When You First Get Your 23andMe Results Objective: Learn what to do with results of atdna testing with 23andMe. Tools: 23andMe.com website and test results; DNAAdoption handouts. Exercises: Practice Exercises throughout the lesson help you apply what you re learning. Taking This Course Use of this document signifies your agreement to the Web Site Agreement, Privacy, Statement and Terms of Use of DNAGedcom and DNAAdoption. This content is copyrighted by DNAAdoption. Lesson written by Diane Harman-Hoog Layout and Design by Mesa Foard; lesson formatting by Susan MacLaughlin 2015 DNAAdoption.com
When You First Get Your 23andMe Results What do you do when you first get your 23andMe results? Sign in to your account at www.23andme.com. Profile Information Go to your profile by clicking on your picture or account email name in the upper right. Select Edit Profile. Fill out these sections to the best of your ability. DNAAdoption.com Autosomal DNA Mini-Course 2
Many matches will check this section before contacting or replying to you. If you are adopted, be sure that you do not mention that you are adopted. Including adopted will deter some people from working with you. Family surnames refer to your biological family. If you cannot answer the questions asked, just leave those sections blank. Exercise 1: Fill out your profile. Settings In the top right of the screen, click on the down-arrow next to your name, as you did previously. Click on Account Settings. The Settings page is pretty straightforward. DNAAdoption.com Autosomal DNA Mini-Course 3
Do not overlook the tabs at the top of the page. They contain important information and options. Privacy/Consent Tab It is important that you review this section. If for some reason you do not want to receive Sharing Options from anyone, then check that box; however, choosing not to receive sharing invitations will keep you from being able to use these matches to find your family. We advise you not to check it. The Health Options section no longer applies for new tests. This should not be visible if you are new to testing. DNAAdoption.com Autosomal DNA Mini-Course 4
The DNA Relative Options allows you to see close relatives or to opt out. This is a legacy from when 23andMe offered health screening; the idea was that you might not have wanted your family to know that you were testing. However, if you check this box and then get a first cousin result, you will not see it. We advise you not to check it. Notifications Tab This section (pictured below) allows you to specify when you want to receive notifications from 23andMe. Ancestry Survey Before you look at your results, it is important to answer a few questions about your ancestry or heritage. With your mouse, hover over My Results at the top of the screen. Next, select Ancestry Tools from the bottom right of the drop-down menu (green arrow). DNAAdoption.com Autosomal DNA Mini-Course 5
Once on the Ancestry Tools page, select Counties of Ancestry from the top right. Click on Take the Ancestry Survey (magenta arrow). If you are an adoptee, your answers will likely be unknown or some variation. You can guess at the answer if you have some idea of what country your grandparents may have come from. Your answers will allow others to compare segment data with you on the Countries of Ancestry page. We will discuss this tool more in other DNAAdoption Classes. If you want to use the Countries of Ancestry tool prior to the class, select Show Advanced Controls. DNAAdoption.com Autosomal DNA Mini-Course 6
Then check the box to Include matches primarily from US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, & South Africa. The resulting graph shows your matches that have four grandparents from the same country. Here is an example of Susan s mother s ancestors. This data can be used to determine if your birth parents were from a colonial bloodline or if they were from a recent immigrant family. DNAAdoption.com Autosomal DNA Mini-Course 7
Exercise 2: Fill out the Ancestry Survey. DNA Relatives If you are an adoptee, your mind is likely racing about the relatives you have found through DNA testing. Next we look at your DNA Relatives according to 23andMe. Hover over Family & Friends at the top of the page and a drop-down menu will appear. Select DNA Relatives. DNAAdoption.com Autosomal DNA Mini-Course 8
Here is an example of Stephanie s DNA Relatives list. Let s take a look at the information this page contains. Matches are listed in the first column on the left (red arrow). Each match is linked to a profile. Some matches are private while others are public. For example, Stephanie s first match is an anonymous male (private profile). Relationships appear in the second column (magenta arrow). Stephanie s first match is predicted to be a 2 nd to 3 rd Cousin. They share 144 cm and 6 segments of DNA. The third column lists information shared by each match. This includes flags to indicate country of birth or home, family locations (darker blue), origin (gold), surnames (green), maternal haplogroup (pink) and paternal haplogroup (lighter blue). You can choose what information you show to your matches by clicking Update Your Profile (green arrow) on the far right. As an example, Stephanie resides in the USA but was born in Italy. She has connections to Wisconsin, New London, CT, Philadelphia, and 5 more locations. She is primarily from Northern Europe. She listed 61 surnames and her maternal haplogroup is H1c. Surnames can be viewed from the match profile page. Some people list more information than others. DNAAdoption.com Autosomal DNA Mini-Course 9
Sharing Genomes At 23andMe, you will need to invite your matches to share genomes. Private Matches For private matches, such as the first match on Stephanie s list and the ones listed below, you will need to click on Send an Introduction. A new window will open. Be sure to select the option to share both your name profile and also extend an invitation to share genomes without health reports. If you select the other option, you will not be able to view genetic data which is important later. DNAAdoption.com Autosomal DNA Mini-Course 10
Public Matches For public matches, sending an invitation to share genomes is slightly more complicated. On your DNA Relatives list, click on the match name. A new tab will open with the profile page for your match. Now you can click to invite the match to share genomes. It is helpful to include a personal note in the message box. However, it is not recommended that adoptees tell a match about their adoption in the first message. In the past, revealing too much too soon has resulted in some matches not communicating. While that isn t always the case, DNAAdoption recommends waiting until a rapport has been established before telling your matches about your adoption. Exercise 3: Invite your top 10 or more matches to share genomes. DNAAdoption.com Autosomal DNA Mini-Course 11
Sharing Genomes: Actions Note your closest matches and invite all of your matches to share genomes. Once they respond, ask if you can have a copy of their gedcom (a transferrable form of their family tree that you can enter into genealogy software) Tell them that uploading their raw data results to GEDmatch.com (free) will give them more matches and more information on their matches. Upload your 23andMe Raw Data file to gedmatch.com. This will show more accurately what the real predicted relationship is and also show you more matches. Upload Your Raw Data to GEDmatch Return to your 23andMe home page. Click on your name. This time choose Browse Raw Data from the dropdown menu. At the top right of the Browse Raw Data page you will find a Download button. Click it. Fill out the form that opens. Then click Download Data at the bottom right of the form to download a raw data file to your PC. DNAAdoption.com Autosomal DNA Mini-Course 12
Do not open the file. Instead, upload the zipped file to GEDmatch. Go to http://gedmatch.com. Log in. (Create an account if you don t have one.) In the top right you will see Autosomal raw DNA. Click on 23andMe. Follow the directions to upload your data. It may take several days for your data to fully process (tokenize). Exercise 4: Download your 23andMe raw data and upload it to GEDmatch.com. Admixture Admixture is the result of two or more ethnic groups interbreeding. 23andMe s admixture analysis provides a glimpse into your ancestor s origins in the past 500 years. It provides clues to your overall ethnicity and can even change the way your match list is interpreted (this is especially common with historically endogamous groups). To find out more about your ancestral roots, hover over My Results in the top bar and then select Ancestry Composition on the right. DNAAdoption.com Autosomal DNA Mini-Course 13
If you see a large percentage of Ashkenazi Jewish or Native American, you may find that your cousins appear closer than they actually are on your tree. This science is still developing. The analysis is not an absolute perfection representation of your ethnic heritage. Use it with that in mind. Exercise 5: Check your Admixture by clicking on Ancestry Composition. Investigating Matches Let s explore how to learn more about your relationship with your matches. We will use Diane s results as an example. First go back to your Home Page. Click on My Results on the top bar. Then choose Ancestry Tools. There are several choices here. We are interested in Family Inheritance Advanced. DNAAdoption.com Autosomal DNA Mini-Course 14
A drop-down menu shows the people Diane has shared genome information with. In this example, she picked her full brother, Kenneth Wiley, by clicking Compare. The first thing that comes up is an overview. Ken and Diane share 2860 cm of overlapping DNA and 46 segments. This is only a partial view of the dataset. What does this mean? In this class, there are extra files that we call handouts. One of them is a relationship prediction spreadsheet that you can upload into your spreadsheet software (such as Excel) or print out. When you click on it you will get a file in your download folder. Be sure to save it. DNAAdoption.com Autosomal DNA Mini-Course 15
To view the handout, either use the picture here or open the file in your spreadsheet program. Directions for using this prediction chart are in another handout. Diane and her brother share 2860 cm, which is pretty close to the 2643 2802 range in the chart. (Remember DNA predictions are all about averages.) Their 46 shared segments fall within the 43 67 segments listed for siblings. The longest segment (200 cm) can be seen if you view or download the table (red and yellow arrows, above). DNAAdoption.com Autosomal DNA Mini-Course 16
If you divide the Total cms shared (2860 cm) by 74.4, you get the Percentage of DNA Shared (38.44%). If you look closely at this example, you will see that the # of segments is at the lowest end of the range, the longest segment is long for those shown in the prediction chart, and the % of DNA shared is lower than the 50% one would expect. This is why, when looking at the closest matches, we look at the Total Shared DNA first. There is an overlap between segments due to how close they occur; this proximity throws off the actual numbers somewhat. However, when you look at the highlighted areas on the chart, all of Diane and Ken s results fall pretty close to the prediction levels. Exercise 6:. Go to your 23andMe account. Under Family Inheritance: Advanced, select one or more of your matches and compare genomes. Divide the Total cm shared by 74.4. Compare your results with the handout. Does the predicted relationship in 23andMe match or come close to the one you just calculated? Some Matching Up When Diane goes back to the original Family Inheritance: Advanced page and adds Ken as a family member, she can compare with another match, Susan. The results show that Susan, Ken, and Diane share a common segment; but, some of Diane s DNA was passed to Susan and is not showing up for Ken. This is the vagary of DNA. DNAAdoption.com Autosomal DNA Mini-Course 17
Let s look at another example, comparing Diane and Ken with Dorie. They match on Chromosome 11. Diane can continue to compare with additional matches, such as Terry. All four people overlap on chromosome 11. You can view the overlap in table form, also. Chances are that all four people share a common ancestor since these results are at about the 4th cousin level. (See prediction chart.) This means all four may share a set of great-great-great grandparents. DNAAdoption.com Autosomal DNA Mini-Course 18
Exercise 7: Continue comparing genomes with your other matches. If you find two or more matches that overlap on the same chromosome, what predicted relationship would you assign them? There is still another piece of data you need to get in order to find out if the predicted relationship is in fact the case. We will go over this in the Using Autosomal DNA class. Summary Now you should have a very good idea of how to work with your 23andMe data. We recommend you focus on getting as many of your matches to Share Genomes as possible. You are better off to develop a rapport with matches before telling them that you are adopted and related to them. Once in awhile, someone will discover a very, very close match at this stage. We did have one woman who opened up the data and found her birth mother! Thanks for joining us for this quick class. Check our class list at http://moodle.dnagedcom.com for other classes. DNAAdoption.com Autosomal DNA Mini-Course 19