Saturday, March 29, 2014

Awaiting DNA Results/Getting ready


We had a moderate quake where I live here in Whittier, California last night (and many small ones since that one). I was thinking I hope the earth doesn't swallow me up before we get our latest round of DNA test results back. We have been given expected completion dates of early May for two kits, and late April for one. I expect to get the results before then, but it's hard to predict since I know FTDNA has its hands full with the new Big Y tests kits. 


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Paternal and Maternal segments
I've just tested with Ancestry.com and expect my results about the same time as the others. I have other distant cousins in the process of testing or planning to test. It's very difficult to keep track of so many results. My mom and I tested with FTDNA and some cousins tested with 23andme. Gedmatch had been a wonderful tool for comparing with cousins who tested at Ancestry.com and 23andme. A new tool I've been using is Genome Mate, a program that groups matches by chromosome and allows you to visually see the length of the shared segments. There are many nice features in this program which allow you to analyze your matches, and keep notes for them. When you upload a gedcom file along with your browser CVS file from FTDNA the program compares your family surnames with those of your FTDNA matches. I'm currently adding more collateral family surnames to my family tree in order to compare as many names as possible with my matches. You can also mark each match according to which side of the family they are from. You can then see charts with maternal and paternal shared segments for each chromosome. The Genome Mate  program also allows 23andme data uploads.

Something else I'm doing is combining family group sheets with test results so I can more easily remember where my matches fit in the scheme of things.
The earth is still moving non stop here in Whittier. We hope the next shake up is only from our DNA test results?

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