Genetic Genealogy – What is my Ethnicity?

The Family Finder autosomal DNA test from FamilyTreeDNA serves a two-fold function with regard to genetic genealogy: (1) it measures the changes in the single points in your genetic code (the A, G, C, and Ts) and calculates the relationship to your matches based on the number of markers you share with each one; (2) and it compares your marker values to those represented by population groups in other geographic regions to determine your ethnicity. This second function of the autosomal DNA test has come in handy several times, most recently with my friend Keith, whose data I am helping to interpret.

Shortly after I sent Keith his list of matches he sent me an email asking if his DNA test could tell him if he was Native American Indian. I get this question a LOT – anytime I mention a DNA test to anyone. It seems like everyone wants to prove their Native American Heritage. The answer to Keith’s question is both yes and no. The autosomal DNA test will tell you your ethnicity but it is only an estimation, not an absolute. It varies depending on the sample size ftDNA  has collected for that geographic region.

Well all ambiguities aside, I was still able to use ftDNA’s Population Finder tool to pull up a map of Keith’s ethnicity based on his results and matches. Here is a view of his map:

According to ftDNA, Keith has the following ethnicity:

90% Western European (defined as Orcadian)

10% Middle Eastern (defined as Palestinian, Bedouin, Druze, Jewish, Mozabite) – primarily Jewish

Keith was disappointed that he didn’t find any Native American Ancestry. To be honest, I’m not sure what it would say if there was Native American Ancestry! I’m still reading blogs and trying to find people who have tested and whose results have come back as Native American Ancestry.

His report didn’t really tell us much about his ancestry. If we look at a map of the world we can determine that the area on his map that is shaded dark blue and labeled as the “Orcadian” population corresponds to the present day UK (England) and Ireland. The Middle East population corresponds to present day Algeria, Libya, Egypt and the Sudan.

Keith said he didn’t have any Middle Eastern heritage that he knew of. This was the first I had seen of this population showing up in a person’s population finder results. Then it just so happens I was reading Roberta Estes’ blog, DNA-eXplained one morning while eating my breakfast and came across her blog post, “The Dreaded “Middle East” Autosomal Result.” In this post, Roberta explains that the result of Middle East ancestry is sometimes a clue to Native American Ancestry! She reports that she often sees this Middle Eastern admixture in the results of people who are looking for Native American Ancestry.  In this post she uses the inhabitants of Hattaras Island as an example of how populations intermarried with persons on the island, mixing very little with non-inhabitants, resulting in very little new DNA being introduced.

Although Keith’s ancestors were not native to Hatteras Island that we know of, his great-grandparents and 2^nd great-grandparents were already in the United States following the Revolutionary War. According to Roberta’s calculations, a 10% ethnicity of Middle Eastern should have come from his great-grandparents or 2^nd great-grandparents which would have been alive during the 1800s. We do not have all of the names, birth dates and locations of all sets of his first and second great-grandparents though, at this time, so there is still a possibility of Middle Eastern ancestry showing up.

  

Ginger R Smith, "Genetic Genealogy - What is my Ethnicity" Genealogy by Ginger, posted 08 August 2012 (http://http://genealogybyginger.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). 

Genetic Genealogy – The definition of Customer Service

According to Wikipedia, the definition of Customer Service is “the provision of service to customers before, during and after a purchase.”[i]  With this in mind, if I am working with clients, I need to focus on interfacing with the customer, identifying their needs and satisfying their needs. And as you will see in my post below, I also need to look at WHO my customers are. What do they have access to? Do they have a computer at home with internet access? Do they know how to use a computer? Or do they prefer to “touch” and “feel” what they are looking at?

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When I agreed to help Keith with his autosomal DNA test from FamilyTreeDNA, I thought everything would be easy. He would take the test, find some matches, meet new cousins, fill in the gaps in his family tree and go on about his merry way!

But when that final email came that said his results had been posted, Keith was ready to go! He wanted to know what to do next and he was just busting with questions!  He wanted to know who all his matches were. Who they were related to. How they were related to him. How he could contact them. Would they give him information about his mother’s side of the family. Which side of the family were they from. The questions just kept coming and I was excited for him!

I was totally prepared.

I had the email all written out about how to log into the site with his user name and password. How to view his matches. How to view the pedigrees of his matches.

Except there was one tiny problem.

 

Keith had dial-up internet.

One thing about taking on “clients” is that you have to think of every possibility, probability, or issue that may crop up. You have to think about who your client is, or what kind of client they are. In this case, my client has dial up internet. But what about some of the older generations who prefer to have paper – something they can hold, touch, feel? How do you adapt your way of doing things to satisfy their needs?

After a few phone calls, we determined that the 23 pages of Keith’s matches could not be displayed with his dial up internet service. Well Keith being the inquisitive one that he is, asked a simple question:

“Can I download my match data?” - Why of course you can! And I can take care of that for you.

I can download his matches from the Family Finder section of his homepage into a csv  file which is just an unformatted format of an Excel file. There are a few limitations with this though: First, his list of matches will need to be redownloaded each time matches are added, which could be daily or weekly. Or I could filter his list of matches by date and then download the new ones and add them to the already downloaded list.

Second, one of the things that is lost when the list of matches is downloaded from the website to the csv file is the highlighting of the common surnames and their variations. The website automatically bolds the surnames that are in common between you and your matches’ list of names and includes surname variations. This is lost when the match data is downloaded. You can still do a search within the csv file, but it will not pick up name variations like the website does.

I saved the csv as an excel file and emailed a copy of it to Keith. He received it ok, but when he went to print it, it was at least 40 pages long. Another thing to consider is what if your client doesn’t have the Excel program on their computer? It can be converted to a PDF file which is easily read by a free PDF reader program. 

So far, working with Keith has been a great learning experience. I didn’t realize how little customer interaction experience I actually had. I also hadn’t thought about all the little things that could go wrong! I am definitely on my way to becoming a better professional.

Have you ever hit any unexpected roadblocks while working with a client? If so, please share your experience in the comments below or email me at ginger.reney (at) gmail.com (replace “at” with the @ symbol).

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[i] Wikipedia.com, Definition of Customer Service, citing Turban, Efraim (2002). Electronic Commerce: A Managerial Perspective. Prentice Hall.

Genetic Genealogy - Tapley DNA - Part 2

Last month I wrote a post about my friend who took an autosomal DNA test with ftDNA and asked me for my help in managing his account. I discussed how to set up his account through the website, including how to add his surnames to the site.

Last week his results came back with a list of matches totaling 221 people! That's 23 pages of matches to go through!

The first thing we did was go through all the matches to see if there were any with the last name of Tapley. You can do this by typing in "Tapley" into the Name box. However, then I remembered that Keith's 2nd great-grandfather was really a Swain (son of Sarah Tapley and Cannath Swain; I think they were unmarried), so I also looked for Swain. There was one match with last name Swain and I suggested Keith email him right away.

We then performed the same search on the list of surnames that were shared between he and his matches. You can do this by typing in "Tapley" in the "Ancestral Surnames" box. This match has his pedigree posted with his profile, so we were able to find the Tapley in his tree. It was a Mary Tapley who married a Phillip Prettypool. This family ended up in Millidgeville, Georgia which is a good sign because Keith's family is from GA. I recommended that he email this match as well.

Unfortunately there were no matches with the Swain surname in their list.

The next thing I did was look to see if we were a match. Luckily we were not :-) However we did have quite a few matches in common. This is not unusual. Having matches in common does not necessarily mean we are related to each other. The key is to see what segments we share with each match. If Keith and I both share the same segment of a single match, then technically all 3 of us would be related. 


For example, JG and I share the biggest segment on chromosome 18. JG and Keith share the biggest segment on chromosome 1. However, Keith and JG also share a small segment on chromosome 18, about 1.92 cM which overlaps with the segment that I share with JG. So the 3 of us do share a very small amount of DNA. I did send JG a list of Keith's surnames, but we were unable to determine a connection (we weren't able to determine a connection between he and I either). 

I also added more surnames to Keith's list. Here is a list of additional surnames:

Koon
Lybrand
Creed
Slayton
Spradley
Manning
Quatlebaum
Murrell
Lindsay
Kenny
Gallman
Crosby
Standfield
Crawford
Soper

Next time we will discuss how to interact with his matches and try to determine connections.

Photo of quizzical thinker from the Joyful Public Speaking Blog, by Richard I Garber, accessed 15 July 2012.

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To Cite This Post:
Ginger R. Smith, "Genetic Genealogy - Tapley DNA - Part 2," Genealogy By Ginger, 16 July 2012, (http://www.genealogybyginger.blogspot.com : accessed [date])

Genetic Genealogy – Tapley DNA

I am taking the ProGen (Professional Genealogy) course and our first assignment was to craft a mission statement. I decided to focus on using genetic genealogy to take your family tree to the next level. With this in mind I have found my first guinnae pig – I mean “client” J My friend Keith decided to take the Family Finder autosomal test with ftDNA to learn more about his ancestry. His paper trail is like swiss cheese with lots of holes in it. Throw in some affairs and unwed mothers who gave their sons their surnames into the mix and you have a good candidate for DNA.

We opted out of taking a Y-DNA test because he knew that his surname is not really his direct paternal line surname as it actually came from a female ancestor and not a male. We have an idea of what his direct line male surname might be, but would like to use the autosomal test to see if we can determine this before taking the Y-DNA test. Also, there are no working surname projects at this time to support either of these surnames. Although a Y-DNA test will provide you with a list of matches, it is more beneficial when there is a surname project to support and manage the results data of you and your matches for comparison and interpretation.

I ordered Keith a Family Finder test from ftDNA. He collected the cheek swab samples and mailed them back to ftDNA. He received a kit number and a password for access to his account and home page. I put his account under both his name and my own so I will have access to his home page and be able to help him navigate through his matches and results. While we wait for his test to be analyzed, I have asked him to write down the last names of his parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, and 2^nd great-grandparents. This is a good starting point for comparing surnames with his matches.

Keith sent me some pedigree charts along with some notes he has made for his own files. He also sent me an Ahnentafel report that his cousin (I presume) made up for him. From all of these files combined, I was able to compile a list of surnames for the ancestors listed above. If you are doing this for someone else, make sure you are clear that you need the names of the biological parents of each ancestor, not the spouses’ names. Here is a list of his surnames:

Tapley

Brown

Minton

Page

Russell

Scoggins

Swain

Horton

Spruill

Moore

Avent

I then logged into his account and added each surname one by one. This is an important step that many testers don’t bother to do leading to a lot of frustration from their matches. Now we wait until his results come back.

Learn more about Keith's results in my post of Part 2

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Photo of DNA kit from ftDNA website.

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To Cite This Post:
Ginger R. Smith, "Genetic Genealogy - Tapley DNA," Genealogy By Ginger, 29 June 2012, (http://www.genealogybyginger.blogspot.com : accessed [date])