More Relatives

My father's DNA relative finder results grew this morning at 23andme to 419.  He has several predicted 4th and 5th cousins, while my mother and I have mostly distant relations.

I can compare my genetic matches with both parents now to see which parent's tree holds the common ancestor.  There are still some people whose DNA I share, but neither parent matches.

Paternal Distant Relative Matches

My father's relative finder results seem to be partially complete at 23andme.com.  He has only 142 matches.  For comparison, my mother and I have over 1000 distant relatives in the database.  Ironically, I have only a few generations documented on my mother's lines, but so much more on my father's lines.

There are several connections who have extensive genealogies and are willing to comb over our trees to search for a common ancestor.  These results have shown me that I have so much more paper documentation to discover.

Genetic matches for David Lutter in the 23andme database.

DNA updates: Comparing my genes to both parents

The health results component is complete for my father's DNA kit from 23andme.  This took about three and a half weeks from receipt of the kit at their lab.  Based on the processing of my specimen, the genetic relative results should arrive tomorrow.

In the meantime, I looked over the health traits.  Because my mother and I are also in the system, I can look at the genotypes of my parents and compare them to my own, seeing which parent gave me which gene for the profiled traits.

The results for eye color are not surprising.  Blue is recessive to brown.  My mother has blue eyes, as do I.  My father has brown eyes.  He inherited the gene for brown eyes from his mother and the gene for blue eyes from his father.
He blessed me with his father's gene for blue eyes.

The lumbar disk disease trait.
This should settle the debate over which side of the family causes bad backs.
The answer:  both of my parents carry the exact same genes for bad backs.

DNA updates: relative matches for Mom

Within hours of the health results arriving, the genetic matches became available for my mother at 23andme.  She has around 1000 matches, same as I do.  My paper research has so far uncovered only Irish roots.  The matches in the database are mostly not Irish.  This tells me that I have a lot more paper research to do.

For those of you who are wondering about privacy concerns and revealing unknown children or parents, we now appear as a potential "parent or child" match in the database.  Our identities were hidden and our matches were described as "close" until we consented to be revealed to each other.  Before consenting to be revealed, the website cautioned that the information may be welcome to some, disturbing to others.

Aside from me, my mother's closest match shares about 1.5% of her DNA.  I sent her a request to share.  It is up to this person to consent.  She can ignore us or reject the request, and there will be no way of knowing who she is.  To compare, my closest match shares about 0.6% of my DNA.

For the 100 people who consented to share genomes with me, I am able to compare my results with them and with my mother.  I started with my closest match, who is not my mother's closest match, by the way.  I am a little confused by the results.

It would seem that I am related to this person on my mother's side.  All three of us match on two areas.  My mother has an additional matching segment, which is okay- it just means that I did not inherit this particular segment from my mother.  The part that confuses me is how I match this distant cousin on chromosome 1- but my mother does not share this connection.  Does this mean that this person is also related to my father?  His results are not available yet.

I anticipate a lot more work ahead.

DNA updates

My mother's partial results have appeared at 23andme.com.  These are the health traits, such as risk for various diseases, based on her genetic profile.  The turn around time was about four weeks from receipt of the specimen.  Although the relative matches are not available yet, I can compare my profile with hers.  I have roughly half of her genetic make-up, which is exactly how the results should read.

The dark blue segments indicate identical segments of DNA.

For comparison, my closest relation (besides Mom) in the database shares the above three segments with me.

I can compare my genetic traits with my mom.  She is a little shorter than I am, and the following inheritance pattern could explain why.