help with DNA

Question

I uploaded my DNA from 23andMe about a month ago and after reading all the help pages, I still do not know what to do with it after uploading to confirm my ancestors. keep in mind, I am the only family member who has taken a DNA test and I have no living parents or grandparents and I have no brothers. Can someone please assist me?

Sincerely,

Craven-3277

Answer 1

Hi Sheryl,

hopefully someone with more DNA knowledge will respond. 

for example, on this profile another WT’er has done a 23andme test, do you see that match at 23andme?

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Switzer-1832

basically if someone bumps into your branch and sees that you have done a DNA test it might help them prove a connection. 

or if you are looking at your DNA matches at other sites and you are not sure how you are connected and they have a tree. you can look for their branches here and it might help you determine how you are related.

hopefully you will get a better answer.

Comments

Thanks! I do see the one profile here and I know he is my cousin on my mother’s side. I just don’t know how to compare and then determine matches. Like I know my parents and grandparents etc but only have my dna for those. I will keep reading but it’s kind of over my head as I’ve been trying to filter through the help files for a month already…lol. Thanks you so much for responding!

Answer 2

Hi Sheryl,

by entering the details of the DNA tests you have taken into WikiTree allows the system to calculate potential matches with other WikiTree users who have done the same. It also annotates all profiles that are biologically related to you with the percentage of DNA that you most likely share with them.

For example, if you look at the profile pages of your parents it will show that you should match at 50%. This, of course, is trivial in this case. It gets more complicated the more complicated the relationship.

On your profile page it shows that you should share roughly 0.78% with another WikiTree user. If you click through to their profile and then select the menu at the top of the page with their profile ID there should be a menu item called "Relationship To Me". Not the "Connection to Me" menu. Clicking on that will give you a page that says you are third cousins with this person, and that your common ancestors are Rebecca E (Ernest) Switzer and Winfield Scott Switzer.

Going to Rebecca's profile, and choosing the menu with her profile ID should give you a "DNA" menu item. Clicking that will give you a tree of who she inherits from, and access through the tabs at the top to other details - such as which profiles descend from her .

These are predictions, though, the complexities of DNA mean that you may not match exactly 0.78% with that other user. You are both tested at 23andMe - so if you don't find him in your matches there it means that the DNA you inherited from your common ancestors is different from the DNA that he inherited. According to this page at 23andMe there is only a 90% change of detecting a third cousin.

According to DNA Painter third cousins should share between 0 and 234 cM of DNA, with an average of 73 cM.

So, in brief, the DNA functionality on WikiTree doesn't find matches, it predicts who you should match, given ideal circumstances.

Comments

I don't have a 23andMe account, but do have a MyHeritage account at which I've uploaded my DNA results from FamilyTreeDNA. At both of those sites, my matches may have:

• No tree at all
• A tree that is private
• A tree that has only a few profiles
• A tree that is wrong
• (Least likely) A tree that is informative and correct.

The advantage of WikiTree is that it strives to be the latter. If you don't know how an individual matches you, you can use the shared cM value to find likely relationships, and use WikiTree to find where they might fit.

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Ok. So I know that Rebecca is my 2nd great grandmother and David is my 3rd cousin….is that enough to confirm the relationship?

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I will try to tackle this again tomorrow. Thank you all for your responses. I appreciate you all!

Shery

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According to https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Help:DNA_Confirmation you can confirm relationships with DNA back to great-great-grandparents and down to David if:

• He's in your match list at 23andMe
• He's predicted to be your 3rd cousin (or similar) - i.e. 23andMe lists that as a possibility or the shared DNA is in the 0 to 234 cM range as indicated at the website above

Further down the help page are instructions on how to add the source citation to each profile you are confirming by DNA.

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Hi

 The answer is yes, if you have a documented/sourced tree on Wikitree. 3rd cousins can be marked as confirmed with DNA with a simple DNA confirmation but must have a supporting confirmation statement, and Greg Slade has created a DNA confirmation App that automatically generates that statement.

 Relationships more distant than 3rd cousins require triangulation, that is a match between 3 or more cousins on a known segment of a Chromosome. Gedmatch is free, you can upload a DNA test to MyHeritage and get matches for free, but may have to pay an unlock fee to access all features, and you can download your existing test and add it to the sites above.

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Thank you so much. I really appreciate all the help I get from everyone!

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Thank you so much. Everyone on wikitree is so helpful!

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This answer would make a great example on the help pages and I wish I could write as elegantly and concisely.

 The main point to add is that Chris's explanation only applies to relationships out to 7 degrees from the Tester, so with cousins you get a Wikitree prediction for 3rd cousins, but not 4th or greater cousins and the same principle for other relationships.

 For relationships outside Wikitree's predictions other sites such as the Shared cM project and FamilySearch have charts showing both the average shared DNA and the DNA range of various relationships.

 It pays to keep in mind that these charts are based on the best available data and DNA models to date, but there are issues which mean the figures are a guide but not definitive.

Answer 3

Sheryl,

The link for the DNA Confirmation App is here. You will need to log in again to use it, but just select the "simple Match" button once in and let us know if you have any questions.

Ken

Comments

yay….I have one confirmed but it said there are more but I couldn’t get it to work…reading instructions again. Thank you all!!!

Answer 4

Hi Sheryl,  First, I suggest that you copy your 23andme results over to FamilyTreeDNA.  https://www.familytreedna.com/autosomal-transfer  The transfer is free and it will give you Family Finder matches in the FTDNA database.

In addition, I wrote this article in 2016 and it might help you with your autosomal research.  https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/229558/how-do-you-use-your-audna-test-on-wikitree

Comments

Thank you so much, Kitty! I downloaded my dna and will wait for my email for when it’s ready. I truly appreciate all your help!