DNA Testing

DNA testing is a very exciting tool for making connections and filling in gaps in our family trees.  Sometimes others can help us, and sometimes we can help others.  I encourage you to test with Family Tree DNA or one of the other companies, and especially to test your older generation members while they are still with you.

Y-Chromosome DNA testing:

Y-DNA testing follows the male line back from father to father to father.

I was very lucky to find a male 4th cousin in our Holly line who agreed to test for me.  These results confirmed that our Holly line is descended from John Holly of Greenwich, CT.  I administer the Holly/Holley project at Family Tree DNA, and we have a good-sized group of John Holly descendants.  The results are here:  Holly/Holley FTDNA project.  My kit# is 51894.  I welcome anyone to join my project.

Autosomal DNA:

Autosomal DNA testing matches us with cousins back to about 8th cousins or so.  The closer the cousins, the more reliable the match.  Since our chromosomes divide with each generation, as we go further back in time, the chromosome segments being matched are too small to give us reliable data.

I have tested with Family Tree's Family Finder autosomal DNA test, AncestryDNA, and 23andMe.  My mother, my siblings and various other relatives have also tested.  Since we are descended from American colonial background, we have thousands of matches.  Combing through the results and analyzing the matching segments is a time-consuming process.  I welcome questions from any of my matches.

I encourage everyone who tests to upload their raw data results to Gedmatch (www.gedmatch.com).  This is a free DNA analysis site, which offers excellent tools for making connections with matches from all the testing sites.  It is especially important for people who tested with AncestryDNA, because Ancestry does not provide a chromosome browser, and does not tell customers the chromosome number and location of their matches.  Therefore Ancestry customers cannot use the basic analysis steps of triangulation and segment mapping, unless they upload their raw data to a site that provides that capability.

HOW TO LOAD ANCESTRYDNA RAW DATA TO GEDMATCH: 

The attached 3-page pdf document gives step by step instructions to download your raw data file from AncestryDNA, and to register on Gedmatch, and to upload your results to Gedmatch.  As of Dec 2018, all files should be uploaded to the Genesis.Gedmatch site.   If you find it easier to follow, you can print it out for reference as you work through the steps.

Here is an article from Kitty Cooper's blog, about uploading Ancestry.com data to a site that provides a chromosome browser:  http://blog.kittycooper.com/2015/09/please-upload-your-ancestry-raw-data-to-a-site-with-a-chromosome-browser/ 

To see graphs of all 22 chromosomes for our siblings, mapped to our 4 grandparents, click the link at the bottom of this page for the Chromosome Maps  page.

Surname chart to 5 generations:

• Chromosome Maps
• Living DNA Ethnicity