Genes Day Friday - Wait, I have WHAT in my DNA?

After reading a post on Roberta Estes' DNA-Explain blog about using trying to learn more about the tiny chunks of minority DNA in your test results, I thought I'd give it a shot. After 23andMe revamped their admixture calculator (now called Ancestry Composition) my maternal grandmother's DNA test surprised me by showing her as having 0.1% African DNA on chromosome 3.

If my math is correct, that means she would have one 8th-great-grandparent with 100% African DNA (which we all know is impossible, since everyone in the world is a mixture of several groups). Roberta suggested going to Gedmatch.com and using the admixture tools they've incorporated on their site, to see what else you can discover around those tiny minority segments. Since I uploaded grandma's test to Gedmatch right after I first got her results, I was able to dive right in. While I still have a lot to learn about how to make full use of these tools, I was able to at least figure out how to go in and look for confirmation of the African segment. What I found was both enlightening and confusing.

First, let's look at the MDLP World-22 admixture tool. According to their admixture breakdown, grandma has 0.8% Pygmy DNA on chromosome 3. This is confirmed by the graphic representation of chromosome 3, with the bright red segment (circled for your convenience) shows the segment in question.

So their calculations match up with 23andMe in terms of percentage and location of African DNA. So far, so good. 

Next up, let's look at Dodecad. The graphic view of chromosome 3 shows Neo-African, West African, East African, and Paleo-African DNA, all lumped together in the same spot where MDLP showed Pygmy DNA.

But when I go to the admixture calculations, all the African values read zero.

 



Why would the graph show African, and the numbers not? I don't know.

Now we'll look at Eurogenes K9 model (and no, it has nothing to do with dogs). Here, the graph shows West African DNA, in the same spot on chromosome 3 as the others.

And here again, the admixture calculations for chromosome 3's West African DNA read zero.

 



Again, I'm at a complete loss as to why the graph would show West African DNA, but the admixture breakdown does not.

Finally, the last of the Gedmatch admixture tools, HarappaWorld. Their graph shows Pygmy, West African, and a smidge of East African DNA, again in the same spot on chromosome 3 as the others.

And what does their admixture calculator show? Nothing, as far as African DNA is concerned.

 

I'm sure there's a good explanation for this, and I'll be asking around on the DNA mailing lists I'm on to figure out what's going on. But it kind of makes me wonder what other numbers are wrong. Going through all 23 chromosomes, on four different admixture tools will take some time. But as far as I'm concerned, the African DNA seems to be there - all five graphs found it, in the same spot on the same chromosome, and two sets of admixture calculations did too. In my mind, that's evidence enough.

 

For me, the next step will be finding DNA matches who also share this African segment on their DNA, to see if I can't trace where in grandma's family lines this little nugget came from. Of all the minorities in the world, I never expected to find DNA from Africa in my family tree, so I'm excited to see what I can learn about it.

Wisdom Wednesday - I'm off to Germany!

Photo courtesy of depositphotos.com

I'm going to Germany! Well, virtually at least. I just signed up to take the Germanic Family, Local and Social History Research class through BYU's Independent Study program. I'm excited because I've always wanted to know more about German genealogy research (I've got German ancestry on all four of my grandparents' lines). Plus, it's the last course I need to finish the genealogy-family history certificate at BYU. It looks pretty intense, as the teacher's stated goal is to prepare you for the Germany accreditation test through ICAPGEN, which is something I plan on doing anyways. So it's a win-win for me. I have one year to complete the whole course. Hopefully it won't take me that long. I want to take some time with it, learn the material as best I can, and put it to practice as soon as I can. Here's to higher education!

Wordless Wednesday - Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception

Here are a few pictures of the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada. I found these pictures somewhere online some years ago (way back when I first started doing genealogy and didn't cite my sources. I've learned my lesson since then). My great-great-grandparents John Gibson and Catherine Cain were married here on 8 Sep 1879.

Before the spire was added



After the spire was added

Inside the Cathedral

My first client

Photo courtesy of educationcloset.com

I just finished the research and reporting of my first genealogy client. What an experience that was! She gave me a pretty good amount of info on the ancestor whose ancestry she wanted researched, and was open to just learning anything about that side of her family I could find. I took the starting ancestor and his parents, and was able to find all of his grandparents, six of his eight great-grandparents, and solid immigration info on two families of his ancestors. Plus some odds and ends of various relatives, interesting historical tidbits.

It was really interesting to see how involved I became in researching this family. It almost felt like I was researching my own family, that's how keen I was to keep looking trying to puzzle out who was who, and where they lived, and could I find their parents if I looked in one more place. It was really hard to stop searching, to say I'd found enough to write about, and move on to the reporting phase. But you have to draw the line at some point, because (as every genealogist knows) you're never really done.

A few highlights from the experience - maybe it's the detail freak in me, but I got a kick out of citing a source or two for every fact I stated in the report. Just knowing that I had documented evidence for each and every item in that report felt good! I puzzled for a day or two on how to find one particular ancestor, and spent some time reviewing the documents that I had, analyzing the clues in them, and drew what I felt was a solid conclusion. Then, a couple days later, I found a newspaper article that gave the name of this particular ancestor, and it turned out to be exactly the person I'd concluded it was. That felt good too!

But the highlight of the whole thing was my client's reaction to my findings. She expressed how excited she was to learn so much about her family, and how meaningful it was to know more about where she comes from. That to me is one of the main reasons I do genealogy - to get that feeling of belonging to a family, to a people, to a country, that you're tied to by history and blood and life and death. To help someone else feel that is just about the best feeling in the world. And one I look forward to having over and over again by helping others research their family history.

Wordless Wednesday - Craddock ladies

This is a photo of my great-grandmother, Edna Craddock (left) and her mom, Philena (Beilstein) Craddock. I don't have a date on this photo, but if I had to guess, it'd be somewhere between 1925-1930.

That's it, I am DONE!

A long time ago, in a comfy chair far, far away, I began a project - I was going to sort through all the files I've collected since I started doing genealogy, and make sure everything I'd found so far was documented in my genealogy database. I knew I had a lot of files, I'd been doing genealogy for 11 years at that point, but I really had no idea how many of my files I'd actually documented. No idea.

That was on July 21, 2011. Since then I've gone through literally thousands of files - censuses, death records, church records, newspapers, court records, and lots more. I didn't keep track of what was and wasn't documented, because I was more interested in getting done. I still did a little of bit of research and searching here and there, when something I came across intrigued me, or confused me, or shocked me, or I just wanted to know more about that person or family. I felt a huge sense of accomplishment each time I'd get a family folder done. More often than not, it seemed there were many more files that were undocumented than documented, leading me to wonder just what kind of genealogist I've been all these years. But I was happy in that I didn't have to make any huge adjustments to my tree, changing someone's parents or adding a missing child I'd overlooked. I think I've done a pretty good job of pulling information out of the records I've found, even if I didn't document my sources as well in the beginning. Who does, right?

But today, February 18, 2013, I have finally finished The Project!! I have gone through every file, record, and email I've saved in my genealogy folder, and documented where it came from, and who it applies to. Now I can officially say, when I pull up someone in my database, this is everything I have on this person. And what a difference that feeling makes!

I've been doing this for so long, I'm kind of not sure what to do next. I have DNA tests to go back to and analyze further; I would really like to find more info on my Gibson line; and I have a stack of probate records on three of my Bergstad ancestors that need to be scanned and documented and analyzed. Or maybe I'll just bask in the "I'm done" feeling for a day before launching another major project.

Nah! Let's get to work!

Wordless Wednesday - Bergstad sisters

Three of my grandfather Roland John "Tom" Bergstad's sisters - Charlotte, Lorraine, and Leora. This photo was probably taken in the late 1940s or early 50s. Photo courtesy of Delores M. Olson.