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Starting a new thread for posts related to DNA testing. Like TechTeach I have found MDLP World9 and Eurogenes K13 tests on GedMatch to be the closest to what I know about my ancestry. 23andMe not so much. GedMatch also seems to be a lot more valuable in terms of people who have detailed genealogy posted.
I’m interested in learning more about genome projects like the Nat Geo project DreamingHawk mentioned. Is this similar to DNA circles on ancestry.com?
From what I can see there is no way to upload raw DNA data from FTDNA or 23andMe to Ancestry.com DNA. It seems you can upload a sample from 23andMe to FTDNA for $89. Does anyone know if this is correct?
It was maybe 8 or 10 years ago when DNA testing was in its infancy. Nat Geo started an international project trying to map the genome makeup of the whole world. Their basic test told you where your “Adam” or “Eve” was roughly 10,000 years ago. We really haven’t followed through on any of the additional testing offered partly because we have been waiting for refinements in the available testing and results before jumping in the gene pool 😉
Here is a link to the project. Becky was in phase 1. I see they are in phase 2 now. From the index, check the map and the news. I see from one news article that they have connected west Asians to Australian aborigines and some Native Americans. This adds proof to the now widely accepted idea that there were multiple migrations to the Americas from several different locations at several different times.
https://genographic.nationalgeographic.com/about/
In Becky’s case, her results tell us that her Eve was a Native American of the Bering Sea landbridge migration. We know from her genealogy that the most recent generations do not include a Mongolian woman and it is unlikely that a Mongolian woman from the late 1600s Russian fur trappers of the northwest made her way to colonial VA/NC
In my case, I can see a benefit to be tested and compared to descendents of family groups. For instance, my Meadows are a quandary because there are so many with the same names creating records in the same area for a couple of generations and then they disperse but who went where??? Will I be most closely related to the families that went to GA or TN or elsewhere. As these databases continue to grow and “connections” continue to compare their known genealogy many of our questions will be answered.
Reading that link one of the key things to me is “your results are just the beginning”. Over time they are adding more and more info that ties all the data together. Just because some admixture results are not accurate now doesn’t mean they won’t improve over time as the sample size grows.
I don’t understand what is so controversial about the Bering Strait theory. It seems fairly certain this happened, it just wasn’t the only migration.
Common names like Smith and Jones are a huge challenge to unravel with genealogy alone. DNA seems like the only piece of the puzzle that can help in situations like that.
While I take admixture results with a big grain of salt, the DNA relations I’ve found with all our family samples have been very enlightening. For instance I had never heard the name Parrish and when I did DNA I found a bunch of Parrish relations. Knowing which side people are related on really helps to narrow things down too.
Admixture is a mixed bag. According to one 23andMe analysis I’m 100% European, another says I’m 2-3% unassigned, none show any ancestry from Native American or Asian groups. Yet MDLP and Eurogenes admixture results on GedMatch show Native American ancestry for all five of our family samples on my mother’s side, and zero from people not on that side.
So maybe when admixture results are wrong it is more a case of not enough info rather than being totally mistaken?
I think one of the controversies of the Bering Strait theory was the reluctance of those who made it to give it up. I read a 6 page story in the Indianmediatoday about the viciousness of those whose theory was threatened. I also met my own resistance to the idea that people moved around when told that the Sinkey DNA had to be European. Now, 10 years later, they are studying it as one of the major Native American haplogroups, and we found out it contains alleles matching Blue Jacket’s family.
I concur with the idea that lots moved around.
Techteach
I think everyone accepts that some of the population of the pre-contact Americas came across the landbridge some 15000 years ago. The thing that some don’t want to let go of is their stubborn belief that ALL inhabitants of the Americas entered that way and at that time. The Americas have seen human habitation for 30000 years from a number of different locations at a number of different times.
With the rapid advances in DNA analysis and expanding databases, in another 10 years many more connections will be proven. It will be people like us who compare our DNA connections to our genealogies who finally map out these elusive families.
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