WHAT EVIDENCE DOES DNA HOLD TO HELP YOU?
Discovering DNA Starter guide
ANOTHER GREAT TOOL FOR GENEALOGY
DNA testing is just the latest tool, put to use by family historians on their research quest, explains genealogist and DNA enthusiast Michelle Patient. See how it can help you too
Michelle Patient
Over the years various ‘new’ tools have entered the family history market and enhanced our research. From original documents to card indexes, microfilm to CD indexes letters to email correspondence, and more recently websites with online databases of indexes, transcriptions and digitised original records. Each change has benefited our ease of access to information and the gathering of evidence, as well as helping us to find others to work with researching our ‘ancestral’ lines. The latest tool family historians are using is DNA testing.
Y , mt & atDNA
1 at DNA (autosomal DNA) from the 22 pairs of autosomes within the nucleus of cells
2 DNA from the Y chromosome and only carried by males
3 Females have 2 X-chromosomes; males one
4 mt DNA from the mitochonrida we all inherit from our mothers
Image used with permission ©Louise Coakley
https://genie1.com.au/wp-content/uploads/Cell-with-DNA-test-types.png
What evidence does DNA contain?
All of us inherit DNA from our ancestors, women pass on their mitochondria and a single X chromosome to their children, men pass on a Y chromosome to their sons and an X chromosome to their daughters. Both women and men give half their autosomes to every child. So, what does that mean to those of us researching our family history?
Key DNA websites
https://dnapainter.com/
https://www.danaleeds.com/
https://www.dataminingdna.com/
Tree showing the direct paternal line in blue, down which Y-DNA is inherited. And the direct maternal line down which mtDNA is inherited, show in pink. We inherit our atDNA (autosomal) DNA from any of our other branches, shown in grey and beige.
Paternal & maternal lines
Image used with permission ©Louise Coakley. https://genie1.com.au/wp-content/uploads/pedigree-all.png
Your biological parents inherited from your grandparents and they from theirs and so on back through the ages. Hence you contain DNA from many of your ancestors not just your parents. You contain evidence to support your research and because most of your ancestors had siblings many others who test also contain useful and sometimes matching DNA. You could say your DNA contains evidence from hundreds of births and marriages – maybe marriages are better described as relationships as our ancestors did not always marry…
The likelihood that you inherit any DNA from either of one of a pair of ancestors
(like your great-grandparents).