Wednesday, April 02, 2014

Tracking my atDNA matches

I've been spending a lot of time lately maintaining a spreadsheet of my autosomal DNA matches as suggested by Jim Bartlett and detailed at Kitty Cooper's blog.  In the meantime I've been reading and trying to learn as much as I can about how autosomal DNA works.

I've added the matching detail and the chromosone mapping from the first set of 23andMe matches as well as those from Gedmatch.  I have over 1000 matches at 23andMe alone - it will take me some time to get this all down.

I'm lucky that both of my parents have tested now at 23andme. Mom's results are ready, dad's are just about ready.  Because they've been tested, I can easily tell which of my matches come from which side of the family. 

Using the spreadsheet, I will triangulate among the matches to identify relatives that match me at the same chromosone segments.  This should help identify that we are descended from a common ancestor.  Then, hopefully, we can use the family tree information to determine which ancestor.

Right now, I've clearly identified the common ancestors of two matches on my paternal side and one match on the maternal.  There is so much more to discover!

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