Sorting those DNA Results

In this post I am going to talk about some things that have helped me here recently in trying to make sense of the DNA information that I have gotten from my tests.

If you are a newbie to autosomal DNA testing most of this is going to probably look like greek to you and I must admit a large part of it still looks that way to me.

One resource that I want to share is called DNA for Newbies. There are lots of useful tips and information there. You will want to scroll to the bottom and download the file called How to Isolate and Identify Segments of Admixture.

In general the rule of thumb seems to be that we inherit the following amounts of DNA from our relatives in this manner:

• 50% from each parent or our 2nd Generation
• 25% from each Grandparent or our 3rd Generation
• 12.5 % from our Great Grandparents or our 4th Generation
• 6.25% from our 2nd Great Grandparents or our 5th Generation
• 3.12% from our 3rd Great Grandparents or our 6th Generation
• 1.56% from our 4th Great Grandparents or our 7th Generation
• .75% from our 5th Great Grandparents or our 8th Generation

Remember that this may vary and is not always precisely these exact amounts. But it is a ball park figure. Let me give an example from my own results.

A known, proven 4th Cousin and I were found to share 0.62% across 2 Segments. 23andME predicted that he and I were between a 3rd to 6th cousin. Another proven 2nd Cousin, once removed and I share 2.08% across 8 segments. 23andME stated we were likely 1st-2nd cousins.

So as you can see the figures given are a ball park figure. It predicted a 3rd-6th cousin and it turned out he and I were a 4th Cousin and the other predicted a 1st to 2nd cousin, it turned out we were 2nd Cousins, once removed.

To this point in time it has been so worth it! I have lots more connections that I am working on, these are proving to be a bit more complicated but I am assured that we will get there one day!