Wednesday, March 29, 2017

First Take on AncestryDNA Genetic Communities

AncestryDNA announced Genetic Communities yesterday - see their press release at Genetic Communities™ Beta: New Innovation from AncestryDNA.  

Some DNA experts have shared their experiences with using Genetic Communities for much longer than I have (I finally saw it yesterday).  See their blog posts:

*  Blaine Bettinger posted AncestryDNA’s Genetic Communities are Finally Here!.

*  Roberta J. Estes posted Genetic Communities and More About Genetic Communities and Display Problem Hints.

*  Kitty Cooper posted Genetic Communities at Ancestry are live.

*  Debbie Kennett posted AncestryDNA's new Genetic Communities have arrived.

1)  I found my Genetic Communities on the "Your DNA Results Summary" page:


2)  The "Genetic Communities" is directly below my "Ethnicity Estimate."  It says I have two Genetic Communities.  I clicked on the link to "Show Your 2 Genetic Communities."


My two Genetic Communities are:

*  Settlers of Colonial New England (connections very likely).

*  Settlers of Rhode Island and Southeastern Massachusetts (connections possible).

The user can zoom into the map and see more detail for each community.

3)  I clicked on the link for "Settlers of Colonial New England" and saw a text Overview and a list of time frames in the left-hand column, and a map centered on New England on the rest of the page.


4)  I clicked on the time frame "1700-1725" titled "A New England Across the Ocean" which had another text article for the time frame, and a list of my ancestors who lived in the time period that were probably in the Genetic Community:


There are numbers in markers on the map - 251 in New England and 2 in England.

Here is the partial list for the time frame and I clicked on the stickpin for the 2 in England and saw two ancestors who resided there in the time period:


The user can click on any of the names shown in the ancestor list in the left column or the names on the stickpin list.  The program shows the name, birth and death years, and birth and death places, according to my Ancestry Member Tree.

5)  There is a "Connection" button at the top left of most of the pages, which show (two screens below, some overlap):


AncestryDNA says that I have a 95% chance of being in the Genetic Community of interest.

Further down, there are areas and links for "Genetic Community Matches" and "Associated Last Names."  The former link take you to your list of DNA Matches who are identified as in this Genetic Community.  The latter link takes you to a Surname page with information about the surname and a surname distribution map.

6)  For me, the two identified Genetic Communities are accurate.  I have hundreds of ancestors in colonial Massachusetts and fewer in Rhode Island and Southeastern New England.

Mine is pretty boring, eh?  We already knew that, I think.  I may write more about this feature later when I find something more useful to my research.

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Copyright (c) 2017, Randall J. Seaver


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