Thursday, June 26, 2014

WikiTree DNA Confirmation Aid Results

WikiTree announced their DNA Confirmation Aid yesterday - see WikiTree Announces DNA Ancestor Confirmation Aid.  The operative paragraphs from the press release:

"The combination of DNA testing and a collaborative worldwide family tree is enabling something that most genealogists never expected: scientificconfirmation of their genealogy.

"Today WikiTree is announcing the DNA Ancestor Confirmation Aid, a tool to help genealogists confirm their ancestry. Because of the broad-based collaboration on WikiTree and the fact that the Y-chromosome and mitochondrial DNA is passed down relatively unchanged for many generations in known inheritance patterns, a DNA test taken by one genealogist can aid the research of many distant cousins. In turn, the research of one genealogist can dramatically expand the utility of other people’s DNA tests."


I wanted to try it out, since I have done Y-DNA and mitochondrial DNA tests done, and know my haplogroups.  Here is the very simple process on WikiTree:

1)  On my private profile on WikiTree, I clicked on the "DNA" button at the top right of the profile:



2)  That opened the "DNA Tests..." page and I could enter information about my Y-DNA test (two screens below):



Since I had my Y-DNA test done by Genebase a long time ago, I entered "Other yDNA" in the box for "Add this test for randy Seaver."

The initial test on Genebase was only 20 markers, and said that I was haplogroup R1b1b.  I also received results from Sorenson/GeneTree with 43 markers, which also indicated haplogroup R1b1b.  Subsequently, my 23andMe test said my Y-DNA haplogroup was R1b1b2a1a.  I decided to use R1b1b2a1a.  I entered my markers in Y-Search some time ago - I am profile D5XXM.  I entered all of that information into the form above - that's all it wants!

I don't know what would happen if I did not have a profile on Y-Search.

3)  I clicked on the dark green button to "Add Test for Randy Seaver."  The information was accepted by WikiTree, and I saw:



This summarized what I had input.

I went to my Private Profile and saw:


Under the "DNA Tested" section on the right, it noted that "Randy Seaver's DNA has been tested for genealogical purposes."  

4)  I expected that my father, grandfather and other persons in my known paternal surname line would also indicate this.  But they don't.  Here is my grandfather's profile:


In his "DNA" section, it says "No know carriers of Frederick Walton's Y-chromosome or his mother's mitochondrial DNA have taken yDNA or myDNA tests and no close relatives have taken a 23andMe, AncestryDNA or Family Tree DNA "Family Finder" test."

I was concerned about that - why didn't my grandfather's profile reflect my Y-DNA test results?  I emailed WikiTree, and quickly received this information from Chris Whitten:

"We only rebuild the DNA test connections once a day, at night. So, tomorrow morning you will see notices on http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Seaver-27 and http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Seaver-30 etc. etc., all the way up to the last known ancestor in the direct male line, and then --  significantly -- all the way down all the direct male lines, not just the one you're on. It's this latter part that has the real power. It's the dynamite possibility from all being connected on the same tree."

My thanks to Chris for clarifying that - I'll come back tomorrow and see if all of that happened overnight!  I expect my brothers, and my uncle, and many more Seaver males in WikiTree to show that a Y-DNA test result has been added to WikiTree.  And I'll write about it one way or another!

5)  WikiTree was, I think, really smart to use the Y-Search site as an entry because it is free and is across-the-board on Y-DNA tests - information from any test company can be added to Y-Search and perhaps matches can be found across test companies.  

Likewise, I think WikiTree leveraged the power of a "unified" family tree to enable and expand users' knowledge about their Y-DNA and mtDNA characteristics.  The other "unified" trees (Geni, FamilySearchFamily Tree, WeRelate, OneGreatFamily, are there others?) don't have this feature to date (I think...).  

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2014/06/wikitree-dna-confirmation-aid-results.html

Copyright (c) 2014, Randall J. Seaver





3 comments:

Chris Whitten said...

Hey Randy! I see that the connections have been made back to the earliest known direct line paternal ancestor: http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Seaver-135
And then on all his direct paternal line descendants:
http://www.wikitree.com/treewidget/Seaver-135/890
That Seaver line is awesome! Really big and full.

Jana Iverson Last said...

Randy,

I want to let you know that your blog post is listed in today's Fab Finds post at http://janasgenealogyandfamilyhistory.blogspot.com/2014/06/follow-friday-fab-finds-for-june-27-2014.html

Have a wonderful weekend!

Jessica Taylor said...

Thanks for this! It's nice to see how it actually works.

http://legacytree.com