Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Results from Ancestry.com Autosomal DNA Test - Post 2

In Results from Ancestry.com Autosomal DNA Tests - Post 1, I described taking an autosomal DNA test and receiving the results (94% British Isles, 6% Uncertain).  

The next step in looking at the results is to examine possible relationships with other researchers who share some of my DNA markers.  On the AncestryDNA Match page, there is a bar that shows AncestryDNA Member Match,  The results page shows a blue bar out to the 50% Match level (Distant cousins, perhaps 5th to 8th cousins).



The match list shows one person who is a 96% match (4th to 6th cousin) and a list of others who are 50% matches (5th to 8th cousin).

Naturally, I was curious about the family trees of these matches, so I chose the top one and clicked on the green "Review Match" button and saw:


This person has 100% British Isles ancestry compared to my 94%.  In the lower half of the screen above, I expected to see a list of surnames in common with mine and a family tree, but I didn't see that (see this feature further below).  I don't know why - perhaps that person did not want to show their list of surnames, although they permitted the system to show their tree.

I clicked on the "View Full Tree" button and saw the person's tree (from their Ancestry Member Tree):



I can click on the right arrow link for any of the persons in the right-most generation above, as I did below for the top person on the tree above:



After looking through this person's tree, I see one common ancestral family - Samuel Gray and Deborah Church (the person's 7th great-grandparents).  There are also several other surnames that may match my ancestors - Smith, Hathaway, and Kent).

Based on the information provided, I think that I am a 7th cousin of this person.

In order to show how the system is supposed to work, I clicked on the second person on my match list and saw their summary:


This person has 97% British Isles ancestry, and her page provides a list of the surnames in her 10 generation tree that match my 10 generation tree.  The screen above provides my Shared Surnames with her, including Allen, Anna, Gifford, Hill, Hutchinson, Smith and Walker.  The page also shows seven generations of this person's tree.

On the list of the person's Surnames, I can click on the surname and see the list of persons with that surname, and the details of each person.  Here is the Smith comparison:



I perused the family tree of this matching person and did not see any match with persons in my tree.  Perhaps it is earlier than 10 generations.  Ten generations back, with me as the first generation, are my 7th great-grandparents, and if a matching person has one of my 7th great-grandparents then they would be my 8th cousin.  

I think my next move here is to contact some of these matching persons in order to share genealogy information.  After that, I need to wait for more persons to take this autosomal DNA test and perhaps match my results.

So far, Ancestry.com has not provided a comparison of the DNA matches on specific chromosomes the way other autosomal DNA testing companies have done (see My Family Finder Autosomal Test Results - Post 2).  I hope that they will provide that information in the future.  That would provide confidence that I actually share DNA segments with the Match persons.

Ancestry.com is comparing my autosomal DNA test results with other persons who have taken the Ancestry.com DNA test.  This is a limited number of persons tested to date.  If hundreds of thousands of people do autosomal testing with AncestryDNA, then there probably will be more DNA matches - hopefully 2nd or 3rd cousins.

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2012/04/results-from-ancestrycom-autosomal-dna_18.html

Copyright (c) 2012, Randall J. Seaver



1 comment:

Andrew S said...

Great article, Randy! This series is getting me excited for the wide release of Ancestry's DNA product. Like you said, more close matches shoud show up as more people provide their DNA samples. Thanks!