Autosomal DNA...heavy sigh...I'm kind of tired

This is one of those Downers. 

If you're having a bum time with ATDNA and looking for a motivational post, then this is not it.

Having put ATDNA on the back burner for a couple of months, I decided to unsub from one of my favorite groups the DNA Newbie yahoo group. Likely not a permanent situation, I just wasn't really following it and any input I gave seemed to be negative..or at least not helpful. An ongoing discussion about the validity of segment lengths and triangulated groups was also just feeding the overall depression surrounding my lack of meaningful progress.

Since I got my results back from 23 and me in May of 2011, I've had my dad, his sister, a paternal first cousin one time removed and a paternal second cousin tested there, and a possible paternal third cousin 1x removed tested at Ancestry.com.  Along with those came individual tests from the maternal side of my dad's family; a second cousin one time removed, two second cousins and a first cousin one time removed.

What did I get?

Loads.

• My Y haplogroup was confirmed. 
• The maternal second cousin 1x removed proved our relationship to Myron Beadle and Ellen Hathaway. 
• The maternal first cousin 1x removed and Seelye second cousins, proved relationships to the Seelye family and provided a great way to juxtapose their results with the unknowns in my dad's DNA.
• We picked up one known relative of Daniel Abbe and Esther Nunn in my dad's maternal family and the segments did later prove to be maternal.
• The paternal first cousin 1x removed proved a relationship to the Finks family and covered a lot of segments which I had suspected were paternal based on mismatches with my dad's Seelye/Beadle relatives. 
• The paternal second cousin testing showed that we weren't related to our Thompson cousins which lined up with the Y DNA evidence we had. Not what I was hoping for, but it's a return on investment.
• The 3rd cousin range paternal person gave us hope of connecting to the correct Elmore family tree. 
• I got a triangulated paternal group connected to the Bolton family of Thomas Bolton and Jemima Hammack. I don't know how we connect, but it seems very likely that we do and that it's through my grandfather's family.
• We found out that my aunt is my dad's half sister. Not shocking since she had figured it out quite some time ago, but still it put a big mystery to bed.
• We found a triangulated group that connected her paternal family to the Robar/Robert family from Quebec. 
• My aunt also has a whopping good match (maybe at the second cousin level) with someone from the Winters family from Iron Mountain Michigan. That is not a family that my dad is connected to. So that is our best lead on her paternal family. Somewhere, I need to connect someone in the extended Winters family to someone in the Robert family.
• In my own autosomal results, I matched very well with someone related to my maternal Hutchinson great grandfather's sister Nina Hutchinson. The match was big enough and close enough that I haven't worried much about triangulating it.

I count those as my "wins". Most of them were hard fought and took a lot of time and patience. 

What didn't I get?

Seelyes, Beadles and Campbells.

Well, truthfully I haven't put a lot of effort into the Seelye/Beadle side of things. I'm not one of the major researchers on those families. I've focused on my Thompson and Finks families. Still though it is a minor disappointment that I didn't pick up anything I don't already know. The people tested are very obviously related to me in a time frame that we might see each other at a family reunion. Although we have some tantalizing clues to possible genetic relatives that migh break boundaries, my side of the genetic family has so many unknowns that it's hard to apply our results back to the rest of the family. So for all the testing, we're still stuck at the same brick walls and results from my branch of the family are sidelined.

Finks, Michell, McQueen, Jeffries

DNA testing in our Finks family shows that my dad and I are related to my grandfather's maternal first cousin. Great, because that means my grandfather is related to his mom. Unfortunately, only two shared matches (in all of her shared segments) line up with a known family. 

The McQueens. Our ties to them are documented, but not where it counts. With this single DNA match, that I've not been able to triangulate with any other overlapping matches and our documentation of a direct genetic relationship relying on a "county history" our connection is rightly (if disappointingly) disputed.

The Jeffries. One 9cM match nestled among much larger matches has a tree that runs back to the 1600s and our Jeffries family. The trouble is, none of the other matches (including the 26cM match in that spot) have anything of the sort. Their trees are either stunted or non-existant and none seem to share that same family. So although it continues to pass every test, I can't prove it with any other match.

Thompson, Williamson, Elmore

The Thompson and Williamson connection is a wash, but it was also kind of inconclusive. I have a lot of evidence that says we're not Thompsons and that we're not related to the Thompsons and Williamsons, but what it really boils down to is that I can truthfully say my grandfather was not related to his uncle Francis Thompson. No more than that. So while it would be unthinkable that we're Thompsons, it's not impossible. I would have to do everything I've done with my dad's results with our Thompson cousin's results. I just don't have the access to their autosomal DNA right now. I can show that we're not related and that we're not Thompsons, but I haven't yet shown that they are Thompsons either. Given my track record with autosomal DNA so far, I think I'll likely turn to Y DNA again for clues to their paternal family, and follow up on their Y results which promise to be more fruitful. 

The Elmores. I've got Y DNA matches all over the place with the Elmers and Elmores, but only back to the late 1600s. Autosomally, I can say I don't match any of the Elmers tested so far except for the one Elmore I recruited myself. Their result is exciting, but inconclusive. They don't share enough segments to be very close. Only one of the segments is show to be paternal, the other is unknown and neither of them triangulate to any known relative in the Elmore family. Of note though, they do match some people who are relatives of our Finks family. Along those lines they do run back to Virginia and the Fishbach family which is connected to Germanna like the Finks. Leaving open the possibility that, what I hope is a straight Elmore autosomal match, is really a match to the Finks family paired with a connection to a grab bag of other known relatives.

The Boltons

My stand out family. The one where it really worked. 10cM or better matches with the same set of ancestors. The same family appearing in trees from other chromosomes. Awesome! Now what? How do we get from Charles Thompson 1925 back to the 1750s to meet up with these Boltons? Dear God. Do you know how many descendants they have? It must be half of Kentucky. So while, I'm very proud of the accomplishment, I am no closer to figuring out how they might be related..I'm just very certain that they are.

For My Aunt

Once you show that someone is a half sister, the next question they're going to want to know is. What is my last name?

My aunt wanted to know if she had any sisters (she grew up in a family of boys). She wanted some basic information. Just the stuff we take for granted. To compound the issue, my grandmother refused to tell her who her father was, her uncle refused to let us use his test results for comparison and she is dying from kidney disease.

It is at this point that the normal things you deal with in genetic genealogy become overwhelming. 23 and me requires participation for anything, FTDNA requires contact to clearly triangulate and Ancestry.com is a black box that doesn't offer up any clues beyond a basic match list and a bunch of people who can't or won't share their family trees.

So far in helping my aunt, I've had the usual group of friendly people who don't know much about their families or ATDNA. I appreciate them a lot, but in the mix, I've also been lied to, misdirected, denied, and ignored.

All those things are also things I've dealt with when working on my dad's results, but when you're working under a time limit with a person who is dying, having to tackle the bulk of crappy human interactions can really bring you down.

People don't always get into genealogy because they want to share and grow. Some people want to hoard their precious and will do or be whatever it takes to make that happen. They want your help and information, but they don't want to give anything in return. Now, take that natural bias towards helping yourself and add something fishy like a woman who doesn't know who her father is...and he is somehow related to you. Well that kind of thing might threaten the precious. We can't have that.

So, with a non-communicative 2nd cousin at 23 and me, and multiple 3rd and beyond cousins who exemplifying the worst behavior in genetic genealogy, how much progress can be made? It's difficult under the best of circumstances, but just grindingly painful when you have to get around these people to get the information you need.

Setting it Down

For the moment. I need to take a break. It's painful to keep running into the same walls. To have to keep performing the same task over and over and to have to keep playing a weird game of poker with people to get useful information. 

It's draining and I'm not getting anywhere. Compared to the Y results and work I've done, autosomal DNA has done little more than show me what I already know...or shown me that I don't know..but has been light on answers.

I blame myself for letting it get me down and for not picking back up and running. I blame human nature for making people total turds sometimes. I blame the companies for willfully putting impediments in the way so that even people who weren't turds end up as defacto turds by product design. I blame the technology and a lack of clearly defined standards.

All of those things have come together to make ATDNA a grinding experience. I've put in a lot of effort and I've gotten some returns, but I've also chased a lot more geese than I needed to. I don't think I have very much to show for the time put in. 

So I'm going to let it go for a while and see what transpires while I'm away. I don't think I've hit the limit of what ATDNA can do, but I feel like I've hit my limit for running in the hamster wheel.

Z18 Panel Results and Nostalgia

As per usual, while I wait, I write. Lucky for me there are lots of great new things over at the R-Z18 and Subgroups project. One of these is the recent returns from the Family Tree DNA Z18 panel. As the news says, there are some SNPs that didn't get coverage and a few that had issues, but there are some that are pretty interesting as well.

Z18 Panel/Big Y Conglomerate

The Z18 group site has the panel results split out from the big Y results. I decided to do a DF95 mashup of the different results pages.

Once you figure out how you're all alike, the next thing you want to know is how you're different. Everyone who has tested big Y so far is in the 458.2 side of the house...or incommunicado.  So the Z18 panel has offered us a way to see some of the results from the normal 458 side of things (at a price that is pretty affordable in the Y testing world).

The problem with our 458.2 plus or minus groups is that 458.2 is not really an SNP. It acts somewhat like an SNP, but it's really a STR mutation..one that seems to stick. So my reference to 458.2 is not one you'll see in the big Y or Z18 panel results pages. At some point down the road, I expect it will become just one of many branches and categories a Cumberland cluster person will fit in and as STRs become a thing of the past, and SNP testing becomes cheaper, 458.2 will cease to be a category at all.

Anyway, on with it.

As per usual, if you want official information and good use of the scientific method, see the Z18 group or the U106 group.

Here is a horizontal table of SNPs across the top (along with DYS458.2) and testers on the left. I've got the Big Y testers, hopefully in position based on their SNP matches.  I have them filling in at the bottom with yellow names to differentiate them from the panel testers at the top. I also shaded DF95, which has been our defining SNP.

What you'll see here is that everyone is pretty much the same. White squares are basically, untested. The red ones are positive and the green ones are negative. You can see that Edwards there has an issue with Z369. I'm guessing that is a "false negative".

So that is the Cumberland world, generations and generations of common ancestors that inevitably come down to one single person that all of us are related to. Call him Mr, S4022...or further back Mr. DF95...or Mr Z370...etc. When contemplating the vast expanse of time boiling down over and over again to one man who is the father of all of us, it helps to remember that we're the descendants that lived to this point, and tested. That man had uncles and brothers, but they just might not have made it over the long haul or we haven't tested them yet.

Here is a second table where things start to break up some more. Again, white blocks were intended to be tested, but for one reason or another there are no results. I've thrown in a black vertical bar to separate the SNPs that are currently in the panel (on the left) from those in big Y (on the right). I'm using the Z18 project names for these SNPs but it's good to remember they have multiple names. For instance, ZP129 is also called A2277 at YSEQ and ZP121 is called Y15995 at the U106 project (I'm guessing named by Y-Full).

In this last one, we start to show our stripes.

ZP84 has some issues, it seems to be unstable in the big Y results, sometimes dividing people who are more closely related..seemingly at random.

ZP85 is down right exciting. ZP85 is so pervasive that you have to wonder if Corson's negative is a false negative. If it's a real negative result, then that would put the Corson(Jansen) men on an older branch than anyone else.

Here I threw in DYS458.2. It seemed to me that it's not tied to ZP85 because some men who are 458.2 negative have ZP85, so if 458.2 is really that stable, then it's younger than ZP85.

Mind the gap. There were several DF95 related SNPs that didn't get reported in this round. You can see that several of the Yellowish big Y testers have them and they are pretty common among them, but there just isn't that information for the panel people. It makes it hard to place them, since we would now be watching Corson to see how these came out for him and the other 458.2 negatives.

I shaded S8387. Again here it's very common in all the big Y testers (as is S8388), but it was only positive in Emery from the Z18 panel. So there is a clear divider there as both 458.2 negative and 458.2 positive men are S8387 negative. It comes after the 458.2 break up.

The panel ends, kind of at the last match point for Lund and Ovens who form the oldest branches of the Cumberland big Y men. If those S8387 results are stable and correct, then it seems like Olds, Edwards and Burghgraeve are now on  the oldest branch of 458.2 men though. They can, in turn, look back at Wright and Little. Everyone here would have to look back at Corson.

Beyond the big black bar is only Big Y land (for the time being) where we have a few more branches (explored and misused a bit more here on a broad scale and here in the nearer term) .

Update 2015-09-05

I was browsing out at the Z18 Project site and noted that a new result came in that has some bearing on ZP85. Schmidt came back ZP85 negative as well. Very interesting to see the layers coming out. I still have my fingers crossed that we'll get one of the Cumberland A people a big Y test so they can start seeing their own branches of our family tree.

Nostalgia

What made me smile about this group of men in the Z18 panel and Big Y conglomerate is that I see a few familiar names from my years writing this blog and speculating.

Back in 2010 I was scouring Y databases searching for matches and patterns. What makes us alike and what makes us different see?

So for fun here are some references to different matches I found and my attempts to place them on maps and in the context of my own weird results.

The Knowltons. Really the first big family of matches I could identify and my longest running research partners. Without their family tree work and testing, you wouldn't see the results we have today: http://thompsonhunt.blogspot.com/2010/10/16-slow-markers-map.html

Winne (murdered to Winnie...Sometimes Winner) and Corson/Jansen:  http://thompsonhunt.blogspot.com/2010/11/migrations-3-other-databases.html

And from 2012, Mr Emery who has helped me out immeasurably: http://thompsonhunt.blogspot.com/2012/08/z14-it-is.html

Unfortunately, I cannot show a link for Mr. Burghgraeve although, it seems like he is a node on one of my maps holding down the fort in Belgium.

Of course the Elmers who I totally disregarded in the early days at SMGF. Luckily Mr. Emery made me take another look at them: http://thompsonhunt.blogspot.com/2011/05/while-im-waitingyet-another-map.html

It's funny how it always boils down to the people who help you out or give you a new direction or a fresh look at an old direction. This list cannot possibly contain all the people who have been resources for me over the years, although I wish it did because I'm so curious about the Coens, the Edwardsons, the Hudsons and the Steiners...it goes on and on.

Partial Return from YSEQ

I thought I would mark the time a bit in a post about my experience with YSEQ so far.

I ordered six SNPs at $17 apiece on the 20th of June. My kit arrived at my house a few days before I sent it back out on the 27th of June. The return address for the kit was Berlin Germany so I expected it to take a bit to make it there. YSEQ changed my status to processing on July 9th. Four of my six SNP results were returned on the 15th of July.

That is lightening speed in the world of genetic Y chromosome testing. Typically, we would wait for the seasons to change before looking for results back.

You can see my post about what we expect from big Y and YSEQ here, just after I mailed off my kit.

Here is the chart of our testing expectations.

• I tested for one SNP that was shared by the Knowlton family (A2277).
• Four SNPs shared by our two Elmer testers (M1 and L2) (A2278, A2280, A2283, A2284) 
• One singleton SNP of L2 (A5920).

Here are my partial results:

1984	A2280	ChrY	15779806	15779806	A+
1984	A2283	ChrY	18553735	18553735	T+
1984	A2284	ChrY	21186403	21186403	A+
1984	A5920	ChrY	18578248	18578248	A-

My kit there is number 1984. The SNP names are assigned by YSEQ. The two number columns are the SNP locations on the Y.  The results are positive or negative for the variant.

I'm still processing  the Knowlton SNP A2277 and the Elmer SNP A2278. At this point,

I was negative for the A5920 singleton SNP for L2 in the chart. I was hoping for that smoking gun, but with only one singleton SNP from L2 to work with, my odds were not that good. M1 meanwhile has four SNPs to himself. The odds of identifying a branch from his singletons will be better.

Where does this leave me. Well, I have a hunch that I'll be positive for the Knowlton/Elmer SNP A2277. The Elmer SNP A2278 is a bit harder for me to call. I of course want it to match so I can, at a minimum, close the case file on me and Ed Elmer with a non-ambiguous win.

If I nab that Elmer SNP I can pin Ed Elmer down and bump my last known paternal ancestor to 1613..ish.

Whether or not I pick up that last Elmer SNP I will need to wait for the big Y results from our pillar R1 to see how we all fit with each other.

Depending on how things go with those results, I may run through a few more singletons for M1 and R1 to see where I stand. Should all of those comparisons leave me right where I am now, I'll probably then shoot for Y Prime (sticker shock at $750) and try to convince L2 to test some of MY singletons...moooohahahahaha! Before that though, I really need to get back and follow up on the U152 Thompsons. Their brick wall match may be a few hundred dollars away.

Adventures in Big Y and YSEQ

Today I sent my kit back to YSEQ.

I first dipped a toe in the water at YSEQ when I used their "Wish a SNP" feature for my Elmer friends. For one dollar, you can wish for a testable SNP and they will examine it and order the primers for it.

Very nice when you're digging into "family" level SNPs that are of little interest to the larger companies.

Why YSEQ and Big Y

The simple economic truth is that not everyone can afford FTDNA big Y or FGC Y Elite test to be able to identify new SNPs. So, we're attempting to get key players to run the bigger more expensive tests that "blaze the trail" and discover new SNPs that might be valid for the family, with follow up "budget friendly" tests for others through companies like YSEQ.

In the long run we hope to build a panel of SNPs for any Y tester that wanted to figure out which branch of the "Edward Elmer" family they fall on. Also we'll end up with a basic list of SNPs that belong to Edward. They will be the SNPs shared by all the Y testers. Those could be added to a panel of SNPs to take back to England.

What We Expect

Here is a quick chart that shows the Y lines and what we expect to find based on current STR testing. This is where we think everyone will be positioned in the tree when all is said and done. Please forgive my ms word charts. Click them for the enlarged view.

Sons of Samuel

We're currently waiting on the the big Y test from "R1" to add a "Known Tree" counterpart to "L2". These two tests form known pillars. We're missing the middle known tree pillar from "G1" at this point, but we intend to pursue it in the future.  

Brick wall testers L1 and M1 are expected to be related to R1. Likely through Samuel Elmer's son Deacon John Elmer. 

Brick wall M1 was our first big Y tester and blazed the trail for most of the SNPs we have today. He currently has four testable SNPs all to himself. We call them singletons because only one person has them at this time. 

We think we will find that R1 and M1 share some of M1's "singleton" SNPs. Making them private to that branch of the Elmer family. Depending on how many they share, we may be able to guess at a most recent common ancestor. L1 then plans to follow up with YSEQ testing of R1 and M1's shared private SNPs along with their singletons to discover which tester they are most closely related to.  

Sons of Edward 2.

L2 was our second big Y tester. He matched M1 on four testable SNPs that for the time being only belong to the Elmer family.  He currently has one testable SNP to himself. I'm Mike Thompson in that chart. I expect to be related to L2 through Hezekiah Elmer. 

I tested for one SNP that was shared by the Knowlton family (A2277), four SNPs shared by our two Elmer testers (M1 and L2) so far (A2278, A2280, A2283, A2284) and the one singleton SNP of L2 (A5920).

This can all get kind of confusing when we've got all these numbers and letters floating around.

How About Another Picture

Visualizing this tree another based on SNPs. I added some little circles of color to represent SNPs. We're assuming that Sam, John and Ed2 are pretty much like their dad, and get a yellow ball. Because of that, everyone gets a yellow ball. We all get those from Ed1. What I'm hoping for is that somewhere in there either Ed2 or Hezekiah added another SNP..the red ball. Then L2 and I will carry the red ball. It will be private to us and mark our branch of the family.

Along the same lines we're following the sons of Samuel. Our thought is that they may branch off at his son John, but we're not sure. I've added a purple ball in common for them. Some descendants of Samuel also have an orange ball, but not all of them. In that way, we can differentiate the branches coming from Samuel.

Of course, I'll be excited to learn anything I can, but my expectation is that I will share at a minimum the one SNP shared by the Knowltons and the four SNPs the other Elmer testers have. That is the yellow ball in the picture above. Everyone gets it.

My bet is that I will share that single singleton from tester L2, (the red ball) but the odds are not in my favor with only one singleton to test. To put it in context, M1 has four good chances to match R1 and define that they are on the same branch of the family tree. I have only one chance.

The Knowlton Family, Unknowns and the Importance of Pillars

You may have noticed that I tested an SNP shared by the Knowlton family.

The Knowltons have joined us in Big Y testing. They actually share two SNPs with the Elmers, but I could only make one testable at YSEQ. They are also included in the yellow ball in my previous chart in that their SNP was carried by Edward Elmer 1. That's the idea anyway.

The Knowltons are the closest Y relatives of the Elmers at 67 markers. The big Y test one of them completed shows that they are close relatives to the Elmers but we're not certain exactly how close. So our YSEQ and Big Y testing should help put their matches in context as well.

We've got two Elmers Big Y tested. How can one more test put the Knowltons in context and why would there be any question about it?

Well, Big Y tests the area of the Y chromosome that FTDNA thinks will have the most chance of success. So they will  get a lot of great SNPs, but not all of them that exist. The Knowltons may share many more than two SNPs with the Elmers, but we will not know it.

Because we don't know the relationship of  Big Y M1 and future big Y R1 based on a family tree, we can't be completely sure that they are the most closely related. Even though they have all the same STRs in common. STRs suggest a relationship, but SNPs are the mark of it.

M1 and L2 share the most SNPs in common at this point in time. The others (including me) just aren't tested yet and with unknowns there can be lots of surprises.

So our Big Y and YSEQ SNPs may show us a completely different path than we expect.

Expecting the Unexpected

Here is an "unexpected" SNP based tree that could include the Knowlton family. If it were to turn out that M1 and L2 were more closely related than expected then the tree could play out more like this, with the Knowltons included because the new base "yellow" ball is really the two SNPs they share.

The reference docs are pretty blurry in the 1600s and NPEs happen. It's possible that John Knowlton (who all the Y STR matched Knowltons go back to) was really an Elmer adopted by the Knowlton family. The two SNPs shared with the Knowltons may just be the Edward Elmer SNPs we're looking for.

The key thing is that without testing R1 or G1 and comparing them to L2, we don't know what the structure of the tree is.  R1 and L2 as "pillars" of our structure will help define what those early 1600s SNPs were and in doing so, help place everyone involved.

Notes About the The Testing Process

So far, FTDNA's Big Y has been pretty darn easy. Most of these men already had kits from Y STR and earlier SNP testing, so ordering an upgrade was really a matter of saving the money and waiting for a sale. Like falling off a log really. They identified an issue with M1's stored sample early on and sent him a new kit in no time. The results also came back quicker than expected.

We have relied heavily on the volunteer admins at the U106 group and the Z18 group to analyze the results and give us some direction because FTDNA's Big Y results matching has some issues.

I took those SNPs that FTDNA provided and our Y groups analyzed from M1 and L2 kits and added them to YSEQ through the Wish a SNP process. YSEQ has been fast and responsive. They assigned me a user account much like FTDNA did. Their website is not as polished but..really it's the results and flexibility I'm after.

Their swab kit for my SNP test order came in the mail within a week of the purchase. Mailing it back was a minor adventure because I've never mailed a package to Germany. Less than the cost of a lunch at McDonald's later, my kit is on it's way. I have read on forums that they are lightening quick on turn around for these kits, so I'm very hopeful I'll have my results fairly soon.

Autosomal DNA A tale of two stacks of pancakes

Basically, I like pancakes. So I think about autosomal matches and their segments like stacks of pancakes. Everyone gets two kinds of pancakes. One from your mom and one from your dad. Even if you don't know which one is which, you can actually start sorting them into those two sides.

I'm using 23 and me here because it has the most straight forward chromosome matching system I've found outside of Gedmatch.com.

So here's an example of a bunch of overlapping segments from genetic matches. This is from my dad's perspective. See chromosome 1 there with 4 little pancakes stacked up. He matches Thomas, Jeremy, Paula and Jenette in roughly the same area. Some pancakes are bigger and some smaller, but they roughly stack up.

That is a mixed stack of pancakes. We'll call them blueberry and strawberry. We don't know which are pancakes from mom's side and which are from dad's side or if all of them are from the same side.

For now we'll consider that they might be blueberry and strawberry pancakes mixed together.

The goal is to sort them into two matching teams. We want to know all the strawberries and all the blueberries and only compare them to each other.

Why? Well, we're figuring out which side of the family to focus on. When you're looking at family trees if you can narrow the results in any way, you can cut thousands of possible relatives out of the search, just by splitting your matches into sides.

From my dad's perspective we would have to search each family tree for each of four people for all the ancestors of each person back six or more generations. From my dad's perspective they could all be related to the same person. But what if they're not? Everyone matches my dad, but do they all match each other and therefore all share the same ancestor?

The way you find that out is by sorting them based on how they match each other. In genetic genealogy you need to see the world through someone else's eyes. I need to know which pancakes are blueberry and which are strawberry..if any.

So one way or another, I need to become one of the other matches for a moment and see how they see this same stack of pancakes. 23 and me and Gedmatch make that easy..you can just check people against each other to see how they line up. FTDNA comes close with chromosome browser and the matrix...Ancestry folks are on their own (they can't do any of this).

Begin sorting.

Let's become Thomas then. How does Thomas see this same stack of pancakes. The trick is, Thomas will only see his matches. He is either a blueberry or a strawberry pancake and he will only see his kind of pancakes in the stack.

Aha! There he is. Thomas matches Thompson of course..we knew that, but Thomas also matches Paula in the same spot. We can arbitrarily label them as strawberry pancakes. Of this stack of pancakes they only match each other and my dad.

Next step. Pick one of those 0 people who were missing. They "should" match each other, but we need to confirm it. Does Jeremy match Jenette?

Goal. Jeremy matches Thompson (as expected) but only sees his own kind of pancake, Jenette. We now have a blueberry stack as well.

Keeping in mind that I have no idea which side of my dad's family they are on..I do know that they are on one side or another. Further, I will only look for common ancestors between Jeremy and Jenette on the one side and Thomas and Paula on the other.

In this way, your segments (pancakes) can validate each other. They form "triangulated groups". People who match you and each other in the same area on a chromosome, thereby sharing a common ancestor among all the matches.

What if you go through this and there are no blueberries and only strawberry pancakes? Well, you'll just have to wait for some blueberries to show up. What if you find a pancake that doesn't match any of the other pancakes, blueberry or strawberry. That is a pancake that is probably an error. Someone who matches you by accident. Typically larger segments (pancakes) are less likely to be one of those accidental matches.

Just like with regular genealogy, genetic genealogy is skeptical. You have to PROVE IT. You can have hunches and that is okay, but it's not enough that two people who are genetically related have the same person in their tree.

You need at least a third person with that same ancestor to match you on the same chromosome, roughly on the same segment (a little bigger or smaller is okay). Just like you need more than two legs in a stool, you need at least three legs in a genetic match. Figuring out which legs belong on which stool is all a sorting game and you can do it before you ever look at a family tree. 

Y67 Results Getting from point A to Point B

My Y 67 results sauntered in a few days ago. At this point, having crabbed out from my Thompson hunt to effectively engaging in an Elmer hunt, I expect to be close to one of my Elmers and that is the case.

In the FTDNA 67 panel, I'm exactly the same as my Elmer 67 counterpart. The two pink numbers we have in common are DYS520 (21) and DYS572 (12). At the U106 project, the closest big Y test so far to our Elmer tester is also a 21 at DYS520 (Lunsford). There are others that are 21 there as well, like the Knowltons (always close) and Jensen from Denmark.  The 12 at DYS572 is not as common among 67 testers at U106. There is another person with that value at the Z18 project, Ralowicz from Poland, but it's not carried by the Knowltons or Lunsford.

At 67, my match list has one Elmer kit (our only 67 tester) at a distance of 2 and several Knowlton kits at a range of a distance of 6-7. I would say there is a bias in sampling, but there are several other DF95 men at 67 to compare to, so it's not that there are no more kits out there to look at. These two families are just closest to me.

If you look at the 67 match results for our Elmer kit, they have several more Y67 kits in their match list than I do. Some of my mutations away from the other Elmers also limit my matches. My DYS449=29 (which I share with only one Elmer) and DYS576=18 seem to be particularly troubling to other R-DF95 men.

At this point, I've reached the stage where there is little doubt about who I'm related to on my direct male line circa 1610. I've eliminated enough variables to get down to my core Y family. I'm feeling really confident that I've covered my bases. I'm related to Edward Elmer.

He came here, pretty well alone as far as I can tell. He was a Puritan (oye, he would certainly not approve of me) and he was part of "Hooker's Company". People who disagreed a little with the Puritans in Massachusetts and moved on to found Hartford Connecticut.

Getting from point A in 1974 to Point B in 1610 may still hold some surprises. Only further Y testing or autosomal testing of new candidates will help me narrow that gap and solidify my theories..although they seem really solid to me for the time being. Solid enough to include the Elmore family from Peoria as possible links for Family Finder and 23 and me testers.

There is still a margin for error in there in my autosomal results. Although we had a good autosomal match with a member of that Peoria family, I haven't put together all the clues or groundwork to prove it's a match through the Elmores. I think being related to the Elmores is just the most likely scenario..but not the only possible one.

This summer I'll be approaching what I expect to be my final move with my Y chromosome. Big Y testing to compare to my closest Elmer match. I'll be working with the Elmers and Knowltons to try to layer out our SNP results.

There may be some surprises for the group hidden there too. We'll see what we see. That is where the fun is.

That testing and layering should give us a framework and some benchmarks for testing other people and it should bring the costs down. Effectively we can take what we've learned about our SNPs within the Knowlton and Elmer families and devise cheaper SNP tests at YSEQ that would give someone the Y branch of the Elmer family they belong on. If they wanted to go farther they could then take the ball and run with it.

So if I ever do get to the point where I have a willing Elmore tester who may be closer to me on the Y than my current testing buddies, we can find the definitive answer for $17 instead of $500 plus.

I also expect that I'll be able to take all the knowledge I've gained and the tools I've found and use them to get my Thompson family over it's brick wall. I'm actually hoping I'll be able to streamline the process for them.

As ever, the journey continues one step at a time.

Autosomal DNA Mile Marker

Now that I have many maternal and paternal segments worked out I thought it would be good to put up some graphics of the general map. Again using Kitty Munson Cooper's segment mapper utility to get great visual representations of the segments using my dad as the base person.

To be clear, this won't represent all of the matches for my dad, just those known to be maternal or paternal right now.

Here are his Seelye Campbell and Beadle relatives along with other known "found" maternal matches.

Blue is a Beadle only relative. Light blue Campbell only. Red various maternal genetic relatives. Peach Seelye side only (would include the Beadle family DNA too). Green Seelye Campbell which basically represents everything Seelye, Beadle or Campbell.

You can see I have lots and lots of coverage with multiple maternal relatives, sometimes matching each other and sometimes going off on their own, but I benefit from having so many maternal only relatives to check against (up to and including my dad's maternal uncle there in green).

Here is the condensed version of that map. All maternal matches.

You can see there are some gaps, but with all those layers of relatives tested, we've filled in quite a bit. The X is all maternal, but those are the matches available which is interesting. Because of this coverage it is much more likely that I can place a match as maternal.

It's good to note here that the kind of coverage you see in the consolidated maternal map required four people at various distances to get tested.

Here is the one known paternal relative on our Finks side along with various paternal matches:

Light blue is anyone I've determined to be paternal. Usually because their group of matches does not match a known maternal group. Dark blue is the known Finks relative, sometimes illuminating unknown paternal matches and sometimes breaking new ground.

Here is the consolidated version of that map, all paternal including the Finks family. You can see that even though I am using the shadow cast from my dad's maternal matches, I am still struggling without closer known paternal relatives to test. My grandfather had no siblings and my attempt to fill in with our Thompson cousins did not show any matches, so there are more gaps to fall through on this side of things.

That may sound bitter, but I'm not. I am exceptionally grateful for my Finks family tester. I've learned a lot since getting those results back from FTDNA. I think doing this kind of analysis is just opening my eyes to the value of testing multiple known relatives on the same side of a family (assuming you can't test your target person..in my case my grandparents).

Here is a map showing both maternal and paternal segments as they overlap. It's a great display that shows what I'm missing on that paternal side.

In this instance, red is matneral and blue paternal. Paternal matches aren't breaking tons of new ground here, probably because the maternal coverage is so good. In many cases, it's not that I wouldn't know a maternal match from a paternal match, just that no paternal matches have come in.

You can see some of that in the maternal chart above that shows the breakdown of known Seelye side relatives compared to organic "maternal" matches found at 23 and me and Gedmatch. In that chart red is just maternal "found" matches, while the other colors (peach, green etc..) are the tested known relatives.

Without those known tester matches the map is even more bleak and for the most part, I would have no idea which side of the family a triangulated group of matches was on. So thanks go out to the "knowns"!

A Finks Cousin's Genome Analysis

The results are in for my grandfather's Finks cousin (his cousin through his mother's family) and I took a few minutes to look at the tools in FTDNA for general analysis. My Origins is the tool FTDNA has for this. It's the broad overview of your genome with some hints on geographic location. Since this is my first FTDNA kit, I don't have a good feel for comparing this tool to the results from 23 and me's ancestry tools, other than that the results for my grandfather's cousin seem pretty similar to my dad's (except maybe a bit more middle-eastern or central asian than I would expect).

Here is a pic:

A nice map with some highlighted colorful areas. Very similar to the maps I've made in the past. My grandfather's cousin has a higher portion of Scandinavian DNA than my dad, but she has some more recent scandinavian ancestry on her father's side (her mother is the Finks). Western and Central Europe is to be expected I think as well as British Isles which she would get from both sides of her family. I'm uncertain on middle eastern or central asian and how they might tie in.

For comparison to my dad's results, I ran her through DIY Dodecad and the Oracle too. The Final admixture proportions are pretty similar to my dad.

----------------------------
 FINAL ADMIXTURE PROPORTIONS:
 ----------------------------

 10.82%  East_European    
 50.57%  West_European    
 26.43%  Mediterranean    
  0.00%  Neo_African      
  8.58%  West_Asian        
  1.36%  South_Asian      
  0.32%  Northeast_Asian  
  0.09%  Southeast_Asian    50
  0.12%  East_African      
  1.70%  Southwest_Asian  
  0.02%  Northwest_African
  0.00%  Palaeo_African  

The Oracle results are also pretty similar with a little shuffling at the top. CEU (explained as white people from Utah) still on top, her Orcadian..etc are scoring a bit differently, but overall things seem to be in about the same order. Her family, taken as a whole has more immigration more recently from Europe, but I imagine the proportions are similar to adding up all my dad's more distant immigrant relatives, not to mention that they share one full set of my father's great grandparents. I am not too surprised that they are very similar people genetically.

Dodecad oracle for v3 results:

  [,1]               [,2]  
 [1,] "CEU"              "3.901"
 [2,] "N._European"      "5.2828"
 [3,] "Argyll_1KG"       "6.1403"
 [4,] "Orcadian"         "6.2461"
 [5,] "Orkney_1KG"       "6.6245"
 [6,] "German_D"         "8.1126"
 [7,] "French"           "10.4414"
 [8,] "French_D"         "10.6907"
 [9,] "Mixed_Germanic_D" "11.8097"
[10,] "Dutch_D"          "12.9789"


One final analysis for admixture. I looked at the world results to see if there were small traces of Native DNA. I recently posted about the possibilities that our family story is true and that Telitha Hibbard is not really a Hibbard at all, but half native. This cousin would share Telitha Hibbard's DNA as Telitha was her great grandmother.

Here were the Global 13 results:

  0.08%  Siberian          
  0.32%  Amerindian        
  0.01%  West_African      
  0.00%  Palaeo_African    
  2.17%  Southwest_Asian  
  0.23%  East_Asian        
 33.48%  Mediterranean    
  0.06%  Australasian      
  0.11%  Arctic            
 10.01%  West_Asian        
 51.52%  North_European    
  1.88%  South_Asian      
  0.13%  East_African

I don't really know how to read the southwest asian except to say that it might relate to the Central Asian segments FTDNA was picking up on. The Amerindian levels seem fairly low and of course FTDNA did not pick up any of that. I know sometimes DNA from Asia is a stand in for Native DNA, but I'm not sure how that plays out.
   
In Comparing the coverage of my grandfather's cousin to my dad's DNA, I had to rely on Gedmatch.com. Because my tests are from two different companies, a third comparison company is required. Similar to how I checked my dad's Seelye relatives. I was able to use Kitty Munson Cooper's segment mapper to make a great graphical representation of the Gedmatch.com comparison data:

Overall, my grandfather's Finks cousin here covers less ground for my dad than my grandmother's Seelye cousin did. 396cM compared to 446cM on the Seelye side. Interestingly for me though the sharing is reversed when my dad hands down these matches to me. I share 259cM with our Finks cousin and only 162cM with the Seelye cousin.

The more I see the less I know

Having just bought a Family Finder test from FTDNA for my grandfather's maternal Finks Cousin and having a nice long phone call with her to talk about the kit, I decided to go back and look at the Finks family records again to get a handle on things.

The mythology among people related to the Finks and Hibbard family is that Telitha Hibbard, my 3rd great grandmother who married William Jackson Finks is half native. There are a lot of these stories in the U.S. People say all kinds of things to explain differences in people. My dad and I don't carry more than a 0.1% amount of Native DNA. So probably within some margin of error, not even as much as we carry for African DNA.

I have generally disregarded the story because I was able to find Telitha's dad and see the marriage records for her parents. Her parents, Mortimer G. Hibbard and Philicia Jeffries (Jeffers) were married in April of 1845. Telitha was born around 1845..nothing firm there, but nothing real out of the ordinary either.

Like I said though, I kind of looked at it with new eyes after this phone conversation. I've been really picky about getting the details of my great grandmother's whereabouts in the lead up to my grandfather's birth in 1925 since I received the test results back from the U152 Thompsons.

Talking with this cousin about a family photo of the Finks at their farm and specifically talking about Telitha Hibbard and her sister Hannah..well I had to wonder if there wasn't something to it. They are obviously related women I think thier noses are strikingly similar (something that appears to have been handed on to Robert Sanford Finks) but they are also very different looking from each other too.

Here is the caption I found with the photo: From Far left; Robert Sanford Finks, William J Finks, Lily Finks, Telitha Finks, Susan Short (Telithas daughter from first marriage) ,& Earl Vivian Finks. Bottom from left: I think this is Minnie,(she would have died a few years after this pic though1870-1895), Hannah in Pic, and Ethyle Elnora (Nora).

Hannah Hibbard in the picture was William Jackson Finks' wife. After she died he married her older sister Telitha Hibbard (who had also been previously married).

Here is William Finks. 

Hannah Hibbard (Markley from a former marriage) in the photo

Telitha Hibbard (Short from previous marriage)

Okay, so "Looks like" evidence is the worst kind of evidence. I will give it to the story tellers, she does look darker and obviously has dark hair and some different features from her sister, but I've always thought about how different siblings can look from each other.

In my new eyes review of the evidence though, I found something striking. A death certificate index for Telitha Hibbard that gives a birth date. She is the first child of Mortimer Hibbard and Philicia Jeffries, but she is a bit too old for to match up to that. She was born in January of 1845 and her parents were married in April. 

I've seen a lot of people who are married and then have children born a few months later and the assumption is that they were making it legal. In this case though, Telitha was several months old when her parents were married. 

Now that is unexpected. Where was Philicia Jeffries in 1844? 

Her parents, William Jeffries and Anne Jett were married in Fauquier, Virginia and moved to Washington, Kentucky. Philicia was born in Kentucky but married Mortimer Hibbard in Illinois where his family had located from Ohio (and Vermont before that). William Jeffries died around 1823. In 1830 I find his wife Anne Jett Jeffries still living in Washington KY, but in 1840 she is in Edgar Illinois. I don't know what brought her there, but it put Philicia in range to be in Illinois in 1844 when she was (as legend would have it) "kidnapped by the natives and returned pregnant" with Telitha. 

The battle in the Finks family is not whether Philicia was kidnapped and returned pregnant, but by which group of natives.

That could be the case, surely the area was in some turmoil and had seen a lot of warfare between the the many various factions of French and Illinois natives, traveling Lakota and British and U.S. and Great Lakes nations. It's a big jumble there. It could also be that Philicia was involved with someone and it didn't work out and she moved on. Hard to say. People make things up and sometimes they don't and still other times they make parts of things up, but there are grains of truth.

In any case, I don't think either random kidnappers or people who willingly (or under force) moved to Oklahoma and Kansas in those years are going to be good record keepers. 

Still, since I have some record of Telitha's birth and it seems off, the idea that she is Hannah Hibbard's half sister is more likely to me than it was even a few months ago. Telitha would basically be Mortimer's step child who he adopted. It's unlikely she would have had a last name of her own.

That makes it extremely unlikely that I will find the Hibbard family through DNA testing...they simply are not there or should not be there. So the great leaps I made a few years ago in finding Mortimer Hibbard's parents and his family from Vermont will not shed light on genetic matches for my dad or my grandfather's Finks cousin.

Through genetic testing and documentation I've been able to sort of dismiss these stories as fable. I placed us in the great "Wannabe" tribe in the U.S. of blue eyed natives, or in some group that was afraid of it's eastern European, African or unknown Roma roots and had, maybe, picked a better story. I kind of shut the door on it. Even if it were true, I would never be able to figure it out.

What now though? 

Do I reconsider those matches whose grandparents or great grandparents come from reservations in Oklahoma or from Kansas with a native background? Can I comfortably and smugly dismiss it as coincidence anymore? 

I suppose in this instance I'll have to follow my leads as best I can and keep an open mind. What I know now is that there is a discrepancy that makes it seem likely to me that Telitha is not a "Hibbard" but is only a "Jeffries". Her father would remain unknown...but likely someone who was in the Edgar Illinois or Clark Illinois area in 1844.

The unknowns are beginning to overpower the knowns in my new-ish quest to define my grandfather.

Thinking About Switching

Since I took my first autosomal test in April of 2011 with 23 and me, I've been a pretty happy customer. I happily use the service and I appreciate some of the side perks (like getting a Y haplogroup as part of the test) even if some of the information is outdated...or not as in-depth. I also hate the idea of a de facto genetic genealogy company. All the groups and projects for genetic genealogy are dominated by FTDNA. I like that there is diversity and competition provided by YSEQ and 23 and me...but I also have to do what's best for me now.

Issues with getting information

Like a lot of 23 and me customers I think they are a bit too tight with the autosomal matching/ shared segments portion of the site. 23 and me makes you request sharing before they will show you where someone matches you. Most of us who have used the service blame that on a strict privacy policy adopted for health results testers...really the majority of their database is for health results so it makes sense for them to err on the side of caution. There has been an ongoing petition to make matching results and segment information available from the beginning but I don't think there has been any movement on that.

Those settings have been a relative hassle. You have to beg for information from someone before you have any idea what will be provided. The return rate is pretty low. If I ask 10 people to share I can expect 2 or 3 to take me up on it. Only after they share can I see where they match and which segments they share with other matches. Certainly there are many people I would not have bothered, had I known where they matched.

Short Comparison of Tools

The Family Inheritance Advanced tool is excellent if you manage to find it. I alert all of my matches to it's presence. You can check a match and also see exactly where they match with you and you can easily swap them into the number one position to check them against your other matches. So once someone shares they can be compared to everyone else you're sharing with exactly down to the segment. This is an enormous help when you are trying to determine if two matches are on opposite sides of the chromosome.

I checked out some of the tools on a friends kit at FTDNA. I may have missed an option on one of them, so this review of their tools is based on limited experience.

FTDNA provides a chromosome browser with similar functions for checking your matches and seeing exactly where they match you, but to see if they actually match someone else in the same spot is a bit harder. To get that information, I had to go to the matrix tool which is separate from the chromosome browser. That tool will tell you that two or more of your matches match each other which is helpful, but not exactly where.

I think FTDNA's implementation is clunky there. I've had it happen several times that someone matches me on chromosome 7 (for example) where they overlap with another match. So my next step would be to see if they match that other person there. When I check them against that match though I sometimes come to find that they don't match each other where they overlap on 7..but they do match each other on a chromosome that is not shared with me. So in one instance they represent a paternal vs. maternal match, but they also are related to each other somewhere else that doesn't concern me.

That kind of data is invaluable when you're working with someone who matches both your maternal and paternal families...or who just happens to randomly match someone in the group on a different chromosome than the one you're focused on. Not having it, could lead you to the wrong conclusions.

In this arena Gedmatch is really the king. Their comparison tools so far are the best and it's a donation run site. Still they've managed to womp on the pay sites by having all the information available right up front and showing you where matches match each other and you. Of course you have to choose to upload to Gedmatch.com and they have to be up and running.

The Matching Pool

At 23 and me, I have shared with about 470 of my 1200 plus matches. That represents three years of convincing people to offer up the most basic information you need to work in genetic genealogy..."where do we match". It's nothing to sneeze at because at FTDNA, I'm likely to only have 400 matches total.

Unlike 23 and me though, I won't have to work for three years just to see where I match someone. That information is there on the first day. I can download a csv file of all my matches and which chromosomes and segments they match on right then and there. Then I can make informed decisions about who to bother with family tree requests based on what I'm researching at the time.

I've heard rumors that FTDNA customers are more likely to respond to requests for information, but I've also heard from people who transfer that the rate for information exchange is about the same as at 23 and me and also that just about as many people have absolutely no family trees at all. So that seems like a coin toss.

For older V3 23 and me kits like mine, FTDNA offers a $69 transfer that puts your results in their database. Gedmatch of course does this for free and requests a donation. Still though there may be people who tested at FTDNA who just aren't ready to try out Gedmatch, so it would help to be in the FTDNA database for more coverage. Transferring at some point seems like a no brainer. It's something I should do, just like I did with my Y from ancestry.com.

I have a few more autosomal tests to purchase though and they are the tests I'm thinking about switching over.

23 and Me Concerns..or the things that are pushing me over

In the past, the general advice was to get your test at 23 and me, and then take advantage of FTDNA's transfer to put yourself in both databases. That is no longer possible. 

23 and me has a new chip, that is incompatible with FTDNA's transfer (although Gedmatch can manage to match them up just fine and I'm sure FTDNA just doesn't see the profit in spending time on it). So new kits purchased with 23 and me just don't have the option to transfer into FTDNA's database. That is one concern I have. One of the testing companies is now not like the others, and it's the one I use the most. My old kits will transfer just fine, but anything I buy from here on out will have to rely on Gedmatch.com as it's only cross company solution...and it's frequently down because it's a donation run volunteer site.

Although 23 and me has given up on health results (for the time being) and their focus should be on genealogy only, the strict privacy policies are still in place. Getting basic information is still hard and the return rate is still pretty low. Not getting  a share at 23 and me is crippling because you won't ever know where someone, who is anonymous, matches you and if they match any of your other matches.

Those are pretty big concerns, but the thing that really has me motivated to start purchasing tests elsewhere is how the purchase and execution of a test for my dad's maternal uncle has spiraled out of my reach.

A Rookie Mistake and a Losing Battle with Privacy

I purchased a test for my dad's maternal uncle from 23 and me. The focus of my research here has been on my paternal line but I value my dad's maternal family as well. The Seelyes were pretty well covered, but the Campbells were missing. My dad's maternal uncle has both and he would be my dad's largest match. His test would really help to define those families in my dad as well as defining the paternal side of many matches by the absence of a match with him on overlapping segments (Dark Side of the Moon).

It's actually the first time I've purchased a test for someone I have little contact with. The plan was that I would set up an account at 23 and me, purchase the test, send it to him. His part would be to spit in the vile and return the test unregistered. 23 and me would then notify me of the test that was turned in that I had purchased because it was unregistered and I would claim the test. All of that is basically laid out in 23 and me's policies and procedures. The goal there was simplicity. If I ship the kit to myself first so I can register it, then I have to pay for shipping to my great uncle..basically double paying shipping.

Unfortunately things did not go as planned. The kit shipped and then we lost contact with my great uncle. So I waited, and waited and waited for it to appear in my dad's list of matches. It never did. Finally I thought that maybe he changed his mind about testing. I've heard that 23 and me kits have an expiration at about a year. So now, a year later I worked through family members to get in contact with my dad's uncle to see if I could recover the kit in time to use it on a different relative.

This was a lot like cold calling someone, because I've only met the man a few times in my life. So I cold called an 80 year old man about something that happened a year ago. 

I asked him if he wanted the test and he said, at this point, no. I asked if I could take it to use on another person and he said. Other than the one I sent back?

wait...what?!?

Some more questions and quick searching at 23 and me show that he definitely registered the kit a year ago and it has just sat there ever since. Never showing up in my dad's list of matches and without any sort of notification. All of that due to the privacy settings on the account.

What follows is totally paraphrased, truncated and jumbled like my frantic mind. Just know that it was more tedious to go through than it was to write and that it encompasses a week or so of time.

Another phone call to uncle the next day: Can you remember your password? no. Do you know what email address you used? no. I'm going to call support to see if we can recover the results and get back on track.

Initiate contact with support. I explain the situation they inform me that they only communicate with the email account that registered the kit, not the purchaser of the kit. I tell them he may not have access to the email account and has forgotten his password.
If he has forgotten his password and cannot get into email he can fill out a form for support [address of form not given]. 

Another phone call to uncle a couple of days later: Do you have an email address? Yes [address here]. Do you check it? I think so. 

Me back to support: Look, here is his email, but I'm not sure it's the one he used to register the kit or if he can receive email there. 

Support case closed...fill out a survey to tell us how awesomely we helped you! 

wait...what?!? 

Comment from me on the support case: Angry tirade about how I don't think the issue was resolved and how I have more questions about what to do. 

From support: It looks like you want access to your uncle's results. You will have to work with him directly to get that. 

Another phone call to uncle...no answer. 

Uncle magically appears in list of relatives...after a year..immediately make sharing requests! 

Comment back to support. I don't think he can get into his email or his account at 23 and me. He's 80. Is there a phone number he can call? Also why does he appear in my matches now? 

Another phone call to uncle...no answer. 

Support: we only communicate with the email account that registered the kit. If your uncle cannot log in at 23 and me he will have to initiate a password reset.  

Me: The password reset is sent to the email account that he may not access! Is there another form of communication like a phone number. Have you attempted to contact him? What are the steps I should tell him to take when I call. If I'm going to be his long distance support, you need to give me the tools to do that. 

Another phone call to uncle...no answer. 

Support: we cannot communicate about your uncles test with you. He will need to initiate contact with support. Our primary communication is with email. Perhaps his appearance in your match list indicates that he can log in. 

Me: I don't know why he's appearing now. I'm not sure he's getting his email. I've not been able to contact him about it. What steps can I take if my uncle cannot get his email? 

Support: he can fill out a form [address given] to initiate contact with support. we only communicate with the email account that registered the kit. 

A quick look at the form shows the second field is the email address. Clearly, I'm not getting anywhere with this circular logic.  

Four more phone calls to uncle...no answer or response to messages. He could be out.  He could be on vacation. He could be sick. He could be avoiding these annoying calls from someone he barely knows...I don't know.  

Me: Okay if I can get back in touch with my uncle, and I have him fill out the form and he wants to inform 23 and me that his email account has been compromised, do I need to lead him through creating a new email account? 

Support: Yes. Indicate that the email account has been compromised and put the new email account in the comments. 

Support case closed.

At this point, I'm sort of worried about my great uncle. I don't know him very well, but he's fairly old and he's sort of disappeared. If my dad hadn't mentioned him doing something like this in the past, I would be even more concerned. Maybe this is just his pattern.

Because of my experiences using my dad's account, I know they ask for your answer to your security question for things like downloading your raw results. My guess is that a support contact to change your email address would follow the same protocols and my goal here is not to socially engineer 23 and me or my great uncle. It's really simply to see this basic information..where do we match and where does he match others I'm sharing with. I don't need his health results. They are useless to me because I already have my own.

My guess is that because he doesn't even want the account the results are not important to him. He was only doing it for my dad in the first place. He is caught in the default privacy policy and probably has some settings that would keep him out of the DNA relatives list.

Someone somewhere got into his account and changed some settings so he would appear in DNA relatives, but all that really tells me is that he is my dad's uncle...which I already knew. 

Now every time I look at my DNA relatives list, I can think about the 22%..really 44% of my dad's DNA I won't be able to define and about how a simple mistake in my planning and missed communication between family members can lead to this total loss of information. I may never get this opportunity to see these results again. I doubt my great uncle would take another test, assuming I can ever get in contact with him in the future. This attempt to catalog my grandmother has been a total failure.

The sad part is that if I had tested him at FTDNA, I would have his results without anything more needed on his part...which I'm pretty sure is what he would want. Now I have to try to get him to navigate this confusing maze of settings and check boxes or have him go through a password reset. Or not. Maybe he can already log in. I just don't know. 

I'm also impatient. I've waited for a year for these results. You'd think that would make me more patient but it hasn't. Maybe in a couple of months I'd be able to get in touch again and get more information. Maybe he'll be back next week. Maybe not. It's frustrating to be able to brush your finger tips on something but never actually grab it. I view the last year as lost time.

Making the Switch

Of course, I'm angry and I'm making decisions while I'm angry (ill advised). On the other hand a cost/benefit analysis is telling me that I'm already not getting the level of service I need to make informed decisions and that my preferred company is no longer compatible. Instead of bumping up their service for genetic genealogy like we all hoped they would in the wake of the FDA issue..it's just stagnating under the same rules they've always had, without the benefit of being able to transfer to other companies. Their focus is clearly on getting their medical information back online, not in making it easier for genealogists to use their products.

I still really appreciate the built in limited Y haplogroup which, with a little research you can match up to todays haplogroup listings..but I'm not sure that minor benefit outweighs the detractors. 

The writing appears to be on the wall. 

Why not Ancestry DNA? Simple. They don't offer any tools yet, that I know of, to actually compare segments of DNA. So it's less information than I need and I would have to go to Gedmatch to do any comparisons. Ancestry provides "leaves" saying you have a genetic relative who has matches in your tree, but no information about where they match making it possible to have a relative show up as part of your maternal family  because of a tree match, when really they belong on your dad's side. Both FTDNA and 23 and me win that one hands down.

Tests I purchase in the future for my wife and her family should probably just go to FTDNA where I already have some of her family members Y tested. Chances are I can use their current sample to upgrade to family finder and then check them against her. 

I should also purchase my mom's families tests there since I would also likely Y test one of her brothers to gather my Hutchinson Y DNA. I have maybe 3 more autosomal tests to get for them and a Y. 

Future autosomal tests for the U152 Thompsons could go there as well. With the option of checking my last 23 and me tested Thompson at Gedmatch.com for comparison.

The next test I plan to get for my dad is a test to define my dad's Finks family. I have another aging relative on that side who has agreed to do it. My plan was to order the 23 and me test and ship it to myself and then hand deliver it to this relative, but I think my plans have changed. Now I think I will ship a family finder test to myself instead and then actually transfer my dad's test to FTDNA too. Two Seelye relatives are already tested there so we won't be alone.

$99 for the FTDNA test and $69 for the transfer. Those are the minimal costs in switching my dad's results and having someone known to compare to. You might also count the $99 we spent on the lesson in privacy from 23 and me. It takes me sometimes a whole year to save up money for these tests but I think at this point, it will be worth it.

That is just the money involved. What really has me disappointed is the loss of information. My great uncle's results are available but they are untouchable..that's way worse than losing a hundred bucks.

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