DNA Analysis

Fraoch333

Just posting in case anyone else is interested in looking at their traits on Ancestry.

When I did my DNA test with Ancestry I didn't opt for the traits test. I currently have a membership and now the results of the traits test is available on my account. For each trait it shows if it was influenced by my maternal or paternal side, or both. In the vast majority of cases it's pretty accurate, but a few are way off the mark. Other family members who have tested, but don't have membership, have access to 3 out of the 42 traits, without the maternal/paternal breakdown.

pinkypinky

Mine are mostly nonsense!

VirginiaB

Thanks, Fraoch333, for the info about Ancestry's traits feature. I think that used to be an extra charge to access. Now it seems to be included with membership. I took a good look at mine and have to say I think it's ridiculous. Where is the science?

Fraoch333

Lol yes I suppose Ancestry has a 50/50 chance of getting it right.

hblock21

Some ideas/advice on how to break those "mystery" groups....

I have at least three large "mystery" groups with 50/60+ people in each. All with max cm's of mid-30s and down. The strangest thing I find about these groups is that they don't even give me a hint as to what branch they might be connected to as no common matches share another confirmed branch. It's so odd.

So, my question is, did anyone ever crack one of these groups and how did you do it?

I've already done the obvious, looking for common names in trees and following those lines, but no luck.

I'm talking about my mother's DNA here. Two of the groups seem to be on my mother's parental side and the other on her maternal side as per ancestry's 'by parent side' suggestion. This in itself is also odd because I have confirmed many more branches on her parental side than her maternal side!

pinkypinky

I just keep building out the large tree of the matches and connecting them together until I find something that makes a link to mine. It doesn't always work.

There's 3 groups for me. With 2, I have a very solid hypothesis of how we're related but no records to back them.

The third - with much closer matches - nothing. I knew it was my father's side, but was surprised to discover it seemed to be his mother's side rather than father's, because geographically that group linked to my paternal grandfather's mother's family. Cousins tested which narrowed it down, but I'm no further on.

paddysdream

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121167668#Comment_121167668

I would love if someone could answer this as well or even tell me its a waste of time.

Have the exact same issue with my Ancestry DNA test results as well.My largest group of matches (200 plus at this stage) range from 50cM down to 8cM. Its on my paternal side and none of this group share a match with anyone I have assigned to a different group or are shared match with any known DNA relative.

When I click on one they would usually show up with 25 plus shared matches whilst my normal shared match amount with much closer relatives is about 10.

Any online tree attached shows a family (containing a name similar to my own) but totally US based to before 1800 with no Irish links whatsoever.Attached trees (yes I understand many are just copied and pasted) would indicate they were based in South East of US for 200 plus years.

At this stage have more or less given up on trying as any I contacted had no idea of any Irish link nor any clue as to what our connection might be.

Only thing is that perhaps its due to the vagaries of DNA as from memory all the shared DNA is just over the one chromosome.

pinkypinky

The trouble here is that we cannot account for a misattributed parentage at some point. It's the mostly likely reason we can't identify these groups. For me, there's someone who shares 225cM with my aunt and we should absolutely be able to figure that out, but no. I'm confident in my aunt's genetic lineage through other DNA matches on most lines.

VirginiaB

And today there are other factors in addition to misattributed parentage. I have a match with many shared matches, almost all on my mother's side. One, however, is on my father's side. Uncommon here after five generations of exogamous marriages tho all but one of my direct ancestors were Irish-born or descent. The DNA test was managed by someone other than the test-taker. I contacted her thru Ancestry and it seems my match is the product of a donated egg. They were trying to ID the donor. I had no idea and must confess I was glad I did not have to face an ethical dilemma.

L1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121154433#Comment_121154433

Only get shown 3 without an active sub, it claims I'm a night person (absolutely), a napper (not really) and that I've faster heart rate recovery (I have no idea how to even check that).

Mullinabreena

Has anyone used familytreedna.com for DNA testing particularly their Big Y 700 and mTfull sequence tests? It's quite expensive, just wondering if you did use it. Did anything new show up?

Mick Tator

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121389078#Comment_121389078

On Y-DNA I started in 2015 with a FTDNA 37-marker test. That was inconclusive, just confirmation of RM-269 (carried by more than 100 million European males!) I then upgraded to a 67-marker which told me very little more, so I then did a 111-marker. At that level I have 9 matches, most with different surnames, none of them mine. The nearest is at a genetic distance of 5, the others are at 8-10. Nobody of my surname/variants has a DNA test on FTDNA. I've had very few additions to my match list over the last couple of years.

I’ve not bothered with a Big Y – based on the disappointing results to date I cannot justify spending the additional $$s, I would rather spend it on a subscription elsewhere. FWIW their Y-DNA database has been ‘down’ for several days – “The option to download your matches list and segment data is currently unavailable as we work on enhancements. We appreciate your patience and apologize for any inconvenience.”

ozmo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121389078#Comment_121389078

There are deals every now and then..

I found adding my dna to a paid site - like myheritage - allowed for easier managing the results that came back - but thats another expense.

I get so many "cousins, x times removed" with unfamiliar seconds names - Finding it hard to place them in the tree... But the nice diagram they give showing visually where in the tree only they could fit, is very useful.

pinkypinky

There are some FTDNA deals right now (amongst others) if you are thinking of upgrading.

Mick Tator

Geneanet DNA bites the dust - I don't use them, but to those of you who do, best download your data.

https://en.geneanet.org/genealogyblog/post/2023/11/geneanet-dna-features-will-be-discontinued

Hermy

Always a shame to lose a resource but I only had 179 matches and only one of them was a close match - I never established connections to any of the others.

pinkypinky

I didn't ever use them for DNA.

Hermy

I became aware of them because of their French records and hoped their DNA pool might be of a similar flavour but, while there were certainly some French matches, there were none that led anywhere.

Mullinabreena

I did a test on Ancestry so I could trace family in America which I found great to be fair. I know origins DNA is to be taken with a pinch of salt, I got 100% Irish on my father's side, 94% Irish on my mother's side, 3% Scottish, 3% Norwegian. How far does this go back? My father's mother is Walsh so I thought I'd see something Welsh or British. Would the Norwegian % be Viking origin Irish? I haven't come across any Viking surnames in the 6 or 7 generations or is it Irish who ended up in Norway or Irish who ended up in Norway? I would have thought cheap DNA tests would only go back a few hundred years.

It quite accurately pin points my Irish DNA to county Sligo, and particularly South Sligo. Which is where my family on both sides are from going back 6 to 8 generations that I've been able to trace.

My father did a DNA test on My Heritage and he got 1% Spanishvthe rest Irish, and my brother got 100% & British on 23 and me. Can they download their DNA from those websites and upload them to Ancestry to see what Ancestrysays about their origins ?

pinkypinky

Your comment about origins needing to be taken with a pinch of salt sums it up.

Walsh the name might derive from the Welsh people but it's one of the most common names in Ireland, so you can't assume there is an ultimate Welsh origin.

Vikings were a profession rather than an ethnicity so you are unlikely to see that appear. It's too far back, but probably everyone in Ireland does have some input from them. I currently have some Swedish/Danish in my make-up but it's been Norway previously: point being, this isn't set in stone.

Ancestry does not take uploads at present. 23andme normally can be downloaded and transferred to MyHeritage but following the data breach (more accurately a credit stuffing incident) they've removed that functionality. You can download the Ancestry one and transfer to MyH, but each company has its own reference panel and you will get slightly different ethnicity estimates from each one.

Mick Tator

Quote [I haven't come across any Viking surnames in the 6 or 7 generations or is it Irish who ended up in Norway or Irish who ended up in Norway?]

That's it. Most Viking DNA in Ireland is from Norway but it is a very small amount. To add to Pinky’s comment. The DNA of Irish slaves brought to Norway became integrated into Norwegian DNA. The RCSI DNA Atlas study has done work on this in joint studies and they have ascertained that in the post-Viking era the Irish DNA in Norway is much stronger than before that time. The same applies to Scottish DNA.

eire4

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121659681#Comment_121659681

My results were very similar, and I had 2% Norwegian as well with my Irish dna located all in and around the southeast so given the old Viking presence there that makes sense.

VirginiaB

I have a DNA match on Ancestry whose tree says she is my second cousin but we share only 34 cM. How is that possible? Another second cousin of mine is her first cousin and says she is indeed my second cousin. Supposedly our grandfathers were brothers. She is now deceased. Any thoughts? I don't see how she could be a generation off.

pinkypinky

41cM is the lowest recorded for a second cousin.

You need to run down the certs and make sure she's correct in her tree.

Could she be a removed? Or could she only be a half-second cousin?

VirginiaB

Certs aren't usually available for more recent and living people. She is deceased so can't ask. But she is, according to all family info and those who knew her and her immediate family, the grandchild of my grandfather's brother and the child of his son, my father's first cousin. Her first cousins say she is their first cousin and they knew her when alive. Something is amiss unless the 34 cM are possible. If her stated father or grandfather were not hers, she wouldn't be related to me at all. They lived on the other side of the country and I never met them but her first cousins did--family visits.

I have seven first cousins on that side who have done Ancestry’s DNA test so I think my next step is to see if they will share with me their cM total with this second cousin, if any.

Mick Tator

I too wondered about a 'half'. In my matches, all my first cousins once removed fall between 340 – 418cM; my second cousins are 240 – 274cM and second cousins once removed are 177 – 185cM. My most distant (proved) cousin is a third cousin once removed at 51cM.

Catsmeow

34 cM does seem to be low for a second cousin, but could be theoretically possible. My known second cousins range from 135-332 cM while my second cousins once removed range from 33-215 cM. I have 2 third cousins of 51 cM and 126 cM respectively. My lowest cousin matches that I can prove are 2 fourth cousins (1st cousins to each other) with matches of 7cM and 15 cM.

I hope your 1st cousins are willing to share their cM amounts to the lady in question so you can hopefully solve the mystery.

VirginiaB

Here is my report on this DNA mystery. I share it not just for my own benefit but in case the information might be useful to any of you someday.

My question is about my second cousin, whom I'll call 'Mary'. Records and family info say she is my second cousin and our grandfathers were brothers. Yet I share only 34 cM with her, a seeming impossibility. All results are from Ancestry DNA. I contacted three shared relatives to ask their cM number with Mary.

Mary's first cousin, another second cousin to me, shares 882 cM across 31 segments with Mary.

Mary's second cousin, my first cousin via my father's brother, shares 242 cM with Mary, segments not reported to me.

Mary's second cousin, my first cousin via my father's sister, shares 190 cM across 6 segments.

Mary's second cousin, me, shares, 34 cM across 4 segments with Mary.

I have not yet contacted the rest of our shared cousins. The cousins reported here have the correct amount of shared cM with me--921 and 800 for my two first cousins and 212 for my second cousin who is Mary's first cousin.

So either it is indeed possible to have a second cousin with only 34 shared cM or somehow Ancestry made an error. Your thoughts welcome.

Mullinabreena

Has anyone here got a DNA test from 23 and me? The have a free post address on the box back to the Netherlands will An Post accept this?

L1011

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