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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
