DNA Analysis

I had a match whom I contacted and we figured everything out just fine, one thing was bothering me the cM value we shared seemed a bit high.

The response 'It's not my DNA it's my mother's.'😲

So no guarantee the test even belongs to the person named.

I think it's still in Beta and they only run it now and again

Hi, I'm working on my family tree. So far I've able to trace 6 to 7 generations back to the late 1700s early 1800s. All of whom live less than 30km apart, and all within Co Sligo. I do have lots of uncles of various Gs Gs Gs who mainly went to America with a small number to Scotland.

My first question is which DNA site is best for finding long lost cousins? Biggest user base etc and secondly what kind of test should I do to find my cousins? I find it very confusing.

I’m still a novice on DNA, but as nobody has commented will simply add that his test, like many Y-DNA does not really inform for genealogy, other than to confirm European origin with a high probability of Irish/British ancestry.

He is part of R-M269 which is the dominant haplogroup in Western Europe, and he shares with about 100 million other males (including me!).That haplogroup  increases in frequencyas one moves from east to west in Europe..

Wiki says it peaks at the national level in Wales at a rate of 92%, at 82% in Ireland, 70% in Scotland, 68% in Spain, 60% in France (76% in Normandy), about 60% in Portugal, 50% in Germany, 50% in the Netherlands, 47% in Italy, 45% in Eastern England, 43% in Denmark and 42% in Iceland. It is as high as 95% in parts of Ireland.

I agree with you, I've had some happy conclusions with autosomal. Y-DNA is great for one-name studies and finding our which branch of the the O’Neill’s or the O’Brien’s/McNamara’s/McMahon’s you hail from, but unless you (a) have several close Y-cousins or (b) one has done a ‘high’ test e.g. Big Y I believe disappointment will occur. And, of course, there is a big presumption that people have the time, skills and memory to learn a new language (DNA) to understand and build on the findings.

Another issue is the NPE (Not Parent Expected/ Non Parental Event) that is very likely to happen in a 500 year timeframe. Just think back on key events in Irish history since 1500 – the Elizabethan disturbances, Desmond Rebellion, famine of 1575, Nine Years War, Battle of Kinsale, Plantation of Ulster, Rebellion of 1641 and Confederate wars, Cromwell, Williamite Wars, several famines in the 1700’s, Rebellion of 1798, famines of the early 1800’s followed by the Great Famine. Think of the displacements, the starvation, the death and destruction from war.

During one of those events Mary Murphy was on her own, cold, lonely and starving as a result of war or pestilence. Her husband was missing for months. One night she was either raped, seduced, acquiesced or simply in desperation for food and shelter was impregnated by soldier John Smith. Generations later there now are hundreds of male Murphy’s running around wondering why they have Smith Y-DNA.

One hundred and fifty years from now, how many Ukrainians will there be with Russian Y-DNA??

Maybe Y-DNA can be uploaded to MyHeritage? I know Pinky you have been very positive about MyH's tools but I still find them as a test / general geno site quite useless.

so R1b-P312 is one of two major branches of R1b in Western Eurasia. It in turn is divided into multiple branches, the biggest one in an Irish context is R1b-L21.

What testing did he do exactly? I'm assuming he had a SNP test, it would be unusual to just show up as R-P312* as this haplogroup dates back to the Bronze age, he probably falls under one of it's branches (but perhaps not one of big ones like L21).

I had about ten new matches on Ancestry this morning--all very low cMs and only one with any shared matches. But new is that they were all assigned maternal or paternal immediately. Previously I have had to wait for an update, months apart. Also, there is a banner saying 'Coming soon--AncestryDNA® results will be updated with even more precision in the coming weeks.' I don't know what the updates will be. Sorry about the formatting.

@Hermy My goodness that's such a pity. I hope either Ancestry will work it out, or the people you need to help figure things out will test.

@Hermy I'm glad to hear that! It's strange though that Ancestry hasn't been able to assign more of your matches.