Friendly reminder: It's Christmas DNA tests season

Question

As we get into the heart of January, I'd like to offer a friendly and gentle reminder to the Wikitree community that this is the time of year that we will especially see a lot of new DNA matches on 23andMe, Ancestry, etc. as people take the tests they've been gifted over the holidays.

With that, please also remember that some people will find out things they did not expect to discover. They will find half-siblings they never knew about. They will find relatives who were given up for adoption. They will find out about adultery, NPEs, and relatives conceived using sperm and egg donation. One of these people may even be reading this right now. Maybe it's you who discovered that your family has new and unexpected dimensions.

Now, no one can make you accept a new relative into your life, and no one can guarantee that one of your newfound blood relatives will accept you. Heaven knows, some of mine haven't. But I ask you all to be understanding of the bewildering and overwhelming journey these folks are on. And before you go thinking "hmmph, not in MY family" I'd like you to know that I see people every day on the genetic genealogy forum who thought that "it would never happen to me." I've seen people come to that forum crying out "I don't deserve this" after discovering that their father isn't their biological father. I've even seen, fortunately rarely, people shattered at discovering they were conceived through rape or incest. I ask y'all to be gentle and patient with these people, and with yourself, if this happens to you. These people may reach out, may be confused, or even be suspicious of you. Again, no one can make you accept new family members, but we can all be kind to another human being who is discovering something that they couldn't have forseen.

Comments

 Excellent reminder!

---

Amen!  And, for some of us faced with the worst type of identity theft there is, riding alongside horrible accusations against a beloved family member, the kind word or help that you give that person may be the only thing keeping them from ending it all. I know. I was there.

5 Dec 2018, my life was shattered to bits when I learned that my daddy was not my father.  A few days later, a very upsetting accusation was made against my maternal grandpa implying that he was my birth father (4 months later proven false).  I could not deal with all that was coming at me.  My daddy died in 2012 and here he was being taken from me again and the accusations against Grandpa were just too much.   

I had it planned. I wasn't going to remain in this life. I couldn't deal with what was put before me and what might have been to come. I was trying to get my house in order and then I was going to be done with it.  

My rescue came 19 Feb 2019 and changed my life forever.  Please be kind. You never know what plans your kindness may bring to a halt.

---

Yes, Please be kind to others... It generally doesn't cost you a thing, and those few times that it does, it's worth it!

---

Amen, Ken!

---

Suzanne, I remember your posts on this subject. You have a valuable viewpoint and you definitely know the tribulations that people are going through in this matter. I've mentioned this on G2G before, but there's at least one Wikitreer whose parents are siblings. I won't identify this person in any way but their tree is public. While such a situation is rare, it does happen. These persons are going through the unimaginable. They are enduring something that no one should be put through. Our response should be purely empathetic. If I can influence even one Wikitreer to put empathy first then I feel I have accomplished something.

---

Jessica, thank you for your empathy and compassion. I am so sorry that this Wikitreer you have mentioned is having to endure such an upsetting experience. They are in my prayers for strength as they process this circumstance. I agree, no one should be put through the horrors that some are forced to face.

Thank you again. Have a blessed night.

---

Beautifully written, thank you ❤️

Answer 1

Thank you for posting this important message, Jessica. I assisted a couple of people who found they were related somehow to someone in my family line. I did not intercede but assisted with the DNA. I know if I were searching for an unknown parent or grandparent I would be ever so grateful for any assistance and I know what a hole some people feel not knowing anything about their family line. Your message is powerful and right on point!

Comments

Thank you so much, Karon, for the best answer star! I appreciate it.

Answer 2

Well said.

Answer 3

My reaction is - "if only".

If only I could find out something--anything--from the Y-DNA test my Dad took before he passed in 2016.

You see, his father Georg Willi Julius Wetzel was born illegitimate in Potsdam in 1886, at Zimmerstrasse 7, an apartment building where his mother lived, that is within sight of the New Palace where royalty and Nobility swarmed in and out.  She probably worked as a servant, and possibly in a noble house.  She gave birth to my grandfather, and disappeared off the face of the earth.

My grandfather never talked about his past.  But he appears to have spent his childhood in an orphanage and then returned to his ancestral home in Greifenberg, Pommerania, where he apprenticed as a Tischler (cabinet maker, woodworker), lived with his grandmother Wilhelmine Goetsch Wetzel, then returned to the Berlin area when he earned his papers as a Tischlergeselle (journeyman woodworker).

Who was his father?  And what happened to his mother?  I had hopes that the Y-DNA test would provide a breakthrough.  Nothing so far.  I hired a professional genealogy firm in Hamburg to try to track down his mother, gain any clues about who she worked for or associated with.  They found ZERO.  Unfortunately, Potsdam was bombed to rubble in WWII and many records were lost.

And my genealogy firm's owner actually had a disquieting similar story about DNA testing that leaves me without a lot of hope.  She has strong circumstantial evidence that her father or grandfather (I forget which), was the illegitimate child of a wealthy/noble family.  She had DNA testing done and approached the family to see if anyone would test.  They abjectly refused.  They are afraid of lawsuits, inheritance battles, etc.  They will do everything they can to avoid proving a connection.  Of course they would.  But from a purely genealogical perspective, it's a deliberate, intentional brick wall, no passive one.  Makes my blood boil! 

Comments

Peter, why don't you take an auDNA test? I think that will give you a much better chance of identifying your mystery great-grandfather. People get too hung up on YDNA -- yes, it's a useful tool, but YDNA predates surnames so you will match with many, many people with different surnames and I think that causes people to get frustrated and give up. AuDNA will allow you to zero in on the great-grandfather.

---

AuDNA could be more useful or provide faster resolution in this case but I feel a need to come to the defense of YDNA testing. If you have a significant number of matches and a high percentage share a surname, you can be confident that your paternal line should contain that surname. This is the case for me and I suspect that this is much more often true than not.

---

My Dad's test was done at Family Tree DNA.  They do not (as far as I know) provide individual match names for the Autosomal test, only for mtDNA and Y-DNA.  My closest matches are 1 degree, no zero degree matches, and there is some consistency in surname, but these were Palatine immigrants who left Germany in the 18th century (Laucks), and one person whose ancestor lived in England (Lock).  But how does that help?

In Germany the name is likely to be Laux or Lux, but that surname has several variations -- Loux, Luchs, etc. -- and there are plenty of them.  Picking one at random and asking them to test doesn't seem like a very productive approach.

---

Peter, your dad's test is not in question here. There is no reason you can't do an auDNA test and figure out your great-grandfather based on the results. Your (and your dad's) YDNA is only a very small piece of the DNA you inherited. You don't need the YDNA test. You need to do an auDNA test.

---

Peter, FTDNA absolutely does provide individual matching for autosomal test takers, including chromosomal segment detail that will allow more analytical capability.

Your father's DNA sample will still be on file with FTDNA. While not 100% certain, it is quite probable that additional tests--including an autosomal "Family Finder" test--can be performed on that sample (my initial sample with FTDNA lasted for 14 tests/upgrades in all from 2002 to 2016). You need to be the manager of your father's test kit at FTDNA to order an additional test, or go through the steps to have management of it turned over to you since he's passed. Just contact FTDNA for details.

You most certainly can also have your own atDNA tested, but your father's will be extremely helpful in achieving your goal. Your own atDNA is a combination of both your mother's and your father's, and our DNA tests can't, by themselves, tell which DNA came from whom. Your father's atDNA can, of course, only come from his own father and mother, so having it eliminates a significant amount of work analyzing and filtering the matches.

That said, the databases of all the testing companies are heavily skewed toward test takers in the U.S. DNA just isn't of as much interest in continental Europe (there's more activity in the UK), and some countries even prohibit the direct-to-consumer tests.

Autosomal DNA has a more limited reach in terms of numbers of generations distant than does yDNA, but matches back through your 3rd great-grandparents (your father's 2g-grandparents) will be fairly straightforward, and you might be able to go back another generation or possibly two with diligent and detailed evaluation of the data you find.

However, if most of the patrilineal ancestors of interest were all in Central Europe, the most likely of their descendants to have tested are those who left the region for the UK or America. That would leave you still working through paper trails of the descendants to isolate a family in Germany and/or the Baltic region.

Best of luck in the search, and do think about giving FTDNA a call. Performing an autosomal test on your father's sample may be as simple as that...well, and paying for the test, of course. 

---

Jessica - I have had FTDNA do all three tests for my Dad - Autosomal, mtDNA, and Y-DNA.  As I said, the results they give me for Autosomal do not include specific names of close matches.

Perhaps I have not made it clear.  I have no 'suspected' father or family that I can compare an Autosomal test with.  I am completely in the dark as to who the father might be, and they are long dead anyhow.  My grandfather was conceived in the summer of 1885.

Are we talking past each other or is there something I do not understand?

---

Edison - we were cross-typing.  As I just wrote above in the reply to Jessica, I had FTDNA do all tests, and they used up the sample, or so they say, therefore no more testing can be done on my father without exhuming him.

See my comment and questions to Jessica above.

---

Peter, understood. What I'm still unclear about, though, is not having names at FTDNA of autosomal matches. When you look at "Family Finder Matches," by default it will list the closest matches first and show the person's name (as provided by the customer); a list of their associated ancestral surnames (if they have supplied any); indications about what other tests they have taken at FTDNA, their mtDNA and yDNA haplogroups (if tested); the estimated relationship ranges; and the total shared atDNA and the largest single atDNA segment shared. Clicking on a match's name will give you their email address (if their privacy settings allow it). You can also export much of that information to a CSV file if you want to load it into Excel or similar to do your own sorting.

If you also take an atDNA test with FTDNA, barring recent pedigree collapse the only matches both you and your father's kit will have in common will have come from one of his two grandparents. At least a starting point.

If there's simply a dearth of reasonably solid matches (say, 40cM or greater), that's a different matter. For autosomal DNA, FTDNA is #4 of the Big 4 testing companies. AncestryDNA has the largest database by far at over 22 million, followed by 23andMe at over 13 million, and MyHeritage at around 6 million (Gene by Gene, the FTDNA lab in Houston, does the processing for MyHeritage). FTDNA has fewer than 2 million autosomal DNA customers, at least as of the last information I have.

We can't upload third-party data to Ancestry, but Ancestry raw data can be uploaded to FTDNA. AncestryDNA is a pool over 10 times larger than FTDNA's. It might be worthwhile considering your own test there and, if you find some solid, promising matches, see if they would be willing to open an account and upload to FTDNA so that you can compare the match to your father's kit as well as yours.

---

My BAD, Edison (and Jessica).  I just logged in to my Dad's kit account and indeed they give me autosomal matches.  So sorry.

I get one person who is 'immediate family' - 1st to 3rd cousin and two who are 2nd to 4th cousin and then a whole batch of 3rd to 5th.

But these people could be connected to me via any branch of my family tree, and as you said, Edison, the tests are skewed towards family in the USA, whereas I'm looking for someone who lived in Germany.

I could contact these close and semi-close matches one-by-one and find out which branch we connect through, I suppose, assuming we can even figure out where we connect.  What is your (or anyone reading this) experience in using Autosomal DNA to try to find a completely lost branch.  Seems like tedious process of elimination, right?

Now ... Thanks SO much, Edison for providing me with an overview of this bewildering landscape of different companies doing testing and not communicating with one another.  So it does seem to make sense to test my Y with Ancestry, and perhaps Autosomal too, in order to tap into the greatest source of potential matches, right?

---

I'd try to see where the autosomal matches' trees connect to each other and look for Laux/Lux/etc. in the appropriate timeframe.

---

Yep - that's the way to go.

I see that Ancestry *only* does autosomal testing, so who has the best database for Y?

Google tells me the biggest is FTDNA.  I knew I went there for a reason 

---

It seems like you could be really close. Good luck!

---

Peter,

What I would recommend doing is to take the AuDNA test at Ancestry, and then transfer the raw DNA file to BOTH FTDNA and My Heritage.  I believe My Heritage may have the largest pool of German/European DNA (could be wrong).  Also make sure to upload to GEDmatch for comparisons there. As Edison stated earlier, Ancestry has the largest pool, 23&Me you cannot transfer to, but that's why you join GEDmatch to at least cover "some" of the 23&Me test takers. You may have to spend a little $$ to access a lot of the tools at each site, but it's cheaper than buying a test at each... and it can be done in stages/doesn't have to be done all at once.

Hope this helps! Good Luck!

---

You can also transfer DNA results from FTDNA to My Heritage for free. See here: https://education.myheritage.com/article/upload-dna-results-to-myheritage-why-its-worth-it/

Answer 4

Great reminder, Jessica.

I would also like to put in a plug for the Adoption Angels Project which help members with unknown parents connect to their biological family. It's more than about adoptions, but anyone with an NPE as well.

There are also private Facebook support groups (of which I am a member) for those who are dealing with an NPE discovery in their family.

Answer 5

So important to be empathetic. What a great post Jessica.  I'm on this journey myself, but I'm the illegitimate older half-sibling, who my younger family were possibly slightly aware of. I was totally unaware, as I only started my search for birth family at age 60 (2020). I made contact but they slammed the door in my face. The shame it might bring to their family. This rejection hurts me more than 'being adopted' but I am trying to see it from their side from an emotional POV. However, what they don't see is how irrational their 'not wanting to know' is, in a world where more and more people are doing DNA.  Already the connections I've made through their extended families having contacted me, because they match with my DNA.  I will respect their wishes for no contact, but my information is available and when other people contact me. I won't hide the truth. My immediate siblings can't put the genie back in the bottle, whether they want to or not.

Comments

I wasn't adopted like you Brian, but when I made contact with my paternal aunt and cousin I was coldly rejected by them. I look at it like this -- they are not rejecting me. They are rejecting a reality that they don't want to accept. They don't know me to reject me.

I personally think it's sort of ridiculous on their parts, as they surely know what sort of man my father was. If they are willfully blind to his nature, that's on them, not on me or anyone else. I was welcomed by my father's cousins and that's enough for me. I have a philosophical belief that every human being has the right to their correct genealogy. My work on Wikitree is a part of that belief. I believe it's a means to acknowledge the fundamental humanity of every person. 

---

I think part of the problems with the process at the moment, while it still relatively new, is that all of the TV programs only tell the good stories. Unknown child, does DNA, TV company does all the research, and comes up with a 'happy ever after' conclusion.  The relatives are always so delighted to accept the NPE or what-ever. We never see the stories where someone gets no matches.  Or gets matches, but those matches are like my half-siblings, and they don't want to know, or don't believe the DNA. I understand why TV never shows the disasters or the failures, but it does create an unreal expectation.

---

Brian,

Another thing to consider (as in my case), some folks just do not care anything about this genealogy stuff. I am the only one of my siblings interested in genealogy.  Of my couple dozen or so 1st/2nd cousins, only one has expressed a real interest. Of the dozen or so folks I told about my Mayflower descent, very few even responded and most said "oh, that's cool" and nothing else.

The point I'm trying to make is that it may just be that they have no interest in anything beyond their own personal history. It doesn't exist if they weren't involved. I know that sounds a bit selfish on their part to not "get involved", but it's their choice.  I just try to find a different path if the path I'm on is blocked.

Good luck in your search!

Answer 6

I found out several months ago my late husband was actually my 6th cousin. By no means did it bother me, I thought it was funny and I still chuckle about it. We never thought there was a connection between us due to the fact my parents came from Georgia and New York to Florida and his family had been here for generations. But one of his dad’s family stopped on way to Florida from Kentucky and hooked up with one my family members in Georgia and BOOM our 5th great grandparent were united. My first word was What? And then it was giggling and I’m still laughing. I knew there would be “You’ve got to be kidding” results as well as “WOW”. Any time you shake a tree you’re going to get some bad with the good. Take breath, say oh well and more on.

I haven’t taken a DNA test yet and looking for a suggestion on which one would be good. Hitting dead ends on my mothers dad family and maybe the test will open doors. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Happy tree shaking and don’t get to disappointed if a few sour fruit fall out.

Comments

Your story reminds me of a recent post on the genetic genealogy forum I use, where a lady was all upset because she and her husband had turned out to be related to each other and as she put it, "we already have children together." She had everyone all concerned, the other posters are thinking she's gonna say they're half-siblings or uncle and niece or something. No, they were... fourth cousins. Oh, the humanity! Oh, where will the children go to school? Oh, dear God, they might share 28 whole centimorgans of DNA!

Basically, everyone told her to cool her jets and stop her handwringing. No one needs to stress over being fourth cousins with their spouse. 

---

People have really been programmed to freak out over that stuff - I guess they have trouble differentiating between close relatives and not-so-close ones.

In reality, it's usually perfectly legal to marry anyone who is at least as distant a relation as a second cousin. Apparently, any ill effects you might get from marrying a relative has an acceptably low probability at that level.

A pair of my gt-gt grandparents were 2nd cousins. Their common gt-grandfather lived to be 90, in a pretty primitive environment, at a time when people normally didn't live past 60.

The grandchildren of these gt-gt grandparents had unusual longevity. 6 died before the age of 2, but 46 lived to adulthood. Only 3 died before the age of 55 (aged 42, 52, and 53) - two from breast cancer, and one drowned. The average for the 46 adults was 79. 5 lived to be 89 (including my grandfather), 7 lived to be between 90 and 94. 2 were 99, and 2 were 100.

So that's 16 out of 52 (31%) who lived to be at least 89 - I think that's probably pretty good. Marrying a "relative" seemed to work out for them.