Gedmatch....the perfect tool to use for DNA Ancestry research.

This week, I have decided to talk about my Autosomal DNA results. Last year, I decided to bite the bullet and take the Ancestry DNA test because I had hit a huge brick wall and I was hoping it would help and the price was low enough that it couldn't hurt. The process was pretty quick and within a couple of weeks I had my results. Now my initial thought for taking the test is that I wanted to find out my ancestry. I did not expect to prove any type of Ancestry except for African American. That is really important when deciding to take a test. You need to be realistic and let go of any preconceived notions. The autosomal test will grab DNA from a long distance ancestor and you can never predict what genes you may have ended up with.

 My results were both a surprise and a letdown: 86% West African, 6% East African and 8% Scandinavian. I was surprised by the Scandinavian part and a little disappointed by the lack of breakdown in the African ancestry. It was a little basic for me but I decided to check out my DNA matches and see what happened. Now here is where it became puzzling for me. I had a few matches who were African and Scandinavian but I had more matches with people who had no African Ancestry and had a range of other ethnicities I did not, for example British Isles, Eastern European, Central European, Mediterranean and Persian. I initially excused these as errors and decided to stick to the matches that had the same ancestry as I did. We are all studying our history but as yet are not sure how we are related.

Recently, two things have happened that may help me shed the light on this. First, Ancestry has released the raw DNA data from their tests. This allows those who took the test to have a look at their DNA results. Secondly, I learned of a company called Gedmatch who will allow you to upload your raw DNA to their database for free. I spoke to a couple of people in my genealogy group who had already done this and they had nothing but good things to say. The best part of this site is that you get to compare with matches who tested with other companies like 23andMe or FTDNA. Now my results from ancestry looked like this:

 

 

And my results from Gedmatch looks like this:

 

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As you can see, it really breaks up your DNA and gives a detailed listing. There are also numerous utilities that you can run your DNA through. I would suggest that you play around a lot and take note of what is consistent across all the utilities. In the next week or so, I will start receiving matches and then the fun will really began. I suggest all check out this site. This is one of the only ways to get your DNA compared with others who have used a different company at no additional cost. Although the site is free, they accept donations and I am of the opinion that we all should donate because this is not an easy database to manage and they work hard to give us these results without asking for anything. This is truly a great site ad I personally thank them for allowing me the opportunity to further my genealogy research.