Blog post

Sunday, September 7, 2014

A sibling DNA match

My sister recently agreed to a genealogy DNA test. I had her autosomal DNA tested at FTDNA. That makes three members of my immediate family who have tested – me, my father and my sister.

Siblings have some identical DNA, some half identical DNA and some completely different DNA. The chromosome browser at FTDNA doesn’t distinguish between those identical and half identical regions. The orange parts in the chart below are where we are at least half identical.

Siblings chromosome browser image

That’s a lot of orange!

New cousins to connect with

I expected my sister’s account would have new match names, but wasn’t expecting as many as there were. My sister must have inherited some popular DNA! I went through her, my and my father’s matches and tallied up how many people matched just one of us, each combination of two of us, and all three of us. The results are in the Venn diagram below.

Venn Diagram

That’s 277 more connections on my mother’s side of the family potentially to explore.

“MyOrigins”

I take origins mapping – from FTDNA or anywhere else - with a grain of salt.

As expected the British Isles featured heavily for all three of us. I seem to be more British that my father or my sister. I’ve also picked up bit of Scandinavia, presumably from my father who shows 12% Scandinavian. Neither my sister nor I show his trace of Central/South Asia in our DNA.

Unlike my Dad, my sister and I both have a hint of Southern Europe, presumably from my mother’s side. This seems odd to me as the only part of our tree with a known Southern European ancestor is on my father’s side. Of most interest to me in my sister’s results was the 11% Eastern Europe. She must have got that from my mother’s side. I wonder how much Eastern European DNA my mother had?

“Ethnic Makeup”

Father

Self

Sister

British Isles

86

93

86

Scandinavia

12

5

-

Central/South Asian

2

-

-

Southern Europe

-

2

4

Eastern Europe

-

-

11

9 comments:

  1. That's amazing Shelley, thanks for sharing the Ethnic Makeup table - makes the comparisoon easy to comprehend.

    Wish I had a sibling! I do have a cousin (also an only child) who shares my four grandparents - I might get her tested.

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    1. Alternatively (or also!) testing a cousin who shares only some of your ancestors would help you start narrowing down which branch of the family different matches are connected to.

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  2. I agree with Shelley, getting two done would be helpful. It has made a huge difference for me to see where there's an overlap between Mum, an identified 1C1R to her (and 2C to me). Go for it...use those persuasive powers of yours. Thanks Shelley - I find it very helpful to see how others use their DNA results.

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  3. This is so interesting. I'm getting closer and closer to taking the leap of getting my DNA tested.

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  4. Shelley,

    I want to let you know that your wonderful blog post is listed in today's Fab Finds post at http://janasgenealogyandfamilyhistory.blogspot.com/2014/09/follow-friday-fab-finds-for-september.html

    Have a great weekend!

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  5. That is really interesting! I don't think I've seen siblings compared like that before. Very neat!

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  6. Hi Shelley, Just dropping in to look at some genealogy blogs again. Myself and my Dad are also coming up with the South Central Asian in the new MyOrigins.

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  7. Shelley, Interesting post. Informative. Looking forward to finding out our connection since I match a bunch of kits you have uploaded . It is on my paternal side since none of the kits matches my maternal aunt. Have a nice day. Vince Hillanbrand

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    1. Hi Vince, thanks for dropping by. I've checked out our match - you're on my paternal side. I'll email you!

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