testing that is not available to customers as yet. But if they're demonstrating it on TV, it can't be far away.

Boulevardier

I recently paid over 100 Euro to have my ancestral DNA done by a supposedly reputable outfit, only to be told I was "100% European."

That was it.

I have never felt so ripped off. Naturally, my request to get my money back was ignored.

I have not given up.

Can anyone tell me (by PM or on thread) the name of a decent company, and what I am likely to get for my money (and saliva)?

Thanks.

spurious

pinkypinky wrote: »

I've used FTDNA - there is some exchange between companies but you have to pay to do it. Third party site gedmatch.com is the way to go.

pinkypinky wrote: »

It's a site where you can upload results from the 3 main DNA testing companies.

I like GEDMatch. I just really wish some people would fill in their trees or reply to emails. I mean why would you upload your stuff and then not reply to matches?

Their eye colour prediction tool has been creepily accurate in my family's cases.

tabbey

BowWow wrote: »

Looked at a recording of the LLS today - very interesting section on DNA
on the LLS the 5 people sampled had DNA results narrowed down to province/county.

I suspect they are being over specific with regard to local pinpointing places of origin. While work is in progress, I do not believe it can yet be narrowed down so precisely.

For genealogical companies, DNA is a potential goldmine, hence the snake oil sales tactics.

RGM

tabbey wrote: »

I suspect they are being over specific with regard to local pinpointing places of origin. While work is in progress, I do not believe it can yet be narrowed down so precisely.

You would be surprised. Studies aimed at narrowing down that precisely have been going on for years. There is already a test out aimed at Brits that appears to be legitimate: https://www.livingdna.com/en-us/uk-regional-breakdown

RGM

Boulevardier wrote: »

I recently paid over 100 Euro to have my ancestral DNA done by a supposedly reputable outfit, only to be told I was "100% European."

That was it.

I have never felt so ripped off. Naturally, my request to get my money back was ignored.

I have not given up.

Can anyone tell me (by PM or on thread) the name of a decent company, and what I am likely to get for my money (and saliva)?

Thanks.

What company was it?