And in my spare time, I became a detective.
Apr 14, 2020 08:07:29 #
Having a small interest in geneology, I took the 23&me dna test. I noticed a 2nd cousin that did not fit into the gene pool well, so I contacted him. He did not respond for two years and last week he did. Here is what he said.
I recently had my 3 sisters take the 23&me dna and I found that I am only half related to them! So my father is not my biological father. He and my mother are now passed, and I am looking for any connection to who could be my real father.
I investigated all the scenarios as to who could be his biological father based on age, place of birth, etc. Now it is interesting to note that my grandfather had 7 siblings, but they all had fallings out and I never knew any of my second cousins, although I have many, maybe 50. But I had made contact with one who had the website of my last name. He was in South Africa, and was killed shortly after I made contact with him, so I took over the domain name.
In looking at place of birth, dates, and how the genes lined up, it was determined that he is the half brother to the guy I contacted for the website, and we determined how his father and mother met and separated. Of course, his father left his mother with a little gift, him, who was raised by another man as his own.
What is so strange about all of this is that it only took 3 days to make all these connections! He commented, "do you think that if our forefathers knew we would track all these genetics down they would have moderated their behavior?" Haha, of course not! What a thing to find out when you are 70 years old...
I recently had my 3 sisters take the 23&me dna and I found that I am only half related to them! So my father is not my biological father. He and my mother are now passed, and I am looking for any connection to who could be my real father.
I investigated all the scenarios as to who could be his biological father based on age, place of birth, etc. Now it is interesting to note that my grandfather had 7 siblings, but they all had fallings out and I never knew any of my second cousins, although I have many, maybe 50. But I had made contact with one who had the website of my last name. He was in South Africa, and was killed shortly after I made contact with him, so I took over the domain name.
In looking at place of birth, dates, and how the genes lined up, it was determined that he is the half brother to the guy I contacted for the website, and we determined how his father and mother met and separated. Of course, his father left his mother with a little gift, him, who was raised by another man as his own.
What is so strange about all of this is that it only took 3 days to make all these connections! He commented, "do you think that if our forefathers knew we would track all these genetics down they would have moderated their behavior?" Haha, of course not! What a thing to find out when you are 70 years old...
Apr 14, 2020 08:37:10 #
Apr 14, 2020 08:42:27 #
Yes, genealogy is fascinating. I learned from MyHeritage that a boy I went to grammar school with is a distant relative. I now have lists of thousands of distant relatives from 23andMe and MyHeritage.
Apr 14, 2020 09:05:11 #
I had my middle son do a DNA test with Ancestry.com when it was discounted to $50 last year. They sent him an email with a map of SE Asia with a big circle around 7 countries, and another map of western Europe with a big circle around 7 more countries. I guess i was expecting more detail. (My wife is Indonesian, I'm from New York, descended from German immigrants.)
Apr 14, 2020 09:10:43 #
Yes it is!
I found that my first wife was my 10th cousin.
Each of our ancestors in New England married in the 1600s.
Unfortunately my wife passed away before I found this tidbit of information.
I would have loved to hear what she thought about that.
I found that my first wife was my 10th cousin.
Each of our ancestors in New England married in the 1600s.
Unfortunately my wife passed away before I found this tidbit of information.
I would have loved to hear what she thought about that.
Apr 14, 2020 09:33:57 #
Can someone educate me?
I’m curious about the 23&me process. I suspect that the level of detail they can provide is limited to the number of other people who’ve also submitted who match you. Is this correct ?
I’m curious about the 23&me process. I suspect that the level of detail they can provide is limited to the number of other people who’ve also submitted who match you. Is this correct ?
Apr 14, 2020 10:07:45 #
My wife and I both submitted DNA samples to Ancestry Dot Com. Mine came back with connections that I'd already made in my Ancestry family tree. However, one of the great things is that other folks who've submitted DNA to them, are now tied to my, and other trees. My genealogical searches pretty much slowed to my 4-times great grandfather, from Rockland, ME (then part of MASS), in ca. 1800. However as DNA results have expanded, I now have family members going back to Maryland, Virginia, and even to 16th Century England and France.
My wife was adopted a few months after birth. She always knew who her mother was, but had no contact with her for over 30 years. And despite asking, her biological mother never revealed who her birth father was. She did find a first cousin two years ago, and we had a reunion with her, two more cousins. Then, last month, she got a notification of another 1st cousin connection. It turns out, this 1st cousin is a niece to whom we believe is her father. Her uncle is one of four possible candidates, and we narrowed down the choices to a man who was in the Army during WWII, near her mother's home.
Right now, we're waiting on a court order (we found a very sympathetic judge) to have her original birth record opened.
It's amazing what the DNA record shows.
My wife was adopted a few months after birth. She always knew who her mother was, but had no contact with her for over 30 years. And despite asking, her biological mother never revealed who her birth father was. She did find a first cousin two years ago, and we had a reunion with her, two more cousins. Then, last month, she got a notification of another 1st cousin connection. It turns out, this 1st cousin is a niece to whom we believe is her father. Her uncle is one of four possible candidates, and we narrowed down the choices to a man who was in the Army during WWII, near her mother's home.
Right now, we're waiting on a court order (we found a very sympathetic judge) to have her original birth record opened.
It's amazing what the DNA record shows.
Apr 14, 2020 11:14:58 #
Apr 14, 2020 11:40:20 #
kpmac wrote:
All my relatives broke out of jail at some point.
I descended from Rollo the Viking in about 1000, then thru William the Conqueror, and the son of one of the other Kings of England and his mistress. Well, that shot my title to the throne!!!
If you can get into the records in England they did such a magnificent job of record keeping that you can really do a good trace.
Apr 14, 2020 13:13:47 #
My grandmother was interested in genealogy and had a bunch of genealogical books about the family. They were passed down to my mother and I got them when she passed on. So I got a genealogy program and started looking online. It was pretty easy to find connections, since there is so much information out there. However, I soon formed the opinion that:
Genealogy records back to around 1500 are pretty good, but of course the earlier ones are spotty since records were kept in parish churches and some were destroyed by fire or war.
From 1500 back to 1000, the records are concentrated on royalty or well-connected individuals.
From 1000 back, it's pretty much royalty only with a few exceptions.
At some point, genealogy became important to your status. At that point people started making up well-connected genealogies to imply they were from royal stock at some point in the chain. So before 1000, I would guess that all bets are off as far as documentation.
*******************************
There is a "mathematical theorem" going around that purports to prove that everyone (of European descent) is descended from Charlemagne (748-814). It is basically statistical in nature, so it doesn't necessarily prove anything, but the numbers are very interesting. It goes something like this:
P = a particular person from year Y
G = number of generations from you to year Y
N = male population of Europe in year Y
X = probability that a particular ancestor at generation G is not P
Z = probability that none of your ancestors at generation G is P
The number of ancestors in year Y is 2**G. Half are male, or 2**(G-1).
Given a particular male ancestor from generation G, the probability that he was not P is X=[1-(1/N)]. Therefore, the probability that all of your ancestors from year Y are not P is Z=X**[2**(G-1)].
In this example, using Charlemagne, we estimate Y=800, G=40, and N=15,000,000. The probability that P is not Charlemagne works out to be a very small number, on the order of 10**-15900. The same argument presumably holds for any other male at that time, such as Roland or Einhard, knights in the service of Charlemagne (maybe even Sulieman?).
At what year does the probability of not being related to someone from that year become reasonable?
Estimating 3.33 generations/century and using the following estimates of the population of europe (interpolated from data of Josiah C. Russell, listed at http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/pop-in-eur.html)
Y N G-1 log(Z)
(millions)
800 15 39 -15900
900 18 36 -1660
1000 20 32 -93
1100 25 29 -9.3
1200 30 26 -.97
1300 35 22 -.05
Up to about 1100, the probability is negligible (less then 0.000000005).
Around 1200, the probability is about 10% and around 1300 the probability is almost 90%. Of course, at some point, statistical arguments don't apply, so the later years are highly conjectural. The real question is: at what point does the statistical approach break down?
Assuming that the approach is valid until 1100, consider that you are likely to be related to some interesting historical figures:
King Duncan (~1010-1040) (a contemporary of MacBeth, in fact a cousin)
William the [Conqueror/Bastard, depending on who you talk to], ordered the gathering of data for the Domesday Book. (And of course Harold Godwinson (who lost the battle in 1066))
Urraca, Queen of Aragon became ruler of Leon-Castile in 1094 when her husband died. She remarried in 1098 and then spent 13 years at war with her second husband, Alfonso the Battler, to protect the inheritance rights of her son by her first marriage. She led her own armies into battle. http://www.lothene.demon.co.uk/others/women11.html) (sorry, that link seems to have disappeared since this analysis was written in the '90s)
And Aethelred the Unready, whom we have to thank for the institution of a regular monetary and taxation system (in order to pay the Danegeld). (PS: Unready is a corruption of old english for "having bad counsellors")
Going to earlier times, we can assume that as long as civilizations were in contact there must have been cross marriages, particularly for diplomatic or political reasons, so that we can extend the argument beyond Europe to the known world, and maybe even beyond.
Genealogy records back to around 1500 are pretty good, but of course the earlier ones are spotty since records were kept in parish churches and some were destroyed by fire or war.
From 1500 back to 1000, the records are concentrated on royalty or well-connected individuals.
From 1000 back, it's pretty much royalty only with a few exceptions.
At some point, genealogy became important to your status. At that point people started making up well-connected genealogies to imply they were from royal stock at some point in the chain. So before 1000, I would guess that all bets are off as far as documentation.
*******************************
There is a "mathematical theorem" going around that purports to prove that everyone (of European descent) is descended from Charlemagne (748-814). It is basically statistical in nature, so it doesn't necessarily prove anything, but the numbers are very interesting. It goes something like this:
P = a particular person from year Y
G = number of generations from you to year Y
N = male population of Europe in year Y
X = probability that a particular ancestor at generation G is not P
Z = probability that none of your ancestors at generation G is P
The number of ancestors in year Y is 2**G. Half are male, or 2**(G-1).
Given a particular male ancestor from generation G, the probability that he was not P is X=[1-(1/N)]. Therefore, the probability that all of your ancestors from year Y are not P is Z=X**[2**(G-1)].
In this example, using Charlemagne, we estimate Y=800, G=40, and N=15,000,000. The probability that P is not Charlemagne works out to be a very small number, on the order of 10**-15900. The same argument presumably holds for any other male at that time, such as Roland or Einhard, knights in the service of Charlemagne (maybe even Sulieman?).
At what year does the probability of not being related to someone from that year become reasonable?
Estimating 3.33 generations/century and using the following estimates of the population of europe (interpolated from data of Josiah C. Russell, listed at http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/pop-in-eur.html)
Y N G-1 log(Z)
(millions)
800 15 39 -15900
900 18 36 -1660
1000 20 32 -93
1100 25 29 -9.3
1200 30 26 -.97
1300 35 22 -.05
Up to about 1100, the probability is negligible (less then 0.000000005).
Around 1200, the probability is about 10% and around 1300 the probability is almost 90%. Of course, at some point, statistical arguments don't apply, so the later years are highly conjectural. The real question is: at what point does the statistical approach break down?
Assuming that the approach is valid until 1100, consider that you are likely to be related to some interesting historical figures:
King Duncan (~1010-1040) (a contemporary of MacBeth, in fact a cousin)
William the [Conqueror/Bastard, depending on who you talk to], ordered the gathering of data for the Domesday Book. (And of course Harold Godwinson (who lost the battle in 1066))
Urraca, Queen of Aragon became ruler of Leon-Castile in 1094 when her husband died. She remarried in 1098 and then spent 13 years at war with her second husband, Alfonso the Battler, to protect the inheritance rights of her son by her first marriage. She led her own armies into battle. http://www.lothene.demon.co.uk/others/women11.html) (sorry, that link seems to have disappeared since this analysis was written in the '90s)
And Aethelred the Unready, whom we have to thank for the institution of a regular monetary and taxation system (in order to pay the Danegeld). (PS: Unready is a corruption of old english for "having bad counsellors")
Going to earlier times, we can assume that as long as civilizations were in contact there must have been cross marriages, particularly for diplomatic or political reasons, so that we can extend the argument beyond Europe to the known world, and maybe even beyond.
Apr 14, 2020 13:18:54 #
Yes, I have heard that Charlemagne argument, and who is to say it is not right. I quit at Rollo the Viking myself, but my sister said she was able to trace some lines back to 350 or so. Way to much effort for the small bragging rights.
Apr 14, 2020 13:21:24 #
Being descended from Roman emporers, plus about $5 will get you a cup of coffee.
Apr 14, 2020 14:35:54 #
DirtFarmer wrote:
Being descended from Roman emporers, plus about $5 will get you a cup of coffee.
Yeah, and not much change!
Apr 14, 2020 14:37:17 #
SonyBug wrote:
Yeah, and not much change!
Funny, dime coffee at Woolworths...
Apr 15, 2020 06:12:48 #
Regarding the specificity of the results, Ancestry.com keeps updating their maps based on increasing sample sizes and improving analysis technology. They use your original sample, so no need to do anything on your part.
My origin map started out with a very wide splatter all over Europe that is now much more concentrated.
My origin map started out with a very wide splatter all over Europe that is now much more concentrated.
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