© 2020 Mark Gregory Liverman - 1 -

Genetic Genealogy Update for W.I.S.E. Rev. 20180123

Greg Liverman, PhD Pinewood Genealogy greg.liverman@live.com +1 719.689.0787

1 UPDATES AT ANCESTRY & 23ANDME

Ancestry and 23andMe reports are typically closest to the paper trail genealogy compared to other companies

More reference groups, reference groups realigned

More detail reported (smaller geographic areas)

1.1 ANCESTRY 60 major reference groups

1000 fine scale regions

40,000 total samples

Improved details in the Americas and Africa

1.2 23ANDME

1.2.1 Ancestry Update

Updated to 1500 reference groups worldwide

more granular breakdown of Ancestry Composition results for customers with Central Asian, South Asian,

western Asian, and North African ancestry

More granularity (finer detail) available to testers

1.2.2 Family Tree

This tree is constructed purely from DNA relationships. It is improved compared to last October, but still not perfect.

The arrow indicate that the circles matches should be linked to a different ancestor

Using Autosomal DNA to Find an Unknown Ancestor

© 2020 Mark Gregory Liverman - 2 -

2 MATCH VISUALIZATIONS

2.1 MANUAL

2.2 AUTO CLUSTERS Available for a small fee from

Genetic Affairs (https://geneticaffairs.com/)

DNA Gedcom (https://www.dnagedcom.com/)

MyHeritage (included in paid subscription or upgrade)

GEDmatch (included in paid Tier 1)

Name Match IDEstimated

RelationshipTotal CM

Match #1

Mother

Match #9

David McLain &

Julia Strong

Match #6

Estes &

Stearns

Match #8

Michael Frock &

Margaret Barker

Match #11

William Thompson &

Margaret Cox

Match #14

Frock?

Mother 1 PARENT_CHILD 3443

First Cousin 2 1C1R 972

Match #3 3 SECOND_COUSIN 405

Match #4 4 SECOND_COUSIN 251

Match #5 5 THIRD_COUSIN 143

Match #6 6 THIRD_COUSIN 121

Match #7 7 THIRD_COUSIN 118

Match #8 8 THIRD_COUSIN 113

Match #9 9 THIRD_COUSIN 110

Match #10 10 THIRD_COUSIN 110

Match #11 11 THIRD_COUSIN 109

Match #12 12 THIRD_COUSIN 104

Match #13 13 THIRD_COUSIN 104

Match #14 14 THIRD_COUSIN 104

Match #15 15 THIRD_COUSIN 101

Match #16 16 THIRD_COUSIN 98

Match #17 17 THIRD_COUSIN 93

Match #18 18 THIRD_COUSIN 91

Match #19 19 FOURTH_COUSIN 76

Match #20 20 FOURTH_COUSIN 75

Match #21 21 FOURTH_COUSIN 67

Match #22 22 FOURTH_COUSIN 65

Match #23 23 FOURTH_COUSIN 64

Match #24 24 FOURTH_COUSIN 64

Match #25 25 FOURTH_COUSIN 63

Match #26 26 FOURTH_COUSIN 63

Match #27 27 FOURTH_COUSIN 61

Match #28 28 FOURTH_COUSIN 59

Match #29 29 FOURTH_COUSIN 59

Match #30 30 FOURTH_COUSIN 59

Using Autosomal DNA to Find an Unknown Ancestor

© 2020 Mark Gregory Liverman - 3 -

The tool downloads your matches from a site (Ancestry, 23andMe, MyHeritage, FTDNA) and produces spreadsheets

and visual charts of how your matches match each other. Each cluster probably has an ancestral couple in

common…with you. By researching those matches backwards using POG (Plain Ol’ Genealogy), you can discover

your ancestor.

Using Autosomal DNA to Find an Unknown Ancestor

© 2020 Mark Gregory Liverman - 4 -

2.3 AUTO TREES AT GENETIC AFFAIRS Similar to Ancestry ThruLines or MyHeritage Theory of Family Relativity. Created from the trees attached to the

DNA profiles of people who match me.

3 LAW ENFORCEMENT TESTING AND INVESTIGATIVE GENETIC

GENEALOGY

Only FTDNA and GEDmatch allow law enforcement kits (created from crime scene DNA) to be uploaded and

matched with customers who have opted-in for matching with LW kits

We have always known that a court subpoena could change what law enforcement had access to. Some companies

have stated they would fight subpoenas.

In July 2019, GEDmatch accepted a subpoena to open the entire database, even kits that had opted-out, to

matching with a law enforcement kit. This was discovered months after the fact when the officer announced

it at a conference.

While 23andMe and Ancestry have publicly stated they would fight subpoenas in court, other companies have

not made similar promises

GEDmatch has been sold to Verogen, a for-profit forensic genetics firm. Verogen has pledge to continue to develop

tools for use by genetic genealogists and not change any of the operation. GEDmatch has well over 1 million kits, but

fewer than 200,000 have opted in for law enforcement matching

FTDNA has created their own investigative genetic genealogy department, headed by Barbara Rae Ventner.

Cold cases are still being solved using genetic genealogy despite many customers opting out of matching with law

enforcement kits.

Additional for-profit companies are starting up. Law enforcement agencies are training their employees in genealogy

and bringing investigative genetic genealogy in-house

Always read the terms carefully. Make sure your testers read and understand the terms. Realize that companies may

change their behavior or policies. Make decisions based on your values.

Using Autosomal DNA to Find an Unknown Ancestor

© 2020 Mark Gregory Liverman - 5 -

4 Y-DNA SNP TREES

Y-DNA projects are leveraging next generation genome testing of the Y-chromosome to build family trees from SNP

mutations

Large numbers of men have to test at high levels (FTDNA Big Y-700 or lineage-specific SNP tests) to get the data

necessary to construct these trees

Eventually, a test result will be sufficient to place a man on the tree and identify his paternal lineage.

One example of this is the Big Tree (www.ytree.net) that has over 4000 surnames and over 4600 haplogroups all

within the R-haplogroup family. Most men from W.I.S.E. countries are haplogroup “R”

Using Autosomal DNA to Find an Unknown Ancestor

© 2020 Mark Gregory Liverman - 6 -

5 AUTOSOMAL TESTING GROWTH

Reference: "Genealogical Database Growth Slows", Leah Larkin, The DNA Geek

(https://thednageek.com/genealogical-database-growth-slows/ : accessed 19 Jan 2020).

People are still testing at all companies. All the databases are growing.

The database size is not growing as fast as it was since mid-2018.

o The slowdown has affected Illumina’s outlook to investors and stock prices

“Illumina Cuts Forecasts As Consumer Tests, Genomics Initiatives Lag”, 30 Jul 2019.

“Illumina Stock Dips As Consumer Genomics Weighs On Quarterly Beat”, 24 Oct 2019

o 23andMe lays-off 100 employees, 14% of their workforce

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/23/23andme-lays-off-100-people-ceo-anne-wojcicki-

explains-why.html, 23 Jan 2020

How does this effect Genealogists?

o We will get more matches, just not as many as fast as before

o We need to be diligent about informing testers of the privacy considerations.

Using Autosomal DNA to Find an Unknown Ancestor

© 2020 Mark Gregory Liverman - 7 -

6 NOTES