<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright wp-image-7626 size-medium" title="brian-ancfinder-full" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/brian-ancfinder-full1-300x200.png" alt="" width="300" height="200" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/brian-ancfinder-full1-300x200.png 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/brian-ancfinder-full1-768x513.png 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/brian-ancfinder-full1-880x588.png 880w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/brian-ancfinder-full1.png 912w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
If you&#8217;re just joining us, our scientists are busy this week presenting findings from our research at ICHG/ASHG 2011 in Montreal.
But not all of our scientific contributions are in the realm of genetic associations. As some of our other conference posters have shown, we also spend a lot of time thinking about unique methods for analyzing and evaluating data, not just to investigate pressing scientific questions of relevance to our product, but to provide a comprehensive service that continuously evolves as the science does.
Our final set of posters  focuses on our Ancestry features, which include innovative tools like Relative Finder and Ancestry Finder, and  our Health reports, for which we have designed a framework that fits the unique context of direct-to-consumer, participant-driven genetics research.
(For a list of all of our presentations, click <a href="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/ASHG2011posters23andMe.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">here</a>.)
<h5>Learning more about where people are from with Ancestry Finder</h5>
Nearly two years ago we launched Relative Finder, an innovative tool for analyzing autosomal DNA data to match genetically related individuals. About a year later we followed this up with a feature called Ancestry Finder, which uses the same algorithm as Relative Finder to identify matching DNA segments between individuals but goes an extra step of providing geographic ancestry information corresponding to country of origin for each individual&#8217;s grandparents. More than 35,000 customers have filled out this information, providing a wealth of data to investigate how well self-reported ancestry reflects genetic ancestry.
Research Scientist Dr. J. Mike Macpherson shares findings from an analysis of the data driving Ancestry Finder during the poster session on Friday October 14th from 2-3pm with his poster,
&#8220;Intra-European Ancestry Assignment: Insights from Identity-By-Descent in a Large Database of Self-Reported Ancestry.&#8221; (#445F)
<h5>Keeping customers updated on the latest genetics research</h5>
One of 23andMe&#8217;s missions is to be the world&#8217;s most trusted source of genetic information. While this includes the actual As, Ts, Cs, and Gs, it also includes information about associations between genetic variants and various health conditions and traits. The available knowledge is constantly evolving as researchers conduct and publish studies, and thus we are constantly evaluating new findings as they come out. Ensuring scientific validity is paramount, but with a large customer base holding varied interests, we must also consider the relevance, completeness, and diversity of content when deciding which findings to report.
Science Content Manager Dr. Shirley Wu discusses these considerations and the criteria we&#8217;ve developed to address them during the poster session on Friday October 14th from 2-3pm with her poster.
&#8220;Criteria for evaluating genetic associations for use in direct-to-consumer personal genetic analysis.&#8221; (#1353F)
  
(Also see our white paper describing our criteria for vetting genetic associations reported in the scientific literature.)
Check back later for recaps of the event!

23andMe Blog

23andMe Blog Team

What’s Behind 23andMe Health and Ancestry

More than two decades ago, on opposite sides of the country, two babies were cast away with slim chances of surviving.
“Miraculous Mary,” as she was called then, was found along a California highway wrapped in a towel and stuffed into a brown paper bag, while “Baby Jane Doe” was found in a box with the trash in a Bronx alley. 
Both babies survived.
Mary became Ashley and Baby Jane became Alison. Despite their dark beginnings, the two women, now 24, wanted to know about where they came from. Their stories and the story about how they traced their ancestry was told this week on Anderson Cooper’s new show Anderson.
The two women and the shows producers turned to 23andMe to help fill in the blanks.
Joanna Mountain, Senior Director of Research, traced the two women’s genetic history using samples of their saliva. 
23andMe has several tools to help customers explore their ancestry,<a href="https://www.23andme.com/ancestry/origins/"> Ancestry Painting</a>, which break down a person’s ancestral origins and<a href="https://www.23andme.com/ancestry/relfinder/"> Relative Finder</a> which pair people with close family matches as well as more distant cousins who may be in our database of more than 100,000 people.
Joanna was able to explain that Alison’s DNA – which included a mix of European, African and Native American ancestry – indicated that her parents were likely Puerto Rican. Looking at Ashley’s DNA, Joanna was able to determine that her ancestry was exclusively European. But in a surprising twist for Ashley, who was raised Catholic, her DNA revealed not just northern European ancestry but also Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry.

Tracing Women’s Ancestry on Anderson Cooper’s Show

Sheridan* can hardly believe that using 23andMe ancestry tools allowed her to learn something about her deep ancestry on her mother’s side, placed herself genetically among the different populations of the world, connected with a potential fifth cousin, discovered a potential second cousin, and traced a fourth cousin shared DNA connection with her life-long friend Brian (who has Irish ancestry) to a specific spot in their genomes.
When they last parted, Brian had promised to go through his collection of genealogical records for historical clues and Sheridan had sent an introductory message to her intriguing second cousin match.
Now, a few days later, Sheridan and Brian are back in the coffee shop, heads bent over Brian’s dog-eared notebook.
Labeled photographs, scraps of note paper, and photocopied documents stuffed into manila folders lay strewn across the table.
“So the most promising records I have are from my father’s side of the family in the mid-18th century,” says Brian, pointing at a square on a family tree diagram.
“My paternal grandfather Ryan Killoran was my first direct ancestor in the U.S. But I’m not sure if our connection would be through that line anyway &#8212; if it was, it would have to be through one of my ancestors in Ireland.”
He taps the page and traces his finger up the tree.
“But I’ve traced his line in Ireland back to Molly Murphy, my great-great-great-great grandmother, born 1846 in Dublin. Even though her son Colm Murphy stayed in Ireland, her daughter &#8212; my great-great-great grand&#8230; aunt? &#8212; Orla Murphy married Donal Fitzpatrick and they settled in South Carolina in around 1889. I found some records of property that they owned there.”
Gesturing to the piles of paper on the table, Brian says, “The rest of this is pretty much about Killorans and Murphys. Some newspaper clippings with marriage announcements and obituaries, more property records, census records, the ship passenger list my grandfather was on, some notes my grandfather had brought with him&#8230;”
Sheridan had been staring intently at the diagram Brian had drawn out.
“So you think our common ancestor might be Molly Murphy, through Orla and Donal Fitzpatrick on my side and Colm Murphy on your side?”
“That’s my guess,” shrugs Brian, “but there are a lot of possibilities!”
Well, I got a reply from my second cousin yesterday asking if there was anything I knew that might be useful,” says Sheridan. “I wrote back saying that I had an Irish fourth cousin and an African-American fifth cousin match. In fact, I should log in now and see if he’s replied!”
Opening up her laptop, she quickly logs in to her 23andMe account and finds a new message from her second cousin in her inbox.
<blockquote>Hi Sheridan,
An Irish fourth cousin, you say? That’s interesting &#8212; My grandmother’s sister (on my father’s side) married a Fitzpatrick. I think that’s the most relevant surname I can give you. The others I know of kind of range all over: Avey, Wojcicki, Saxonov, Kutcher, Mountain, Gould, Kompel, Khomenko. I can give you a full list if you’d like. I don’t personally have more details about the Fitzpatrick line or any descendants there but I might be able to help find more information through my grandmother. I also don’t have any African ancestry as far as I can tell &#8212; my Ancestry Painting is 100% European.
Cheers, 
Mike</blockquote>
Sheridan and Brian sit stunned for a moment, then, “Fitzpatrick!” Brian cries triumphantly just as Sheridan blurts out “Ancestry Painting?”
They both start talking, stop, then start again. Finally Brian puts his hand up and takes a deep breath.
“Ok,” he says, “So your second cousin Mike’s grandmother’s sister married someone with the last name Fitzpatrick. That’s the same name that my great-great-great grand aunt married into, and the genealogical placement is consistent with both of our match predictions!” He starts furiously scribbling circles and squares and lines on a piece of paper. “But where do I connect this to yours&#8230;” he wonders. “Your mother or your father?”
Trying to follow his haphazard pen-strokes, Sheridan furrows her brow and says, “Wait, can we step back a second? What’s this thing called Ancestry Painting?”
<div style="padding: 10px; margin-bottom: 15px; background-color: #ffc;">Jan 2013 &#8211; Editor&#8217;s note: Ancestry Painting has been significantly updated and is now known as Ancestry Composition. The images below reflect the previous Ancestry Painting. Stay tuned for an update on Sheridan and her new Ancestry Composition!</div>
Brian stops abruptly, pen frozen in the air. “You haven’t looked at your Ancestry Painting?”
“Um.. no,” says Sheridan somewhat sheepishly.
“I kind of got caught up in everything else. Was I supposed to?”
“Well, it’s kind of the first thing most people look at,” Brian explains, shoving his pen and paper out of the way and grabbing his laptop. He shows her his Ancestry Painting as an example.
“I mean, mine just shows 100% European, but yours could actually be really interesting! Go look!”
Sheridan clicks on her Ancestry Painting and a graphical view of her 23 chromosomes appears in a dramatic splash of color.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-7687" style="margin-top: 15px; margin-bottom: 15px;" title="sheridan-painting" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/sheridan-painting.png" alt="" width="536" height="426" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/sheridan-painting.png 765w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/sheridan-painting-300x239.png 300w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 536px) 100vw, 536px" />
“Wow, that’s neat!” says Brian, practically clapping his hands in glee. He squints at the screen, trying to parse the color patterns.
“Well, your ancestry’s definitely mixed, all right.”
“So the bottom half of each of the chromosomes is blue,” Sheridan points out. “Does that mean one of my parents is definitely blue? European, I mean?”
“You’re right &#8212; one of your parents has fully European ancestry! With some statistical noise I&#8217;m guessing, but that could be normal&#8230;”
Brian starts jotting down notes on a new sheet of paper. “And the other half is mostly African ancestry but has a bunch of European and a tiny bit of Asian &#8212; I think that’s pretty consistent with African-Americans&#8230; now what else do we know?”
Sheridan recounts the various clues the other ancestry tools at 23andMe have told her. After writing all of this down, they look at the list together:
<div style="margin-top: 15px; margin-bottom: 15px;">
<ol>
<li>One parent 100% European ancestry</li>
<li>One parent mixed ancestry, mostly African (African-American?)</li>
<li>Maternal haplogroup H2a (Probably European, see 1?)</li>
<li>Globally similar to Northern Africans (mixed ancestry &#8211; in between Europe and Africa)</li>
<li>5th cousin African-American</li>
<li>2nd cousin 100% European ancestry, grand-aunt married Fitzpatrick</li>
<li>Brian = 4th cousin, great-great-great grand-aunt married Fitzpatrick and came to U.S.</li>
</ol>
</div>
It’s starting to make sense, Sheridan can feel it, but she can’t quite form a concrete picture in her mind. Brian, though, can tell that a family tree will be useful here, and so he once again takes pen to paper.
“I’m going to guess that your mother is the parent with European ancestry based on the haplogroup,” he muses. “But it’s not necessarily so. Either way, that parent is almost certainly the one through which your second cousin and I are related to you, since your second cousin is 100% European. And then your fifth cousin&#8230; she might be through your other parent, the one that might be African-American&#8230;”
It takes a few false starts and clean slates but finally he thinks he has it mostly worked out.
&#8220;There!&#8221; Brian says triumphantly.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-7690" title="sheridan-tree-full" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/sheridan-tree-full-951x1024.jpg" alt="" width="514" height="553" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/sheridan-tree-full-951x1024.jpg 951w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/sheridan-tree-full-279x300.jpg 279w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/sheridan-tree-full-768x827.jpg 768w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/sheridan-tree-full-818x880.jpg 818w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/sheridan-tree-full-1096x1180.jpg 1096w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/sheridan-tree-full.jpg 1806w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 514px) 100vw, 514px" />
Sheridan pulls the drawing in front of her and stares. It&#8217;s like a map of her past &#8212; or, rather, the people and events in the past that led to her, Sheridan, 27 years old, sitting in a coffee shop and searching for answers. Even though most of it is still uncharted, she can see the paths that connect her to other people such as Mike and Brian. Other paths, such as the one connecting her to Akina, are still a mystery, but she now has a place to start. And through some of her distant relatives, she may eventually be able to fill in the gaps that are her mother and father.
When she finally looks up, Brian punches her playfully in the shoulder.
&#8220;You should see yourself,&#8221; he says. &#8220;You&#8217;ve got this dreamy far-off look and goofy grin going on.&#8221;
&#8220;Why don&#8217;t you you pat yourself on the back some more,&#8221; she flashes back. &#8220;You couldn&#8217;t look more smug!&#8221;
They laugh at each other.
&#8220;Well,&#8221; says Sheridan, as they start packing up, &#8220;I think that&#8217;ll do it for today. And I think I need a drink.&#8221;
Brian looks at his watch. &#8220;It&#8217;s a little after 5 &#8212; we could have some drinks and grab some dinner.&#8221; He zips up his bag and slings it over his head.
&#8220;I know a great Irish pub that serves authentic colcannon&#8230; you know, connect with your roots and all&#8230;&#8221;
&#8220;I don&#8217;t even know what that dish is,&#8221; says Sheridan, &#8220;but I&#8217;d love to.&#8221;
And they head out the door.
* The people and events described in these posts are fictional.

Ancestry at 23andMe: Old Roots and New Horizons

<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright size-full wp-image-7457" style="border: 1px solid black; margin-left: 10px;" title="gs-leadin" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/gs-leadin.png" alt="" width="312" height="149" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/gs-leadin.png 312w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/gs-leadin-300x143.png 300w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 312px) 100vw, 312px" />
In <a href="https://blog.23andme.com/2010/09/29/ancestry-at-23andme-introducing-sheridan/">her first ancestry foray</a>, Sheridan* learned about her Maternal Line. Through her friend Mesut, she also learned about the Paternal Line feature. But these analyses only told her about a tiny part of her DNA. Other features at 23andMe use DNA contained in the other 22 pairs of chromosomes &#8212; called autosomes &#8212; and can tell her how similar she is to everyone else in the world and whether any of them are related to her through any branch of her family tree. Join us as Sheridan continues to explore her genetic ancestry.
<div style="padding: 10px; background-color: #ffc; margin-bottom: 15px;">Editor&#8217;s note: This post discusses features that are now obsolete. Global Similarity has been replaced by the new Ancestry Composition feature, and Global Similarity: Advanced is now known as Global Similarity Map. However, many of the concepts and information you can learn from these tools are still applicable.</div>
Since the last time we left her, Sheridan has received two more sharing invitations &#8212; one from her friend Hua who’s had an account at 23andMe for a while and one from a family friend named Brian who signed up at the same time as she did and is interested in genetic genealogy. She gladly accepts, figuring that both friends might help her navigate the features at 23andMe and understand the results. A message from Hua accompanies the sharing request:
“I’m so glad you decided to sign up! I can’t wait to see what your data says. By the way, my personal favorite is Global Similarity: Advanced, especially if you’re sharing with people. It’s really interesting seeing where everyone ends up!”
Sheridan can’t think of a better place to go next, so she clicks on Global Similarity. This tool compares your genome (via the roughly 500,000 SNPs that 23andMe tests) to many other publicly available “reference” genomes from individuals around the world, representing major indigenous world populations.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-7474" title="sheridan-gs" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/sheridan-gs1.png" alt="" width="598" height="332" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/sheridan-gs1.png 711w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/sheridan-gs1-300x167.png 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/sheridan-gs1-271x149.png 271w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 598px) 100vw, 598px" />
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright size-full wp-image-7460" style="border: 1px solid black; margin-right: 10px;" title="sheridan-gs-bars" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/sheridan-gs-bars.png" alt="" width="246" height="218">
Sheridan immediately notices that her highest similarity is with Northern Europeans. This isn’t that surprising given that her maternal haplogroup indicates probable European ancestry. But she sees that she is also highly similar to African populations, especially Northern Africans. Could this be a clue about her biological father’s origins?
As Sheridan ponders this, her eyes focus on a big, blue button in the top right of the page and she suddenly remembers that Hua had specifically mentioned an “advanced” version of Global Similarity.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-full wp-image-7469" title="btn_pca_advanced" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/btn_pca_advanced.gif" alt="" width="155" height="34">
Clicking the button takes Sheridan to a more abstract map dotted with clusters of colored squares and larger balloon arrows. Mousing over them, she sees that the green arrow represents herself and the darker arrows her friends. She also notices that each cluster corresponds to a major world population, and clicking on one zooms in to reveal more detailed populations, like the Sardinians of Southern Europe, Mayans of the Americas, and Bedouins of the Near East. In fact, every point on the advanced map (colored square or bubble) corresponds to some person and their genotype. The map arranges all the people/genotypes so that the closer two people are genetically, the closer they appear on the map.
(Click on images to view larger)
<table style="margin: 10px;">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td rowspan="3"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-7477" title="sheridan-gsa" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/sheridan-gsa.png" alt="" width="310" height="330"></td>
<td><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-7478" title="sheridan-gsa-zoomed" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/sheridan-gsa-zoomed.png" alt="" width="150" height="158" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/sheridan-gsa-zoomed.png 474w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/sheridan-gsa-zoomed-284x300.png 284w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px" /></td>
<td><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-7479" title="hua-gsa-zoomed" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/hua-gsa-zoomed.png" alt="" width="150" height="157" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/hua-gsa-zoomed.png 474w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/hua-gsa-zoomed-286x300.png 286w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px" /></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-7480" title="brian-gsa-zoomed" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/brian-gsa-zoomed.png" alt="" width="152" height="160" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/brian-gsa-zoomed.png 476w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/brian-gsa-zoomed-285x300.png 285w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 152px) 100vw, 152px" /></td>
<td><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-7483" title="mesut-gsa" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/mesut-gsa.png" alt="" width="152" height="157"></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<div style="float: right; text-align: justified; width: 200px; background-color: #eee; padding: 15px; margin-left: 10px;">
Keep in mind&#8230;
All humans are over 99% identical to each other in their DNA. The smaller percentages we see in Global Similarity (Basic) are due to the fact that we’re only looking at SNPs &#8212; places in the genome that are known to vary in humans. Mousing over all of the reference populations will reveal that the least similar populations are not that different from the most similar population to the person being analyzed.
</div>
Sheridan’s green marker falls near the top of the African region, and zooming in further shows her squarely in the Mozabite population of Northern Africa. She’s not really sure what to make of this, given that her highest similarity is to Europeans. Her friends Hua and Brian, on the other hand, are more straightforward &#8212; Hua lands squarely within the Han Chinese cluster, while Brian is very clearly Irish. Mesut is a little more interesting because he places with the Near Easterners, close to Palestinian individuals but not quite. Sheridan guesses that there isn’t a reference population available that’s closer to Mesut.
Browsing through the informational links on the bottom right side of the page helps Sheridan understand what her placement with the Mozabites of Northern Africa might mean. Every one of us has many ancestors, from potentially many places in the world; what Global Similarity: Advanced does is to locate you on this map roughly at the average of the positions that your ancestors would be placed. For Sheridan&#8217;s Dubliner friend Brian, all of his ancestors are Irish going back five generations, so it&#8217;s not surprising that Brian shows up squarely in the Irish reference cluster. A person with a European dad and a Chinese mom, though, would tend to be plotted about halfway between Europe and China, nearest the reference Central Asian populations.
<div style="background-color: #ffc; padding: 15px; margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
So Sheridan now finds herself with the following clues: 
 
<a href="https://www.23andme.com/you/haplogroup/maternal">Maternal Line</a> &#8211; H2a. Her mother must have some European ancestry, possibly from Eastern Europe.
Global Similarity &#8211; Highest with Northern and Southern Europeans, then with Northern Africans.
Global Similarity: Advanced &#8211; Mozabite (a Northern African population). Probably represents a genetic location that is intermediate between where her ancestors are from.
</div>
Sheridan’s excited to talk to her friends about what she’s learned but before she can she finds an interesting message in her inbox.
“A potential 5th cousin would like to make contact with you,” it says, making Sheridan’s heart thump.
Tune in next time as we explore Relative Finder and Ancestry Finder, and see who Sheridan’s potential 5th cousin is!
<div style="background-color: #eee; padding: 15px; margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
Other posts in this series:
<a href="https://blog.23andme.com/articles/ancestry-at-23andme-what-can-you-learn">What Can You Learn?</a> &#8211; An overview of 23andMe&#8217;s ancestry features.
<a href="https://blog.23andme.com/articles/ancestry-at-23andme-introducing-sheridan">Introducing Sheridan</a> &#8211; We meet Sheridan and she learns about her maternal haplogroups.
(next) &nbsp;<a href="https://blog.23andme.com/articles/ancestry-at-23andme-sheridans-got-relatives">Sheridan&#8217;s Got Relatives</a> &#8211; Sheridan responds to a fifth cousin and discovers a predicted second cousin in the 23andMe database.
<a href="https://blog.23andme.com/articles/ancestry-at-23andme-finding-connections">Finding Connections</a> &#8211; Sheridan and Brian bond over their fourth cousin connection.
<a href="https://blog.23andme.com/articles/ancestry-at-23andme-old-roots-and-new-horizons">Old Roots and New Horizons</a> -Sheridan and Brian put together the pieces to sketch out their shared family tree.
</div>
* The people and events described in these posts are fictional.

Ancestry at 23andMe: Sheridan’s Global Origins

<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright size-full wp-image-1955" title="r1b1ctree" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/r1b1ctree.jpg" alt="" width="350" height="217" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/r1b1ctree.jpg 350w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/r1b1ctree-300x186.jpg 300w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 350px) 100vw, 350px" />
The American Society for Human Genetics (ASHG) has released a statement outlining a set of recommendations for genetic ancestry testing.
At a press briefing on Thursday, members of the ASHG Ancestry Testing Task Force Committee discussed two main themes: the need for clear communication about the limitations of genetic ancestry testing, and the need for researchers and companies doing this type of testing to engage with the social sciences to put results in context.

Michael Bamshad of the University of Washington School of Medicine discussed at length the need for people to understand that ancestry assignments based on genetics are inherently uncertain and can be affected by several factors, including the reference populations used in the analysis, the type and number of genetic markers analyzed, and the statistical methods employed.
ASHG president Aravinda Chakravarti further emphasized that questions about the “accuracy” of genetic ancestry testing are aimed at the interpretation of the genetic data, not at the actual DNA analysis.
Task force co-chair Charmaine Royal of the Duke University Institute for Genome Sciences and Policy addressed the committee’s concerns about the psychological impacts of genetic ancestry testing, especially as related to issues of identity.
23andMe Senior Director of Research Dr. Joanna Mountain had a chance to talk with some of the members of the ASHG Ancestry Testing Task force about their statement.
“Members of the panel emphasized to me that their primary goal was to raise a set of concerns around identification of ancestry through genetics,” said Mountain.
“Because several of us at 23andMe were previously aware of these concerns, we developed our ancestry features with those concerns in mind. For instance, we consider a large number of markers for all the chromosomes of the human genome, including the mitochondrial genome. We also avoid being overly precise in reporting an individual&#8217;s ancestry. And we are currently creating educational <a href="https://www.23andme.com/gen101/prehistory/prologue/">tools</a> to help our customers understand how genetic information can be informative about ancestry.”
The speakers stressed several times that their statement was not aimed just at consumer companies offering genetic ancestry testing, but also at academic researchers in the field.
Unfortunately, Mountain said, the ASHG guidelines leave out some of the potential benefits of ancestry genetic testing.
“For instance, ASHG President-Elect Ed McCabe encouraged the audience to ask their family elders about family history over Thanksgiving, as an alternative to learning about ancestry through genetics. But individuals who have signed up for 23andMe&#8217;s service may find themselves far more motivated to discuss family history than they would before seeing their genetic data.”
For a more thorough analysis from a genetic genealogist&#8217;s point of view, click <a href="http://www.thegeneticgenealogist.com/2008/11/13/the-ashg-ancestry-testing-statement-and-recommendations/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">here</a>.
McCabe said the statement released this week is a preliminary document. The committee expects to issue a more detailed report in Spring 2009.

ASHG Statement on Ancestry Testing

Roy King is a clinical psychiatrist at Stanford University. He’s also a scholar who uses genetics and archaeology to figure out how agriculture spread through Anatolia and the Mediterranean region of Europe more than 10,000 years ago.
Now Roy has another genetic puzzle to consider — himself.
With the help of 23andMe, he can now see how his own family tree — which has African American, Native American and Ashkenazi Jewish branches — is reflected in his genome.
Roy recently sat down with some of 23andMe’s scientists to look at his Ancestry Painting. (You can watch video of his conversation with 23andMe’s Matt Crenson below.)


An element of our Personal Genome Service, Ancestry Painting examines the 22 bi-parentally inherited chromosomes one segment at a time and determines for each stretch whether it was most likely inherited from ancestors in Africa, Europe or Asia. Roy’s painting is one of the most colorful our scientists have ever seen — an intricate patchwork of blue, orange and green. The colors indicate which segments of Roy’s DNA he inherited from ancestors in Europe, Asia and Africa respectively.
Though the pattern may look random to the untrained eye, it actually reveals a wealth of information about Roy’s ancestry. It also confirms a lot of what he has discovered in researching his genealogy.

For example, Roy has found records indicating that two 19th-century ancestors on his mother’s side were Native American. The orange stretches in his Ancestry Painting support that account. Native Americans tend to have predominantly orange paintings, with a smattering of blue indicating their descent from Ice Age hunters who lived in Siberia, a part of Asia with some European genetic influence.
According to Roy’s family tree about one-quarter of his ancestry should trace to Europe, because his paternal grandfather was an Ashkenazi Jewish man from New York City.
His other three grandparents were African American.
So why does his Ancestry Painting indicate 51% European ancestry, rather than something closer to 25%?
The reason is that like most African Americans, Roy has some European ancestry from the pre-Civil War era. Roy’s genealogical research suggests, for example, that his great-grandmother may have been the daughter of a white man who raped his great-great-grandmother. Another of Roy’s great-great grandmothers came from New Orleans, where research has shown that the African Americans average about 20% European ancestry.
For an illustration of how a person’s Ancestry Painting and family tree match up, take a look at this illustration of Roy’s pedigree.
Instead of labeling each oval (indicating a female) or square (male) with names and birthdates, we’ve given them colors. Green indicates a person who would typically be considered African American, blue a person of European descent and orange a Native American.
There appears to be more green in Roy’s family tree compared to his Ancestry Painting, due to the presumed presence of European ancestry among some of Roy’s African American ancestors. But other than that, the two illustrations of his ancestry look remarkably similar.

A Beautiful Ancestry Painting

It was not very long ago — at least in evolutionary terms — that humans first ventured beyond the continent of their species’ birth. But once people did begin migrating out of Africa about 50,000 years ago to populate the lands we now call the Middle East, Asia, Europe and the Americas, the transformation of the species, and the planet, was swift.


Now, 2,000 generations later, 23andMe is launching a new feature that can help you see the traces of those ancient voyages in your chromosomes. As populations became separated over the millennia, small genetic differences developed that can still be used as signatures of geographic ancestry.
<h6>Coloring our Ancestry</h6>
Ancestry Painting looks at those signatures in the 22 numbered chromosomes (that is, all but X and Y) to infer where in the world the ancestors who passed you each stretch of DNA were most likely to have lived — Africa, Asia or Europe.

Ancestry Paintings essentially give you a snapshot of where your ancestors lived before the beginning of the colonial era about 500 years ago. That’s because the massive migrations that have occurred since then have blurred many of the genetic boundaries that had developed over the millennia. For example, most Americans trace their ancestry not to the continent where they live but to Africa, Asia, Europe or a combination of those places.
The best way to understand Ancestry Paintings is to take a look at some.
For example, this is the painting of a woman who has three grandparents from Germany and one from Norway:

Her painting is nearly uniformly navy blue, an indication that all of her chromosomes come from European ancestors. There are a few brief stretches of orange (meaning Asian ancestry), but in light of the overall pattern it is more likely that the orange stretches are statistical &#8220;noise&#8221; than indicators of true Asian descent.

<h6>African American Ancestry Painting</h6>

Now suppose that woman had a child with an African man. Because each person has 22 pairs of numbered chromosomes — one from each parent — Ancestry Paintings depict both in a single band. So the child of a mother with fully European ancestry and a father with fully African ancestry would have a painting consisting of 22 half-navy and half-green stripes.
It’s in subsequent generations that things really get interesting.
For example, this is the painting for a man who identifies himself as African American:
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/african-american-faq.png" alt="Ancestry Painting of African American Man" class="alignright" width="390" height="325" />
Genetic studies show that most African Americans have at least some European ancestry, and that finding is borne out by this man’s Ancestry Painting.
In fact, all the chromosomes are at least half blue, suggesting that this person has one parent of fully European ancestry. The solid blue color in some stretches indicates at least partial European ancestry for the other parent, whereas the stretches that are half blue and half green indicate African descent from one parent and European from the other. The overall fraction of each type of ancestry — African, Asian and European — is tabulated in the legend in the upper right of the display.
Log into your 23andMe account to find many more examples of paintings from individuals from around the world, along with descriptions of the events in human history underlying each and more detailed information about how to interpret them.

Ancestry Composition — Page 9