Friday, June 27, 2014

WikiTree Populates the Unified Family Tree With My Y-DNA and mtDNA Results

WikiTree recently announced their DNA Confirmation Aid - see WikiTree Announces DNA Ancestor Confirmation Aid.  I wrote about it in WikiTree DNA Confirmation Aid Results yesterday, and added my Y-chromosome DNA test and my mitochondrial DNA test haplogroups, with links to my test results on ySearch and mitoSearch, respectively..

However, the WikiTree (a "unified" Family Tree, not a lot of separate trees) did not add my results to all of my patrilineal line ancestors (my father, his father, his father, etc.) or all of my matrilineal line ancestors (mo mother, her mother, her mother, etc.).  That happened overnight when WikiTree updated their database.

So what do the results look like, and how can I use them?  Here's what I figured out:

1)  On my Profile page, the "DNA Tested section is on the right-hand side of the page:



There is information about DNA testing, and then links for my name for both the Y-DNA test And mtDNA test.  For the Y-DNA test (in the red box), there are links to WikiTree profiles for my "Other yDNA" test, a list of other persons in WikiTree that share my Y-DNA markers, and al ink to my YSearch.org profile.

2)  Here is the list of other Y-DNA test connections I received by clicking on the "Other yDNA" link (note that if I had tested with, say, FamilyTreeDNA, it would say "Family Tree DNA yDNA" instead):



Further down this list is a link for Robert Seaver (1608-1683), my earliest known Seaver ancestor in my patrilineal line.

3)  If I click on the link next to his name to by clicking on the link to "View carriers of Robert's Y-chromosome in descendant chart form," I can see all of his "DNA Descendants" in the WikiTree database:


These are either my ancestors, uncles, or cousins, since they all should share my Y-DNA markers and haplogroup (assuming the genealogy work has been done correctly and entered into WikiTree correctly, and that there are no non-paternal events in the lines involved):

4)  I also clicked on the "Family Tree DNA mtDNA" link on the first screen above, and saw all of my mitochondrial DNA test connections:


As you can see, Sarah Campbell (1746-1838) is my "Earliest known maternal ancestor."

5)  I can view all of Sarah Campbell's descendants in WikiTree by clicking on the link to "View carriers of Sarah's mitochondrial DNA in descendant chart form:"


Again, all of the persons on the list above are my ancestors, aunts, or cousins because we share the same mtDNA markers.

6)  So how can all of this help me?  Well, all of the persons on that list are related to me.  Perhaps other WikiTreers have connected to the persons I added to WikiTree, and have added more generations than I know about from my own research.

I've already identified several families from the descendants lists above that extend descendant lines past what I have in my family tree database.  I could add those persons to my database, and I could contact the person who is the profile manager to determine how they are related.

7)  I think that these capabilities to link Y-DNA and mtDNA markers to specific people is a good thing.  They may help other researchers find distant family members, add to their family tree information, and perhaps inspire them to take a DNA test.

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2014/06/wikitree-populates-unified-family-tree.html

Copyright (c) 2014, Randall J. Seaver


1 comment:

Steve Hayes said...

I have some doubts and reservations about the usefulness of DNA testing for genealogy (see here Genealogy notes and news: Some DNA ancestry services akin to 'genetic astrology').

How do you find a DNA testing service that is a) reliable and b) affordable?