My DNA Journey ... Bringing Together the atDNA and the mtDNA

I have written about my frustration trying to figure out DNA test results, but not the full story.  This is how my journey has been going.

We had my cousin do her mtDNA through Ancestry.com.  She was our best hope to go through the mtDNA to reach our objective as it was my dad’s sister. Even his YDNA, if he was alive would not have helped.   I, being inexperienced, was clueless what to do with it when it came back.  The only thing I found on Ancestry was a sparse Origin evaluation and matches somewhat based on the origins and somewhat on our family trees.  It did confirm several times a connection with our David Burleson and Ursula Weatherford ancestor line.  Which was the one with the family lore of Native American that appears to be based on a cousin who was ½ Creek, but not the same mothers or related mothers. It was HIS mother who was Creek. 

I talked with a few friends that done DNA testing and they suggested I do the Family Tree DNA autosomal test.  It would me by having a spectrum of my DNA from both the paternal and maternal sides.  It was a long wait to get the results. First there was human error in the lab, the results were thrown out and I had to redo it again, resulting in a 5 month wait.  I will praise Family Tree though, they gave me the test free since it was their fault and the wait was so long, and I love their tools.

When my results came back, once again, I had the 95.33% Western Europe (basically the British Isles) and 4.6% Middle East. both with a disclaimer of +/- 1.38%  and no Native American shown.  The Middle East included populations in Palestine, Bedouin, Iran, and Jewish and Mazobite areas that matched my DNA... Now that I have done the full sequence mtDNA also, that looks like my mom's side which matches Sephardic, Ashkenazim, German, Mizrachi in Vienna, and Armenian populations among others.

I reached out to Heather our Board Member at Montgomery County Historical Commission and Genealogy and Local History Librarian at Montgomery County Memorial Library System.  She also has a blog, The Geneabrarian Reference Desk.  She suggested that I try utilizing Gedmatch.com and try their admix utilities, as well as others.  Her husband’s DNA had not shown Native American on FTDNA, but she found it on there.  I was game.  Gedmatch, I said, “Here I come!” 

I downloaded the raw data for both my cousin and myself.  Then uploaded to Gedmatch.  I was able to compare her DNA and mine. The results were Largest segment = 55.7 cM Total of segments > 3 cM = 796.6 cM Estimated number of generations to MRCA = 2.1… That was good, we are definitely cousins. J  Now, I needed to figure out which admix to use, and how.

I began looking closer at Roberta Jestes blog DNAeXplained – Genetic Genealogy.  I found her autosomal series and began there.  Part 7 – “The Autosomal Me – Start, Stop, Go – Identifying Native Chromosomal Segments” had some great helps.  I tried the same chromosome 2 she had.  On the comparison she used, my cousin and I had Native American segments at the same place, 10M and 160M.  It appears we match as cousins for Native American which would be for my dad’s side.  Now, I have to find the family connection on paper and with others to prove it.

Admixture Eurogenes EUtest V2 K15 - Compare a single chromosome

The light lavender is American Indian. They are layered because I could not get the whole thing together. The top is myself, second my cousin, and so forth. 

I also did the oracle for both.

Our major Ethnicity is North Atlantic, but we both have a trace amount of Native American.  Janice’s is a little larger than mine but it is to be expected since we were looking down the maternal line which we did for her and mine test is autosomal just picking up part of my dad’s DNA.  Surprising how much came through.

admixture Eurogenes K13

I am not as knowledgeable nor am I a skilled as Roberta at creating examples, but I hope you can see what I am trying to show.  I will share with you any successes I experience, as well any failures too.