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Monday, October 12, 2015

DNA.Land Launches New 3rd-Party DNA Analysis Website

There is a new player in the DNA analysis universe called DNA.Land - CeCe Moore made the announcement in DNA.Land Launches on her Your Genetic Genealogist blog last Friday.   CeCe showed her ethnicity estimate and some of her autosomal DNA matches in her post.

 Judy G. Russell wrote The Rules of DNA.Land on her The Legal Genealogist blog on Sunday, and thought that the Terms and Conditions for the site were "fine."

DNA.Land describes their site as:

"...a place where you can learn more about your genome while enabling scientists like us to make new discoveries for the benefit of humanity. The website is not-for-profit and run by the Erlich and Pickrell labs affiliated with Columbia University and the New York Genome Center. The purpose of DNA.Land is to enable you to learn more about your DNA and allow you the autonomy to share your data to facilitate important scientific research at the forefront of genome sciences and medicine. Our goal is to help members interpret their data and connect potential participants with research studies."

Note that DNA.Land is not a DNA testing website, and it is FREE to use.  It is a third-party website, like GEDMatch, that takes the DNA raw data file and analyzes it for ethnicity (using proprietary models of some sort) and then compares one user's genome to other user's genomes and show the matching areas on each chromosome.

After I read CeCe's and Judy's posts on Sunday afternoon, I registered and went through the process of agreeing to the terms and conditions, uploading my AncestryDNA raw data file to DNA.Land, and then adding my family information (myself and my parents names and birth dates),

Here is the DNA.Land home page:


Note that there are only 4,713 genomes loaded to date (and counting).

After consenting to the Terms and Conditions, Step 2 was uploading my Genotype File.  I could choose the raw data file from 23andMe, AncestryDNA, and Family Tree DNA.  I had tests done at all three sites.  Here is the selection screen:


I chose to download my AncestryDNA raw data file, so I clicked on the image above, and a series of screens are shown to help the user download the information to DNA.Land.  Here is the first Step of 11:


There are 11 Steps in this process, each with a screen view and a clear direction:

1.  Visit http://dna.ancestry.com/ and click Login.
2.  Enter your last name and password.
3.  Click the DNA menu item.
4.  Select Your DNA Results summary.
5.  Click the Settings button.
6.  Click the Get Started button (in the Download your Raw DNA data section).
7.  When prompted, enter your Ancestry password.
8.  An email will be sent to you shortly.
9.  When the email is received, click on the Confirm Data Download link.
10.  Back on the Ancestry.com website, click Download DNA Raw Data button.
11. When download starts, save the file to your local computer.

The directions for 23andMe and FamilyTreeDNA will be different - read them and follow the directions.  It was pretty easy for AncestryDNA.

A .ZIP file will download to your computer (mine went into my Downloads file folder in Windows 7.
Then the user has to go back to the very top of the Step 2 screen and click on the blue button that says "Select File."  Then you need to find the .ZIP file in the correct file folder.

The file should load, and then you provide your family information - your name and birth date, your father's name and birth date, and your mother's name and birth date:


Having done that, the DNA.Land program starts to work.  After a short period of time (maybe an hour or two), the screen below appears:

The screen above indicates that the "Find Relatives" in "My Reports" is "in Progress" - and this is 24 hours after I uploaded the file.  I just need to wait for this!   The graphic to the right in the "My Contribution" box indicates that my uploaded file was complete with 161 points (whatever a point is).
At the bottom of the screen is the list of the files that were downloaded from the .ZIP file.

I can "View" the "Ancestry Report" and it is below:


The screen above gives me my ethnicity estimate by region, which is:

*  North/Central European (86.85%)
*  Southwestern European (7.47%)
*  Other (4.60%)

Further down, the map shows the extent of these regions:


The North/Central European region appears to be the British Isles, Netherlands, Germany, Norway and Sweden (with Iceland and Svalbard too!).

The Southwestern region appears to be Iberia and France.

I have no clue what the Other regions include.  Hopefully, DNA.Land will define these in the future.

There is a FAQ page at https://dna.land/faq that addresses some of the possible issues and problems on the website.

So far, this is fairly simple and vanilla for me.  I want to see if I have any Relatives already in the DNA.Land database.  If so, I look forward to seeing the chromosome browser results.

This site is brand new, and will probably be extensively improved over the next year or two.  When there are 100,000 or so genomes in the database, or more, the site may be really interesting.

23andMe and Family Tree DNA customers are familiar with a chromosome browser (where your matches with a relative, or a group of relatives, are shown on each of your chromosomes) already.  However, many (most?) AncestryDNA customers are not familiar with a chromosome browser, so this FREE website may be helpful to them.

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2015/10/dnaland-launches-new-3rd-party-dna.html

Copyright (c) 2015, Randall J. Seaver

Please comment on this post on the website by clicking the URL above and then the "Comments" link at the bottom of each post.  Or contact me by email at randy.seaver@gmail.com.


5 comments:

  1. After I read both their blogs I uploaded mine, too. I can't remember the exact number of entries when I did it but it was over 3,000. Now it's over 4,000. When reputable bloggers recommend something I am willing to do it.

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  2. BTW, my map is nearly identical to yours. This is the first time I've seen Iceland and Svalbard shown in my ethnicity. Hmmm. Do you know which of your ancestors came from that region? I wonder if this is my brick wall great grandfather. The familysearch data base, Isle of Man Parish Registers, 1598-2009, caught my eye so now I'm there. Too often my searching ideas are like a confetti storm.

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  3. I, too, joined on the basis of Judy Russell's post. Because their database is still so small, I don't expect to see matches for quite a while. The ancestral profile is much more general than from any other site, but I suspect that will improve over time.

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  4. I uploaded my parents DNA yesterday so now I'm just waiting for the report to show "view". I'll do a blog post about it as soon as I can.

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  5. I followed the directions in red, above, and downloaded the Raw Data to my computer. I do not have the option to "Select File" on the Ancestry setting page. The only thing there is TEST SETTING at the top of the page and to Download my Raw Data. I can look at the download, which is a bunch of numbers for Chromosomes, Position and Alleles. I'm sure there must be more to this. Perhaps, it because I do not have the SELECT FILE option.
    Any suggestions?
    Thank you.

    ReplyDelete