Earlier this year I reported on what I was learning from the autosomal DNA tests of my three grandsons who are now 10, 7 and 3. I am continuing to learn more as I examine their results in different ways. They were all tested through MyHeritage and then their results were imported into FTDNA's Family Finder to be able to compare them more easily with other family members.
The earlier posts can be viewed:
In this post I will comment on what I learned when I mapped segments of my grandsons' DNA using Kitty Cooper's tool and Family Finder's Chromosome browser.
For those of you who do not personally know these fine young men, the takeaway from all of this is to realize how each inherited very different segments of DNA from each of their 4 grandparents and the one great-grandparent from whom we have a DNA sample. The implications of this for genetic genealogists are that when we are administering autosomal tests we should test as many family members as possible. Even full siblings will have quite different match results.
Numbers of matches reported will depend greatly on the extent to which autosomal DNA testing has penetrated the geographic and ethnic groups from which the test takers descend. In the case above, one grandfather is Ashkenazi and his spouse comes from another area of Eastern Europe but is not genetically Ashkenazi. The differences in their numbers of matches is astounding. These match numbers carry down two generations to their grandchildren. It depends on how much of their autosomal DNA each of the grandchildren inherited from each individual grandparent.
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Oct 1st, 2017
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Matches on Family Finder
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Ashkenazi
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Simon
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5,999
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26%
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Noah
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4,944
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22%
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Benjamin
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3,732
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15%
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Monika Deutscher Katzel
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502
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0%
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Lester Katzel
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12,787
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97%
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Dave
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3,306
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0%
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Arlene
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2,427
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0%
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Shana (Katzel) Dowell
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6,930
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42%
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Frederick Deutscher
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466
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0%
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When you are formulating a DNA testing plan, administer an autosomal DNA test to as many family members of each generation as you can possibly afford to test. Each person tested will contribute something to the family mosaic. The results in all families will not be as dramatic as in this family but the results that each additional person contributes can be just as significant.
As a postscript, the contribution shown above for grandmother Monika could also be attributed to her mother as her father's contribution is accounted for separately.
Agreed important to test other siblings when my test came back and there was no Native American of which I had always thought there was I proceeded to erase a lot of the tree well all that hard work was a mistake to erase. My sister's DNA came back and yes hers showed the Native American so then we tested my first granddaughter and a huge presence of Native American. My lesson from this, take nothing verbatim.
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