Here's how to interpret your DNA tests results for ancestry or family history in plain language. How many DNA testing companies will show you how to interpret DNA test results for family history or direct you to instructional materials after you have had your DNA tested? Check out the book, How to Safely Tailor Your Food, Medicines, & Cosmetics to Your Genes: A Consumer's Guide to Genetic Testing Kits from Ancestry to Nourishment.
Looking for DNA testing firms specializing in African-American or Native American ancestry that looks at DNA by geography? Check out the sites, The DNA Ancestry Project | DNAAncestryProject.com and Trace Your African Roots - Benin? Sudan? Nigeria? Other DNA companies include: African Ancestry - Home: Trace Your DNA. Find Your Roots. Today.
Choose a company based on previous customer satisfaction, number of markers tested, and whether the company gives you choices of how many markers you want, various ethnic and geographic databases, and surname projects based on DNA-driven genealogy.
Before you select a company to test your DNA, find out how many genetic markers will be tested. For the maternal line, 400 base pairs of sequences are the minimum. For the paternal line (men only) 37 markers are great, but 25 markers also should be useful. Go with the 67 marker tests for the male Y chromsome DNA test for ancestry.
Some companies offer a 12-marker test for surname genealogy groups at a special price. When you order a home testing kit, you’ll get mouthwash or a felt tip to rub inside your cheek and mail back. Find out how long the turnaround time is for waiting to receive your results. What is the reputation of the company?
Do they have a contract with a university lab or a private lab? Who does the testing and who is the chief geneticist at their laboratory? What research articles, if any, has that scientist written or what research studies on DNA have been performed by the person in charge of the DNA testing at the laboratory? Who owns the DNA business that contracts with the lab, and how involved in genealogy-related DNA projects and databases or services is the owner?
Will the company keep in touch with you and let you know by email each time you have a DNA match? What happens to your DNA after you test it? Is it destroyed? What projects are available for you to participate in using your DNA donation or that of relatives related to ancestry, genealogy, or family history? How much will testing cost? What other projects can you donate your DNA to offering free testing for what uses?
After your DNA sample is sent to the return address, the DNA will be sent to a university or private laboratory to be tested. A report showing your sequences of the portion of DNA tested for ancestry only will come back in about six to eight weeks. The DNA-testing company will send you the report with your sequences. Now, it’s up to you to find out what the sequences mean in terms of ancestry.
When you order a DNA test, you get a code number or kit number so your name remains private. Some companies let you sign a release form to allow others to contact you or you contact them by email each time you find a match with someone who shares your exact mtDNA (maternal) or Y-chromosome (paternal) genetic markers for ancestry.
The DNA tested for ancestry shows only ancestry, not any risk or disease. Women have their mtDNA tested as they don’t carry a Y-chromosome. Men may have their mtDNA (maternal line) or their Y-chromosome (paternal line) tested.
According to AncestryByDNA, “We’ve all originated from a common ancestor that lived some 200,000 years ago. The only way to know where you came from is by reading your genetic code.” What might intrigue some is taking a racial percentages test to see what percentages of which ‘races’ live in your very ancient or recent past.
What Will Be On The DNA Report?
You’ll find your sequences on the printout that you get back from your DNA testing company, but how do you interpret your sequences for ancestry? If you want more information on interpreting sequences than you find in this article, you can start with the free online message boards on DNA genealogy such as Genealogy-DNA Rootsweb.com at: GENEALOGY-DNA-D-request@rootsweb.com. You can watch my instructional videos on interpreting your DNA test results for family history and ancestry or on how to write salable life stories on Google Video.
Before you take a DNA test, enjoy these videos and look at my book or browse excerpts on Creative Genealogy Projects: Writing Salable Life Stories. Bring together DNA-driven genealogy reports with personal history for your time capsule.
Your biggest question could be, “What do you do with your DNA sequences in the field of genealogy?” You look at the ethnic databases online or find long lost relatives and email them. Then you put the DNA-for-ancestry report with the interpretations along with any genealogy information and keepsakes in your time capsule as part of social history.
You can send your DNA to a world wide database collecting the world’s DNA. One such database is the Molecular Genealogy Project at the Sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation. It’s a “nonprofit organization founded to build a publicly accessible genealogical database.” You can contribute your DNA to their database free, but you need to have a known genealogy going back at least four generations.
Your Maternal Lineage—Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) and Ancestry
Since women only can be tested for mitochondrial DNA which shows only the female lineages that originated thousands of years, ago, find out how many base pairs of mtDNA will be tested. Usually the minimum is 400 base pairs of mtDNA.
If your mtDNA covers a wide area, it usually signifies that the DNA sequences are very ancient and had thousands of years to spread wide distances geographically. If your mtDNA sequences are found in a very narrow area, your mtDNA may have arisen relatively more recently.
It’s the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) that is tested to find out your maternal line. The mtDNA is passed from mother to daughter starting with one female ancestor. That ancestor started your line of mtDNA sequences thousands of years ago. Since mtDNA mutates slowly over thousands of years, you are usually told in a report that your mtDNA sequences arose anywhere depending on the sequences from 10,000 years ago to 20,000 years ago.
How to Interpret DNA Test Results--Female
Your DNA test result will give you a letter of the alphabet called your ‘haplogroup’ or ‘clan’ as Oxford Ancestors calls it. If you’re of European, Middle Eastern, (or from some parts of India) your deep maternal ancestry letters will be H, I, J, K, N, R, T, U, V, W, or X. Most European lineages of women have these letters. It only means your prehistoric female ancestors most likely came from Europe, Central Asia, or the Middle East.
If your letters are A, B, C, D or X, most likely you could be Native American or Asian. The letter ‘L” is African, as in L1, L2, L3. The letter L3 is the same group that left Eastern and/or Southern Africa to populate the rest of the world thousands of years ago. And the letters M, A, B, C, D, E, F, G, O, P, Q and Z most likely are East Asian. P and Q mtDNA is found in Oceana, the Pacific Islands and Papua-New Guinea. N mtDNA types also are found in Australia, but N is found in Europe and the Middle East.
M1 is found in Africa and M in India and Asia as well as in the Americas. Some Asian lines are shared with the Americas, but with different mutations or sequence variations. mtDNA letters A and C are shared with East Asian and Native American, and Z and Y are found in Russia and Scandinavia at a low rate, and also in Asia.
These haplogroups are very ancient. Most mtDNA sequences can be traced back 20,000 or more than 50,000 years into prehistory. And those have common ancestors that go back in time even further. The letter X is found in Europe and among Native Americans, in Southern Siberia, around the Caucasus, in the Middle East, and in Central Asia.
If your mtDNA covers a wide area, it usually signifies that the DNA sequences are very ancient and had thousands of years to spread wide distances geographically. If your mtDNA sequences are found in a very narrow area, your mtDNA may have arisen relatively more recently. Your point of origin geographically is the place where your mtDNA is most diverse, not necessarily where it is found most frequently.
Where Can You Match Your mtDNA to a Country in an Online Database?
For women and men interested in matching their mtDNA sequences of HVS-1 or HVS-2 (high and low resolution) there are databases online such as Macaulay’s Tables database. These DNA databases online are matched with surname groups, lists, message boards, and other Web and online databases to help you match your sequences to a geographic location. About five years ago, I used Macaulay’s Tables.
Roots for Real, based in London tests your mtDNA or Y chromosome and sends you a report and map showing the probable or possible geographic origin of your sequence by latitude and longitude, even naming the town that exists there today.
Which Company to Choose and Why?
I had my DNA tested at Family Tree DNA, (autosomal DNA) and took the Family Finder Test. I also tested DNA back in 2002 with Oxford Ancestors, and AncestryByDNA and geographical interpretations of the results done at Roots for Real. According to their Web site, Family Tree DNA coined the word anthrogenealogy “that combines the methods of the two sciences—anthropology and genealogy, “largely with individual or corporate sponsorship or carried out by avocational researchers.”
Family Tree DNA gives a lot of choices. They sent me my sequences of both the high resolution and low resolution mtDNA called the HVS-1 and HVS-2. I was then able to look up on the Web “Macaulay’s Tables,” a database of sequences for HVS-1 and HVS-2 and find out in which countries people of today live who have my exact mtDNA sequences. The countries are England, Austria, Spain, and Bulgaria.
I chose to have my mtDNA interpreted by four companies so I could compare what they offered with what my goal was, to link genealogy to DNA and find out my matrilineal ancestry back to 21,000 years ago if that was possible as far as geographic location in longitude and latitude.
What I liked about each company was that they all offered different material. AncestryByDNA offered my genotype sequences on a CD and a racial percentages test. Oxford Ancestors offered a chart and a prehistory of the DNA that showed me how I link to the world’s mtDNA clans. The company also showed me that 21,000 years ago my mtDNA lived in what was to become Spain and/or Southwest France.
The second company to test my mtDNA, AncestryBy DNA back in 2002 was located in Sarasota, Florida. The company sent me a free book, titled, The Great Human Diaspora. It did help me understand how DNA is measured. For more information on the ancestry and migration of the male Y-chromosome, I found a newer book, The Journey of Man, by Spencer Wells, published in 2002.
You can test autosomal DNA and not have to test mtDNA for women or Y-chromosomes and mtDNA for men, unless you're doing a paternity or maternity test. Family Tree DNA tested my HVS-1 and HVS-2, my high and low resolution mtDNA, and my autosomal DNA for ancestry using the Family Finder Test.
Roots for Real, London, back in 2002, sent me maps online that showed what latitude and longitude the probable origin of my exact mtDNA sequences appeared in the last 10,000 years and the town of probable origin that didn’t exist in the distant past, the city of Bar Sur Aube, France, just based on my H1b mtDNA, not my autosomal DNA for ancestry.
What Will You Pay for a DNA Test for Ancestry?
In August 2001, Oxford Ancestors, London, became the first company to test my mtDNA for around $180. They noted my mtDNA sequences also showed up in England. They also sent me a chart showing where the mtDNA originated and how my mtDNA links with other mtDNA all over the world.
I also received printed material on human migrations. I paid a little over $200 at Family Tree DNA several years ago. My husband paid $99 for a surname group-rate 12-marker Y-chromosome test at Family Tree DNA.
At most companies DNA tests can run from about $100 to over $300 for ancestry. Prices seem to be coming down and more markers are being tested for Y-chromosomes. DNA tests for nutrition or medical reasons are more, and a few companies even test the entire genome for a high price, more than $1,000. The latest trend is to test autosomal DNA for ancestry which gives you both male and female sides as far as ancestry.
If you're interested in a career in genetics counseling and wish to pursue a graduate degree in genetics counseling, that's another career route. For information, contact The American Board of Genetic Counseling. Sometimes social workers with some coursework in biology take a graduate degree in genetic counseling since it combines counseling skills with training in genetics and in interpreting genetics tests for your clients.
Resources
The American Board of Genetic Counseling.
Below is a list of several DNA-testing companies. Some of these companies test DNA only for ancestry. Other companies listed below test genes for personalized medicine and nutrigenomics, and some companies test for nutrigenomics, pharmacogenetics, and ancestry.
You'll also find several companies listed that only test the DNA of animals. So you have a choice of testing DNA for a variety of purposes, for testing human DNA only, or for testing animal DNA. And the applications for testing genetic signatures are growing, since this science is still in its infancy in regard to applications of genetic and genomic testing.
AncestrybyDNA, DNAPrint genomics, Inc.
Predictive Genomics for Personalized Medicine including Nutrigenomics
Genovations TM Great Smokies Diagnostic Laboratory/Genovations™
Centre for Human Nutrigenomics
According to its Web site, "The Centre for Human NutriGenomics aims at establishing an international centre of expertise combining excellent pre-competitive research and high quality (post)graduate training on the interface of genomics, nutrition and human health."
Testing Your Pet's DNA
Veterinary DNA Testing, Veterinary Genetics Laboratory, University of California, Davis
One Shields Avenue, Davis, CA 95616-8744
According to their Web site: "The Veterinary Genetics Laboratory is internationally recognized for its expertise in parentage verification and genetic diagnostics for animals. VGL has provided services to breed registries, practitioners, individual owners and breeders since 1955." The Veterinary Genetics Laboratory performs contracted DNA testing.
Alpaca/Llama
Beefalo
Cat
Cattle
Dog
Elk
Goat
Horse
Sheep
DNA Testing of Dogs and Horses:
VetGen, 3728 Plaza Drive, Suite 1, Ann Arbor, Michigan, 48108 USA.
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