Monday, April 16, 2012

Results from Ancestry.com Autosomal DNA Tests - Post 1

I swabbed my cheek, and submitted, the new Ancestry.com autosomal DNA test sample back in early January 2012.  Other, more knowledgeable geneabloggers have written about this test (e.g., see CeCe Moore's New Information on Ancestry.com's AncestryDNA Product, and Blaine Bettinger's A Review of AncestryDNA – Ancestry.com’s New Autosomal DNA Test).

I do want to share the results of the test, and the process  of finding possible genetic cousins.

Ancestry.com did not notify me by email that my results were available.  I've been checking my DNA button on the Ancestry.com site ever week or so, and today I saw that the results were in, and were available on 14 February (two months ago).  

When I clicked the DNA tab, this is what I saw:


The British Isles are highlighted on the map, and the pie chart graph says:

*  94% British Isles
*  6% Uncertain

I clicked on the green "See Full Results" button:



This page above also has the pie chart and the map, but has additional information below the fold.  One of the charts is:

The system wants me to link to an Ancestry Member Tree and identify myself in the tree.  So I clicked the "Add Your Family Tree" button and:



I selected my online tree with only my ancestral families back 12 generations, and the page asked me to identify myself in the tree.  I typed my name, but I got several "No results found" messages.  I noticed that after I typed my name, that a link with my name on it appeared for several seconds and then disappeared.  I managed to click on it (see above) before it disappeared and saw:


Okay, I'm in!  My Family Tree is linked to my DNA results.  

I am not surprised by the results.  I know, from my extensive research, that I had mostly British Isles ancestry (and fairly recent with two immigrant families in the 1840-1855 time frame from Wiltshire and Somerset). Of my 32 3rd great-grandparents, 18 have English colonial ancestry (56.25%), 5 were born in England (15.63%), 8 were of German heritage (25%), and one might have been French-Canadian (3.1%).  So 9 out of 32 (28.1% may be of Western European, but non-British Isles, ancestry).  I probably should look at the 64 4th great-grandparents also, but I have some blank spots in that generation.  

 I was a bit surprised by the 6% "Uncertain" percentage.  It may be that Ancestry.com does not have enough samples yet to identify my "other" DNA sources.  My guess is that they are for my German ancestry, much of which came to America in the 1710 to 1760 time frame.

We'll look at the matches next time after Ancestry.com has created a list of matching surnames for the close matches to my autosomal DNA.  

Disclosure:  Ancestry.com offered this test to me gratis, which I accepted.  This does not affect my objective evaluation of the website or the DNA test process and results.

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2012/04/results-from-ancestrycom-autosomal-dna.html

Copyright (c) 2012, Randall J. Seaver

6 comments:

Jenna said...

This is very interesting Randy...very interesting, especially since I am about 8% uncertain about you!! :) I can't wait until Ancestry opens this up to the rest of us!

Jacqi Stevens said...

Randy, thanks for posting about your experience with this--and for continuing these observations in the rest of your series.

I found out there is a yDNA test project for my husband's Ireland-linked surname, which of course we intend to do...but I'm one of those people who researches things to death before dipping my big toe in the water, so I cling to articles like yours and the ones you referenced.

Keep writing!

HistoryMick said...

Very, very interesting to see how the set up works, Randy - thanks. Have mentioned it on my 'British and Irish Genealogy blog' at www.bi-gen.blogspot.com (Tuesday's post). Best wishes, Mick.

Unknown said...

I'm looking forward to doing this test myself when it becomes available to the public, so thanks for giving us a heads-up of what the results look like!

zelsersk said...

Thanks for posting your results and walking through the page. My husband's results just showed up today and we've been looking through them.

Unknown said...

I agree, good stuff.
Medigene DNA