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Family Roots Expo 2016: Live DNA Q&A with Sr. Genetic Genealogist Paul Woodbury

Transcript:

Amber: Hey everyone! Thanks for joining us for our first 
ever Live DNA Q&A session. My name is 
Amber Brown, I am Marketing Manager for Legacy Tree Genealogists, and I'm here today with Paul Woodbury, one of our Sr. Genetic 
Genealogists, and he's taking questions that 
users submitted on our website at legacytree.com/live. He's answering questions about genetic genealogy 
and how to use DNA to find your ancestors. 
We're going to give it about a minute to let everyone get logged in and join us.  So while we're waiting, go ahead and leave us 
a comment and tell us where you're joining us 
from today.

Just as way of introduction for those of you that 
may not be familiar with Legacy Tree 
Genealogists,we are a full service genealogy research firm 
based in Salt Lake City, Utah near the famous 
Family History Library. We've developed a network of onsite researchers all over the 
globe, and we pride ourselves on being the highest rated genealogy research firm in 
the world.

Okay, I think we're about a minute in, so let's 
go ahead and welcome those that just joined us. My name is 
Amber Brown, and again, I'm the Marketing 
Manager for Legacy Tree Genealogists, and I'm here with Paul Woodbury one of our Sr. Genetic Genealogists and he's 
answering all of your questions on genetic genealogy and using DNA to find 
your ancestors. Users submitted their questions on our website 
at legacytree.com/live and we're going to try 
and get to as many of those questions as possible today within the next half hour. If you'd 
still like to submit a questionfor a future DNA session go ahead and do that 
on the website and the address again is 
legacytree.com/live and we're going to have 
sessions like this in the future.

Just real quick, for everyone that tunes in today 
we do have a special offer at the end of the 
video, so make sure you stay until the end, you're not going to want to miss it, it's going to 
be pretty cool. So let's go ahead, kick it off, 
and get started with our very first question.

Alright, Paul, this first question comes from 
Donna. Donna I hope you're listening, give us 
a like or a comment if you're here.  She says “My second great grandmother 
was a civil war widow. She had one child with her husband before he 
went to war and was killed. Because she collected a widow's pension, she 
never remarried before having three more 
sons, including my great grandfather. They apparently never knew who their father 
was, or didn't share this information with their 
children. How accurate would DNA genealogy be in 
finding out who my biological second 
grandfather was? Any tips on using DNA to figure it out?” She says, “I have done a DNA 
test through Ancestry and have a number of matches of cousins 
with whom I can't match a common ancestor 
to.”

Paul: So there are a few approaches you can take 
with utilizing genetic genealogy research in this 
situation. and it sounds like a fascinating case. 
Something that I would ask in this situation 
would be, “Are all of these three children the children of the same father?” and that is 
something that we could address with DNA 
testing. In order to do that we would need to make a 
DNA testing plan, identify descendants of each of those children, and invite them to do 
DNA testing as well.

Another approach that I would recommend taking in this 
situation would be to look for a direct line 
paternal descendant, so a son, of a son, of a son, of a 
son, somewhere along that line in order to find an individual who carries the 
same Y-chromosome as this unknown father. 
The Y-chromosome is passed from father to son, and when you 
match somebody on the Y-chromosome, it indicates that you share a direct line paternal 
ancestor. Because the Y-chromosome follows the 
surname pattern, follows an inheritance pattern that is similar to 
surname inheritance, we can often identify biological surnames based off the 
Y-chromosome. So if you can find a descendant along that paternal line to test, 
that would be really helpful for this case, because then we can identify the 
surname and then look for men in the area who have that same surname who could be 
the father of these children.

Amber: Very cool. Okay real quick, just a reminder for 
everyone that's watching, if you find any of this 
information helpful or that you think your friends or family 
members would benefit from, make sure you 
share this video and tag your friends so they'll have access to it as well.

Okay, let's go ahead and get on with the 
second question. So this one comes from Emily, and she says, “Is there a way to determine a 
family question, if your father's surname is not 
your DNA surname, as in an adoption or guardian?”

Paul: And this fits in perfectly with what we've 
just discussed, in that the Y-chromosome can really help you 
determine if your current surname corresponds well with your biological surname, 
and where that Y-chromosome came from.

It's important to realize that it only does come 
through this male line. So even though you 
may not have the DNA to help answer that question regarding unknown paternity, you 
should search for other family members who may have the DNA that you don't have to 
help answer that question.

So in addition to using your own DNA as a 
research tool and as a resource for 
genealogical research you should also consider what DNA other 
people in your family may have inherited from 
your ancestors.

Amber: Perfect. This next question is from Liz, and she 
says “With the many matches I see in my DNA profile, I have a hard time figuring out which 
ones are really close relatives compared to 
someone that is a distant relative or just a maybe. Please share what numbers 
we should look for in our matches?”

Paul: So 
the evaluation of your DNA matches are going to 
depend on the type of test that you take.

There are three types of DNA tests available for 
genetic genealogy. The Y-chromosome test available at Family Tree DNA; the 
mitochondrial DNA test, available also at Family Tree DNA; an autosomal DNA test which are 
available at ancestry.com, 23andMe and also 
at Family Tree DNA. So the way that you approach interpretation and 
evaluation of your matches in each of those 
situations is going to be a little bit different.

We'll start with the Y-chromosome and talk a 
little bit about the mitochondrial DNA as well, and then we'll 
talk about autosomal DNA match lists, and how 
to best interpret those. So with the Y-DNA test at Family Tree DNA, they have a few levels of 
testing that you can perform: either 37, 67 or 111 markers. The weight that you'll give to different close 
matches on your Y-DNA is going to depend on 
the  marker level that you've tested at. If you tested 
at 37 markers I usually focus on those who 
have a genetic distance of 0 to 2, meaning that the markers that they don't share in common 
that kind of distinguish their different Y-
chromosome lineages are similar enough that they appear 
as a match but there is only maybe 2 
differences between them. I'll focus on ones that are closer than that. At 
the 67 marker level, I'll up that to about 4, and 
at the 111 marker level, I'll look at 5 or less.

There are some great tables that you can use for 
interpretation of your Y-DNA test results at 
Family Tree DNA. They're available in the Learning Center at familytreedna.com and they can help you 
interpret the closeness of your matches there.

At Family Tree DNA they also have the 
mitochondrial DNA test, and we haven't talked 
a lot about that. Mitochondrial DNA is inherited from your mother, and she got it from her 
mother, and she got it from her mother in a direct maternal line of ancestry. It's 
kind of like the Y-DNA that gets passed on 
intact from generation to generation, but instead of going through the father's line, it's 
coming from your mother. Both males and females have mitochondrial 
DNA, but only females will pass it on to their 
children.

Amber: That's fascinating!

Paul: So with 
mitochondrial DNA if you take your test at 
Family Tree DNA and you get some close matches, I usually only will focus on those matches that are exact matches, because even 
with a genetic distance of 1 on the 
mitochondrial DNA you could be related within the last 10 
generations or the last 28 generations, and we 
really don't have very many people that have 28 generation family trees. It's really hard to apply that in your family 
history. I will look at them to see if there is 
anything that stands out immediately, but as a general rule you want to focus on those 
complete, full sequence matches. On that note, 
for mitochondrial DNA, really the only one that's the only test that's genealogically conclusive 
that can really give you some strong evidence 
for common ancestry is the full mitochondrial sequence at Family Tree DNA.

So, that's Y-DNA and mitochondrial DNA. Let's 
talk about autosomal DNA. This is by far the 
most popular type of test and it's the test that  Ancestry offers and 23andMe offers. Family 
Tree DNA also offers a version of the 
autosomal DNA test. When you take your autosomal DNA test you'll get a list of genetic cousins, and those 
genetic cousins will be ordered typically in your 
match list by their estimated relationship to you.

So they'll say, “We expect that this person is a 
close to first cousin.” Or they'll say, “We expect 
that they're a second to third cousin, or a fourth to sixth cousin, or a fifth to eighth cousin, and that's based off of the 
amount of DNA that you share in common.

Autosomal DNA each of us gets half of it from our mom, half of it from our Dad. Beyond that 
point the percentages vary a little bit. I could get about 
25% from my grandparents– in my case I only 
got 28% from my grandmother, and 22% from my grandfather. So it just kind of depends, it's 
a little bit random as you go back. You'll get about 12% from your great 
grandparents; about 6% from each great-great-
grandparent. So because of that, based on the segments of DNA that you share in common 
with people, the length of those segments where they're located, we can estimate how 
closely related you are to an individual based 
off of how much DNA you share and based off those characteristics.

So what I usually look at 
when I'm evaluating autosomal DNA matches, I will look at how 
many total centimorgans individuals share in 
common. I use that to estimate the level of relationship. Usually you can 
identify common ancestors between individuals 
who share more than about 100 centimorgans of DNA. Centimorgans  is just a measurement of shared DNA, and it 
helps us to evaluate how closely related 
individuals are to each other.

Amber: Okay, wow, that's a lot of great 
information, I hope you found that helpful Liz. 
Are you ready for the next question?

Paul: Yeah, let's go.

Amber: Okay, let's do this! The 
next question comes from Paul, and he wants 
to know “What are the benefits of x-chromosome 
research?”

Paul: Alright, so the x-chromosome 
is a really neat tool that we have in genealogy The x-chromosome is tested as part of an 
autosomal DNA test, so there's no specific test 
geared towards just the x-chromosome, they test that as part of 
autosomal DNA tests.

The x-chromosome is 
the female sex chromosome. Females inherit one x-chromosome from their 
mother and one from their father. Males only 
get one x-chromosome from their mother, and from their father they get the Y-chromosome. So that's kind of how it gets passed down. So in 
reality, what happens, and we talked a little 
about this with autosomal DNA, it recombines and gets mixed up every generation before it 
gets passed down, that also happens with the x-chromosome, but 
when it goes through a man, that process 
doesn't happen, it gets passed on intact from his mother. So in reality, a female will inherit one x-chromosome from 
her mother, as well as an x-chromosome from 
her paternal grandmother.

The value of the x-chromosome is helping us 
to evaluate matches and identify individuals 
that can only be related through specific lines. If you match somebody 
on the x-chromosome, then there are only a 
few possibilities of how you can be related. You know in any case where you match 
somebody on the x-chromosome that you do 
not inherit that same segment on the x-chromosome from an ancestor through your 
paternal grandfather for either individual, because the x-
chromosome cannot be passed through two 
successive generations of males.

So what that does is with autosomal research, 
you have tons of ancestors that you're looking 
at and evaluating for if they could be the source of your shared DNA with your genetic cousin, 
with the x-chromosome if you share some with somebody on the x-
chromosome, you can cut out portions of your 
tree as the people that may have contributed to that DNA.

Amber: Wow, okay. Again, fascinating. Also we have some articles 
on our blog about x-chromosome research. If 
you want to check that out, that's at legacytree.com/blog. Thanks so much Paul. Okay, the next question 
comes from Judith, and she asks “I'm trying to 
search one side of a family and eliminate the other side. Is there any way 
to connect relations through this back door 
method when someone's heritage includes an adoptive person, especially someone like a 
grandparent. Can you narrow down the other three lines and 
eliminate those?”

Paul: Yeah, and we kind of 
talked about this with the x-chromosome and that there are ways to eliminate portions of 
your family tree from consideration in a 
research problem. In the same way there are ways to eliminate portions of your 
match list from consideration in your research 
project as well.

So let's say I take a test, and I know that my grandfather was adopted, and 
we're trying to figure out who his parents were. If I take a test myself, then I will get this whole 
list of many matches, not only for my grandfather's family, but also for my 
grandmother, and my grandparents on the 
other side. Now let's say I find another relative who is a 
descendant of the same grandfather that I'm 
interested in exploring. I test that individual and any people that we match in common, are likely related through 
that ancestral couple. So then we can narrow 
our match list to focus on just those individuals.

You can also look at it from the other direction when I test somebody that I know is related to 
me, say through my maternal side. I test my 
maternal first cousin and anybody that is related to me and my 
maternal first cousin, I can eliminate from my 
research. I can say, “I already know how they're related to me, I'm not going to focus on 
them as part of this research question.” So by doing 
targeted testing of known relatives, you can 
limit the pool of genetic cousins that you're analyzing and 
corresponding with to explore the ancestry of this individual of unknown paternity.

I think that is one of the most important 
approaches in DNA testing in recognizing that 
not only do you have a resource in your own DNA but also in the DNA of your known 
relatives from both sides of your family.

Amber: Perfect, that's awesome, thank you. 
This next question comes from Jeffrey, Jeffrey I 
hope you like us if you're here. “I had a Y-DNA test done through Ancestry many years ago, 
and did the Family Tree DNA upgrade recently. 
My results show that I have over 50 matches, but not a single 
one has my surname. Furthermore, no more 
than three of them have common surnames with one another. I know there are no surprise 
paternity issues because my autosomal results 
are consistent with my paper trail. Is this weird?”

Paul: It depends. Particularly 
with the level of testing that he's done. If he's 
tested at the 37 marker level and if he belongs to a particularly common signature group, then it's not uncommon to see many different 
surnames and many different matches in your 
match list.

What I would recommend is that he identify specific individuals that he could test hypotheses with. 
With Y-DNA research, and with DNA research 
in general, sometimes we want to take the approach of going fishing we take our DNA, we just put it out there, see 
what we get back. Does it correspond well with 
what we expect? That can be a valuable approach, and it can be effective, but particularly with Y-DNA and mitochondrial DNA, 
it's much more effective if you can do targeted 
testing and targeted exploration of your family rather 
than just kind of going fishing and seeing what 
comes back.

What I mean by that is if you have a research question, say the 
research question here is, “Was my paternal 
grandfather's father really the man that we think he was?” We can find a paternal descendants of our paternal grandfather's 
father, and search for a son of a son of a son, 
test them and then we'll be able to compare that directly 
to our own results and say, “they are the same, 
therefore we do have the same common paternal great-grandfather.” Or if they're 
different then that opens up new opportunities 
for discovery and investigation as we begin to explore who was great-grandfather. Or, was the other 
line that we explored, was that where the case 
of misattributed paternity may have occurred. So that's also another 
possibility that you have to consider.

Amber: Perfect, well thank you. This next 
question comes from Patti. She says, “I am in 
touch with a known (through genealogy research) fourth cousin, who does not share 
any DNA with me.Her father and sister have been tested, and 
both match to me. I understand that DNA is 
random, but don't understand how she and I would not match.”

Paul: Okay, so this is a 
great question, and I think the answer really 
lies in highlighting the nature of autosomal DNA inheritance.

As we 
discussed further, it's a little bit random in how 
we receive autosomal DNA from our ancestors. I will get 25% of my DNA 
from each of my grandparents, and my first 
cousin will get about 25% from each of our common grandparents. But, we're going to get 
different  25 percents. We'll share some DNA with each 
other, but it's going to be in different sections of 
their DNA. So overall, I may only end up sharing about 12% with my first cousin. So that's one element of this. Eventually as 
you get farther back, there will be some 
ancestors in your family tree from whom you have inherited none of your DNA, just by 
the random nature of how it gets passed down 
to you through those generations. Typically that happens after about the fourth great-
grandparent level. Most individuals at least some DNA from each of 
their third great-grandparents but at the level of 
about fourth great grandparents and beyond we begin losing people from what we call our 
genetic tree, or those individuals that 
contributed DNA to our genome.

By the time you get to eighth grade 
grandparents you're only going to share DNA with about 10% 
of them. As you begin moving farther back you're going 
to share less and less DNA with those 
ancestors. Another thing to consider is that each individual inherits 50% from their mom, 50% from their dad. But at any 
given portion of their DNA they can only inherit 
one piece from their dad. So let's say my dad 
passes DNA on to me, that DNA has to have 
come either from my paternal grandmother, or my 
paternal grandfather. I can't get DNA from both 
of them.

So in this case, what I suspect is happening, is 
the client is matching the fourth cousin on a 
single segment of DNA and she matches that fourth cousin's father on 
that same segment of DNA. That match 
inherited that DNA from her father, and let's say it's his paternal copy of his DNA. She doesn't match the other fourth cousin, 
which is common–you'll only match about 50% 
of your fourth cousins. At that level the fourth cousin that doesn't match, will have 
inherited the other copy of the father's DNA. 
She'll have inherited the maternal copy, and because of that, she doesn't match the client on that individual segment. So it is 
possible to match a father and a daughter, but 
not the other daughter.

Amber: Okay, so I guess that answers your 
question. Thank you so much.That's crazy–so much to learn! This question 
comes from Elizabeth, and she says, “What 
type of DNA test would you recommend that a first time user take?”

Paul: This is one of the most 
common questions out there, and the answer 
is, it depends. Typically, and it depends really on what your research goals are. It also depends 
on your family history, so I'll give a brief 
overview of my specific recommendations.

If you have a specific research problem that 
you're exploring in a distant, distant time 
period, then it might be better to do targeted testing with mitochondrial DNA and Y-DNA. Those tests are only available at Family Tree 
DNA. If you have a research question within 
the first few generations of your ancestry that might be addressed with autosomal DNA 
testing, I typically recommend that you start with ancestry.com or Family Tree 
DNA. If you aren't able to answer your 
question at that point, then you can also move on to 23andMe.

Some other considerations for that however, 
include your ethnic background. If you have 
Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry, Family Tree DNA hands down because they have the largest sample of tested 
Jewish individuals. If you have a specific 
region in the world where your ancestors came from then you might also check at Family Tree DNA 
to see if there is a group project dedicated to 
that ethnic or geographic region.

For example, there has been great efforts on 
the part of the Hungarian Bukovina project at 
Family Tree DNA to recruit individuals from Europe to do DNA testing. So if you have Hungarian Bukovina ancestry, 
definitely test at Family Tree DNA because 
you'll be able to connect with those individuals that have tested as part of that project.

On the 
other hand, if you have Korean ancestry, consider 23andMe because there is a wealthy 
philanthropist who has donated hundreds of 
kits to 23andMe for the use by Korean individuals. Same for African-
American family history research, I often 
recommend 23andMe because they have actively searched out individuals with all four 
grandparents from Sub Saharan Africa  which can help you connect with living cousins 
in Africa.

So there's different considerations 
that you might explore if you have different ethnic origins as 
well. But on a general level, I typically recommend 
starting with the largest database, which is 
ancestry.com, then going to also Family Tree DNA because it is $20 cheaper than any of the other tests. Also, if 
that still doesn't answer your question, looking 
at 23andMe because they may have a larger international database.

So in the end, each of the companies has its pro, 
its cons, and you'll also want to consider the other elements of how they store your 
DNA, how they use your DNA, the privacy 
associated with that, what's the contact like between your genetic cousins and you–are 
you able to contact them directly or do you 
have to use some cumbersome messaging system…so there's lot's of elements of each of 
the companies that has its pros and cons. I would 
recommend that you explore those, we have 
some blog posts dedicated to that. I would also mention that it's important to explore each of the 
companies and weigh their respective pros and 
cons as part of the genetic genealogy standards, 
that's the first standard–to explore the 
companies and to evaluate if they'll be able to reach your research goals.

Amber: Perfect, thank you so much, Paul. 
Again, our blog is found at legacytree.com/blog 
Be sure to check it out, so many great articles and content over there.

We're about out of time, Paul has to go teach a 
lesson this morning, but I just want to thank 
everyone for joining us. I appreciate you joining us for our first Live DNA session .If you would like to submit a question for a 
future DNA session, you may do so at the web 
address www.legacytree.com/live

As promised, we do have a special promotional 
offer for everyone that joined us in the broadcast today. It expires 
on Monday, October 31st, 2016, so be sure to 
take advantage of this. We're offering $35 off of our DNA analysis which is regularly $350, 
and I have to tell you, we have never done a sale on this before, so this 
is kind of a rare thing. If you have genetic 
genealogy questions, or would like to see what DNA analysis can do for you in extending your family line, definitely take advantage of that 
offer. That promo code is DNA35, and it will 
expire on Monday, Oct.31, 2016.

Also if you haven't already done so be sure to like the Legacy Tree Genealogists 
Facebook page and share this video to your 
timeline so you'll have access to this later on as well. If you'd like to, you can follow us and 
make sure you receive notifications next time 
we go live there's a little downward facing arrow in the top 
right hand corner of your screen. Go ahead 
and click on that, turn on notifications, and you'll receive a message each time we go live.

Again, thanks so much for joining us, I hope 
you guys enjoy the rest of your weekend!

 

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