Thursday, December 3, 2015

Mapping my DNA

As more and more of my known relatives have done DNA tests, I've been wanting to figure out which of my DNA came from which relative--both for my own curiosity as well as when new matches come in, to be able to determine on which side they were matching.

Kitty Cooper's Chromosome Matcher gives the ability to take known relatives' DNA and attribute shared DNA to known shared ancestors.  So I tried it.  And liked it.



Paternal Side

The only one of my grandparents who tested was my paternal grandmother, Sonia Diamond.  She had few surviving relatives on her side, none of whom have tested.  But I was able to clearly see the DNA which we share (in dark green).  It makes sense that my paternally-inherited X chromosome is entirely from her.  But I found it surprising that my paternally-inherited chromosome 3 seems to be entirely from her, with none from my grandfather--while chromosomes 6, 13 and 22 are the reverse.

My great-great grandfather (grandfather's maternal grandfather) Yechiel Suttleman was married three times.  One of his grandchildren from his third marriage (I'm descended from his first wife) tested, so I'm able to attribute our shared DNA to Yechiel, rather than to a specific couple.  Another grandchild from his first wife tested, so that shared DNA is attributed to Yechiel and Kreina Suttleman/Zitelman.

Thanks to discovering that my grandfather's aunt was not killed in the Holocaust, and because this aunt's granddaughter and great grandson have tested, I was able to use our shared DNA to attribute parts of my chromosomes to my great-great grandparents Hillel and Hinda Diamond (grandfather's paternal grandparents).

Maternal Side

Several descendants of my great-great-great grandparents Yehoshua Zev and Mira Lefand have tested, so the tool was able to identify multiple segments that they and I had in common.  Mira was married a second time, and a descendent of that marriage recently agreed to test (thanks, Sue!), so eventually I'll be able to break some of those segments out as coming from Mira, not Yehoshua Zev.

Two descendents of Yeshaya and Zlata Tzipra Supkoff have tested, and our shared DNA was also identified, although there weren't very many huge segments.

At this point, only one of my maternal grandmother's relatives has test results, a fourth cousin on the Eizikovics side, but there were several segments identified that likely came from Hirsch and Gitl Eizikovics.

Endogamy

While most of the larger segments that were identified can likely be attributed to our mutual known ancestors, some (or many) of the small segments may have actually come through other sides because of the Jewish endogamy at play.  I'm playing around with mapping my parents' DNA segments as well, and I'm seeing some of that come out--and it'll likely be an upcoming post.

Note:  I recently joined Twitter.  Feel free to follow me (@larasgenealogy).
 


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